In this year I have traveled, mostly on horseback, three thousand, two hundred and sixty miles.
MONDAY, January 1, 1844. I feel sure that the work of the year cannot be entered upon more suitably than by making arrangements for building a house of worship unto the Lord. The need of a house of this kind has long been felt among the Brethren on Lost River. We have here, as elsewhere, "not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God" publicly, as Paul says he did among the Ephesian brethren, "and that from house to house." But it is best to have a stated place of worship, and with this in view we have this day made arrangements to build a meetinghouse, to be known as the Lost River meetinghouse. Celestine Whitmore, Jacob Mathias and Silas Randall have been elected trustees; and Celestine Whitmore, one of the number, has been elected master builder.
SATURDAY, February 24. Raise the new meetinghouse on Lost River. Stay all night at Silas Randall's.
TUESDAY, March 26. My dear old father dies this night, at forty minutes past three o'clock in the morning. He has lived to a great age, has seen all of his children settled in life and doing well, has served his day and generation to good purpose by a faithful discharge of duty as a husband and father in his own family; as a kind and ever-obliging neighbor in his community; and far, very far outweighing all these, he has honored his God by embracing the faith set forth in the Gospel of the Son of God, the faith that works by love, that purifies the heart, and that overcomes the world. All great endings are but great beginnings. The end of our Savior's life on earth was but the beginning of his life of ineffable glory and exaltation in heaven. As the Head is, so shall the members be. In his own measure, as it hath pleased the Lord to give my father grace, so shall his reward in glory be. Death is the door through which we enter life.
"Farewell! we meet no more On this side heaven: The parting scene is o'er, The last sad look is given,
"Farewell! O may we meet In heaven above: And there, in union sweet, Sing of a Savior's love."
THURSDAY, March 28. Daniel Miller and Benjamin Bowman preach father's funeral. The earth that covers the body and hides it from sight does not bury our hopes. The anchor of the soul is sure and steadfast. It has its hold upon the things within the veil, which are eternal and immovable. I will not sorrow as those who have no hope. Father's age was eighty years, eight months and twenty-two days.