Friend J.P.  Cline made feet-washing “a household or hospitable rite.”  Brother John Kline’s main point in reply to this was, that bathing or washing of the whole body in water, as also the setting out of bread and wine before guests, was likewise included among the rites of hospitality in the East and also in southern Europe.  If feet-washing is to be discarded from the list of church ordinances on this ground, what becomes of baptism and the Communion?  Can they, logically, fare better?

Friend Cline’s next point was, “that feet-washing has a spiritual significance, that the example given by the Lord is complied with and obeyed when we, in humility and love, do works of charity.”  In reply to this, Brother John Kline merely asked the question:  “What denominations of professing Christians exhibit the deepest sense of humility, and show the warmest affections of charity, those that observe feet-washing as an ordinance of the church, or those that reject it as such?” “It is not for me,” said he, “to answer this question.  I leave it to the consideration of all.”

“What I do, thou knowest not now.”  “This declaration of our Lord,” said friend Cline, “clearly discards feet-washing from being a church ordinance.”  In reply to this Brother Kline said:  “I would like to ask friend Cline if he claims to understand all the meaning and significance of water baptism and the Communion.  If he does lay claim to such attainments in the knowledge of what God has not clearly revealed in his Word, he must have had access to information from which all other honest men have been debarred.  Before friend Cline’s argument against feet-washing as a church ordinance can have any weight, on the score that we do not clearly see all that is intended to be signified by it, consistency does require him to show the full meaning and significance of baptism and the Communion of the bread and wine.  It is self-evident that the argument which rejects feet-washing from the list of church ordinances, on the ground of its not being fully understood as to its entire significance, with equal power rejects and discards baptism and the Communion from being ordinances of the house of God.”

In this brief report of Brother John Kline’s sermon on this occasion I have but touched some of the points in his argument, gathered from the Diary, and from a personal conversation with him afterwards.  He wound up with the Fable of the Clock and the Sundial, as follows: 

“The Town Clock claimed that it ought to be highly respected.  ‘Look,’ said the Clock, ’at my beautiful face, and the exquisite delicacy of my hands.  My head, too, internally and externally, is a perfect model of scientific exactness and mechanical skill.  You should depend upon what I say.  I run with regular steps, and strike the hours of the day as I run.  You should hear ME.  Look at that broad-faced, flat-headed sundial away down there.  It has not a word to say. I am going to strike now.  One—­two—­three!