Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary Part 53

SUNDAY, September 7. Am called to preach the funeral of Evaline Aubrey's child at the home of her father, William Hevner. Diphtheria is raging. It almost rivals the sword in its destruction of life. The sword cuts down the men in middle life, and diphtheria cuts down the children.

SUNDAY, September 21. Meeting on the South Fork mountain. Old mother Kesner, Jane Kesner and Jane Rorabaugh baptized by me. Stay all night at young Philip Kesner's.

MONDAY, September 22. Have night meeting and stay all night at the widow Henkel's on top of the mountain.

TUESDAY, September 23. Meeting at George Cowger's on the South Fork.

After dinner I visit Jacob Hevner, who is sick, and stay with him all night.

WEDNESDAY, September 24. Cross the mountain to Jesse Mitch.e.l.l's, and in the evening hold a love feast. We are disturbed by Southern scouts who are present under the pretext of hunting up deserters from the army. Stay all night at Samuel Trumbo's.

THURSDAY, September 25. Cross the Shenandoah mountain to Crab Run.

Council meeting. Dine at Brother Isaac Whetzel's, and stay all night at Brother James Fitzwater's.

SAt.u.r.dAY, October 4. Attend love feast at Beaver Creek meetinghouse.

Stay at Martain Miller's.

SUNDAY, October 5. Meeting at the Beaver Creek meetinghouse. Speak from John 14:1, "Let not your heart be troubled." Peace is the exact opposite of trouble. And Jesus says: "Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid."

To bring this subject to bear with due weight upon your minds I will spring this question: Did our Lord ever utter a precept with which it is impossible for man to comply? Wisdom and love answer with one voice: He never did. "_Let not your heart be troubled_" is a precept.

It flows out of that fatherly love which ever warmed the Savior's heart. "Having loved his own, he loved them to the end." The Lord needed not that any should testify to him of man, for he knew what was in man. He knew the uttermost of human power both to understand and obey his precepts and commands. He therefore knows that we _can keep_ our hearts from being troubled. But man of himself can not do this.

Our Lord's words, "Without me ye can do nothing," apply as truly to keeping the heart from being troubled as to any other human effort. In this as in all else pertaining to natural and spiritual life, we must be coworkers with G.o.d.

MONDAY, October 6. Stop at Daniel Thomas's; dine at Jacob Thomas's; visit Solomon Garber's; and have night meeting in Dayton. Stay all night at Dr. Abraham Sager's.

TUESDAY, October 7. Attend a love feast at the Old meetinghouse. Stay all night at John Bowman's above Harrisonburg.

WEDNESDAY, October 8. Go to see my old friend, Joseph Funk, and succeed in bringing about a better state of feeling on his part toward me. He became reconciled. He had been somewhat ruffled in his feelings by my "Strictures and Reply" to his published writings on baptism and feet-was.h.i.+ng. Dine with him; then home.

SAt.u.r.dAY, October 11. Meeting and love feast at the Lost River meetinghouse. Stay all night at Celestine Whitmore's.

SUNDAY, October 12. Meet at the Lost River meetinghouse. In council Moses Myers is elected speaker. Stay all night at John Baseh.o.r.e's.

MONDAY, October 20. Dine at John Fulk's. Have night meeting at Jesse Mitch.e.l.l's. Stay there all night.

TUESDAY, October 21. Have night meeting at George Cowger's. Stay there all night.

WEDNESDAY, October 22. Morning meeting at the widow Henkel's. Night meeting at George Kesner's. Stay there all night.

THURSDAY, October 23. Forenoon meeting at Isaac Judy's. Stay all night at Mana.s.seh Judy's.

FRIDAY, October 24. Go to John Judy's; then to D. Henkel's and to Solomon Hours's, and back to John Judy's, where we have meeting. After preaching we repair to the clear water of Mill Creek, and I baptize seven persons. Stay all night at Jacob May's.

SUNDAY, November 2. Meeting at our meetinghouse. I this day baptize ten converts, whose names follow: David Rhodes, Daniel Zigler, George Moyers, William Fifer and wife, J. Crist and wife, Mary Whisler, Rebecca Trissel, and Katy Showalter.

SAt.u.r.dAY, November 15. Council at Green Mount. Benjamin Funk and W.C.

Thurman regularly elected and put in as ministers of the Word.

SUNDAY, November 16. Meeting at the Plains meetinghouse. Harrison Daugherty and Anna Prophet are baptized by Samuel Wampler, while I go and baptize Harvey Elger.

WEDNESDAY, November 19. Go to Katy Mullen's. Her sister Diana and her mother are both buried in one grave at Rader's church. Jacob Stirewalt and I speak on the occasion from Rev. 14:13. Age of Diana, fifty-three years; mother, seventy-one years.

FRIDAY, November 21. Preach the funeral of Mrs. William Hevner in the Gap. Age, seventy-first year. A kind and good mother in her family, and a friend to me has she been.

THURSDAY, December 4. Go to Henry Neff's; draw money for the brethren; go to Harrisonburg and to Solomon Garber's.

FRIDAY, December 5. Council meeting at Beaver Creek meetinghouse.

Daniel Thomas is ordained. Stay with him all night.

SAt.u.r.dAY, December 6. Come to Harrisonburg; fix matters of business with the Confederate government agent; pay over money for the exemption of brethren. Come home; cold day.

TUESDAY, December 16. Go to Harrisonburg; attend to seeing that the brethren get certificates of exemption as provided by the Confederate Congress.

WEDNESDAY, December 31. I have traveled in this year 4,791 miles; preached fifty-six funerals; nineteen for children under five years of age; thirteen for children over five and under ten. Diphtheria has done a fatal work. Five for persons over ten and under twenty; three over twenty and under thirty; one over thirty and under forty; fifteen over forty years of age.

THURSDAY, January 1, 1863. Meeting of thanksgiving to the Lord for his kind affection toward us in our meetinghouse. I have somewhere read that in the reign of one of the sovereigns of Great Britain, when the outlook of the kingdom was very dark and threatening, one of the king's advisors proposed appointing a day for public thanksgiving in all the churches throughout the realm. The king answered the proposition by saying that he could see nothing for which either he or the nation had cause for special thanksgiving to G.o.d. The minister responded by saying that the king and the nation both had great cause to thank G.o.d _that things were no worse_. The king yielded and the day was set. The Christian people a.s.sembled; the preachers recounted the blessings still left in the nation's store, with the rich promises of G.o.d to provide for the future as things should be needed, and there was a day of thanksgiving in England the like of which is not often seen.

It has been my experience, Brethren, and I think I have heard some of you say the same, that prosperity does not always make people most truly thankful. Great success in business is apt to foster a feeling of independence. Men may forget G.o.d. It was in the days of Israel's prosperity in the goodly land of Goshen in Egypt that they forgot the name of the G.o.d of their fathers. When G.o.d appeared to Moses in h.o.r.eb, he had to tell him from out the burning bush what his name was, and also by what name he should make him to be known to his brethren in Egypt. Some of the deepest heartfelt expressions of grat.i.tude break forth in times of misfortune. A brother once told me that he was away from home when his barn was struck with lightning and burned to the ground. At his return he beheld nothing but the smoking destruction of his gathered harvest. But when his children came running to meet him, and he saw them all safe, and their mother standing in the door unharmed, he burst into an expression of thanksgiving, which, he confessed to me, surpa.s.sed every other emotion of joy he had ever felt. Our best experiences come to us when we are made to realize properly the good that is still left us.

We must look upon our exemption from army service as one proof of those interpositions in behalf of his children which our heavenly Father has promised, and which he is constantly fulfilling. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." G.o.d has not called us to prayer in vain. He invites us to come boldly to a throne of grace. Does he do this otherwise than with a will to hear?

And the apostle's exhortation is: "In every thing give thanks," for "all things work together for good to them that love G.o.d."

Let our offerings this day be from the heart; and probably the best proof we can have that they come from the heart is a willingness and cheerful readiness to give of our substance to the needy poor. We must divide out, Brethren, to those who have, on account of the war pressure, been unable to provide for themselves. Think of the barefooted, half-clad and half-fed children in our land! I do not undervalue what you have already done. I know you have done much; but we should not feel that the burden of duty has all rolled from our shoulders so long as there is one needy brother or sister or child in our land. Brethren, I speak from my heart when I say that the church has never before enjoyed such an opportunity to grow rich, as the present offers. I mean rich in good works; rich in treasures laid up in heaven; rich in her t.i.tle to an eternal inheritance in heaven, which our Lord calls "_the true riches_."

SAt.u.r.dAY, January 17. Buy of Samuel Shacklett (a merchant in Harrisonburg) one bolt of cotton cloth or muslin for Mary Hoover, for which I pay seventeen dollars; and four bunches cotton yarn for which I pay thirty dollars. This shows the measure of confidence reposed in the Confederate Government.

WEDNESDAY, February 4. Visit General Jones's camp at New Market in behalf of some of the soldiers.

FRIDAY, February 13. Attend the burial of our dear sister, Mary Frances, wife of my nephew, John Kline. We did all we could for her; but that dreadful destroyer, diphtheria, would have its way, and in much anguish of heart we submit. She was a lovely and tender plant; too tender for this world. Her age was twenty years, ten months and eight days.

SUNDAY, February 22. Meeting at our meetinghouse. Matthew 22 is read.

Brother Benjamin Funk speaks. He and Brother Benjamin Driver were with me last night. Snow fell last night and to-day about ten inches deep.

SUNDAY, March 8. Jacob Silvins's little son Jacob is buried to-day.

This is the third one of his children I have helped to bury within the last two weeks.

TUESDAY, March 17. I am at Nimrod Judy's. I this day had a chance to send a letter through the lines to Brother George Hoover, of Indiana.

SUNDAY, March 29. Preach funeral for three of Brother See's children.

Youngest, two years, five months and five days old; next, six years, ten months and five days; oldest, nine years, five months and sixteen days. They died of diphtheria.

THURSDAY, April 2. Attend the Beaver Creek council meeting. Joseph Miller is elected to the ministry of the Word, and Daniel Miller to the deacons.h.i.+p.

FRIDAY, April 3. Council meeting at the old meetinghouse. Joseph Bowman and Joseph Harshberger are elected to the deacons.h.i.+p.

SAt.u.r.dAY, April 4. Council meeting at the Mill Creek meetinghouse.

Isaac Long is ordained, and Noah Flory is elected to the deacons.h.i.+p.

Stay all night at old Daniel Wine's.

SAt.u.r.dAY, April 18. About one o'clock this morning Abraham Funk came for me. A man by the name of George Sellers met with the very sad accident of having his leg broken. He had been in the Southern army, and with a company of others who, like himself, were trying to make their way to places within the Northern lines, and thus be out of the reach of further molestation, he met with this misfortune. It happened in this way: he was one of a company that was just leaving Abraham Funk's by previous arrangement, about eleven o'clock in the night.