John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

82 Quincy. Friday 30. October 1846.

30. II. IV:10. Fahrenheit 38 at Sunrise 6–30. Clear Cloudy. Sunset 4.55.

Now in the second year of Darius, Aggeus and Zacharias, the son of Addo the prophets, prophesied unto the Jews, in Jewry, and Jerusalem, in the name of the Lord God of Israel which was upon them. 1. Esdras. 6.1.

Chronological Notes of the Chaldean captivity and restoration of the Jews
Captivity of Zedekiah and extinction of Kingdom of Judah.	Before Christ 588.
Proclamation of Cyrus, for the building of the temple and return of the Jews	536.
The building is interrupted by adversaries of the Assyrian captivity	534
The builders are accused before Ahasuerus in the beginning of his reign	529.
Accused again before Artaxerxes—and the work suspended by his decree	522
The building resumed by command of Darius second year of his reign	529.
The building finished and the passover kept 6th. year of Darius	515—
Commission of Artaxerxes, 7th. year of his reign to Ezra	457
Commission of Artaxerxes 25th. year of his reign to Nehemiah	445
Second Commission of Artaxerxes. 32d. year to Nehemiah—	434.
Prophesy of Malachi	397

There is another chronological table very desirable, of the prophets and prophesies during the same period, in which accuracy is not attainable— The order in which the prophets are published in all the Bibles is absurd and unaccountable. An attention to their Chronological order is of some use in reading them.

My health is again drooping, and the first Snow has already dashed my pen from my hand— I write with extreme difficulty, and hoarseness and a sore throat are returning upon me— My Son returned at 11. O’Clock last evening from the independent rally of the whig minority at Boston over which he presided, and which resulted in the nomination of Charles Sumner as a Candidate to represent the first congregational District of Massachusetts Boston, in the 30th. Congress of the United states— This schism of the whig party occasioned by Winthrop’s vote for the declaration of War against Mexico—will go far to overthrow the political ascendancy of the whigs in this Commonwealth— The moral issue upon the question of the War is precisely that between Brutus and Cassius in the Shakespear’s Tragedy of Julius Caesar— It is the question between the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophy— It is a severe trial upon the worldly prospects of my Son, who in this case has taken the side of Right, of Justice and of Truth, and for whom I can only implore of the giver of all good, that his strength corporeal, moral, and intellectual may prove equal to this and to every other trial through which he may be called to pass— I walked round the railway square this morning before breakfast and stop’d at Marsh the shoemaker’s, and ordered a pair of slipper shoes. Charles was here an hour this evening without his wife and daughter— There was rain—not so much as is needed—