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

ELDER JOHN KLINE is set forth not as dead, but as alive;
as living and moving amongst us again. His life work stands recorded
on earth as well as in heaven. With 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