God’s love, the very thing that he has prepared for your eternal joy will be everlasting bitterness to your soul.  For one to know his duty and not at the same time do it exposes him to the danger of being converted into a pillar of bitter salt as Lot’s wife was.  She could not give up her love for the world.  She knew that she must not look back with longings for the Sodom of the sinful life she had left; but she did look back, and her awful fate is brought to mind by our Lord as a warning to all:  “Remember Lot’s wife.”

By the words of my text, then, the Lord meant that the disciples represented the charity and faith that sweeten and give to every word of Divine Truth a gracious reception into the heart and life.  In this happy love the Christian sings of the Word of Life in the beautiful sentiment of an old hymn: 

  “Yes, thou art precious to my soul;
    My transport and my trust: 
  Jewels to thee are gaudy toys,
    And gold is sordid dust.”

And when the disembodied soul shall awake to the full realization of the truth which shone so dimly here, the love for that truth will be sevenfold as the light of seven days all in one, which means fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

SUNDAY, September 27.  This day Brother Solomon Garber leaves me after meeting, to attend to some appointments ahead.  I stay to debate with a Methodist preacher.  In the afternoon I baptize Sister Houser.  Stay all night at Brother Pirkey’s.

TUESDAY, September 29.  In the afternoon meet the Methodist preacher at Israel Methodist church.  But I am sorry to say that instead of going into a discussion with me on baptism and other ordinances of God’s house he suffered himself to run into an absurd abuse of us, as if we might be doing much harm by our close adherence to the teachings and examples of Christ and his apostles.  I can pray the Lord to have mercy upon him, and to open his eyes; for I was led to believe, from what he said, that he had never read or thought much outside of the Methodist Discipline.

WEDNESDAY, September 30.  Meeting again in meetinghouse near Brother Simon’s.  Speak on John 3:7.  I baptize Brother Samuel Channel.

THURSDAY, October 1.  Get Nell shod.  Come to the Barker settlement.  Night meeting at Wilson’s.

FRIDAY, October 2.  Night meeting at Enoch Johnson’s.

SATURDAY, October 3.  Meeting and love feast at Brother Henry
Wilson’s.  Stay all night at Brother Elias Oval’s.

SUNDAY, October 4.  Meeting at the meetinghouse.  Take the voice of the church.  Brother Henry Wilson is established.  Brother Elias Oval is advanced; and Brother William Oval is elected to the Word.

MONDAY, October 5.  Visit Elijah Skidmore; dine at Brother Burke’s; visit Joseph Workman; and come to Brother Simon’s in the evening.  Brother Michael Lion, Brother Thomas Clark, and Brother Martain Cosner are there when I arrive.  I probably will never forget the pleasure of meeting those brethren there and spending the night and next day with them.  Our love for each other here is a sweet foretaste of the joy of heaven.