Ananias did not forget this when instructing the penitent Saul of Tarsus; for at the close of all the words the Lord had authorized him to say to Saul, we find these:  “And now, why tarriest thou?  Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord.  And Saul arose and was baptized.”  Saul’s sins were not washed away by the water in which his body was baptized, but that water symbolized the truth, the Lord’s truth, that does wash away sins.  And his being immersed in it in each of the three names, according to the great commission which the Lord had given some time before, signified his faith in the Word of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.  Peter says:  “Baptism is not the washing away of the filth of the flesh,” but I feel authorized to say that it is the outward sign or emblem of the power of divine truth to wash away the filth of the soul.  The change in Saul, wrought by this act as the crown of obedience, was so great that from this time on he was a new man, and had a new name, for he was called Paul ever after.

But we must not forget that salvation is all of God.  Of ourselves we can do nothing.  Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  All that man can do is to take the Lord’s hand and be led in the way; to open his eyes to the light, and his ears to the truth, and his heart to the life, in faith receiving, and in life living the precepts that make him wise unto salvation.

THURSDAY, April 26.  The two brethren preached the funeral of Isaac Shobe’s mother.  She had passed away shortly before, at the high age of ninety-four years.  They spoke from First Corinthians 15.  From here they went to James Parks’s and had night meeting.  The next day they had meeting at William Parks’s; and on

SATURDAY, April 28, they had meeting at Enoch Hyre’s in forenoon, and at Elijah Judy’s at night.  They anointed Sister Elijah Judy with oil in the name of the Lord.

SUNDAY, April 29.  They had meeting at Sister Chlora Judy’s in the forenoon, and then crossed the Fork mountain to Nimrod Judy’s, where they had night meeting and stayed all night.

MONDAY, April 30.  They got home.  Quoting from the Diary Brother Kline says:  “I love to go among the mountains.  The people there seem to pay better attention to what is said, and manifest better behavior at our meetings than they do in the thickly-settled and more fashionable sections of our State.  It is true that ignorance and poverty abound in some places; but are the souls of the poor less dear to the Lord than the souls of the rich?  On one occasion our Lord referred to the fact that the Gospel was preached to the poor as a proof of its heavenly origin.  But there are intelligent people living among those mountains.  And in the way of hospitality and genuine kindness, meeting you with a smile and a hearty welcome, they are probably unsurpassed as a people, rich and poor alike.”