SATURDAY, January 15, 1859.  Get Howell’s “Evils of Infant Baptism.”  I regard this as a very instructive work on the subject indicated by the title.

SUNDAY, February 13.  Attend the burial of Christian Kratzer.  Age, eighty-six years, three months and twelve days.

SATURDAY, February 26.  Attend a meeting which was held to-day, to elect directors for the establishment of an academy, to be known by the name of “Cedar Grove Academy,” near my place.  John J. Bowman, John Zigler and Daniel Miller are elected.

SUNDAY, March 6.  Attend meeting in Sangersville, Augusta County, Virginia.  Brother Daniel Thomas replies to Soule’s sermon on “the modes and subjects of baptism.”  Friend Soule is a Methodist preacher in high standing with his denomination.  He argued on the ground that “whilst the New Testament does allow immersion in water, and favor the baptism of adults, it does not cancel the validity of the rite when properly performed by pouring or sprinkling, either in the case of adults or infants.”

Brother Daniel Thomas, on this occasion, exalted the truth by appealing “to the law and the testimony.”  He proved baptism to be a positive term as to its signification; that the word BAPTISM, with its derivatives, has a specific and not a variable sense.  He likewise established the great truth that all the good of obedience consists in doing what one is commanded to do.  He showed that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of rams.”  Any departure from the command vitiates the obedience, no matter how professedly honest the steps of that departure may be.  He here quoted Peter’s words:  “Baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh.”  It does us no more good physically, said he, than would be derived from bathing or immersing the body in water without any religious motive connected with it.  It is one’s conscious obedience in submitting to the rite, that gives “the answer of a good conscience toward God.”  Can little infants realize this?  These premises being established, and after clearly stating the duty of all who desire to obey to find out what they are required by the Lord to do, he brushed away the mass of “wood, hay and stubble” which his antagonist had piled together, and erected an impregnable turret of “gold, silver and precious stones” on the solid rampart of Divine Truth.  Brother Daniel Thomas carries a heart as pure and kind as I have ever found within the breast of any man, and a head as clear as I have ever seen upon the shoulders of any man.

After meeting Brother Daniel Thomas and I dine at Brother John Sanger’s, and have evening meeting at Pudding Springs meetinghouse.  I speak from Heb. 12:25.  Stay all night at Brother John Driver’s.  Fine day.

MONDAY, March 7.  Dine at Jacob Zigler’s, and have night meeting in Jennings’s Gap.  Stay all night at David Adams’s.