Wednesday, June 1. Come by Michael Wine's; dine with him; then come across the mountain home.
From this time to the memorable day of his martyrdom there is nothing in the Diary demanding special notice. Notice has already been taken of his calling at George Cowger's on the South Fork in Pendleton County, West Virginia, on his way home from this his last journey. At Mr. Cowger's, while at the dinner table, he said: "I am threatened; they may take my life; but I do not fear them; they can only kill my body." This they accomplished.
Wednesday, June 15, 1864. He went to a blacksmith's shop a few miles away from home; had Nell shod; and on his return was killed by, it is supposed, some concealed person or persons on a ridge of timber land a few miles away from home. Some account of his funeral has already been given in the introduction to this work. His body, when discovered, showed that it had been pierced by several bullets. But a smile rested on his face. The writer's own eyes witnessed this. It may be that this smile was the reflection of the joy that thrilled his soul as he stepped out of his broken tenement of clay into the presence and light of his Redeemer. Stephen's living face was as the face of an angel. Brother Kline's dead face was the face of a saint—no, not the face of a saint, but the face of the earthly casket in which a saint had lived, and labored, and rejoiced; and out of which he stepped into the glories of the eternal world. Amen!
He Died at His Post.
[Said to have been composed by Brother Kline on the death of Joseph Miller, who died while on a visit to Ohio.]
Away from his home and the friends of his youth
He hasted, the herald of mercy and truth,
For the love of his Lord and to seek for the lost
Soon, alas! was his fall, but he died at his post.
The stranger's eye wept that in life's brightest bloom