The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-11-05

we do returns to bless or blast us; text,
Isaiah Il, %, at is he that stitch upon
the circle of the earth"
While yet people thought that the
world was fat and thousands of years
before they found out that it was round,
Isaiah, In my text, intimated the shape
of it, God sitting upon the circle Of the
earth. The most beautiful figure in all
geometry 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 favorites. 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. II it had lived long enough, it
would have been a full orb, a periphery.
An ellipse is a circle pressed only a little
too hard at the sides.
Giants Causeway, in Ireland, shows
what God thinks of mathematics. There
arc over $4,000 columns of rocks-octago-
nal, ~hexagonal, pentagonal. These rocks
seem to have been made by rule and COM
pass. Every artist has his molding room,
where he may make fifty shapes, but he
chooses one shape as preferable to all
others. l will not say that the Giants
Causeway was the worlds molding room,
but L do say out of a great many figures
God seems to have selected the circle as
the best. st is he that stitch on the cir
Gle of the earth" The stars in a circle,
the moon in a circle, the SUI in a circle,
the universe in n circle and the throne of
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 q 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
it out in a straight line, but curvilinear,
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 OF 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 q cir
Gle. Why is it that the shipping in our
day is improving so rapidly? A scientific
~shipbuilder 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 OIL the sea today that
could outride a deluge in which the heav-
n-l %h4 ~ -&h --Aro rrnnl-n1 LANDING
all the passengers in safety-two Of each
kind of living creatures, hundreds of
thousands of species.
The Achievements of POmOlOgy.
Pomology will go on with it's achieve
ments until after many centuries the
world will nave plums and pears equal to
the paradisaical. The art of gardening
will grow for centuries, and after the
Downings and Mitchells of the world
have lone 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 built in the
year 1890. We are six centuries behind
those artists, but the world must keep on
toiIing until it shall make the complete
circuit and come up to the skill of those
very men.
II 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 exbuurd English city built in the
time of the Eo-1anS. 1000 years ago. that
mor'ar today as good as the day in
which il WIS made. having outlasted the
hr,.i OIL .-DD, GOV aftor b1Dlrp6 nf
years masoury NAV advance to that
point.
II the world stands long enough. we
may have Il city a. large as they had in
old timeS-BahylOn. five times the size OF
London. You GO 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 a circle and will come around
to the styles of pottery known so long age
as the days OF Pompeii. The world must
keep on progressing until it makes the
complete circuit. The curte is in the
light direction: the curve will keep or
until il becomes the circle.
Well, now, what is true in the materia
universe is true in Gods moral govern
ment and spiritual arrangement That i:
Iuo cdulu VI L&LChIO1 . "hCSAs %AA WIN
mentators agree in saying that the vhee
means Gods providence. But a wheel il
OF no use unless it turns, and if it turn i
turns around, and If it turns around
moves in q circle. What then? Are w
parts Of a great iron machine whirlet
around whether we will or not, the vic
tins of memorable fate? No! So ia
from that / shall show you that we our
selves start the circle of good or bad &C
tons and that it will surely come aroun'
again to US unless by divine interventiol
it be hindered. Those bad or good action
may make the circuit of many years, bu
come back to us they will as certainly q
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. Will
the dogs were eating the body of Nabot