FRIDAY, June 23.  Dine at Isaac Dasher’s in Hardy County, and stay fifty-second night at William Fitzwater’s, in Rockingham County, Virginia.

SATURDAY, June 24.  Breakfast at Daniel Fulk’s at foot of Mt.  Pleasant in Brock’s Gap, and then home.  On this journey Brother John Wine and I traveled in my carriage 1,083 miles.  Brother Benjamin Bowman was not with us all the time.  He left us after we got among relatives and acquaintances who were not the same, in these respects, to us that they were to him.  Otherwise they were the same to both alike, for they were nearly all Brethren.  But we met again at the Annual Meeting, and returned home together.  We had much pleasant conversation on the way, and endeavored to build each other up by giving a religious turn to our discourses.  They are both clear-headed thinkers.  I feel sure the time has been well spent by our mutually improving each other, aside from the good I hope we have done to others.  May our heavenly Father bless this happy journey to the present and everlasting good of all who may have heard our public or private words of warning, of instruction, of encouragement to the weak, of confirmation to the strong, is my prayer.  Amen.

Anna was safely conveyed home, nicely and tenderly cared for in my absence, and I find her as well as I could expect.

THURSDAY, July 13.  Perform the marriage ceremony of William Carrier and Barbara Summers.

WEDNESDAY, July 26.  Meeting at Forrer’s Furnace.  I speak on the fiftieth verse of the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm.  TEXT.—­“This is my comfort in my affliction.”  I have chosen this subject on account of the afflictions which some of you have lately passed through, and which are, I learn, still clinging to others in this neighborhood.  As I have been called—­or sincerely believe that I have been called—­to administer medical relief to the sick, and have thus had much experience in the sick room, and by the sick bed, I will venture to offer some observations regarding the ways in which the sick should be cared for and nursed, that they may be comforted in their afflictions as to their bodily feelings.  This done, I will endeavor to say something regarding the ways in which their souls may be comforted.

The bed for the sick should be soft, but not heating.  Nothing can be more regularly and uniformly comforting to the afflicted than a soft and easy bed.  It need not be costly.  Clean straw of oats, cut fine, is my preference over all other materials.  To stir the bed, the patient need not be taken out, but gently, very slowly and tenderly, moved to the opposite side first prepared, left there awhile, and then in the same gentle way returned to the front, similarly prepared.  Cleanliness is next to religion, pure and undefiled, in the sick room.  All fumes of tobacco or other unpleasant smells should not be allowed for a moment in the sick room.  All offensive odors can most readily be gotten rid of by ventilation.