Litchfield enquirer., 1871-02-09
WHOLE NO a8e4
F KEEPING A DIARY.


 Mir. Beecher thus excellently answers a young man who asked his advice about keeping diary: It used to be the fashion, about the time was boy, for young per. sons relgiously inclined to keep journal and to enter in it from day to day, the ex- ercises and experiences which befel them. The. lives of certain eminent Christian men had been published and copious ex- tracts were made from their private jour nals. There was something very fascina- ting in reading Henry Martyn's innermost thoughts; in drawing forth from the closet David Brainards secret life; in dissectinu Payson's wonderful nature to the core. and reading quite at large the things which, in his life time, he would have suffered no man to know. But the rage for journals began. Several of our young companions ''kept journals" It was no uncommon thing to hear one young Christian inquire of another, "Do you keep a journalP" ''Not yet. But I mean to-" "Oh, you ought to keep a journal, by all means" It was thought to produce great depth of spiritual life. looked with wonder and envy on my brother George, who '.kept . journal, , as his brother before him did. Every day he would retire to write. To me it was as sacred as if he had been going with Moses up to Mount Sinai. At length in mellow hour, I determined to begin the long-delayed duty, and keep Q journal. There were some difficulties in it. My wri- ting capacity had developed poorly. It was slow and illegible. But time might have cured these. q am now swift and it. legible). This was mere external hin. dranee. My chief trouble was within. had no experience. There was nothing to write. tried very hard to ''look in," as I had been directed, but I saw nothing there. l stated circumstan tially, for some weeks, how many chapters had read, how 1t fared with me in private prayer; for the rest the entry comprised mostly a state- ment of what I didn't feel, but desired to, and didn't do, but wanted to. Now and then copied in hymn. Once or twice had rather disgraceful "experience." I had fallen into some fault or misdemeanor even sainted boys do! I attempted to state the facts, but was so ashamed that could not write them fairly down. "What if some one should get hold of your journal-how would you feel ?". said the spirit of mischief in my ear. "What if you should die and men should get hold of your account and publish it ?" The result was, that the next day, on reading over the vanished entry, was disgusted at it's want of explicit truth. Then it gradually dawn ed on me that many other entries that had made of happy experiences in meeting would not quite stand alone in the iudg. ment.day. The result was that refused to write anything but exact truth, and not history began to flow with greatly dimin- ished volume, and finally quite dried up, and that was the best part of my journal.
 Although my father never said anything to discourage the journal keepers of the family, I had reason to believe that he nev- OF himself kept one. I ventured one day, to ease my conscience for having left of this secret duty, to ask him why he did not keep journal. His reply came like shot from an overloaded gun. "A journal is the devils pillory, and fools sit in it. Eve rybody sins, but they need not sprawl out on paper an account of it. If you write the truth, you ought to be ashamed; and if you don't you ought to be still moro ashamed. Then, perhaps thinking that this might be casting reflections on some of his kin, he went on to say that perhaps some folks might be profited by it. Eve rybody was not alike. But he didn't want when he was dead and gone to have folks fumbling over his private feeling, and he didn't want to give them a chance. That was the last of my journal. sa.....
 But there is quite another sort of jour- nal. One may trace, from day to day, the mere facts of personal history, the proceed ings of the farm, or the books read, visits made and received. the events in society, the conversation with men of mark, tho facts of the weather, the seasons, the sS pect of nature, and in short, journal for knowledge, in distinction from teiing, might be kept mp with great pro6s A It will be likely to cultivate a habit 4 accurate observation or reading. Ons"ho attempts to write down what he kr"s' soon finds out whether he really k.oWs 1t or not It will be useful also in .orming tho habit of expressing one's oylnion with facility and felicity. But ir; all cases, journal, if kept One shoul1 study thoroughness, and never allow az imperfect sentence or bungling statement.
 Do less, and do it well, rather than do much, and do it poorly. Yes-a journal of facts and of real knowledge but journal of feeling-no. 4-s..,