Newport weekly independent., 1901-11-29

 Ito hear him tell the same story twice. You give him food he cannot masti- kcate. You wish he was away. You wonder if he is going to live forever fHe 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 your eye will be dim, and your gait will halt, and the sound of the grinding will be low, and you will tell the same story twice, and your chil- 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 a 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 S3 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 i'm l, f T., Germany, widening through all Flu rope, widening through America, widening through the 123 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 life will beat against his dismayed spirit, and at that moment it will be enough to mala, 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.
 ''We]l, now," say some, ''this in some respects is very glad theory and in others 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 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 l know it? will prove it. "Their sins and their ini-
 
 "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven
 But do not make the mistake of thinking that this doctrine of the cir cle stops with this life. It 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 cle, but do you not know there is many a square house that has family cir cle facing each other and in a circle moving, andfI can prove that this is so in regard to Heaven. St. John says: "I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders" And again he says: "I saw round about the throne four and twenty seats." And again he says: There was a rainbow round about the throne"
 The two former imply 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 Thebian legion and Albigenses, circumference of the good of all ages, periphery of splen- dor unimagined and indescriba bde, a circle, circle!
 But every circumference must have 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. Narrow 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, on the circle of Heaven!