Morning clear and beautiful. This was the day fixed for our final return to Boston. Accordingly about six o’clock, I arose, and made all the preparations to start. Mine were much sooner regulated than those of my Wife and Child. We finally got off at about ten o’clock. I must 157confess I never left with so much regret and never went to my own home with so little satisfaction.1 This I do not consider a favourable symptom in myself. The strong stimulus of ambition which has pushed me on for two years to deny myself many of the pleasures of life, has given way before the prospect which circumstances now present to my view. My mind wants healthy occupation. It wants also something that may prove useful to myself as well as to others. Perhaps I have less confidence in my own resolutions, and more disposition to look to the pleasures of life. Here as everywhere my trust is in the Deity. Conscious that my present path is one of difficulty unusual to a man so young, I rely upon that aid which has never yet deserted me.

At the Office before and at home after dinner. My house was comfortless—Every thing being as yet out of order and going on roughly. The Jar of little things upon the Nerves is perhaps the hardest lesson of Patience in the world. Great misfortunes rarely come in numbers, and are met with greater courage, and most often are anticipated from afar. I read Bacon On Faction and the Spectator.

Morning clear and fine weather. I arose feeling as awkward and lowspirited as if I had not ever left my Parents and had a home of my own. Occupied in my study bringing my books and things into my usual train. Attended divine Service all day as usual and heard Mr. Frothingham in the morning from Exodus 32. 1. “And when the People saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, ‘Up, make us Gods which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.’” The moral to be drawn from this is the ingratitude of man, and his forgetfulness of all favours shewn him, also the patience taught by the divinity in concealing his end beyond our understanding. Men are apt to repine but the purposes of the Lord are pure and righteous altogether. Afternoon Text. Job. 38. 4. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.” A lesson strongly deserved by the presumtuous confidence of our day by which man is exalted. Now man is a weak 158and ignorant and consequently fallible mortal, which makes it highly necessary that he should be modest.

On my return home I read a Sermon of Massillon’s upon Fasting. Text. Matthew. 6. 16. “When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.” The division was into the obligation and the extent of the Rule. It was a severe censure of the habits of the idle and luxurious who evaded this principal injunction of the Catholic faith. To me, it had of course no material interest. Fasting does not strike me as a part of the dispensation of Christ who teaches us to use the things of this life as not abusing them. Read an Essay of Lord Bacon’s on Ceremonies and Respects. Quiet Evening with my Wife and the Spectator.