It was, for many years, a favorite health resort for the German population of Rockingham and Shenandoah Counties in Virginia. Almost every Sunday during the "spring season," there would be preaching there by the ever earnest German Baptist Brethren. Attentive audiences would assemble under the shade trees, and on rustic seats listen to the plain but earnest sermons of such men as John Kline, Peter Nead, Samuel Wampler and others. All was quiet and order. But the goddess of fashion soon found her way to this lovely spot, and a long train of worshipers at her shrine, robed in rustling silks and sparkling with jewels, followed her leadings. In a few years not only the character, but the very name of the place was changed. It is at this time a very popular pleasure resort for the rich and fashionable. On SUNDAY, August 19, Brother Kline delivered a very interesting and instructive discourse at the above-named place. It is with profound emotions of gratitude that I report this sermon. I was there myself and heard it. Whilst I do not retain in memory much of the substance of it, being at the time very young, I do well remember the feelings of veneration and regard for the preacher with which his earnest manner and kind looks impressed me. Little did I then think that fifty-five years from that date I would be expanding that discourse, and thus preparing it for the eyes of the world, from the leaflets of the Diary that was then being faithfully kept by that good man. _Sermon by Elder John Kline._ _Preached at Orkney Springs, Sunday, August 19._ TEXT.--Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.--Rev. 22:17. In view of our surroundings and the attractions that have drawn so many of us to this quiet and beautiful mountain retreat, I feel that the subject selected for to-day suits the occasion. When I look at a mountain spring and see the wavelets playing on their pebbly beds, or chasing one another down their steep descent, I am ever led to think how free from all the taints of sin these innocent drops of water are! Not one of them has ever transgressed the divine law of its being. Not one has ever failed in a single point to fulfill its mission. Are you thirsty? They never refuse to quench your thirst. Does your field need rain? They never refuse to wet the ground. Always ready, they cheerfully serve the behests of God and man. The diversity of the applications and uses of water, the variety of its forms--its frozen state in that of ice, its fluid state in that of a liquid, its aeriform state in that of clouds and other modes of atmospheric suspension--all these, together with its transparency and cleansing power make it a most appropriate emblem of DIVINE TRUTH. As such, water is much spoken of by the prophets in the Old Testament, and by our Lord in the New. I will here quote some passages from each: