Not so cold as yesterday although still pretty well. I went to the Office. Occupied in Accounts as usual, and finished the Article of Mr. Everett upon Nullification. Well written but superficial. Went to the Athenaeum and in that manner lost my walk. My cold has disordered my system again. I have for six weeks or more enjoyed excellent health but now I suffer from my Summer difficulties. Ailing, uneasy sensations about the region of the Stomach.

Nothing new of public interest. After dinner, busily engaged in my writing which I wish to throw off and have done with. It is of no use. Mr. Everett will not publish it and he will crowd his periodical with papers which strike me as meritorious only for their flatness. That is to say they keep the juste milieu until a man is tired to death. I do not know that I ought to be discouraged, yet it seems to me difficult to prevent it.

Evening at home. Read much of Lady Craven’s book which seems to be partly an olla podrida of old album reflections made by a woman who thinks herself more sensible than she is. The whole book is extraordinary enough and worthy of nobody but a lady of the noble blood of the Berkeleys. Continued my work in the evening.

Morning cold but it moderated in the course of the day. I did nothing excepting my regular duties. Attended Divine Service all day and heard Mr. Putnam of Roxbury preach. Morning discourse from Romans 10. 10. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” Upon morality and religion, the difference between them and the connexion, with a discussion of the prevailing tendencies to infidelity. A very good subject, tolerably well treated. Afternoon. Ecclesiastes 3. 1. “To every thing there is a season.” Subject, amusement and occupation, the business of life and it’s pleasures. Mr. Putnam is on the whole a pretty tolerable thinker. He discriminates justly and though I find in him few new or very forcible ideas, he has nevertheless old ones very sensibly presented.1

Read a Sermon of Massillon’s upon false confidence, in other words, upon trusting in faith without works. This is one of the few points in which the Catholics seem to have been right in the great quarrel with the primitive Reformers. The text of this Sermon is from Luke 24. 21. “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” 10The belief of the Jews, from whence a natural transition to the existing generation. Two points—Such a trust without any labour to second it is extreme folly. It is extreme boldness. The discourse is a sensible one. Evening passed at home. I read Ruffhead, and Gardiner Gorham came in for an hour.2