Snow and hail throughout the day with occasional thunder and lightning. The Winter continues with little abatement. I read part of Schiller’s William Tell. This appears to me a masterly performance. It throws you completely into a new land. It gives you new scenery, manners and modes of thought—The simple feelings of poor herdsmen, ennobled by resistance to oppression.

Attended Divine Service and heard Mr. Frothingham. Galatians 5. 14. “For all the law is fulfilled in one word even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” He considered this precept as affected by two opposites of doctrine upon morality—The one that all benevolence was founded upon selflove, the other, that none is valuable without total disinterestedness. Both these he viewed as erroneous and the precept as a medium between them. Philippians 4. 4. “Rejoice in the Lord alway.” The duty of cheerfulness under all the vicissitudes of life.

I did not succeed in a walk today so that for three successive Sundays I have failed in my walk which the severity of the Season did not deter me from. Read a discourse of Dr. Barrow. Titus 3. 2. “To speak evil of no man,” directed against the prevailing custom of harsh judgment. A very sensible Sermon and discriminating. Perhaps there is no habit more common in the world than this of censuring the acts and 102motives of one another—None from which it is so proper to desist, none into which it is so easy to fall. I do not like to make too rigid an examination into myself upon this subject. And yet there are few people against whom I bear any ill-will. And very few whom I censure unless I believe there is sound reason for it. Read Grimm and evening William Tell.