November 27

Say nothing of my Religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President, 1801-1809- from a letter to John Adams, January, 11, 1817.-Jefferson and Adams had been friends before and during the Revolution but became political rivals in the formation of the new Republic, as Adams was elected to be the second President after Washington, and Jefferson defeated Adams and was elected the third President. Jefferson had retired from politics in 1809 after his Presidency, which he deemed to be "splendid misery." Jefferson and Adams renewed their friendship and generated volumes of letters to each other until their deaths; both on July 4, 1826, 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They wrote on various and numerous subjects; here religion. Jefferson's biographer had asked if he had had a change in religious beliefs.Jefferson comments..."The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, “Be just and good,” is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four more, “ubi panis, ibi deus.” What all agree in, is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong...Now this supposed that they knew what had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was “say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.” Affectionately adieu. "The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 12."