Fine clear day. I went to the Office. Engaged in copying out my Accounts for the close of the year. Mr. Peabody called in and asked me to walk, we accordingly went round the new street which is opening from Broad to Purchase Street—A very great improvement indeed.1 The city is in the full tide of prosperity, but it’s progress seems now likely to be impeded by the embarrassments into which our currency is likely to be plunged. Thus it is, that man spoils his fairest blessings by his own wilfulness.

Afternoon, Mr. Price Greenleaf called and spent an hour. Read Bacon and Virgil. Evening, received a letter from my father No. 10 which informed me of his having sent his letter to the Speaker with No. 9 on the 21st. This has not come to hand.2 And it is now too late to send and return before the Legislature meets. My position is excessively embarrassing. I sent a letter notwithstanding.3 Corrected the Address.4

Fine day. I was at the Office all the morning, occupied in drawing out my Quarterly Account. Mr. Walsh called in, my new Tenant who succeeds Mr. Peabody—Otherwise quite uninterrupted. Walk. Dined by invitation today with P. C. Brooks Jr. Mr. Brooks, his son Edward, and Mr. Frothingham. Pleasant enough.

Returned home, and was gratified to find the missing packet had arrived. I am now prepared. But I never in my life was more at a loss to know what the probable operation of this measure will be. I trust in the support of a higher power through all the trials it may bring upon me, or upon my father.1 He now stands quite free from the effect of consequences personal to himself, and he ought not to regard them at any time.

Evening, reading to my Wife from Miss Edgeworth’s Harrington.2 Her style is fascinating. Plato’s second Alcibiades.

Fine day. I attended divine Service all day. Heard Mr. Frothingham from Luke 1. 78–79. “The day spring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” An account of Christmas, how the nativity came to be fixed on the 25th. His idea was that it was owing to the change of light from the Sun in the Winter solstice. A poetical idea enough. Afternoon, Acts 4. 32, pt. “Neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own.” The community of property of the Apostles, it’s operation in their case, extended to us only in the beneficial tendencies of the faith, which makes the ability to practise virtue a common blessing. Atterbury Matthew 14. 23. “When he had sent the multitude away he went up 237into a mountain apart to pray.” The duty of religious retreat and meditation, considered in two views, 1. the limitations. 2. the benefits. Quiet evening. Harrington.