The Spark

"But Otis was a flame of fire,” reported the twenty-five-year-old Boston lawyer. As he listened to Jeremiah Gridley and James Otis present their cases before the superior court in February 1761, he feverishly scribbled his notes of the proceedings. His notes are the best existing record of James Otis’s plea against the Writs of Assistance.

“With a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him,” the young lawyer gushed over Otis’s defense.

Otis knew many of the bystanders who came to the courtroom that day. He was especially familiar with the note-taker. Both Otis and Jeremiah Gridley had mentored this Harvard graduate. Like everyone else, Otis had noticed this man’s slightness of stature. But he knew his height of intellect overcame any physical shortcoming. Otis saw great promise in the spirited John Adams. He had no idea how much his courtroom defense would ultimately affect Adams and the rest of Massachusetts.

“American independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown, to defend the vigorous youth,” Adams wrote as he reflected on the courtroom scene. “Every man . . . appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance,” Adams observed with a patriot’s enthusiasm and a historian’s accuracy.

“Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years, that is in 1776, he grew up to manhood, and declared himself free,” Adams later wrote.

Adams knew Otis’s life mattered. Nothing could change that—not the king’s decision to appoint a new governor, not the decision to name Thomas Hutchinson as chief justice instead of Otis’s father, and not Otis’s decision to resign his crown appointment. In Otis’s life, these things worked together to lead him to a critical time of decision.

Despite the obstacles in his path, James Otis used his God-given gift of oratory to speak against injustice and stand for liberty. Perhaps most of all, his words influenced the young John Adams. If the fire in one man could spark a revolution in another through one speech, think of how God can use you at the dinner table or in the boardroom or wherever life takes you.

PRAYER

God, I take seriously the people you have placed in my life. May I use the opportunities you have given me to bring purpose and meaning to the lives of others.