Morning cool but cloudy. I passed an hour upon my Medals and then attended divine service. Heard Mr. Frothingham from Psalms 50. 21. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Upon the tendency of men to imagine attributes of the Divinity unworthy of him more especially in the prevailing doctrines of natural theology, and the modes in which the evidences are pressed. Afternoon, Psalm 90. 5. “They are as a sleep” or as he reads it as a dream. The reasons of the similarity and at the same time of the difference, he intending that the text is rather unduly discouraging when considered literally.

Afternoon a Sermon being the last of Sterne’s collection, 2 Kings 17. 7. “For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt.” The ingratitude of Israel, and the parallel of it in England. This general mode of invective is of no service in a discourse. Nobody feels it practically. On the whole, among many ordinary ones, there are some fine Sermons, peculiar for the delicacy of touch which characterised Sterne. But the collection does not impress one.

Evening at home. I did not feel quite well but read two Articles in the North American Review. One on Raphael and the Arts and one on the discovery of America by the Northmen—both good.1