TUESDAY, May 17.  Discuss questions all day.  Good order prevails.  I am glad to witness the dawning of intelligence in the minds of our younger brethren in the ministry.  We must keep up with the demands of the age; not in the vain show of worldly fashion and love for things new; but in our desire and power by the use of all divinely-appointed means to commend the truth to every man’s conscience by making it to shine in all directions more and more unto the perfect day.  I am glad to see the zeal manifest in our younger brethren, and at the same time equally glad to find it tempered with moderation.

WEDNESDAY, May 18.  Finish business at half past eleven o’clock.  After dinner go to Brother James Wyatt’s, where I stay all night.  Also visit the widow Sister Hardman.

THURSDAY, May 19.  Come to Hagerstown and dine at Brother Brown’s.  I then take cars to Andersontown, and come to Brother Peter Fesler’s, six miles away.  After supper have night meeting in Columbus, where I speak from Acts 4:13.  Stay all night with Jeremiah Clemmens.

Having been more than usually impressed at our meeting with the importance of Christian brethren making their conversations and lives give testimony to the sincerity and intelligence of their professions of faith in Christ, I resolved to turn my discourse to that bearing, as much so as I could.  With that view I took these words:  TEXT.—­"And they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus."

A very plain and self-evident truth comes to mind at the opening of my discourse to-night.  It is this truth, that no one can converse intelligently upon any subject he does not understand, nor accomplish any work of art without some previously acquired skill to do it.  To comply with the demands imposed upon every human being by these fundamental and stubborn realities, all the means of education for the mind and training for the body are provided.  Man stands alone and singular in this regard.  Birds can sing and build their nests without instruction; and bees can form their delicate cells of wax without a guide.

It is also a well-recognized fact that the pupil gives evidence of the character and ability of his teacher, in all the lines of science and art.  In the knowledge and practice of the things pertaining to man’s spiritual life on earth it is just the same.  All that man does from conscience, from what he believes to be his duty to God and to man, this he calls religious.  If his faith and life are firmly based and established upon the Rock of God’s eternal Truth, it can be known at once who has been his teacher, and knowledge can be taken of him that he has been with Jesus.