FRIDAY, April 20. On this day Brother Kline, in company with Brother
Benjamin Bowman, started on a journey to some of the western counties
of Virginia, now West Virginia. The first day they got to the widow
Miller's, on Briery Branch, in the southwest corner of Rockingham
County. The next day they went through North River Gap and got to
Henry Sanger's, in Highland County, Virginia, where they had night
meeting. Here Brother Bowman delivered a discourse, which, according
to the outlines in the Diary, was so pregnant with original thought
characteristic of the man that I will endeavor to expand its
contracted form and give it a more readable shape. TEXT.--"Then said
Jesus to those Jews which believed on him: If ye continue in my word,
then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free."

There was great diversity of feeling among the Jews in Christ's day,
just as there is among Gentiles now. Some were flint; others, clay in
the hand of the potter. "The common people heard him gladly; but the
scribes and Pharisees resisted the counsel of God against themselves."
If we read the entire chapter carefully it will give us a more
impressive view of and a clearer insight into the stubborn hardness of
the Jewish heart than any other single chapter that I can now think
of. The Jews were so wedded to their worldly sanctuary, so in love
with the representative forms of worship, that they could receive no
just ideas of genuine spiritual worship. Let me draw a comparison
here. Many people seem to think themselves rich when they have plenty
of money either in hand or standing out on interest. They think so
from the fact that money represents every exchangeable commodity of
worldly goods. In it they behold the supply of every bodily want, the
service they need and the honor they crave.

This is something like what the scribes and Pharisees, the elders and
priests saw in their religion. And these worldly emoluments and
benefits are what they feared would be taken away from them, should
the great principles of love to God and love to man, inculcated by our
Savior, be generally received. They said: "If we let him thus alone,
all men will believe on him; and the Romans will come and take away
both our place and our nation."

The Roman power had a civil regard for the temple so long as it
retained its dignity as the national house of Jewish worship. Should
it, however, lose this honor by being n