Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-11-06

7N this discourse DR.. Taimage shows
thai the good or evil we do returns
- to bb IS or blast us: text, Isaiah XII.
%, 1T is he that stitch upon the circle
of the earth"
While yet people thought that the world
was fiat and thousands of years before
they found out that il was round. Istiah.
in my text, intimated the shape of II.
God sitting upon the circle of the earth.
The most beautiful figure in all geom-
etry is the circle. God made the universe
on the plan of a circle.
There are in the natural world straight
lines, angles parallelograms, diagonals,
Quadrangles, but these evidently are not
Gods fayortes. Almost everywhere
where you find him geometrizing you find
the circle dominant. and if not the circle
then the curve. which is a circle that
died young. If it had lived long enough,
1t would have been full orb,a periphery,
Au ellipse is circle pressed only little
too hard at the sides.
Giants Causeway, in Ireland, shows
what God thinks of mathematics. There
are over $4,000 columns of rocks-octago-
nal. hexagonal, pentagonai. These rocks
seem to have been made by rule and COM
where he may make fifty shapes, but he
chooses one shape as preferable to all
others. | will not say that the Giants
Causeway was the worlds moldlng room,
but l do say ont of a great many figures
God seems to have selected the circle as
the best. 1T is he that stitch on the cir
Gle of the earth The stars in a circle,
the moon in a circle, the sun in circle,
:. l+1,., h Af
God the center of that circle.
Appreciation of this would correct the
architecture Of churches whose shape is
often a defiance of divine suggestion
When men build churches, they ought TO
initiate the idea of the Great Architect
and put the audience in circle, Knowing
that the tides of emotion roll more easily
that way than in straight lines. Six thou
sand years ago God flung this world out
of his right hand, but he did not throw
1t out in straight line, but curyilinear,
with a leash of love holding it so as to
bring it back again. The world started
from his hand pure and Edenic. 1t has
been rolling on through regions of moral
ice and distemper. How long it will roll
God only knows, but it will in due time
make complete circuit and come back to
the place where it started, the hand of
God, pure and Edenic.
The history of the world goes in a cir
Gle. Why is it that the shipping in our
day is improving so rapidly? A scientific
shipbulder says it is because men are
initiating in some respects what the small
wits deride the old model of Noah's ark,
not as we see it in old time pictures. but
as it really was according to the account
given. Great ships have we now, but
where is the ship on the sea to-day that
could outride deluge in which the heav-
en- and the earth were wrecked, landing
all the passengers in safety-two of each
kind of living creatures, hundreds of
thousands of species.
The Achievements of PomoIogy.
Pomology will go on with its achieve
ments until after many centuries the
world will have plums and pears equal to
the paradisaical The art of gardening
will grow for centuries, and Sitter the
Downings and Mitchells of the world
have done their best in the far future the
art of gardening will come up to the ar
borescence of the year /. If the makers
of colored glass go on improving, they
may in some centuries be able to make
something equal to the east window of
York minister, which was butt in the
year 1890. We are six centuries behind
those artists, but the world musG keep on
toiling until it shall make the complete
circuit and come up to the skill of those
very men.
If the world continues TO improve in
masonry we shall have after awhile, per-
haps after the advance of centuries, NOR
tar equal to that which / saw in the wall
of an exhumed English city bui.s in the
time of the Romans, LOGO years ago. that
mortar to-day as good as the day in
which it was made, having outlasted the
brick and stone. / say after hundreds of
years masonry may advance to that
point.
II the world stands long enough, we
may have a city as large as they had in
old times--Babylon. five times the size of
London. You 20 into the potteries of
England, and you find them making cups
and vases after the style of the cups and
vases exhumed from Pompeii. The world
is not going back. oh, no. But it is
swinging in circle and will come around
TO the styles of pottery known 50 long
ago as the days of Pompeii. The world
must keep on progressing until it makes
the complete circuit. The curve is in the
right direction; the curve will keep Gu
until it becomes the circle.
Well, now, wha is true in the material
universe is true in Gods moral govern
ment and spiritual arrangement. That is
the meaning Of Ezekiel's wheel. All COM
mentators agree in saying that the wheel
means Gods providence. But wheel Is
of no use unless it turns. and if it turn It
turns around, and if it turns around It
moves in a circle. What then? Are we
parts of great iron machine whirled
around whether we will or not, the vic
tins of inexorable fate? No! So far
from that l shall show you that We our
selves start the circle of good or bad ac
tons and that it viii surely come around
again TO us unless by divine intervention
1t be hindered. Those bad or good actions
may make the circuit of many years, but
come back to US they will as certainly as
that God sits on the circle Of the earth.
Jezebel. the worst woman of the Bible,
Shakespeare copying his Lady Mac
beth from her picture, slew Naboth be-
cause she wanted his vineyard. While
the dogs were eating the body of Naboth
Euijah, the prophet. put down his com
pass and marked n circle from those dogs
clear around to the dogs that should eat
the body Of Jezebel. the murderess. I'm
possible, the people said That will
never happen" Who is that being flung
out of the palace window? Jezebel- A
few hours after they came around. hop
ing to bury her. They find only the palms
~ h. Araawa