was to be rocked, but as being a camp for soldiers, with stout hearts and strong sinews, ready to do battle for the Lord.  They were therefore exhorted to put on the whole armor of God:  and their baptismal vow was the act of putting this armor on publicly, and their enrollment in the Lord’s host, prepared for the great conflict.  They were expected from that hour forth to “fight the good fight of faith,” and the battle hymn that flowed out of the heart of every baptized believer of that day was, in spirit if not in form, the same that some of us are still ready to sing: 

  “Sure I must fight, if I would reign;
    Increase my courage, Lord: 
  I’ll bear the cross, endure the pain,
    Supported by thy Word.”

I would rejoice if I could here, this night, be the means of melting the ice that binds the hearts of some halfway believers, and if the angel would trouble the sluggish pool in others.  May God help you, friends, to feel a sense of your duty, and, like these honest Samaritans named in the text, “believe the things spoken concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and be baptized, both men and women.”

Brother Kline was actively engaged in preaching and visiting the sick professionally as a physician to the close of the year.  He traveled in the year 1853, 4,411 miles.

I find it impossible to trace all the visits to distant churches and families made by Brother Kline, and keep this book within the limits of a suitable size.  I therefore omit much which might be of interest.

FRIDAY, March 3.  Council at the old meetinghouse above Harrisonburg.

SATURDAY, March 4.  Council closes.  Night meeting in Dayton, Virginia.  I speak from Psalm 144:11, 12:  “Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:  that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.”

This is a wonderful prayer from the heart of one who was both priest and king of his people.  As a priest, David had the care of the spiritual welfare of his people; and as a king, the civil prosperity of Judah and Israel.  The prayer of my text is offered in behalf of both these interests, the spiritual and the temporal.  Probably no man ever felt more deeply the truth expressed in his own words, elsewhere recorded, “Happy is the people whose God is Jehovah,” than David did.  The lofty consciousness, which is the orderly outgrowth of correct knowledge of God’s love, wisdom and power, and man’s utter lack of all these attributes, accounts for the dependence and trust he reposed in God.  This called forth the prayer of my text.  It contains three petitions.  The first is for deliverance from strange children; the second, that the sons may be as plants [olive trees] grown up in their youth; the third, that the daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.