Advice from Thomas Jefferson – “Adore God”

As the Founding Fathers retired and grew old in the nation they had worked so
hard to create, many people wrote to them from all over the world for a wide
variety of reasons. In fact, it is estimated that Thomas Jefferson wrote at least
19,000 letters throughout the course of his life—and that’s a conservative
estimate, in all likelihood he wrote a vast number more that have not survived.[i]

Several times in his later years, Jefferson received letters from parents who
named their children after the aged president. The mothers would ask
Jefferson to leave some kind advice to the newborn child for them to read
whenever they got old enough.

One such parent was Sarah Grotjan, the daughter of an officer from the War for
Independence, who wrote to Jefferson on January 1, 1824. She explained to the
old president that he is the namesake and designated godfather for her son,
and then requested that he leave the child his words and guidance. Grotjan
expressed that:

This testimony of one of the fathers of our blessed country, will be to me the most invaluable bequest; and
should, which God grant, my son grow up to manhood, and inherit the spirit of his father & mother, it will be to
him a talisman, calculated to operate on him through the course of his life. It will stimulate him to imitate the
virtues of those heroes and sages, whom it was not his fate to know, but to whom he will feel himself drawn
as by consanguinity [blood relation], being in possession of the only posthumous testimony in the power of
mortals to give.[ii]

Thomas Jefferson was apparently moved to write back with advice and encouragement. So, nine days later he wrote back
to the newborn Thomas Jefferson Grotjan:

Your affectionate mother requests that I would address to you, as a namesake, something which might have a
favorable influence on the course of life you have to run. Few words are necessary, with good dispositions on
your part. Adore God; reverence and cherish your parents; love your neighbor as yourself, and your country
more than life. Be just; be true; murmur not at the ways of Providence—and the life into which you have
entered will be one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this
world, every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.[iii]

Jefferson highlights the eternal principles which resonate throughout the Bible. He summarizes and recalls several of
Jesus’s most poignant teachings. Jefferson points quite plainly to Matthew 15:4, where Jesus recites the commandment
to, “honor thy father and mother.” Additionally, Jefferson quotes Mark 12:31 where Jesus orders His follows that, “thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Jefferson’s words offer timeless advice which one would do well to follow today. By pointing the child to follow God,
Jefferson gives him the best advice known to man.

Something which makes Jefferson’s letter to his namesake even more historically significant is that several years after the
Grotjen’s received it Andrew Jackson passed through town while he was president. The family presented Thomas
Jefferson’s letter to Jackson and asked him to add any advice of his own. The new president, after reading what his
predecessor wrote, added below:
 I can add nothing to the
admirable advice given to his
son by that virtuous patriot and
enlightened statesman, Thomas
Jefferson. The precious relic
which he sent to the young
child, contains the purest
morality, and inculcates the
noblest sentiments. I can only
recommend a rigid adherence
to them. They will carry him
through life safely and
respectably: and what is far
better, they will carry him
through death triumphantly; and
we may humbly trust they will
secure to all, who in principle
and practice adopt them, that
crown of immortality described
in the Holy scriptures.[iv]

To have two presidents both taking the

time to write to a small child and then
to both express a total reliance on God
seems to have resonated powerfully
with the family and their community.
Shortly thereafter facsimile copies
were made and distributed with some
explanatory information in the margins
so that people could read and share
the same principles with their own
children and families.

1834 Facsimile
[i] J. Jefferson Looney, “Number of
Letters Jefferson Wrote,” Monticello (March 24, 2008), here

[ii] Sarah Grotjan, “To Thomas Jefferson, January 1, 1824,” Founders Online (accessed May 13, 2019), here

[iii] Thomas Jefferson, Paul Ford, edt., “To Thomas Jefferson Grotjan, January 10, 1824,” The Works of Thomas Jefferson
(New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1905), Vol. XII, p. 331.

[iv] Andrew Jackson, “To Thomas Jefferson Grotjan, June 9, 1833,” Library of Congress (accessed May 14, 2019), here