Cloudy with a heavy rain through the most part of the day. I went to the Office and passed most of my time in reading the account of the Parliamentary debates upon the American affairs. The difference in the mode of reporting and speaking since that time is prodigious. 218The public is the Auditor now and the consequence seems to be harangues of great length and very moderate substance. I do not perceive that the Orators of the British Parliament very much excell our’s. Perhaps the taste of the Speakers is better, but their productions have not so much matter.

Walk in the rain as I was suffering again from slight indigestion. Afternoon, busied in copying my Letter to my father, which I executed and sent. Evening, Tom Jones and the Life of Racine. Heavy rain in the night.

I spent an hour at market this morning making purchases, although I did not think that the display was as great as I should have expected so soon before our thanksgiving day. Then at the Office where I received a call from Mr. William Spear and a settlement for some Wood sales at Quincy.

Walk. I had a small company to dine. Mr. Thomas K. Davis, Edmund Quincy, Edward Blake and Thomas Dwight.1 It was tolerably pleasant, but not one of my most agreeable dinners. We drank abundance of wine and rose from table a little before seven o’clock. The rest of the evening quiet at home. I did little however excepting my regular work of the Bible and Hewlett.

Since Mr. Brooks has taken possession of his Pew, I have to go to some other and my efforts to procure one have been hitherto pretty unsuccessful. My Wife and I concluded to go to Meeting at any rate, and try one of the Gallery Pews, which an acquaintance of her’s had just left. I was much pleased with the situation although the world of fashion pronounces them not to be tolerable. They command a view of the House and are admirably situated both as respects the preacher and the Music.

Mr. Frothingham preached all day. Texts, Phillipians 4. 8. “If there be any virtue.” Considering the three classes of reasoners who doubt the existence of virtue—The sceptic by profession, the sceptic by the illusion of his passions and the sceptic by the operation of the world, and the apparently unequal dispensations of prosperity. The other from John 8.7. “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a 219stone.” Upon the duty of gentleness in judgments of others, and the difficulty of claiming to be immaculate one’s self. The discourses were both moderately good and with pretty simplicity.

I read also one of Atterbury’s Sermons describing the Scorner. Proverbs 14. 6. “A scorner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not.” The person mentioned in the text he defines as impelled by pride or suspicion, and given to false wit or sensuality by which all his opinions are twisted from the right way. Quiet evening at home.