Brethren, if I could impress these words upon your hearts in a way and to a degree that would be adequate to their importance, I would return home in the happy reflection that I had been instrumental in doing a work by which God is glorified and my Brethren saved. These words encompass the whole ground of salvation. Inside this compass of brotherly love is salvation, and nowhere else. Say what you please, love is what saves man after all. Some say faith saves, and so it does when it is quickened and filled with the warmth of brotherly love. Otherwise, though it be strong enough to remove mountains, as Paul says, it is nothing. Faith without love is a dead faith. Devils have this kind, and tremble. This dead faith may be compared to ice which is water as to substance, but worthless as to form. Frozen water may bridge rivers; and a frozen faith may bridge some of the streams of earthly life; but it will never bridge the stream of death and land us safe in heaven.
But what is to be understood by brethren loving one another with a pure heart fervently? I am afraid that if I attempt to tell what brotherly love is, and how it is to be shown, I will only darken counsel by words without wisdom. There is not a brother or sister in this house who does not know what it is to love another with a pure heart fervently. I will, however, venture to say a little under this head, by way of drawing our minds to think more closely upon it. I will say, first, that when one brother loves another with a pure heart fervently, he tries in all ways and at all times to do his brother good, and no harm. This love fills the mouth with good things and the hands with blessings.
But the text implies that this love can be increased, that it may grow ardent, burning, by the use of right means, or suffered to grow cold by neglect. There can be no doubt of the truth of this. In all man's relations to this life, experience shows that love may be fostered by kindness, or frozen by unkindness. This last remark reminds me of a conversation I had with a United Brethren preacher whom I chanced to fall in with in one of the western counties of Virginia. Speaking of his work, and the number of converts he reported at different meetings he had held, led me to ask how they were doing since then. He replied that a goodly number appeared to continue faithful; but he added that some had burnt out by unholy fire, and that others had frozen out by unholy frost. I afterward thought this to myself, that here was the commingled fire and hail which John, in his apocalyptic vision, saw falling from the same cloud. Ah, Brethren, let us beware of the unholy fire of evil passion, anger, malice, wrath, strife, that would burn and consume our love for one another; and on the other hand avoid all feelings and expressions or other manifestations of contempt, or neglect, or unkindness that would freeze it to death.
This brings me now to speak of forgiveness. You have read the story, told by our Lord, of the debtor who owed the ten thousand talents, and was forgiven the debt; and how he afterward treated a fellow-debtor who owed him a hundred pence; and how the first debtor was delivered to the tormentors because he would not forgive his fellow-servant. "So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you,"—says our Lord—"if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts." Brethren, you and the Lord for it. I this day wash my hands clean of your blood as I repeat in your ears these words of love and warning: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
When I was yet a boy in Pennsylvania, before we moved to Virginia, my father very strictly forbade me playing marbles on Sunday. I obeyed his orders for some time; but one Sunday, when father was at church, a neighbor's boy came to our house and persuaded me to play with him. I did it reluctantly. The play did not amuse me as usual. But I transgressed all the same; and in the very act my father saw me on his return home. He called me to come to him. Expecting chastisement, I went with trembling steps. I never had felt so unhappy in my life. "What were you doing?" he asked. I burst into tears. "Are you very sorry for what you have done?" I nodded and wept assent. "Come a little nearer to me." I went; and he then drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket and gently wiped away my tears, saying at the same time, "I feel sure, Johnny, that you are very sorry for what you have done, and I forgive you with a kiss." Ah, Brethren, if I had never known sorrow before, I had never known joy till after that kiss. In itself it was but the contact of lips; but its power went to my heart; and I can say here solemnly that I had never loved my father before as I loved him after that. Love is what conquers after all. Love is the root and the offspring of happiness. There can be no happiness without love. Therefore, Brethren, "see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently."
After meeting I go with Brother David B. Kline in his carriage, and have night meeting in a schoolhouse near his place. Snows all this day.
Monday, December 4. Travel thirty-five miles to-day in Brother George Gipel's wagon to his house. Snowing and blowing all day. Snow wonderfully drifted. Stay all night at Brother Gipel's.
Tuesday, December 5. Get into Brother Gipel's sleigh and go to meeting at Brother Brachtbil's. From there come to Brother Jacob Wanger's, near Jonestown, to night meeting. Speak on Rev. 3:21. [This sublime discourse is withheld for want of room.] Stay all night at Brother Brachtbil's. Wonderful blowing of snow continues. Roads blockaded very much.
Wednesday, December 6. Brother John Kline near Millerstown takes me in his sleigh to meeting near his house. Speak on John 14:6. Night meeting at his house. Speak on Revelation 22. Stay with him all night. Still cold and stormy.
Thursday, December 7. Write a letter home, and one to Michael B. Kline, of Baltimore. Stop at Jacob Frantz's, and get to Samuel Royer's, near Myerstown, for dinner. Afternoon meeting at the meetinghouse. Stay at David Zug's all night. Snowing and blowing continues. Very cold.