SATURDAY, April 18.  Council meeting at the Flat Rock.  Jacob Wine is ordained.  John Neff is advanced to the second grade; and Abraham Neff is elected to preach the Word.

SUNDAY, April 26.  Meeting at our meetinghouse.  Romans 6 is read.  Philip Emswiler and John Toppen and his wife are baptized by myself.

WEDNESDAY, May 13.  Go to John Lowry’s to converse with him and his wife on the subject of religion.

TUESDAY, May 19.  Considerable snow to-day; but on low-lying sections of country it melts almost as fast as it falls.

WEDNESDAY, May 20.  The Blue Ridge, and the mountains on the west side of the valley are all white with snow.

THURSDAY, May 21.  This morning the tops of the western mountains are still white with snow.  The oldest weather records I have heard from contain no account of snow so late in the spring as this anywhere in Virginia.

FRIDAY, May 22.  Peter Fesler and wife are with us here at my home.  We are all made to feel glad by their company.

FRIDAY, June 5.  Go to John Lowry’s to discuss some of our doctrines with Jacob Stirewalt and Socrates Henkel, Lutheran preachers from New Market, Virginia.  It was no part of my aim in this private talk with those preachers to work any change in their settled opinions regarding the subjects of our controversy.  I long ago learned that the conversion of a theological sinner from the error of his ways is hardly to be hoped for in any case.  When the truth is loved for its own sake it is not hard to find; and it is readily perceived when found.  It is then the pearl of great price for which a man will sell all that he has to obtain it as his own.  Luther was no doubt sincere in much that he taught:  but men may be sincere in holding very erroneous dogmas, because of their being so deeply rooted in their minds and their minds being so confirmed in them that it would be almost like parting soul and body to give them up.  It was said of Luther, by one of the later reformers, that he cut a large piece out of the Pope’s pontifical robe as he left the Vatican, and kept it all his life as a sacred relic.  This is of course highly figurative, and not to be understood literally; but to mean that he incorporated many papal errors in his subsequent teachings.  My object in meeting these preachers at this place was to comply with the request of the family for me to do so.  Friend Lowry and his wife did not appear to see the lines of truth and duty very clearly; and as they seemed desirous of learning the way I thought it important for some one to present the truth on one side, to oppose the error that was likely to be poured in from the other side.  The whole thing reminded me of what I often do—­give medicine to counteract disease.

SATURDAY, July 25.  Visit, medically, George, and Noah Shoemaker’s, Joseph Shoemaker’s, William Miller’s; and am hurriedly called to James Fitzwater’s.  He has been bitten by a copperhead snake.  I succeed in relieving urgent symptoms; and by evening he is almost free from pain.