Morning cloudy with an air chilly and uncomfortable. I attended divine service all day at Mr. Frothingham’s Meeting House whither I suppose I shall go in future regularly having thus started in married 49life. We heard this morning Mr. Greenwood upon the observances of the world, Courage and fortitude.1 His style is peculiar but interesting and I was interested considerably more by him than by the more musical style of Mr. Frothingham. He is practical and direct, instructing the minds of the plainest of his hearers and not below those of the most cultivated. Mr. Young in the afternoon.2 Text, “Thy Kingdom come.” He writes well and reads well, but his delivery is bad, and he has a defect in his pronunciation which materially operates upon any thing he might be able to say. But I was on the whole agreeably disappointed by him. The Boston Clergy have certainly a very high standard of style in writing introduced by the models of Mr. Everett and Mr. Buckminster.3 It now remains only to create an equal ambition to excel in Oratory. And this led me to entertain the idea of writing something upon the subject and reading for the purpose. I do not know whether I can find time for the purpose but I certainly have the disposition, and something I must soon do I think is certain.

I passed the remainder of the day and evening in reading the Preface to Jeremy Taylor’s Life of Christ which I read twice over with great care. It deserves the perusal, being an argument in support of Christianity as being derived from the principles of Natural Law originally fixed by the Creator and being therefore the revival among men of those feelings which time and corruption had obscured. He argues that the world was established only with two Laws—The love of God, which leads man to be holy and pious, the love of our Neighbour which leads us to act with justice and creates our other social duties, and the love of ourselves which teaches prudence and sobriety. This last however is only subsequent. Thus my evening was useful and I felt better for it. Conversation with Abby and some Chapters in the New Testament before retiring.