Sunday, December 24. Get word of the death of Uncle Frederic Kline. Go up to his place.
Monday, December 25. Uncle Frederic is buried to-day. Age, seventy-five years, ten months and fourteen days. Stay all night at Christian Garber's.
Thursday, December 28. Perform the marriage ceremony of Michael B.E. Kline and Elizabeth Rhodes.
Sunday, December 31. At home. I have traveled in the year that is just at its close 4,411 miles. The year appears very short. When I review its labors and toils I am forced to reflect upon the imperfection of my work. I have never delivered a discourse that was satisfactory to me throughout. I hardly ever fail to see some lack of thought right where I wanted to make the truth clear and impressive. Often and often the reflections of my mind, as it were, hear a voice within saying: "Why did you not put it this way? Why did you not think of that very appropriate passage of Scripture, which would have fit the place so nicely, and have been so expressive?" I do not suppose that any one will see this little book while I live. After I am gone it may he consigned to some dark closet, with the rest of its kind, as useless rubbish. But should it ever fall into the hands of any minister of the Word who may be afflicted in his work with thoughts akin to those I have expressed in this review of the year, I beg him to be encouraged rather than discouraged by them. I believe they are messages from the Lord, who constantly seeks our highest good and greatest usefulness. Satan, if he could, would induce us to believe that we are all right, just what we should be; and in this way inflate us with a profound sense of our own importance, and in this pride of heart make us esteem ourselves greatly superior to all others. How this feeling differs from that inculcated by Paul: "Let each esteem another better than himself"! How different, too, from the words of the meek and lowly Jesus: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted"! These reviews and criticisms of our works and ways tend to make us more thoughtful and circumspect in the future. We seek to have our lacks supplied, our wants relieved, and are induced thereby to apply our minds to the study of the Word with more vigor, looking at the same time to the Lord for the enlightening guidance of his Holy Spirit. It now lacks just ten minutes of midnight. I will retire with the retiring year, wishing to all a good-night, and joyful eyes to behold the dawn of the new year.
Thursday, February 22. Hear the distant report of cannon in commemoration of the birth of George Washington, which is said to have occurred on the twenty-second day of February, 1732. It is presumable that those who find pleasure in public demonstrations of this sort are moved by what they regard as patriotic feelings and principles. Let their motives and enjoyments spring from what they may, they have a lawful right to celebrate the anniversary of his birth in any civil way they may choose. But I have a somewhat higher conception of true patriotism than can be represented by the firing of guns which give forth nothing but meaningless sound. I am glad, however, that these guns report harmless sound, and nothing more. If some public speakers would do the same, it might be better both for them and their hearers. My highest conception of patriotism is found in the man who loves the Lord his God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. Out of these affections spring the subordinate love for one's country; love truly virtuous for one's companion and children, relatives and friends; and in its most comprehensive sense takes in the whole human family. Were this love universal, the word patriotism, in its specific sense, meaning such a love for one's country as makes its possessors ready and willing to take up arms in its defense, might be appropriately expunged from every national vocabulary.
Perform the marriage ceremony of Isaac Brady and Leanna Hulvey, at John Hulvey's.
Saturday, March 3. Night meeting at John Mongold's on Lost River. I speak from Luke 10:42. Text.—"But one thing is needful."
Various interpretations have been given of this text. Having given it a good deal of thought myself, from the belief that a right understanding of the passage is all-important, I will endeavor to make clear to your minds what appears to me the Lord's meaning. All of you take time to-morrow to read the tenth chapter of Luke, and you may see many things I will not take time to notice to-night.
"But one thing is needful." If one were to come to each of you privately to-night, and say to you: "I have plenty of this world's goods to give away, tell me what you need, and I will supply you," and remove all doubt from your mind of his meaning to do what he said, we might be surprised at the varied answers and statements that he would receive. Possibly—but I sincerely hope there are none such here to-night—some might say tobacco, or snuff, or whisky. There are, however, many things really needed for the support of life in this world, and it is a part of wisdom to know our real needs, and how best to supply them. Our Lord, on one occasion, referred to the two most general needs of people,—food and clothing,—in which he instructed them not to be forgetful of God in all their efforts to obtain these, for, said he, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
Our Lord does not limit our bodily wants to one thing; so it cannot be any worldly good he has in view. It must then be a need above, and of vastly more importance than any worldly consideration. On one occasion our Lord uttered a self-evident truth in these words: "He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." By darkness in this place ignorance of divine and spiritual things is meant. Again: "The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." In this passage darkness means ignorance and light means knowledge from teaching. Sitting in the region and shadow of death is a figure so strong in its import that we hardly know how to show forth its full significance. Sitting implies an easy state of mind and feeling. The region of death signifies the place where the love of self and the love of the world bear rule, and find their gratification and satisfaction in worldly enjoyments, and that place is man's depraved and spiritually dead heart. The shadow of death signifies that beclouded state of the understanding which is the inevitable consequence of being satisfied to sit in darkness. Is not this altogether a frightful picture of man's unenlightened and unregenerate state? But it is a true picture, for it is given by the Lord, who knows what man is and what is in man.