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This collection contains two notebooks that Josiah Addison Cary kept about sermons he heard while in New York City from 1838-1839 and 1844-1845, as well as an empty wallet. Cary most frequently heard Presbyterian minister Thomas Harvey Skinner, who spoke on a variety of religious topics such as morality and faith.

This collection contains two notebooks that Josiah Addison Cary kept about sermons he heard while in New York City from 1838-1839 and 1844-1845, as well as an empty wallet.

The first volume (around 120 pages) contains notes on sermons that Cary attended almost weekly between February 4, 1838, and February 17, 1839, with a gap between June and December 1838. Among the clergymen he heard were Thomas Harvey Skinner (1791-1871), Dr. Cox of the Spring Street Church, Dr. Burchard of the "Ch. Chapel," J. Parker, and "Dr. Beecher." Cary most frequently attended Thomas Skinner's sermons, which often related to morality and faith.

The second volume (around 220 pages), which Cary kept between June 30, 1844, and September 7, 1845, is entitled "Reports of Sermons in Mercer Street Church" and mainly contains notes on services by Thomas Skinner. The entries, composed almost weekly and often several pages long, contain contain citations of relevant Biblical verses and an outline of each sermon's main points. Frequent topics included the human conscience and morality, particularly in Dr. Beecher's sermon of June 24, 1838, and other aspects of faith and Christian life. Skinner also delivered a sermon addressing the Catholic Church's power in Europe and the role of religion in the establishment of the American colonies (February 16, 1845).