When a certain bookseller once sent him an elegant copy of the Scriptures, he kept the book, but returned its full equivalent in money.
While sojourning at St.Petersburg, Mr.Adams wrote a series of letters to a son at school in Massachusetts, on the value of the Bible, and the importance of its daily perusal.

Since his decease they have been published in a volume, entitled "Letters of John Quincy Adams to his son, on the Bible and its teachings." "Their purpose is the inculcation of a love and reverence for the Holy Scriptures, and a delight in their perusal and study.

Throughout his long life, Mr.Adams was himself a daily and devout reader of the Scriptures, and delighted in comparing and considering them in the various languages with which he was familiar, hoping thereby to acquire a nicer and clearer appreciation of their meaning.

The Bible was emphatically his counsel and monitor through life, and the fruits of its guidance are seen in the unsullied character which he bore, through the turbid waters of political contention, to his final earthly rest.

Though long and fiercely opposed and contemned in life he left no man behind him who would wish to fix a stain on the name he has inscribed so high on the roll of his country's most gifted and illustrious sons.