SATURDAY, April 13.  Finish planting the lower field.  I never plant corn or commit any seed to the earth, but I am filled with wonder in the contemplation of God’s power.  In my thoughts over things of this kind my mind and heart find pleasant relief, by recalling in memory the beautiful similitude which Mark, alone of all the evangelists, has left on record for us.  These are his words:  “And he [the Lord] said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how.  The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”  These words greatly encourage me to labor more faithfully in the ministry of the Word:  for as we know the Lord has power to make the dry seed in the dry ground grow unto a rich harvest, we know not how, so has he power to make the seeds of his truth spring up and grow in the hearts of men unto a harvest of eternal blessedness in heaven.  But as the corn must be tended, the field kept clean, and the ground kept in order during the growing season, so must the Word in the heart be guarded from the inroads of evils, such as are clearly described in the Lord’s own words.

SATURDAY, April 20.  Council meeting to-day on Lost River.  Celestine Whitmore elected speaker, and Silas Randall elected deacon.  Stay all night at John Miller’s.

SUNDAY, April 21.  Meeting at Whitmore’s.  Luke 14 is read. Humility was my subject to-day, founded on the words of the eleventh verse.  Pride is the opposite of humility.  The proud man exalts himself and refuses to follow in the footsteps of the meek and lowly Jesus.

“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”  So says the Apostle James.  And why is this so?  Because the proud man, in his sense of self-sufficiency, feels no want at the present which he thinks he is not able to supply, and dreads no want in the future, either because he does not think of any future life, or because he has persuaded himself to believe there is no future state of existence.  God can never give grace to such a man, in such a state, because he will not receive it.  A thing may be offered, but it can never be said to be given unless it is received.  Wherefore the Apostle Peter says:  “Humble yourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”  When God exalts a man, when God lifts a man up, he then is lifted up, he then is exalted, sure enough.  This is the exaltation to which we may truthfully apply Paul’s exultation:  “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love him.”

SUNDAY, May 12.  Meeting in our meetinghouse.  Ephesians 4 is read.  Samuel Myers and his wife are baptized.

TUESDAY, May 14.  Council meeting to-day at our meetinghouse.  John Bowman, of Franklin County, Virginia, and Brother Barnhardt, of Roanoke County, Virginia, were with us to-day; and they are with me this evening to stay all night.