Read Sherlock’s sixth sermon on the ‘Immortality of the Soul,’ which is an admirable one. I see plainly from what I feel upon occasion of the severe, dreadfully severe misfortune that I have met with, that under great afflictions there can be no real consolation but in religion. I have mused and meditated much on what philosophy, as it is called, could afford in such an exigency, but the amount would be no more than the employment of the mind, and preventing its dwelling without interruption on the loss sustained, the comfort to be drawn from it would be weak and vain; but the Gospel offers considerations which bear immediately on the source of the evil; affords matter of consolation in the certainty of another life, and in those promises which meet the yearnings of the distempered soul; diffuses a calm and quiet resignation to the Divine will, under the pleasing hope of seeing those again in the next world whom we have loved tenderly in this. To me it seems that when this wish is founded on a virtuous object here as that of a parent and a child, the very hope is an argument in its favour, because it is perfectly consistent with infinite benevolence to grant it—and the desire must be universal in every human mind. _August 1._—Read about half of Sherlock on ‘Immortality,’ but my patience was then quite exhausted; the verbiage is such that it sickens one, though I approve the doctrine entirely and agree with him in everything. What a loss! that excellent books for matter should be so written, or rather spun into such endless circumlocutions that time is wasted for want of compression. Read three or four sermons of Littleton—clear, lucid, and impressive. At night a Dane came, recommended by Sir J. Sinclair. Unfortunate to all my feelings. I refuse dining with all my friends, and to be tormented with a trifler who can speak neither French nor English. My mind is in a state that cannot bear interruption. I love to mope alone, and reflect on my misery.