Cool day but fine. Read Wraxall in the morning. He is a man of small views and narrow constructions. I like him less the more I see of him. But he makes good gossip, and he always treats of men bigger than himself. Attended divine service and heard Mr. Frothingham from 1. Chronicles 12. 32. “Men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” A very excellent discourse upon the times. The beginning was a review of the moment spoken of in the text and a comparison with our own—a passing allusion to the state of distress existing in our commercial world without any attempt to investigate causes other than the great moral ones which are certainly at the bottom of most of our vices in this Community, the passion for riches. A strong exhortation to the cultivation of mutual confidence and a recapitulation of the substantial blessings we enjoy, in comparison with which a moment’s distress is as nothing. This was very well calculated for the audience and the moment, one in which much confidence is destroyed from the very severe failures in business which took place yesterday. The leading one being the old house of Whitwell, Bond & Co.1 The storm appears to be now really breaking in this quarter and that in proportion to the violence used to delay it.

Walk with Mr. Walsh who dined with me. Afternoon, a young man, Mr. Bartol, lately settled at Dr. Lowell’s.2 John 15. 11. “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.” I could not fix my attention, nor did I think much of the discourse. Afternoon a discourse of Sterne. Romans 14. 7. “For none of us liveth to himself.” A proposition he attempts to establish by reference to the laws which govern human nature, by which his sympathies are often operated upon more forcibly than his reason.

Evening, at Mr. Brooks’ with my wife. W. G. Brooks, his Wife and two of her sisters besides Mr. P. R. Dalton were there. Nothing talked of but the impending commercial convulsion. Home at ten. Read Wraxall.