ock. Besides these, he attended the regular
Sunday meetings, council meetings, and visited, medically, a
considerable number of patients. He reports much rain in October, and
several times his life was endangered crossing high waters.

FRIDAY, October 22. On this day he started on a journey across the
mountains of western Virginia. He followed a line of love feasts and
other meetings through the counties of Hampshire, Virginia; Garret,
Maryland; Preston and Monongalia, Virginia, to Dunkard Creek in
Pennsylvania, not far this side of Wheeling. He returned over nearly
the same route by which he went, filling appointments he left on his
way out. He reports, on this journey, 371 miles traveled on horseback,
over some rugged mountains and bad roads much of the way. He arrived
home November 4, after an absence of two weeks.

TUESDAY, November 30. Attend the burial of old Mother Horn. Age,
ninety years, two months and two days.

SUNDAY, December 5. Attend the burial of old Mother Conrad. Age,
eighty-five years and nine months.

WEDNESDAY, December 15. Louis and Samuel Kline, of Pennsylvania, visit
us. I take them around to see their and my kindred.

TUESDAY, December 21. Perform the marriage ceremony of Samuel
Hinegartner and Catharine Ralls, at Christian Crider's.

FRIDAY, December 31. Meeting of general council in our meetinghouse.
In the year that is now about to close I have traveled 3,424 miles,
nearly all on horseback. The work of another year is done; and the
record has passed into eternity. As clay, once formed by the hand of
the potter and burnt in a kiln can never be reduced to clay again and
worked over into other forms, so our deeds in life, once done, are
done forever. A vase may be broken, it is true, but the fragments are
apt to reveal the form of the vessel from which they came. So the hand
of jealousy, of envy, of persecution even, may shatter the results of
our best efforts here; but God will gather up the pieces and be able
to tell by their appearance and quality that they belonged to a vessel
of honor in his sight. Seeds sometimes lie a long time in the ground
before they grow and make a blade; so it may be with much of the good
seed that I and others of our beloved Brotherhood have sown this year.
Backward springs and other unfavorable states of weather during the
early part of the growing season are sometimes followed by rich
harvests. We do not know what the future may bring forth, but we do
know