Connecticut western news., 1893-01-19
the circle or the earrn.

the circle or the earrn.
 l should not want to see the counte- nance of Voltaire when his influence comes to full orb. When the fatal hem orrhage seized him at eighty-three years of age his influence did not cease. The most brilliant man of his century, he had used all his faculties for assaulting Christianity, his bad influence widening through France, widening out through Germany, widening through all Europe, widening through America, widening through the 115 years that have gone by since he died, widening through earth. widening through hell, until at last the accumulated influence of his bad life in fiery surge of omnipotent wrath will beat against his destroyed spirit, and at that moment it will be enough to make the black hair of eternal darkness turn white with the horror. 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 audi ence, '.this in some respects Is @ very glad theory and in others 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" My brother, 1 have to tell you God can break that circle and will do so at your call. I can bring twenty passages of Scripture to prove that when God for Christ's sake forgives a 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 wheel strikes the cross and is shattered forever. The sins fly off from the circle into the perpendicn- lar, falling at right angles with com plete oblivion. Forgiven! Forgiven! The meanest thing a 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 trans gression How do I know it? I will prove it. Their sins and their iniqui- ties will remember no more." Come into that state this morning, my dear brother, my dear sister. Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven" !"
 THE CIRCLE OF GLORY.
 But do not make the mistake of think ing that this doctrine of the circle stops with this life; it rolls on through heaven You might quote in opposition to me what St. John says about the city of ur sot1 That does seem to initiate against this Idea, but you know there is many a square house that has family circle facing each other, and in 8 circle nov ing, and 1 can prove that this is so in re- gard to heaven. St. John says, "I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the eld- ers."
 Again he says, ''There was & rainbow round about the throne." The former two instance a circle; the last either a circle or semicircle. The seats facing each other, the -lgels facing each other, the men facing each other. Heaven an amphitheater of glory. Circumference of patriarch and prophet and apostle. Circumference of Scotch Covenanters and Theban legion and Albigenses. Cir conference of the good of all ages Pe- riphery of splendor unimagined and in describable. A circle A circlei
 But every circumference must have a center, and what is the center of this heavenly circumference? Christ. His all the glory. His all the praise. His all the crowns. All heaven wreathed Into garland round about him. Take off the imperial sandal from his foot and behold the scar of the spike. Lift the coronet of dominion from his brow and see where was the laceration of the briers. Come closer, all heaven. Mar row the circle around his great heart. O Christ, the Saviour! O Christ, the man! O Christ, the God! Keep thy throne forever, seated on the circle of the earth, seated on the circle of the heaven! -.-
 On Christ the solid rock, stand;
 All other ground Is sinking sand.