Sunday, February 18, 1821

1821

February

Sunday 18

8 40/60

12 10/60

My uncle and aunt went to the old church and I to the new – Sat with Mr. Waterhouse – Mr. Edward Shaw (as usual) did all the duty for Mr. Wilmoth and gave us an excellent sermon (of 24 minutes) from Galations Chapter.4, verses 4 and 5.

Walked on with Mr. Waterhouse to Wellhead, and went in for a minute or 2 – Emma Saltmarshe has been very ill since last Sunday, which accounts for my not seeing her yesterday nor this morning – (I called meaning to have gone with her to church) –

After all, I got home at 1, before my uncle and aunt –

Mr. Edward Shaw said in his sermon that, the time of the Messiah being not at first mentioned, Eve thought her firstborn son might be the promised blessing, and therefore called him Cain, which signifies to get, meaning that she had got the promised seed from the lord – Christ was the seed of the woman only, not of the man, for there he would have been of the seed of Adam, and liable to the curse lying on all his posterity – That Christ came into the world at the fittest time; for his advent was delayed till human reason had grown to full maturity in the learning of the Greeks and Romans, and it was fully proved how little unassisted human reason could do – It had not made men virtuous, witness the depravity of all the world – Even according to St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans, etc. etc. (vide חָנַן חֵן חִן grace, or favour?) –

George took to the Post office this morning my letter to Anne Belcombe (Petergate, York) – There was the following observation on the 2nd page – “I have been so often told of the formality of my style, and to those, too, to whom I least intended it, the remembrance rises up before me like a frightful monster that makes me doubt, and fear, and dislike to trust the reputation of my feelings to my pen – You know I am not always happy: It is my misfortune to be singular in sentiment, and there lies the source of all that I lament in practice or in thought, and thence the deadly shaft that poisons my tranquillity – ‘But mortal pleasure what art thou in truth! The torrent’s smoothness ere it dash below!”

Mary, Mary, if thou wert with me I think I should be happy –

Wrote the above journal so far of today and a sketch of what I should say to Miss Vallance about her brother’s article in the literary gazette and –

Went downstairs at 4 – My aunt and I read the afternoon prayers – and I skimmed over Addison’s Travels (account of Rome) and Pope’s translation of books 10 and 11, Homer’s Odyssey –

In the evening, read aloud sermon 7, Dr. Sandford, about the demoniacs at Gergesa –

From 9 to 10 10/60, in the library looking [over] the accounts of ancient Italy and the foundations of Rome in Rollins’ Roman history, Echard’s Ditto, Rawleigh’s history of the world, and Plutarch’s life of Romulus –

Came upstairs at 11 10/60 –

Rather thick and threatening rain in the morning, it turned out a wet afternoon soon after I got home from church, and rained more or less till bedtime – Barometer 2 1/2 degrees below fair. Fahrenheit 32° at 9 p.m.

 

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/5/0006 and SH:7/ML/E/5/0007