I have resumed the practice of taking Shower baths since coming to Medford although the temperature of the air has altered prodigiously since my last visit. The water is now very cool, but it has a bracing effect which is agreeable, and beneficial.

My Wife was not very well and did not go to Meeting. The rest of the family attended and heard Mr. C. Brooks of Hingham preach.1 His Sermons were upon the character of the Saviour, and upon Christian Conversion. The former by far the best and the shortest. He considered the leading points of the character of Christ, to be benevolence, piety and humility and required them in all who professed to follow the Gospel, as necessary ingredients to form members of the true Church without regarding distinctions of Sect. The latter was long, more slovenly in arrangement of thought and repetition, but nevertheless conveyed many good passages very fairly. On the whole I was better pleased with him than ever before. Mr. Brooks who considers things often through a darkened medium was not suited.

I passed some time reading Rollin but in a loose way—The power of application being nothing. Mr. Frothingham brought out with him more French News of the same complexion with what had preceded. And we talked so much that I read little.