This house will bear witness to his piety; this town, his birthplace, to his munificence; history to his patriotism; posterity to the depth and compass of his mind.

In a ceremonial, commemorative register, Adams layers concentric circles of remembrance—house, town, history, posterity—to map how a life can be testified to at different scales. The “house” suggests private devotion and daily practice (“piety”); the “town” anchors public benefaction (“munificence”) in a concrete community; “history” records civic service (“patriotism”) in the national narrative; and “posterity” judges the enduring intellectual legacy (“depth and compass of his mind”). The sentence functions as an epitaph in motion: it turns physical places and collective memory into witnesses, implying that virtue leaves traces that outlast the individual and can be read across time.