But Cato was a visionary, who insisted upon his right to act always without reference to the condition of mankind, as he should have acted in Plato's imaginary Republic.

Adams stood in this respect midway between the impracticable stoic and the too flexible academician.

He had no occasion to say, as the Grecian orator did, that if he had sometimes acted contrary to himself, he had never acted contrary to the Republic; but he might justly have said, as the noble Roman did, "I have rendered to my country all the great services which she was willing to receive at my hands, and I have never harbored a thought concerning her that was not divine." More fortunate than Cicero, who fell a victim of civil wars which he could not avert, Adams was permitted to linger on the earth, until the generations of that future age, for whom he had lived and to whom he had appealed from the condemnation of contemporaries, came up before the curtain which had shut out his sight, and pronounced over him, as he was sinking into the grave, their judgment of approval and benediction.
The distinguished characteristics of his life were BENEFICENT LABOR and PERSONAL CONTENTMENT.

He never sought wealth, but devoted himself to the service of mankind.

Yet, by the practice of frugality and method, he secured the enjoyment of dealing forth continually no stinted charities, and died in affluence.