Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1838-04-08
A raw cold East wind, but clear until towards evening. I worked upon the coins pretty steadily until the time for divine service when I attended and heard Dr. Frothingham from Luke 24. 29. “Abide with us; for it is toward evening and the day is far spent.” I failed in mastering the object of this discourse although I thought it applied generally to the employment of life and particularly to the close of an aged member of the Society during the past week, Mr. Homer.1 Walk.
Afternoon, Mr. Austin preached a very uninteresting discourse from Matthew 28. 8. “Lo, I have told you.” His text and his discourse upon virtue appeared to me to have no distinctly visible connexion. Afternoon a sermon of Buckminster’s upon the character and writings of the Apostle Paul. 2. Peter 3. 15.16. “Even as our beloved brother Paul, also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his Epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned
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and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction.” An interesting and instructive discourse.
Evening after a short visit from Mr. Tucker and Mr. Brooks, quiet at home. Reading the sixth volume of Scott which is interesting from it’s melancholy change. What a moral of life! Letter to my Mother.2
Benjamin Homer, since 1805, had been a pew-holder in the First Church, hence a proprietor or member of what was variously designated as the Society of the First Church or the Old Brick Society, the entity through which the church acted on corporate as distinct from religious matters (The Records of the First Church in Boston, 1630–1868, ed. Richard D. Pierce, Col. Soc. Mass., Pubns., 40 [1961]:610, 482–492, 573–594 passim).
Adams Papers. Accompanying the letter was CFA’s biographical sketch of LCA for her approval and transmission to the publisher.