JOHN ADAMS UPON RICHES.
In the thirty-sixth year of his age, John Adams made the following entry in his Diary. He was then practising law in Boston, though living in Braintree.
"It has been my fate to be acquainted in the way of business with a number of very rich men—Gardiner, Bowdoin, Pitts, Hancock, Rowe, Lee, Sargent, Hooper, Doane. Hooper, Gardiner, Rowe, Lee and Doane, have all acquired their wealth by their own industry; Bowdoin and Hancock received theirs by succession, descent, or devise; Pitts by marriage. But there is not one of all these who derives more pleasure from his property than I do from mine; my little farm and stock and cash afford me as much satisfaction as all their immense tracts, extensive navigation, sumptuous buildings, their vast sums at interest and stocks in trade yield to them. The pleasures of property arise from acquisition more than possession, from what is to come rather than what is. The rich are seldom remarkable for modesty, ingenuity or humanity. Their wealth has rather a tendency to make them penurious and selfish."
RECENT DEATHS.
Francis Xavier Michael Tomie, S.J., died on the tenth of December, 1850. We find in the Truth-Teller the following account of this excellent person, with whom we had the pleasure of such acquaintance as assures us of its justice. He was born in 1792, in Tivoli, of the most respectable family in the place. He made his studies at home, under a private tutor; pursued them in the Roman Seminary until the reëstablishment of the Society in 1814; that year he entered the novitiate, and immediately began to teach literature. He terminated with great distinction his course of theology, and as soon as the Roman College was restored to the Society, in 1825, was appointed Professor. In the twelve following years he was successively Rector of the Colleges of Spoleto, Fermo, Forli, and Reggio di Modena. At Spoleto he was an intimate friend of Pius the Ninth, then Cardinal Archbishop Mastai. While Rector of the College of Fermo, he was chosen by Cardinal Ferretti, its founder, his theologian, and never did this Cardinal, even when in Rome, cease to place confidence in his advice. In 1837 he was designated Professor of Moral Theology, and Prefect of Studies in the Roman College, where he lived till the Revolution of 1848. Gregory XVI. had appointed him Examinator of the Roman Clergy, during which time he had prepared several dissertations, treatises, &c., on theology and philosophy, which may some day be published. On the breaking out of the Revolution he retired some time to Monseigneur Morini, of Florence, until this learned and devout man was stabbed in the streets for his opposition to the revolutionists. Thus cast upon the world without a protector, he wished to take refuge in the Sanctuary of the Virgin, at Genezzano, which according to tradition was transported thither from Albania, and is still kept by the Hermits of St. Augustine. His superior's wish however sent him to England, where he lived six months in the mansion of Lord Waterton. In 1849 he came to America, and taught moral theology in Georgetown College. In 1850 he began to fill the same office (i.e., Professor of Moral Theology) in St. Joseph's Seminary, in the diocese of New-York. He was endeared to the Church for his mildness, cheerfulness, and charity, insomuch that among the younger students of St. John's College he was known as the "Good Father, who is always smiling." On the 6th of December he fell ill; on the 8th, the President of St. John's College, in presence of the Fathers and Religious of the Society, administered the viaticum. The following night he was anointed; and on the 10th, towards ten o'clock in the afternoon, he breathed his last. On the evening of the 11th, at six o'clock, according to the custom of the Society, a solemn service was celebrated by all the members of St. John's College and Seminary. On the 12th, at six o'clock a. m., he was buried in the cemetery attached to the College.
William Plumer, formerly governor of New-Hampshire, died at his home in Epping, Rockingham county, in that State, on the 23d of December, at the advanced age of ninety-three, and Samuel Bell, another ex-governor of New-Hampshire, died at his home in the neighboring town of Chester, on the same day. His age could not have been less than eighty. Both were men of solid though not brilliant abilities; both were leaders of the Democratic party in its struggles in support of Jefferson and Madison; both ardent supporters of John Quincy Adams's election and administration, and adverse to Jacksonism in all its phases; and each has acted constantly and zealously with the Whig party through all its changing fortunes. Mr. Plumer was first elected to the Chief Magistracy in 1812, and continued to be the Democratic candidate, with alternate success and defeat, until 1819, when he declined, and Mr. Bell was nominated by the party, and chosen to succeed him. Mr. Bell was of a tall, graceful, commanding person. It was stated at the time of his inauguration that he seemed to be about a head taller than any other of the thousands present at the ceremony. He was chosen a senator in Congress in 1823, and served through a full term; and would have been reëlected in 1829, had not Isaac Hill meantime invented and given currency to a new style of Democracy, of which Bell had not been able to discern the excellence; so he retired to private life, in which he ever afterward continued. He cherished an especial affection for and confidence in the great statesman of the west, Henry Clay, with whom it had been his fortune to sympathize through his whole political life, and whom he hoped yet to see elevated to the Presidency. His brother, John Bell, who was governor some years after him, and beaten in 1829 by the first successful foray of Jacksonism, removed soon after to Massachusetts, where he died. Governor Plumer, it is understood, has left important historical memoirs, which will probably be published.