Morning hazy with clouds of vapor, and excessive heat—All which terminated in the sharpest thunder shower we have had during the Season. I was occupied in the morning with my Diary and an Ode or 140two of Horace. Attended Divine Service and heard Mr. Whitney, first upon the Communion and in the Afternoon upon Death. My attention wandered very much in spite of myself.

Read a Sermon of Massillon upon St. Thomas Aquinas, 1. Esdras 8. 7. “He omitted nothing of the law and commandments of the Lord, but taught all Israel the ordinances and judgments.” His division is simple, first, respecting the desire of acquiring knowledge, second, the right mode of using it. There is a good deal of sensible matter in his discussion of both sides of the subject. But Thomas Aquinas in another Century will be totally forgotten. And his innumerable productions rather argue at the present day against the imitation of his example. Who reads them excepting here and there a book-worm or a metaphysician.

Evening, Humphry Clinker aloud, after which I began the Mirror.1 We have been for a week past expecting the arrival of my brother John and his family from Washington.