Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

by Jon Meacham

I trust that there is not a young man now living in the U.S. who will not die a Unitarian.”56 (On the other side of the prediction ledger, Jefferson correctly foresaw the rise of coffee. The coffee bean, he wrote, “is become the favorite beverage of the civilized world.”57) He was also closer to the mark—though, given the perennial popularity of traditional Christianity and Judaism, still wide of it—when he mused about the spread of less conventional spiritual beliefs. “Were I to be the founder of a new sect, I would call them Apiarians, and, after the example of the bee, advise them to extract the honey of every sect,” he said.58 “My fundamental principle would be … that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power.”