The Bossier banner., 1901-12-05
NO. A..

You give him food he cannot masti-
cate. You wish he was 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 Oh that subject. After
awhile your eye will be dim, and your
gait will halt, and the sound of the
will be low, and you will tell
the same story twice, and your chill
dren will wonder if you will never 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 the "old chap" What are
those rough words with which your
children are accosting you? They
are the echo of the very words you
used in the ear of your old father 40
years ago. What is that which you are
trying to chew, but find it unmas-
ticable. and your jaws ache, and you
surrender the attempt? Perhaps it
may be the gristle which you gave to
your father for his breakfast 40 years
ago.
l would like to see the countenance
of Voltaire when his influence comes
to full orb. When the fatal hemor-
rhage seized him at SO 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 widen
ing through France. widening through
Germany, widening through all Eu-
rope, widening through America,
widening through the 1913 years that
have gone since he died, widening
through earth, widening through the
great future, until at last the accumu-
lated influence of his baleful teachings
and dissolute lifo viii beat against his
dismayed spirit, and at that momentit 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 some, "this in some
respects is very glad theory and in
others a very bad one. We would like
to have 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, / have to tell
you God can break that circle and will
do SO at your call. l can bring 20 pas
sages 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 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 and fall at right
angles with complete oblivion. For
given! Forgiven! The meanest thing
a man can do is, after some difficulty
has been settled, to bring it up again,
and God will not do anything like 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
gressions. How do / know it? will
prove it. Their sins and their ini-
quities will l remember no more"
BLESSED is he whose transgression is
forgiven"
But do not make the mistake OF
thinking that this doctrine of the cir
Gle stops with this life. 1t rolls on
through Heaven. You might quote in
opposition to me what ST. John says
about the City of Heaven. He says
it "lieth four square" That does seem
to initiate against this idea of cir
Gle, but do you not know there is many
square house that has family cir
Gle facing each other and in circle
moving, and I can prove that this is
so in regard to Heaven. St. John says:
II heard the voice of many angels
round about the throne, and the beasts
and the elders" And again he Says:
II saw round about the throne four
and twenty seats" And again he says:
"There was rainbow round about
the throne"
The two former imply a circle, the
last either circle or semicircle, the
seats facing each other, the angels fac
ing each other, the men facing each
other, Heaven an amphitheater of
glory, circumference of patriarch and
prophet and apostle, circumference of
Scotch covenanters and The ebian legion
and Albigenses, circumference of the
good of all ages, periphery of splen-
dor unimagined and indescribabde, a
1 ofro1o circlof
But every circumference must have
center, and what IS the center of this
heavenly circumference? Christ-Hia
all the glory, His all the praise, His ali
the crowns, all Heaven wreathed into
a garland round about Him. Take off
the imperial sandal from His foot anG
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
Narrow the circle around His grea
heart. 0 Christ, the Saviour, 0 Christ
the Man, o Christ, the God, keep TIL,
throne forever, seated on the circle o
the earth, on the circle of Heaven!
On Christ, the solid rock. stand1
All other ground Is shifting sand.