Monday, August 13. Rain last night and this morning. Come to Peter Warnstaff's (seven miles), take dinner with him and his kind mother and sister; and at three o'clock start to John Fulk's, on top of Shenandoah mountain (eight miles), where we stay all night.
Tuesday, August 14. Stop awhile at Philip Ritchey's; dine at Philip Baker's: and in evening get home.
Monday, December 31. Cloudy this morning. Snow eleven inches deep. I work at my sleigh. Clears up prettily this evening. I have traveled in the year 1860, 5,686 miles; married five couples; preached twenty funerals, ten for children under ten years of age, one between ten and twenty, two between thirty and fifty, two between sixty and seventy, and five above seventy.
Tuesday, January 1, 1861. The year opens with dark and lowering clouds in our national horizon. I feel a deep interest in the peace and prosperity of our country; but in my view both are sorely threatened now. Secession is the cry further south; and I greatly fear its poisonous breath is being wafted northward towards Virginia on the wings of fanatical discontent. A move is clearly on hand for holding a convention at Richmond, Virginia; and while its advocates publicly deny the charge, I, for one, feel sure that it signals the separation of our beloved old State from the family in which she has long lived and been happy. The perishable things of earth distress me not, only in so far as they affect the imperishable. Secession means war; and war means tears and ashes and blood. It means bonds and imprisonments, and perhaps even death to many in our beloved Brotherhood, who, I have the confidence to believe, will die, rather than disobey God by taking up arms.
The Lord, by the mouth of Moses, says: "Be sure your sin will find you out." It may be that the sin of holding three millions of human beings under the galling yoke of involuntary servitude has, like the bondage of Israel in Egypt, sent a cry to heaven for vengeance; a cry that has now reached the ear of God. I bow my head in prayer. All is dark save when I turn my eyes to him. He assures me in his Word that "all things work together for good to them that love him." This is my ground of hope for my beloved brethren and their wives and their children. He alone can provide for their safety and support. I believe he will do it.
Wednesday, January 30. Write a letter to John Letcher, Governor of Virginia, in which I set before him in a brief way the doctrines which we as a body or church, known as Brethren, German Baptists or Dunkards, have always held upon the subject of obedience to the "rightful authority and power of government." We teach and are taught obedience to the "powers that be;" believing as we do that "the powers that be are ordained of God," and under his divine sanction so far as such powers keep within God's bounds. By God's bounds we understand such laws and their administrations and enforcements as do not conflict with, oppose, or violate any precept or command contained in the Divine Word which he has given for the moral and spiritual government of his people. By government, to which we as a body acknowledge and teach our obligations of duty and obedience, we understand rightful human authority. And by this, again, we understand, as the Apostle Paul puts it, "the power that protects and blesses the good, and punishes the evildoer." The general Government of the United States of America, constituted upon an inseparable union of the several States, has proved itself to be of incalculable worth to its citizens and the world, and therefore we, as a church and people, are heart and soul opposed to any move which looks toward its dismemberment.
This is in substance what I wrote to John Letcher, Governor of Virginia.
I likewise attend Abraham Shue's sale: The candidates for seats in the Convention to meet in Richmond were on the ground, actively speaking both publicly and privately. Mr. George Chrisman, one of them, a man of preëminent wisdom in things relating to government, publicly avowed himself opposed to secession on the basis of both principle and policy. "On the ground of principle," said he, "secession violates the pledge of sacred honor made by the several States when they set their hands and seals to the Constitution of the United States. On the ground of policy," continued he, "the secession of Virginia will culminate in the breaking up of her long-cherished institutions, civil, social, and, to some extent, religious."
Friday, February 1. Write to John T. Harris, our representative in Congress. Beseech him to do all he can to avert the calamity that now threatens us, by pouring oil upon the troubled waters until the tempest of passion abates. I esteem him as an incorruptible patriot at heart. May the Lord guide him and all the other lawmakers of our land.
Saturday, February 9. Martha Kline, wife of John B. Kline, dies very suddenly to-day.