Fine day. Exercises as usual. Evening at Edward Brooks’.

The morning was clear and pleasant. I read some of the London Quarterly Review. My tendencies are not towards the cultivation of periodical literature but when I do I am struck with the superiority in fulness of scholarship in the English articles over our stupid, thin pro-180ductions in the same way. I finished a Review of Mr. Milman’s edition of Gibbon written with much force.

Attended divine service all day. Heard in the morning Mr. Greenwood from Ephesians 4. 30. “Grieve not the holy spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” In the afternoon Mr. Gannet, Luke 2. 11. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.” The latter written apparently for a Christmas Sermon, and neither of them of much interest to me.

Read a discourse of Dr. Butler in the English Preacher from Numbers 23. 10. “Let me die the death of the righteous and let my end be like their’s.” Upon the character of Balaam, one of the least comprehensible hensible histories of the old Testament. It is manifest that the account of him is deficient in materials for full judgment.

In the evening Thomas Frothingham came in and took tea after which Mrs. Adams and I went down to spend an hour at Mr. Edward Brooks’. Finished Milman’s History of the Jews, the last part of which is rather lame. But on the whole it is a valuable work and has furnished me much good information.