Morning to town with my Wife and Mr. Brooks in the Carriage. My first business was to call upon Miss Oliver the Tenant in Hancock 389Street and see the house. She pointed out several things to be done which I made a memorandum of and then announced the increase of rent from the 1st of January, upon which I left. Occupied at my Office, but Sidney Brooks came in about his Letters and made me an interruption for some time. I did not even finish the arrears in my Journal which are now perpetually occurring. Never was a man more occupied about nothing than I.

To Medford to dine. Afternoon not entirely useless. Read more of the Doctor and several epistles in the last book of Ovid. I am glad of it for I am almost tired out. The Metamorphoses come next to which I hope to pay attention. W. G. Brooks and his Wife came in and took tea. Quiet evening. I read another of Lafontaine’s Novels, Herr von Lange. Very much pleased with it.

Our weather for several days past has been charming, uniting the ingredients of a pleasant temperature. Morning reading German. These Novels of Lafontaine delight me very much. There is a high tone of morality in them combined with masterly touches of nature.

Attended divine service and heard Mr. Briggs again. He did not please me quite so much today. He adopted more of the mere visionary enthusiasm of the Unitarian school of the present day. Morning text 1 Corinthians 2. 2 “For I determined not to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Afternoon 2 Corinthians 13. 5 “prove your own selves.” On the whole, the young men of the present day generally write and preach better than their predecessors but there are fewer exceptions of excellence. The character of the whole Community is changing to a state of calm mediocrity. Is not this for the better?

Read a Sermon from Warburton from Proverbs 17. 5. “Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker.” A superfluous text one would at first think, but in the world perhaps there is no more frequent vice. The distinctions of Society are shocking to an unartificial mind and yet they have their compensations. All good is mixed, all evil is mixed. Civilization compounds the illegible word more variously as it becomes more refined but the ingredients existed with the world.1

P. C. Brooks Jr. came out with a Mr. Davis nephew to C. A. Davis of New York. In the evening Dr. Swan and Jonathan Brooks. Tiresome.