Wednesday, October 1, he attended a union meeting in Welty's meetinghouse, in which Brother Shaver served.
After attending several other meetings and making many visits, he started for home, where he arrived October 5.
Tuesday, October 28. Attend the funeral of Sister Gibbons. She died yesterday at the home of her son Samuel Gibbons, near Luray, Page County, Virginia. She grew old in years, but the service of the Lord was not old in her heart. She passed from labor to reward at the high age of ninety-one years, lacking nineteen days.
Wednesday, November 12. Brother Kline started on another journey to Hardy and Hampshire Counties. He held a night meeting at James Stump's in Hardy; preached the funeral sermon of Brother Solomon Arnold; held a union meeting at Brother Benjamin Leatherman's; attended morning meeting on
Saturday, November 15, at the meetinghouse; and held night service at Joseph Arnold's.
Sunday, November 16. He had forenoon meeting at William George's and night meeting at Solomon Michael's. He filled six other appointments between this, and his return home, where he arrived Friday, November 21. I find extended outline notes of but one sermon preached on this journey. These I will here put in as good shape as I can. He delivered this sermon at Jacob Keplinger's, in the Gap, the night before he got home. Jacob Keplinger was a Lutheran himself, and the sermon was preached right in a community of people of the same faith. But they had respect for Brother Kline. The religious warmth of his heart and the purity and simplicity of his life won for him the esteem and friendship of people wherever he went.
Text.—The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.—Luke 17:20, 21.
People never grow entirely out of their childhood feelings. We naturally incline to value most what our eyes can see and our hands handle. Our natures are so sentient that objects of sense please us best. It is from this that object lessons attract the young. They can best apprehend what their senses can grasp. It is very difficult for the mind to grasp abstract truth. But right here lies the basis of all true education. The power to comprehend truth in the abstract, to take hold of its ramifications as subjects of thought, and reduce them to order in the mind, so as to develop and give them concrete form for practical ends in life, is education.
The Pharisees wanted a sign. Even Herod hoped to see some miracle done by the Lord. The reply of Jesus to the Pharisees was that "an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." And now they want to know when his kingdom will come. My text is the Lord's answer. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." It is not something representative, with visible outlines and surfaces that you can perceive by means of your senses. It is altogether invisible: it is a state of mind and heart: it has its place in a man's soul: it is not outside of you; "for lo, the kingdom of God is within you." In this regard the kingdom of heaven is like education. You cannot tell by simply looking at a man whether he is educated or not. And why? because education is not a thing of the body, but of the mind; and the mind or understanding is invisible.
Just so it is with the kingdom of God. It has no connection with the body. In fact the body, with its appetites and passions opposes it. For as Paul says: "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." The kingdom of God, then, has its place in man's renewed heart and mind, and can therefore never be a thing of observation. But let us look a little further. The most precious and valuable things of earth are worthless until brought out into use. Of what good are all the mineral treasures of earth while hidden in the mines? Just so "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field."