A very hot day with a Southerly wind, more oppressive than any thing I have felt this Summer. My morning was not very actively employed. Read an Ode of Horace and wrote my Diary.

Attended Divine Service all day. Mr. Smith, the Preceptor of the Hingham Academy,1 preached, in the morning upon the immortality of the Soul as the Christian doctrine, 1. Thessalonians 5. 6. and in the Afternoon Titus 3. 9. upon the absence of divisions. He was quite brief and had little of substance in his discourses. But he was good looking, and his manner was quite tolerable.

I read a Sermon of Massillon’s upon St. Bernard. Text Ecclesiasticus 46, 16–17 ( our version makes part 13.14.15. ) “Beloved of his Lord, he established a kingdom and anointed princes over his people. By the law of the Lord he judged the congregation. By his faithfulness he was found a true prophet.” A parallel between Samuel and Bernard, considering them in three lights, as religious men, as Apostles and as teachers of truth. I know little of Bernard’s history, and am not willing to take my knowledge implicitly from this authority.

Mr. Degrand passed the day here. Nothing new. Mr. Beale and his son were here in the evening. There was a shower.