The day was cold with an East wind but clear. I passed the morning in a continuation of Schiller’s History the Interest of which is wonderfully well kept up. The picture of Wallenstein agrees very well with his character in the Play, the master piece of the Author.

Attended divine Service and heard Mr. Putnam of Roxbury from Proverbs 23. 22. “Despise not thy Mother.” A poor text to preach from as conveying nothing but a negative exhortation. The duty of children to Parents is more positive than negative. It consists in active services, in honoring and obeying, not in the mere abstinence from insult. Mr. Putnam did not see his mistake and proceeded to preach upon a subject not included in his Text. The discourse itself would have been far better calculated to affect his own congregation who require the peculiar superintendence of their own Minister than a strange one who one supposed to be properly instructed in moral duties by their own head. The Afternoon Sermon from 2. Corinthians 4. 16. “Though 115our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” My attention was not fixed.

Read a discourse of Dr. Barrow upon Detraction. James 14. 11. “Speak not evil one of another, brethren.” He pursues his usual mode first in defining the modes then the motives which induce it and finally it’s effects from all which he derives the impropriety as well as naturally mean character of the Vice. Dr. Barrow is very strong and very sound but I have as yet found little eloquence. Evening, W. G. Brooks and his Wife with his elder brother Thomas came in. Conversation very uninteresting. Afterwards, read Wilhelm Meister.