I bore abstinence this day not well, being at night insupport- ably heavy, but as fasting does not produce sleepyness, I had perhaps rested ill the night before. I prayed in my study for the day, and prayed again in my chamber. I went to bed very early before eleven.
After church I selected collects for the Sacraments.
Finding myself upon recollection very ignorant of religion, I formed a purpose of studying it.
I went down and sat to tea, but was too heavy to converse.
63.
Saturday, 29. I rose at the time now usual, not fully re freshed. Went to tea. A sudden thought of restraint hindered me. I drank but one dish. Took a purge for my health. Still uneasy. Prayed, and went to dinner. Dined sparingly on fish [added in different ink] about four. Went to Simpson x . Was driven home by my physick. Drank tea, and am much refreshed. I believe that if I had drank tea again yesterday, I had escaped the heaviness of the evening. Fasting that produces inability is no duty, but I was unwilling to do less than formerly.
I had lived more abstemiously than is usual the whole week, and taken physick twice, which together made the fast more uneasy.
Thus much I have written medically, to show that he who can fast long must have lived plentifully 2 .
64.
Saturday, March 29, 1766. I was yesterday very heavy. I do not feel myself to-day so much impressed with awe of the approaching mystery. I had this day a doubt, like Baxter, of my state, and found that my faith, though weak, was yet faith 3 . O God ! strengthen it.
1 Ante, p. 35. 3 Baxter describes the doubts of
2 'He told me,' writes Boswell, his own salvation which exercised ' that he had fasted two days without him many years. Reliquiae Bax- inconvenience.' Life, i. 468 ; iii. terianae, ed. 1696, p. 6.
306 ; v. 284.
Since
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