Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 8
1838-05-27
The weather is very certainly far from favorable. Wind and cold and heat each in undue proportion. Attended divine service at St. John’s Church, where Mr. Hawley preached from Hebrews 8. 13. “In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old”. My attention was not fixed and Mr. Hawley is not interesting. The Church was not so full as last Sunday.1
Visits from Govr. Dickerson, Mrs. Frye and others. Read a sermon of Buckminster’s. 1. Corinthians 11. 31. “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.” A singular text for a discourse upon self knowledge, the difficulties and the advantages of it. Mr. Campbell dined with us. Evening, the ladies with my father and I went to Mrs. Frye’s where we spent a couple of hours. Nothing of interest.
On this day, my little boy, Charles is three years old. May heaven preserve him for utility and honor. I feel the burden of absence from my children increasing.
JQA found a broader meaning in the sparse attendance: “The neglect of public worship in this city is an increasing evil; and the indifference to all religion throughout the whole country portends no good. There is in the Clergy of all the Christian denominations, a time serving, cringing subservient morality as wide from the Spirit of the Gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth. The counterfeit character ... is disclosed in the dissensions growing up in all the protestant Churches, on the subject of Slavery” (Diary, 27 May).