I can say of the Lord’s Supper, which Jude calls a feast of charity, or love feast, which is the same, and which the Lord instituted in connection with feet-washing, just what I have said of this ordinance.  It is let go.  These, with many other omissions and errors, have crept into the so-called Christian faith and practice, by letting go the form of sound words.  Still more.  The injunctions to nonconformity to the world in dress and other things are all let go instead of being held fast, and loose reins are given to all manner of worldly forms and fashions.  Professing Christians even defraud one another through covetousness, which is idolatry, going to law one with another.  They also do not hesitate to bear arms in war, which is the greatest of all earthly evils.

Brethren and friends, I do not speak in this way from any feeling of ill-will toward any, but from the depth of love in my heart; for there is no joy that could be compared with the joy that I would feel could I see the whole Christian world bowing, meekly bowing under the weight and power of God’s revealed Truth.  Our way, Brethren, is to hold fast “the form of sound words.”  As we expect to have a love feast here on to-morrow evening, let each one examine himself to see whether in his faith or in his works he may have departed from the form of sound words of warning, of encouragement, of instruction, of exhortation, of doctrine.  And it most assuredly becomes us to inquire whether we have done our duty in the way of searching the Scriptures, giving ourselves to reading, to meditation, to prayer.  We are too apt to seek for what pleases the taste of the natural mind, to the neglect of what is necessary to refresh the spiritual mind and keep that healthy and strong.

As there was but one rock in the wilderness from which all the tribes of Israel were supplied with natural water, so to us, God’s spiritual Israel, there is but one Rock from which flows to us the water of life, and that Rock is Christ Jesus in his Word.  On this Rock the church is founded, and I rejoice to know that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

WEDNESDAY, October 22.  Love feast to-day.  Matthew 23 is read.

THURSDAY, October 23.  Meeting.  Matthew 13 is read.  Brother Daniel Miller goes to the Greenland Gap.  I stay all night at old Brother Arnold’s.

FRIDAY, October 24.  I and Daniel Yount start for home.  We dine at Sister High’s, and stay all night at Vanmeter’s.

SATURDAY, October 25.  Dine at Elijah Judy’s, and stay all night at Isaac Dasher’s on the South Fork, Hardy County.

SUNDAY, October 26.  Meeting at Rorabaugh’s.  John 10 is read.  I baptized Lydia Shireman.  Stay all night at Rorabaugh’s.

MONDAY, October 27.  Preach funeral of Joseph Reel’s daughter.  Age, seven years and nine months.  Stay all night at James Fitzwater’s in the Gap.

TUESDAY, October 28.  Reached home.

SATURDAY, November 8.  Brother Benjamin Moomaw and family, from Roanoke
County, come to my house this evening.