Tuesday, April 14.—"We have found a quiet and peaceable state of feeling in the Brotherhood generally. There is, however, among the younger members, too great a tendency to conform to the world in dress and conversation."
MEETING AT BENJAMIN BOWMAN'S.
Friday, April 17.—"His son, Samuel Bowman, was baptized to-day, and the subject of discourse was the baptism of Jesus as recorded in Mark's Gospel. John seems to have been a sort of open link by which the chain of prophecy in the Old Testament was united with the chain of its fulfillment in the New. As a prophet, he went forth in the spirit and power of Elijah. But Elijah of old uttered his prophecies surrounded by midnight darkness. John utters his in the light of the rising Sun of Righteousness; and they all point to the future glory of that Sun. The Sun rose publicly from the waters of Jordan in the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, when the Spirit of God in the form of a dove descended upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.'
"What a recognition! What a reception! And will not our heavenly Father meet every true-hearted believer in the same way, as he rises from the baptismal wave? Not visibly, to his natural eye; not audibly, to his natural ear; but by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is a child of God. For 'baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God.' This is its first blessed power."
Sermon by Elder John Kline.
A Funeral Sermon at Sunafrank's in Brock's Gap,
Sunday, April 26.
Text.—Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.—John 5:25.
The Lord spoke these words to the Jews. They would not believe that he was the Son of God. They sought to kill him, not only because he had broken the Sabbath by healing a man on that day, but also because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. In his reply to them he uttered some of the most wonderful truths the world has ever heard. He said: "The dead shall hear."
In the ear of a Jew these words had an ominous ring. They could not gainsay them in a direct way, because the Lord had, that very day, and before their eyes, wrought a miracle which was almost equal to that of making a dead man hear. It appears strange to us that any class of people could harbor feelings of enmity toward one so kind and good as Jesus was. But the Jews were a very proud people, and exceedingly vain in their imaginations. And because the Lord would not flatter them, and give them credit for great knowledge and wisdom in divine things, they fell out with him and hated him.
Jesus does not say that all the dead shall hear. But he does mean that all shall have a chance and the power to hear if they will. But who are the dead of whom he speaks? They are all who are not spiritually alive; Jews and Gentiles. The Scriptures in many places speak of men as dead who are bodily alive. They are dead in one way, and alive in another. I will explain this. In respect to faith in the Lord and love to him, the Jews were dead. There was no spiritual life in them. Jewish worship was all an outward, external thing. But God regards a man's spirit, his heart. "For they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him."