A raw, disagreeable day with the wind from the East. I read in the morning Schiller’s Thirty Years War which requires maps and in my present situation I cannot fully procure the aid of them.

Attended divine Service and heard Mr. Frothingham all day. 2. Peter 1. 15. “Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.” The mode of considering the subject of death in reference both to here and hereafter, here in the light of a continuance of reputation, hereafter for eternal life. Jeremiah 45. 4–5. “The Lord saith thus; Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land, and seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not.” The text and it’s commentary may be easily understood and I could not help in my experience reflecting how true.

Read a discourse of Barrow’s exceedingly good, upon the folly of slander. Proverbs 10. 18. “He that uttereth slander is a fool.” Dr. Barrow has got upon a fruitful subject but in the discrimination of the different sorts of slander he shows he knows men. And there is infinite food for meditation in the words he utters. These are the sins of commission with a very great proportion of those who abstain from greater. And these are far the most difficult to guard against. I hope I shall take a lesson from this Sermon.

I read de Grimm and had some curiosity to know a little of his history. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Brooks came in and passed some hours. Wilhelm Meister.