12th.  Dine with Kingsbury.

13th.  Dine with Mitchell.  In the afternoon Mr. F. and Mr. D. met by appointment at my house, to endeavor to close their accounts and terminate their difficulties.

14th.  Yesterday’s effort to compromise matters between F. and D. was continued and brought to a close, so far as respected items of account; but this left unhealed the wounds caused by mutual hard thoughts, of a moral character, and for which there has seemed, to Christians, in Mr. D., a cause of disciplinary inquiry.  I felt friendly to Mr. D., and thought that he was a man whose pride and temper, and partly Christian ignorance, had induced to stand unwittingly in error.  But he took counsel of those who do not appear to have been actuated by the most conciliatory views.  He stood upon his weakest points with an iron brow and “sinews of brass.”

15th.  Visited Mr. Barber.  Meeting in the evening at Mr. Mitchell’s.

16th.  Snow.

17th.  The temperature fell several degrees, and lake closed, as seen at a distance.  I finished my remarks for the American Lyceum.

18th.  Engaged in pursuing Mr. F.’s lectures, delivered at a prior time, on the character and differences between the Protestant and Romish Churches.

19th.  The weather assumes a milder turn, and gives us rain.  Messrs. F. and D., having called on Mr. Mitchell, renew their meeting at my house.

20th.  Rain and thunder.

21st.  Temperate; sinks and turns cold in the evening.

22d.  Cold, with some snow.

23d.  Thermometer continues to sink, and the ice is reported as having become strong everywhere.

24th.  The third express from Detroit came in at an early hour, and my letters and papers were brought in before breakfast.  During breakfast I opened a letter, announcing the death of my sister Catharine, on the 9th of January, at Vernon, N. Y.

Mr. Agnew and Mr. Chapman, who have been guests on the island, set out for the Sault.  The lake is now finally and strongly closed by a covering of solid ice.  Trains cross to-day, for the first time, to Point St. Ignace.

25th.  Mr. Levake, another guest on the island, called at eight o’clock for my letters, with a view of overtaking the party who left yesterday.

26th.  Wind west, and so strong as to drive the ice out between the harbor and the light-house, but did not affect the harbor itself, nor the straits.

27th.  Snow and rain.  Richardson May, a discharged soldier, and Manito Geezhig (Spirit-sky), a Chippewa Indian, arrived with the express mail for Saginaw.