Cloudy with a fine rain. I continue my shower baths in the morning begun in warm weather but now rather a trial. Read German. Schiller. He is on the whole rather an easy writer.

Attended divine service. Heard Mr. Stetson. James 4. 14. “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.” Matthew 4. 1 and the following verses containing a history of the temptation of the Saviour. Both good Sermons.

Read a discourse of Atterbury. Acts 24. 25. “And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled.” 3 divisons, first, the subject, morals, righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, second, the instrument he reasoned, third the effect, Felix trembled. This was a discourse of rather more value than the generality. Its practical character is one of it’s merits. The necessity of moral excellence, and the use of reason are two points which can be illustrated to considerable advantage in our day.

The remainder of my day, I filled up with articles from the leading British reviews for a year or two past. Those in the Quarterly are very 336spirited but excessively partial and occasionally even coarsely abusive. I like to read it, while I feel at every step, as if the taste was hardly a creditable one. Rain.

Cold, cloudy morning. I accompanied Mr. Brooks to town and passed my whole morning very busily in Accounts. Drew up my Quarterly Statement for my father and prepared my own books on the system of Double Entry to make an experiment. I think I am getting a little insight into the matter. Nothing else material.

Returned and passed the afternoon in examining the Post Office Pamphlet which displays a sum of public corruption I would not have supposed possible to take place in so short a time.1 My father’s administration was attacked for its corruption by these very men. The truth was it was not corrupt enough for their taste.

Ovid. Finished the second book of the Art of Love. I long to get to something better. Evening, the Misses Brooks called. Read the Extract from Schiller’s Ghost Seer in the German Reader. Very interesting.