Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-09-08

ago I sat back by the door. You arose
to Wake an exhortation. That talk changed
the course of my life, and if ever get to
heaven, under God, will owe my salvation
to you." In only ten, twenty, or thirty
years, the circle swept out and swept back
again to your own grateful heart.
But sometimes it is a wider circle ano
does not return for great while. | saw a
bill of expenses for burning Latimer and
Ridley. The bill of expenses says:
One load of fir fagots ............. IBIS. 3D.
Carriage of four loads Of wood.........-2s.
Item, post .......-...............Is ~
Item, two chains. ........................3S. 40.
Item, two staples s.......................... 3D.
Item, four labOrers. s......................2s. Sd.
That was cheap fire, considering all the
circumstances; but it kindled light which
shone all around the world, aud around the
martyr spirit; and out from that burning OF
Latimer and Ridley rolled the circle, wider
and wider, starting other circles, convolut-
ing, overrunning, circumscribing, over
arching all heaven-a circle.
But what is true of the good is just as
true of the bad. You utter a slander
against your neighbor. 1t has gone forth
1TOm your I6Ctu. LII W Ill uCNCl COuO OdChs
you think. You have done the man all the
mischief you can. You rejoice to see him
Vince. You say, "Did'nt give it to him?''
That word has gone out, that slanderous
word. on its poisonous and blasted way.
You think it will never do you any harm.
But I am watching that word. and see it
beginning to curve, and it curves around,
and it is aiming at your heart. You had
h I,J 1oIoo
rolls into your bosom, and after it rolls in a
word of an old book says, with
what measure ye mete, it shall be measured
to you again"
You maltreat an aged parent. You be-
grudge him the room in your house. You
are impatient of his whimsicalities and gar
rulity. 1t makes you mad to hear him tell
the same story twice. You give him food
away. You wonder if he is going to live
forever. He will be gone very soon. His
steps are shorter and shorter. he is going
to stop. But God has an account to settle
with you on that subject. After awhile
and the sound of the grinding will be low,
and you will tell the same story twice, and
your children will wonder if you are going
be taken away. They called you father"
once; now they call you ''the old man." If
you live few years longer they will call
you ssthe old chap" What are those
rough words with which your children are
you? They are the echo of the
very words you used in the ear of your old
father forty years ago, What is that which
you are trying to chew, but find it un-
masticable, and your jaws ache as you sur
render the attempt2 Perhaps it may be the
his breakfast forty years ago. A gentle
man passing along the street saw son
dragging his father into the street by the
hair of the head. The gentleman, outraged
at this brutal conduct, was about to punish
the offender when the old man arose and
said: "Don't hurt him; it's alright Forty
years ago this morning 1 dragged out my
father by the hair of his head' 1t is a
circle. My father lived into the eighties,
and he had very wide experience, and he
said that maltreatment of parents was al
ways punished in this world. Other sins
may be adjourned to the next world, but
of parents is punished in this
world.
The circle turns quickly, very quickly.
Oh, what a stupendous thought that the
good and the evil we start come back to us.
Do you know that the Judgment Day will
be only the points at which the circles join,
The good and the bad we have done COM
ing back to us, unless Divine Intervention
hinder-coming back to us, welcome of de-
light or curse of condemnation?
Oh, l would like to see Paul, the invalid
at the moment when his in
auence comes to full orb-his influence roll
ling out through Antioch, through Cyprus.
through Lystra, through Corinth. through
Athens, through Asia, through Europe,
through America, through the first century,
through five centuries, through twenty
centuries, through all the succeeding CEN
turies, through earth, through heaven, and,
at last, the wave of influence having made
full circuit, strikes his great soul! Oh,
then | would like to see him! No one can
tell the wide sweep of the circle of his in
fuence, save the One who is seated on the
circle of the earth. / should not want to
see the countenance of Voltaire when his
influence comes to full orb. When the fatal
hemorrhage seized him at eighty-three years
Of age his influence did not cease. The
most brilliant man of his century, be had
used all his faculties for assaulting Chris
Lianty; his bad influence widening through
France, widening out through Germany,
through all Europe. widening
through America, widening through the
one hundred and one years that have gone
by since he died, widening through earth,
through hell; until at last the ac-
influence of his bad life in fiery
surge of omnipoteut wrath will beat against
his destroyed spirit, and at that momnent it
will be enough to make the black hair of
eternal darkness turn white with the hor-
ror. No one can tell how that bad mans
Influence girdled the earth, save the One
who is seated on the circle of the earth-the
Lord Almighty.
''Well, now," say people in this audience,
"this in some respects is a very glad theory,
and in others a very sad one; we would like
to have all the good we have ever done come
back to us, but the thought that all the sins
we have ever committed will come back to US
fills us with alright" Ny brother, have
to tell you God can break that circle and
will do so at your call. l can bring twenty
passages of Scripture to prove that when
God for Christ's sake forgives man, the
sins of his past life never come back. The
wheel may roll on and roll on, but you take
your position behind the cross, and the
"hNSi OAlhSo buO Cltoo huO ~ 40 oh~'ooASN.
forever. The sins fly off from the circle
into the perpendicular, falling at right
angles into complete oblivion. Forgiven
forgiven! The meanest thing man can do
is, after some difficulty has been settled, to
bring it up again; and God will not be SO
mean as that. Gods memory is mighty
enough to hold all the events of the ages,
but there is one thing that is sure to slip
His memory; one thing He is sure to forget,
and that is pardoned trahsgression. How
do l know it? I will prove it. 'sfhelr
sins and their iniquitiesR~ill 1remember no
more. Come into that state this morning,
my dear brother, my dear sister. "Blessed
is the one whose transgressions are for
given"
But, do not make the mistake of thinking
that this doctrine of the circle stops with
this life; it rolls on through Heaven. You
might quote ir Opposition TO me What st