Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary | Page 2

untiring perseverance Brother Kline kept a record of his work every day for a period of TWENTY-NINE YEARS. These records contain two great facts common to the life of every man, woman and child.
FIRST FACT.--Where he spent the day and night.
SECOND FACT.--How he spent the day and night.
A truthful record of these for many, made public, would blast their reputation abroad and blight their peace at home. But not so with our beloved brother. Whilst it is true that he had no expectation of his Diary ever being published, it is equally true that it does not contain a single entry of which he has cause to be ashamed before man or God. That the entries are faithful and true needs no proof other than the testimony that thousands still living are ready to bear to his untarnished name as a man honest and honorable in all things.
As a Christian, the beloved ministering brethren who spoke at his funeral are to-day not ashamed to apply to him the same words they applied to him then, and which were taken as the subject of discourse on that occasion. In speaking of his appointment to the ministry they took these words: "And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." Acts 6:5. They also added the other words spoken of Stephen in the eighth verse of the same chapter, a man "full of grace and power." Can anything loftier be said of a man's qualification for the work of the ministry?
As Stephen was the first Christian martyr, and Brother Kline the last then known, they closed their discourses in heartfelt realization of these words: "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." We all took part in the lamentation--the writer himself being present and speaking on the occasion--and felt that the ruthless hand of violence had wickedly torn from our midst a friend and counsellor whose place could not be filled by any other.
As a kind-hearted, loving mother puts her child's best new dress on it before taking it to church or in public, so have I endeavored to clothe the diary of Brother Kline in a suitable attire of Sunday clothes. I sincerely believe that the work in this form will be highly acceptable to the Brotherhood at large; and as Brother Daniel Hays says in a letter to me, "productive of much good."

PART II OF INTRODUCTION.
This book, if carefully read, will instruct both young and old. In this age of progress, when the forces of nature and art are being applied to practical ends; when "men are running to and fro and knowledge is wonderfully increased," it becomes us as intelligent Christians to look around and see whether we are not living in perilous times.
Far be it from me to discourage any one from seeking that knowledge which is good, or from availing himself of the benefits to be derived from the arts and sciences; but if this knowledge and these benefits are sought and gained only for worldly ends, only to add to worldly accomplishments or worldly treasure, they are dangerous for time and ruinous for eternity. What support can the soul have in its deep conflict with temptation, or in the dark hour of affliction or bereavement, when stayed on this world only? In all the tenderness of a father's heart I turn to the youth of our land and say to them in the words of the best Friend that God himself could give: "Seek FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and all earthly blessings will be added unto you.
In the following pages you may see what one man may do by "patient continuance in well doing." Brother Kline was a man "subject to like passions as we are." He was once an infant just as you were, and lay at his mother's breast. He very well remembered, when an old man, how he felt when she made for him his first pair of "pants." When that kind mother put them on him, pleased and smiling in the tenderness of her nature, "the first use that I made of my hands," said he to me shortly before his death, "was to feel for the pockets." "We incline," continued he, "to carry this feature of our boyhood into youth and age. The pocket never ceases to be a very important appendage to our dress, and the hand inclines to put into it every valuable thing it can."
Brother Kline never went to school very much. He learned to read and write both German and English; and he also studied arithmetic. Further than this he never went in school. He did not have the advantages of free schools as young people now have. But you may learn