Category: 1818

December, 1818

December was a full month, some of which Gallison never got around to reporting until January. We have tales of holiday social life, several significant sermons, and a first visit to the Peace Society. Gallison had recently joined this Federalist organization, and was to give its annual address at the end of 1819.

In this later speech, he used his vision of church history to attack the extreme patriotism exhibited by Republicans during the War of 1812. Gallison’s fusion of Christianity, suspicion of classical ethics, and contempt toward the Jefferson/Madison segment of the United States polity suggests the beginning of a transition from orthodox Federalism toward Whiggery. Its core argument was foreshadowed by the sermon Channing delivered to President Monroe in July, 1817.

September, 1818

Apart from a report of a mysterious sea-serpent, September’s entries are typical of Gallison’s later writing.  He had begun his journal in 1807 as a commonplace book.   Even after he began to add accounts of daily life, in Volume B, he continued to devote a substantial fraction of his entries to self-improvement.  Thoughts on religion came to displace readings in the classics, but served much the same purpose.

This month contains several reports of Sunday sermons– Channing’s, in particular.  If Gallison was a little too distracted to keep perfect notes on all of them, his candid disclosure of that makes its own contribution to his quest for personal growth.