The day was more like May than January. The baby makes us very uneasy. He has a cold which distresses us—The perils incident to children, and the misery of parents when they are ill.

I went to the Office—Reading and other incidental occupation. Then a walk. Home. Afternoon, reading but not to much purpose. Continued the 12th book of Virgil and came almost to the end. The vigor of the poet sustains him to the last. Read Patronage in the evening. Afterwards sat up in my room reading and writing an answer to my father’s last letter.1

The child was so restless and uneasy that I preferred sitting up to troubled sleep. As the amusement of occupation of any sort is better than the restless fancies of inaction, I endeavour to console myself with prayer and trust.

The weather continues particularly mild, and probably produces this tendency to colds. I attended divine service all day and heard Mr. Frothingham. Ezekiel 33. 26. “Ye stand upon your sword.” A too confident reliance upon power, which is the foible of mankind, exemplified in the text where the Lord reproaches the Jews for leaving him, claiming their lands by the right of inheritance and of possession.

I preferred the more practical though perhaps more common discourse of Mr. Parkman in the afternoon from James 1. pt. 19–20. “Wherefore let every man be slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” To me, this came with a voice of real instruction. My great sin is the violence of my temper, and this upon occasions when really there is neither call nor adequate justification. I have endeavoured to amend. And I do, but the difficulty of the task is hardly conceivable to one of milder nature. Mr. Parkman alluded to the duty of self government in the domestic circle where men oftenest fail, and I laid up the advice he gave for future thought. Here he was not full enough.

Read a Sermon of Bishop Atterbury. Job 29. 14. “I put on righteousness and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.” Preached before the Lord Mayor of London—The blessing of good Magistrate to whom honour is justly due when he maintains the character described in the Text. An indifferent discourse. I think less and less of them as I read on.

Evening Mr. T. K. Davis took tea with us and sat an hour after 250which Mr. Degrand came in. We were very anxious about the child who seemed feverish and with his Lungs excessively oppressed. He was a little better towards night.