2d, by Rev. Dr. Goodrich:
There was manifest a diligence in his study and a thoroughness of thought which commanded increased respect the longer we listened to him. His life and character made him felt in this community even more than his words. He preached one day in the week to his own flock, but he lived forth the Gospel of Christ every day before the world. There was in him a sincerity and consistency which could not be hid. He was transparent as crystal and honest as a little child. No man ever doubted him. He was always himself, true, manly, faithful. Men, as they passed him in the street, said to themselves, "There is a man who believes all the Gospel he preaches." He is gone, but his works follow him. "Being dead he yet speaketh."
3d, by Rev. Dr. Hawks:
Possessed naturally of a strong intellect, he disciplined it by the severe process of thought and study. His scholarship was accurate and thorough, his reading extensive and profitable, by means of these he intended to serve, as he did, Christ and the church. Dr. Adams was a pastor as well as preacher. He taught not only publicly but from house to house.
J. A. Thome.
James Armstrong Thome was born in Augusta, Kentucky, January 20, 1813. He is of Scotch descent on his father's side, and of North Irish by his mother, a native Armstrong of the border land. His father was a Presbyterian of the Scotch type, and a ruling elder in the church. His mother was a Methodist of the original Wesleyan order and period, having been converted under the labors of the Wesleys at the age of nine. This difference of the parents in religious beliefs and church affinities remained unchanged till the death of the mother, each attending their respective meetings; yet, wide as the distinction then was, and warm as the prevalent feeling was, between Presbyterians and Methodists, particularly in Kentucky, there was neither sectarian width nor warmth between the godly pair, the twain were one flesh and one spirit in Christ Jesus.
The son usually followed his father to church, though he sometimes accompanied his mother; and during week-day evenings he had the double advantage of going to prayer-meeting with the one, and to class-meeting with the other. To this two-fold, yet harmonious, religious training in childhood the son is indebted for a breath of religious sentiment and sympathy which made him early a Presbyteria-Methodist in heart, and led him subsequently to the mid-way ground of Congregationalism, where many a Presbyterian and many a Methodist have met in Christian unity,
He owes his early conversion to the faithful teachings and pious example of his parents, to their religious instruction, to family worship, to Sabbath observance, to sanctuary means, in prosecution of the covenant his parents entered into with God when they consecrated him in infancy.
The son's first great sorrow came when he was in his ninth year, in the death of his mother. The loss was irreparable, but it led him to Christ, From the sad moment when the dying mother laid her hand upon his head and spoke in words never to be forgotten, her last benediction, sorrow for the sainted dead was blended with penepenitentialrow towards God, and prayers and tears cried to heaven for mercy. It was not, however, until the age of seventeen that the blind seeker found the Saviour, and conscious peace in Him. This happy event was immediately followed by union with the Presbyterian church, and this by personal consecration to the ministry. Just before his conversion, his college course, early begun, had been completed. Three years were spent in farther study, and in travel, and general observation bearing on the chosen calling of life.
At the opening of Lane Seminary, under the Theological headship of Dr. Lyman Beecher, the young divinity student chose that school of the prophets, and joined its first class in 1833. It was a class destined to be made famous by a discussion, in its first year, of the slavery question, then beginning to be agitated by the formation of an anti-slavery society on the basis of immediate emancipation, and by the active agitation of the subject in the neighboring city, Cincinnati, whereby the mobocratic spirit was aroused, whence threats of sacking the seminary buildings, and thereupon alarm and hasty action of the trustees, disallowing further agitation, and enjoining the disbanding of the society. The students, too much in earnest to yield, after unavailing attempts at reconciliation with the authorities, the professors mediating, and Doctor Beecher conjuring his beloved pupils to stay with him, seceded in a body, in December, 1834. The young Kentuckian, son of a slave-holder, became a thorough convert to the doctrine of emancipation, joined the anti-slavery society, agitated with his brethren, delivered an address at the first anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in New York, May, 1834, and seceded with the class. "A Statement of the Reasons which induced the Students of Lane Seminary to Dissolve their Connection with that Institution"--a pamphlet of twenty-eight pages, signed by fifty-one names, and bearing date December 15, 1834, was published and went over the land, and the city, intensifying the agitation at home, and raising it throughout the country. Among the signatures to this document are those of Theodore D. Weld, H. B. Stanton, George Whipple, J. W. Alvord, George Clark, John J. Miter, Amos Dresser, (afterwards scourged in the Public Square of Nashville,) William T. Allen, son of a slaveholding Presbyterian minister in Alabama, and James A. Thome.