The morning bright but it changed to rain and snow. Attended the services as usual and evening at the Mansion.

The near approach of the period of our migration and the completion of my course of study render my attention a little unsettled. I heard at Meeting today Mr. Briggs from Matthew 6. 9. “Our father, which art in Heaven.” A very fluent and pretty discourse upon the relation in which the Deity is placed by the text toward us. Also from Matthew 15. 6 1 upon the mere mechanical performance of the duties of religion rendering them valueless. Mr. Briggs is a fair Representative of a class of young men who have a kind of eloquence of style with which they clothe common thought and over-refined sentiment. What is wanted is nerve and manliness.

Read a discourse being the 15th and last in the first volume of the English Preacher. It is by the Revd. Jeremiah Tidcomb and taken from Hosea 6. 4. “O Ephraim! what shall I do unto thee? O Judah! what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.” Upon vacillation in religious principle either through unsteadiness or vice. No more striking sermon than the rest.

Read a little of Charlevoix History of Paraguay to form an idea of the Jesuit Missions.2 Evening at the Mansion, the last family meeting of the season.