A clear and warm day, and the roads very dusty from the past dry weather. I went to town and to the Office where I was occupied in various small ways. Mr. Curtis called in and sat a little while. I gave him the papers respecting Mr. Boylston’s affairs and talked them over.1 Mr. Walsh also came in and talked but had nothing new. Mr. Proctor 80came in to see me about an application made to me about the House occupied by his Mother.2 Having settled this matter and having failed in seeing Mr. Ayer on whose estimates I had depended, I returned to Quincy.

Afternoon very quietly engaged in reading Livy, and Davila, with a short time to the MS. But time passes and as usual I make a complaint of the little that I bring about. This is so often repeated that it has lost some of its force. Yet I ought to keep it in mind.

Evening at home. I was some time engaged in writing a political article in the evening and succeeded in finishing one although it did not satisfy me. My interest in politics is much slackened. My father’s position has altered and as usual with it his feelings. My own pursuit of the subject has been mainly with a view to aid him, and now that he does not need it, I go on only because I have got into the track. There are many points that I think might be touched with some force but I hardly feel the zeal necessary to produce it. Being somewhat fatigued, retired early.

This was the warmest day we have had since our return home. I passed some time in making up the record of the Meeting of Supervisors the other day, and I then read a little in Davila. Walked up to Meeting with my Wife and Mary. Mr. Newell of Cambridge preached from Hebrews 12. 1. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” There was no great merit in the discourse beyond plain sense neatly turned, and yet it so happened to fall in with my previous train of thought as to particularly fix my attention. This was one of the few times in which by happening to make a particular application of the general topic of discourse, I realized the advantage of attendance at Meeting. It is true that whatever a man may do he has the eyes of many fixed upon him, and that there is no safety against sin but in the direct pursuit of the right path. With this idea one has not the motive but a strong fortification to virtue. Mr. Newell dined with us and after dinner preached from 2 Corinthians 13. 5. “Examine 81yourselves.” I was again drowsy and inattentive from the loss of my nap. Afternoon read a Sermon of Dr. Barrow in continuation of that last Sunday. Genesis 1. 27. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” As the former discourse was directed to the proof of a deity from the material world, so this touched the frame of man and particularly his mind, a fertile subject and well treated though not with any view which appeared to me original. In the evening Mr. Augustus Whitney1 was the only visitor. Conversation with my father partly political.