Friday, April 20. Council meeting at our meetinghouse. Abraham Knupp is ordained; Christian Wine forwarded, and Martain Wampler elected to the deaconship.
Saturday, April 21. Attend council meeting at the Flat Rock. Jonas Early and Abraham Neff are elected to the deaconship.
Saturday, May 12. This day Brother Kline and Daniel Thomas, in company of each other, start to the Annual Meeting on horseback. The meeting opened Monday, May 28. They consequently had two weeks before them to spend on the road, and this time they took up in traveling and preaching by the way. They went first to Hardy County, where they filled appointments at different places on the South Fork, South Branch of the Potomac, and North Fork. They then crossed the Alleghany mountains over into Randolph County, where they held a number of meetings. The Diary reports Brother Daniel Thomas as taking the lead in preaching at nearly all the appointments. And well was he worthy of the honor. Few men are ever endowed with better natural abilities for public speaking than was Brother Daniel Thomas. His voice had the rare power of making every word he uttered to be distinctly heard all over a large audience, without any apparent effort on his part. Besides, it was musical. The hearer went away with its expressive inflections and cadences still sounding in his ears. But his voice was not his only forte. He had a mind as full of sanctified wit and quick perception as an egg is full of food. A clear thinker, a cogent reasoner, and I may add, full of love and the Holy Ghost, it is not a matter of wonder that he excelled. What he might have achieved had he lived to an advanced age, God only knows. His death was caused by an attack of pneumonia. He left a comparatively young family. In the view of the writer, who was intimately acquainted with him, the church of the Brethren has never been called to give up a brighter or better man. He is not lost. He has only moved away to the better land.
The following discourse was substantially preached by Brother Daniel Thomas at the dwelling house of Elijah Judy in Hardy County, Virginia, now West Virginia, on the evening of
Monday, May 14. The parable of the sower is his subject. He said: This parable, viewed in its natural or most obvious sense, is so easily understood that it would be a suitable lesson for a primary school reader. At the same time it holds within its grasp a fund of spiritual instruction which, being received into the mind and heart, fills both with light so clear as to illuminate many an otherwise dark portion of Revealed Truth. To my mind this parable is the link connecting the two ends of the great chain of God's work and man's work in both the natural and spiritual life of man.
The Holy Land, as it is called, where our Lord was born, and where he lived and died, comprised three small districts of country called Judea, Samaria and Galilee. These districts, each about the size of some of our Virginia counties, lay along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Their gusts of rain, with their lightning and thunder, came from the west as ours do. The south winds came loaded with warmth to them as ours do to us. On the eastern border of this land was the river Jordan, a stream just about as large and swift as your South Branch of the Potomac. Near the northeastern corner of this land lay the beautiful Sea of Galilee, about three miles in breadth, and from four to six miles in length. It was on this sea that our Lord stilled the tempest. It was on the surface of this sea, that he was seen walking as on a smooth pavement.
In our Savior's day the Holy Land was an agricultural country. The farmers raised wheat and barley. These grains are often mentioned in the Scriptures. But they had few fences in that country. The roads ran through farms and fields with no sign of fence on either side. If sheep or cattle were turned out to graze, they had to be watched by men or boys called shepherds. I have been thus particular in my description of this land to enable you the better to understand the parable itself, and its higher or spiritual meaning. But farming has ever been but poorly done in that country, and patches of briars and other filth were suffered to grow. These were sown with the rest of the field, and instead of being dug out were plowed and harrowed over. No concern was felt about the seed likely to be wasted. The sower opened his hand as freely in crossing the highway or the patch of briery ground as anywhere else. Even those sections of the field which showed no depth of soil on account of underlying rock were treated like the rest. What a site for a parable! But what is a parable?
A parable is a statement of some fact literally or possibly true in the natural world, and used to represent some spiritual truth. It is the correspondence of the external or natural meaning with some internal or spiritual meaning that makes any parable to be what it is. The parable before us in its external or natural sense teaches nothing beyond what we may learn by the sight of our eyes every year. If it possessed no hidden meaning, no secret of life, it would be no holier than a similar statement in an agricultural paper. This is just what our Lord meant by these words: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you are spirit, and are life."
I think you are now prepared to derive some benefit from the internal sense of the parable before us. It has ever been a great question as to what man is required to do to be saved. If we were to go by what is generally preached at what are called revivals of religion, we would only need to say we believe in Jesus Christ, then manifest some joy in the new experience, get up, perhaps, and tell how we feel, and we are ready to be counted in the list of new converts in full possession of eternal life. This experience corresponds with the explanation given of the rocky places: "This is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth."
But here the query very naturally arises: "Are such to be lost? Is there no hope for these rocky-ground, thorny-ground and wayside hearers?" I say such need not be lost. There is salvation for such as truly as for any, if they avail themselves of the proffered gifts. It is wrong teaching, together with the influence of bad examples and bad habits, that has made them to be the kind of ground they are. Here is a lesson for all. Parents, if you desire your children to become good ground, train them up in the way they should go: and when they are old they will not depart from it.