Pleasant day. Finished the Maid of Orleans, a piece with which I have been much charmed. The mechanism is perhaps objectionable by the introduction of a spirit who seems to have no effect upon the conduct of the piece nor to be essential in any way to it’s catastrophe. How different from Hamlet who learns from the unearthly visitant the secret which impels his whole course of action.

Office. My cold still prevented me from sitting down seriously to work. I attended to money matters and Mr. S. Conant from Weston came with whom I settled for the yearly rent of that Farm. Walk with E. Quincy.

Afternoon, nothing remarkable. Read Grimm and continued the book of Deontology with the tone and spirit of which I find it hard to put up. Nor do I see any great value in the pretended discovery. Mr. Brooks dined out and I sat with my Wife in the evening in conversation. Nothing material.

A bright pleasant day. I read Mary Stuart another piece of Schillers of somewhat different character. The reason why I prize this Author is that I find him quite easy to understand. He is poetical in his images, and vigorous in his dialogue although perhaps some difference in his works may be perceived in this respect. For instance in Mary Stuart, the Speech is greater than the action.

Attended divine Service and heard Mr. Frothingham preach all day. Morning Genesis 31. 38. “This twenty years have I been with thee.” A Sermon in commemoration of the day which completes this period of time since the Preachers Settlement. He took a review of the doctrine of the Church during that time, of its course, and of the events which have taken place in it. He alluded to the position of a noncombatant which he had constantly and almost alone maintained and passed some severe strictures upon the visionary schemes which the moving public have been in the habit of indulging. His discourse was one of much power in parts, and of some pathos, particularly in the fact that he is the solitary minister remaining in the town of those who were officiating at his commencement of service. What a lesson of change in this changeable world. And it is only by these landmarks we ever learn them. Twenty years ago and what a different scene was I in. The North of Europe with Napoleon just returning from Elba and again convulsing the Continent. That journey of my Mother’s is very clearly in my remembrance although I was then but so small a boy.1 Afternoon Mark 13. 36. “Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.” Upon sudden death in connection with the late decease of Mrs. T. B. Curtis the daughter of one of Mr. F’s principal parishioners.

I read a discourse of Dr. Barrow’s upon idle swearing. James 5. 12. He gives the various reasons why the practice is a bad one, and in a 97clear practical way explains the distinctions which he draws. Yet I confess I do not acknowledge their weight. The text “But above all things my brethren, swear not” is not so positive as that he might have chosen “swear not at all.” Nor do I see why the truth is not as important by itself as when fortified by an Oath. The mind is led to make a pernicious distinction which corrodes the private intercourse of men. I see no reason why the word of a man should not be held as sacred and the breach of it be as exactly punished in a Court of Law as if he had added all the imprecations which can be devised. Read a little of Grimm and of Bentham but my cold still depresses my energies. Mary Stuart.