25. [At Hayesville.] School begins today. Busy at domestic duties.
26. Wrote, read, and communed with the Lord.
27. Still writing on sanctification. The Lord is giving me much light. Praise his name! Met with the Excelsior Society. Read a lecture on pneumatics.
28. Finished my second article on sanctification.
29. Sabbath. Arose as soon as daylight. Spent some time with the Lord. Started about seven for Mansfield. Met a few hungry souls. The Lord wonderfully baptized my soul from the time I entered his house. Glory! glory! glory! Oceans of love flow through my soul. Oh, how inexpressibly sweet and joyful! Read part of Acts 21. After giving myself anew into the hands of God I proceeded to talk from Acts 21:14. The Lord so greatly led me out on his work in us that I did not get to the last two points, namely, his will done with us, and his will done by us. Praise the Lord, he so abundantly fills my mouth with holiness that I can not get to anything else to say.
Had a long talk with a sister of the Church of God who was mortified over my going to the altar to seek sanctification. She thought I must have been backslidden or something. I told her that something was wanting, but I knew very well what ailed me. I had been in need of the sanctifying power of God and, glory to Jesus, I have found it. She thought that she was fully sanctified when she was converted. I replied that if that were so her experience differed from that of the first converts to Christ, as well as that of the Corinthians, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians, etc. To this she could make no reply but that it was to be attained by growth, but I reminded her that God was to do the work.
Aug. 3, 1877. This morn went into the Lord's camp. Dr. Steele, from New York, was reading his interesting Bible lessons, giving the benefit of the Greek and Dean Alford. Very instructive. Was happy to meet several brethren of my acquaintance from Crawford County and elsewhere. Thank God, they are on the holiness line.
4. Went out to camp at 5:30 A. M. Prayer-meeting in the tabernacle. Stayed all day on the ground, or until afternoon preaching by Brother Rice, who (probably unknown to the Methodist Episcopal ministers) had his license taken from him two days before by the Northwest Ohio Conference for preaching holiness. He gave us a straight, close-hewing sermon on sanctification. He did not preach holiness for the glory of Methodism, as some others seemed somewhat inclined to do. Some were much displeased at his exposure of the opposition to holiness in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Came home this eve. Found dear Wife and child well.
8. Sister Ella Snyder called on us. She was visiting at Brother McKey's, who, by the way, is a strong opposer of entire sanctification. Ella soon began talking on the subject and talking somewhat differently from what she did on last Sabbath. We think it probable that she had just been receiving the teaching of some one outside of the second work. She treated the subject with much lightness. Before she left we bowed in prayer, at the close of which she fell powerless on the floor. I raised her head, asked her if she was sick. She said not. Looked strange and confounded. Prayed some and confessed that the hand of God was upon her. Wife asked her if she was now sanctified. She replied that she knew not where she was. She grasped my hand very firmly. I raised her up, asked Sarah to support her; but she would not loosen her hold. As I endeavored to give her over to Wife, she gripped my hand the harder. We raised her up but she could not stand. We dropped her into a rocking-chair and soon kneeled again in prayer. She prayed constantly to God for a "clean heart," "sanctification," etc. Her full consciousness had hardly recovered when she said she had to go, as her party were waiting on her. Sarah accompanied her a piece and left her looking very solemn. I pray God to lead her to the cleansing fountain.