On April 17, 1804, Mary Jefferson Eppes, daughter of President Thomas Jefferson died. Polly (as she was known since childhood) never recovered from the birth of her third child. She was only 26 years old. When she was 9 years old she sailed across the Atlantic in order to join her father in Paris, where he was serving as ambassador. Because of disrupted travel plans she ended up in the home of John and Abigail Adams on Grosvenor Square in London. As Polly’s mother had died four years earlier, the bookish little girl formed an immediate attachment with Mrs. Adams that would last the rest of her life. Abigail even pleaded with Jefferson to let her stay longer, to entrust the little girl’s journey to her. But Jefferson could not bear to be parted from Polly any longer than necessary, and arranged for the quickest transport possible. Upon their parting, Abigail wrote to Jefferson: “I never felt so attached to a child in my life on such short acquaintance. Tis rare to find one possessed of so strong and lively a sensibility.”*
By April 1804, President Jefferson had just been inaugurated for a second term as president. He had also been estranged from the Adams’ for years. The reasons are well-known, historically. Some of them concern real political differences. Some concern matters of betrayal and propriety. None of that mattered when, in May 1804, word came to Quincy that Polly Eppes had died. After an epistolary silence of 16 years, Abigail wrote words of comfort to her once-friend. The powerful feelings of my heart burst through the restraint and called upon me to shed a tear of sorrow over the remains of your beloved and deserving daughter, she began. She went on to recall their attachment, and to remember their parting in London, when she clung around my neck and wet my bosom with tears. She mentioned that she also has tasted the bitter cup, and so she wished for him comfort and consolation from belief in the Being: (the) perfections and attributes of God.
Jefferson could not have been more appreciative to receive such a letter, and wrote a gracious letter back, assuming all was reconciled. Abigail’s return letter made it clear that all was not reconciled. In fact it was not until 1812 that Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson were reconciled, and Mrs. Adams and Mr. Jefferson never really were. Perhaps the lack of any word of comfort from Mr. Jefferson when Abigail tasted her “bitter cup” (her son Charles died in 1800, at age 30) was a factor. Perhaps Mrs. Adams was just unyielding. But their mutual love for Maria Jefferson Eppes, and their mutual sorrow at her loss were not enough to establish mutuality between them ever again.
“If two things are equal to the same thing they are equal to each other” Euclid tells us in his “Common Notions.” Unfortunately it is not true that “If two people love the same person they love each other.” Ask any family court judge and they will confirm that notion invalid. Sometimes it seems the opposite is true. Perhaps no other characteristic of humanity reveals our flawed, sinful state more clearly that this inability of love to conquer all obstacles, to unite.
There is a way to make the notion about loving the same person, and loving each other true, though. If one replaces “same person” with “God” the notion is true. “If two people love God, they love each other. If they do not love each other, they do not love God.” This notion cannot be proven mathematically, but it can be proven Biblically.
If someone says “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. I John 4.20
Sincere love of God – not love of tradition, or opinion, or even doctrine – is the love that unites. Other loves, no matter how noble, or fine, or deeply felt, cannot accomplish the same unity. Only love of God unites.
