January 24 — I was at preaching to-day at Ivy church, in the country about two miles west of camp. The church is of an antique appearance and almost in a thorough readiness for ruins, and is small, low, and built of hewn logs. The windows are very small, with paper as a substitute for glass, which tempers the light most too severely and renders the church rather dark and gloomy; the walls inside are papered with newspapers.
In striking contrast to the dim, shadowy light in the little church, brilliant strain after strain of burning eloquence flashed and flowed from the unassuming little pulpit, as the preacher delineated and depicted how the beauties of truth, the virtues of unfeigned charity, and the unswerving practice of right and justice shed a sweet, golden, and unfading radiance on the pathway of the truly righteous and those that are Christians indeed, in worthy acts and honest deportment. He preached from the fifth chapter and twentieth verse of second Corinthians.
