This book was his journal.
When a youth he had been a stutterer, and had taken refuge from talk in writing, and the habit stayed even as his affliction grew less.

The important events of the day or the week, the weather, the wind, the tides, were recorded, together with sundry meditations of the Reverend Lorenzo Dow.

The pages were not large, and brevity was Mr.Dow's journalistic virtue.

Beyond the diligent keeping of this record, he had no habits, certainly no precision, no remembrance, no system: the business of his life ended there.

He had quietly vacated two curacies because there had been bitter complaints that the records of certain baptisms, marriages, and burials might only be found in the chequered journal of his life, sandwiched between fantastic reflections and remarks upon the rubric.