The morning bright but it changed to rain and snow. Attended the services as usual and evening at the Mansion.

The near approach of the period of our migration and the completion of my course of study render my attention a little unsettled. I heard at Meeting today Mr. Briggs from Matthew 6. 9. “Our father, which art in Heaven.” A very fluent and pretty discourse upon the relation in which the Deity is placed by the text toward us. Also from Matthew 15. 6 1 upon the mere mechanical performance of the duties of religion rendering them valueless. Mr. Briggs is a fair Representative of a class of young men who have a kind of eloquence of style with which they clothe common thought and over-refined sentiment. What is wanted is nerve and manliness.

Read a discourse being the 15th and last in the first volume of the English Preacher. It is by the Revd. Jeremiah Tidcomb and taken from Hosea 6. 4. “O Ephraim! what shall I do unto thee? O Judah! what shall I do unto thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.” Upon vacillation in religious principle either through unsteadiness or vice. No more striking sermon than the rest.

Read a little of Charlevoix History of Paraguay to form an idea of the Jesuit Missions.2 Evening at the Mansion, the last family meeting of the season.

Clear and windy. Morning wasted. Afternoon to Boston and return. Evening at the Mansion.

We found upon rising this morning the ground covered with a coating of snow thus presenting quite a winterish appearance. The landscape from this hill is pretty even so. My time was wasted in running forward and backward between this and the other house.

The family were making their preparations to move to Washington, accordingly after taking a short dinner I accompanied them in a Stage to the Depot of the Providence train at i.e. to Stonington and having seen them safely arranged in a Car I took my leave and after a short call at my house returned home in the conveyance I came in.

Found my Wife keeping company with my father who is left alone. And I spent the evening there. Mr. Price Greenleaf was there and talked as usual.