Lovely day. Exercises as usual. Evening at the Mansion.

I have no variation to record in my usual course of proceeding this morning. After an hour devoted to my daughter I attended Divine Service and heard young Mr. Cranch preach in the morning from 7 6 John 63 “The words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life,” and after dinner from Job 7. 17.18. “What is man that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment?” Mr. Cranch does not seem to me to possess the kind 288of qualifications necessary for a preacher of the present day, but he has mildness and good feelings. His morning Sermon upon the force of the Christian doctrine as a living and breathing existence was well conceived but feebly executed.

Read a sermon of the Revd. John Mason upon the duty of an inoffensive conduct. 1. Corinthians 10. 32. “Give none offence.” The reasons for avoiding offence and the occasions when it ought to be hazarded given in a very modest and sensible manner.

Copied a paper for my father and read rather inattentively a chapter or two of Tucker. Evening at my father’s.