Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/73

 Shall I ever receive the Sacrament with tranquillity ? Surely the time will come.

Some vain thoughts stole upon me while I stood near the table, I hope I ejected them effectually so as not to be hurt by them.

I went to prayers at seven having fasted ; read the two morning lessons in Greek. At night I read Clarke's Sermon of the Humiliation of our Saviour.

88.

i Sunday after Easter.

I have been recovering from my rheumatism slowly yet sensibly. But the last week has produced little good. Uneasy nights have tempted me to lye long in the morning. But when I wake in the night the release which still continues from the spasms in my throat, gives me great comfort.

The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read 600 verses in [the] Old Testament, and 200 in the New every week z. The Old Testament in any language, the New in Greek. verses the nine first chapters of Genesis.

On this evening I repeated the prayer for Easter day 2, changing the future tense to the past.

89.

177 Q.June i.

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecillity but by length of time and frequency of experiment. This opinion of our own constancy is so prevalent that we always despise him who suffers his general and settled purpose to be overpowered by an occa sional desire. They therefore whom frequent failures have made desperate cease to form resolutions, and they who are become cunning do not tell them. Those who do not make them, are very few, but of their effect little is perceived, for scarcely any man persists in a course of life planned by choice, but as he is restrained from deviation by some external power. He who may live as he will, seldom lives long in the observation of his

1 Ante, p. 32. 2 His Prayer. Ante, p. 53.

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