On his eightieth birthday, John Quincy Adams was walking slowly along a Boston street. A friend asked him “How is John Quincy Adams today?”The former president replied graciously,
“Thank you, John Quincy Adams is well, sir, quite well, I thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon the foundations. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out, its walls are shattered, and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon; but he himself is quite well, sir, quite well.”That is the attitude we need to cultivate so that when the call home comes we may say with Paul:“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
