Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1893 — ETERNITY’S EMBLEM. [ARTICLE]

ETERNITY’S EMBLEM.

“There Was a Rainbow Round About the Throne.” The Great Circle of Good and Eviil—The Evil Ye Do Shall Return Unto You— Dr. Talmage's Southern Tour. Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at Atlanta, Ga., last Sunday. Subject: "The Circle of the Earth” Text: Isaiah xi, 22, “It is he that sitteth upon the circie of the earth.” He said: While yet people thought that the world was flat, 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 mpst beautiful figure in all geometry is the circle. God made the universe on the plan of the circle. There are in the natural world straight lines, angles, paraiieiograms, diagonals, quadrangles, lmt these evidently are not God’s favorites. Almost everywhere where you will find him geometrizing you will 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 it .would 1 avo been a full orb —a periphery. An ellipse is a circle pressed only a little too hard at the sides. Giant’s Causeway in Ireland shows what God thinks of mathematics. There, are over *15,000 columns of rock's —octagonal, hexagonal, pentagonal. These rocks seem to have been made by rule and compass. Every artist has his moulding room, where he may make fifty shapes; but he chooses one shape as preferable to all others. When men build churches they ought to imitate the idea of the Great Architect and put the audience in a circle, knowing that the tides of emotion roll more easily that way than in a straight line, The history of the world goes iu a circle. Why is it that, the shipping in our day is improving so rapidly? It is because men are imitating the old model of Noah’s ark. A ship carpenter gives that as his opinion. Although so much derided by small wits, that ship of Noah’s time beat the Majestiefarid the Etruria and the City of Paris, of which we boast so much, j Pomology will go on with its aehivemen ts until after many centuries the world will have pears and plums equal the paradisaical. The art of gardening will grow for centuries, and after the Downjngs. and Mitchells of the world have done their best , in the far future the art of gardenj ing will come up to the arborescence of the year 1. 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 minster, which was built in 1290. If the world continues to improve in masonry, we shall have after awhile, perhaps after an advance of centuries, mortar equal to that which I saw last summer in a wall of an exhumed English city built in the time of the Romans, 1,600 years ago. 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 back to the styles of pottery known so long ago as the days of Pompeii. Well, how. my friends, what is true in the material universe is true in God’s moral government and spiritual arrangement. That is the meaning of Esekiel’s wheel. All the commentators agree in saying that, the wheel means God’s providence. But a wheel is of no use unless it turn, and if it turns it turns around, and if it turns 1 around it moves in a circle. Jezebel, the worst woman of the Bible, slew Naboth because she wanted his vineyard. While the dogs were eating the body of Naboth, Elisha the prophet put down his compass and marked a circle i from those dogs clear around to the | dogs that should eat the body of 1 Jezebel the murderess. “Impossi- | ble," the people said; “that will never happen.” Who is that being flung out of the palace window? Jezebel. But it is sbmetimes the case that this circle swoeps through a century or through many centuries, The ! world started with a theocracy for government—that is God was the president and emperor of the world. People got tired of a theocracy. They said: “We don’t want God directly interfering with the affairs of the worid; give us a monarchy.” The world liatf a monarchy. From & monarchy it is going to have a limited monarchy. After while the limited monarchy will be given up, I and tho republican form of government will be every where dominant I and recognized. Then the world ' will get tired of the republican form I of government, and it will have on l anarchy, which is no government at I all. And then all nations, finding I out that man is not capable of rightj eously governing man, will cry out j again for a theocracy and say, “Let God come back and conduct the affairs of the world.!’ But it is often the case that the rebound is quicker and the circle Is sooner completed. You resolve that I you will do what good you can. In , one week you put a word of counsel in the heart of a Sabbath school chdd. During that, same <reek you give a l tter of introduction to a young man struggling in business. Dur'ng the sumo week you make an exhr.ration in a prayer meeting. It is all gone; you will never hear of It perhaps, you think. A few years after a man comes up

to you aud says. “You don’t know me, do you?" You say, “No, I don’t remember ever to have seen you.” “Why,” he says. “I was in the Sabbath school class over which you were the teacher. One Sunday you invited me to Christ; I accepted the offer. You see that church with two towers yonder?” “Yes,” you say, He says; “That is where I preach;” or; “Do you see that governor’s house? That 1 is where I live.” One day a man comes to you says, “Good morning.” You look at him and says, “Why, you have the advantage of me; I cannot place you." He says, “Don’t you remember thirty years ago giving a letter of introduction to a young man—a letter of introduction to Moses H. Grthnefl?” “Yes, yes; 1 do.” He says: “I am the man. That was my first step toward a fortune, but I have retired from business now and am giving my time to philanthropies and public interests. Come up and see me.” But what Ls true of the good is just as true of the bad. You utter a slander against your neighbor. It has gone forth from your teeth; it will never come back, you think. You have done the man all the misr chief you can. You rejoice to see him wince. You say, “Didn't I give it to him?” That word has gone out, that slanderous word, on its poisonous and blasted way. You think it will never do you any harm. But lam watching that word, and Isee.it beginning to curve, and .it curves around, and it is aiming at your heart. You had better dodge it. You cannot dodge it. It rolls into your bosom and after it rolls in a word of an old book, which says, “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again;” You maltreat an aged parent. You begrudged him the room in your house. You are impatient of his whimsicalities and garrulity. It makes you mad to hear him toll the same story twice. You give him food he cannot masticate. 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 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 children will wonder if you arc going to live forever, and wonder if you will never be taken away. The circle turns quickly, very quickly. Oh, what a stupendous thought that the good and the evil we start come back! Do you know that the Judgment Day will be only tho points at which the circles join, the good and the bad we have done coming back to us unless divine intervention hinder —coming back to us with welcome of delight or curse of condemnation? Oh, I would like to see Paul, the invalid missionary, at the moment when his influence comes to full orb —his influence rolling out through Antioch,. through Cyprus, through Lystra, through Corinth, through Athens, through Asia, through Europe, through America, through the First century, through five centuries, through twenty centuries, through all the succeeding centuries, through earth, through heaven, and at last, the wave of influence having made full circuit, strikes his great soul. I should not want to see the countenance of Voltaire when his influence comes to full orb. When the fatal hemorrhage 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 116 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. “Well, now," say people in this audience, “this in some respects is a very good theory, and ia some others a very sad one. Wo would like to have all the good we have ever done come back to us, but the thought that all the sins wc have evere committed will come back to us fills us with affright." My brother, I have to tell you that God can break the circle and wild 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. God's 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 that he is sure to forgot, and that is pardoned transgression. How do I know it? I will provo it. “Their sins and their iniquities I will rem m'er no more." Come into that state this morning, my deir brother, my dear sister. “Blessed is one whose transgressions wo forgiven. ’ But do not make the mistake of thinking that this doctrine of the circle Stops with this life; it rolls through heaven. You might quote lrj opposition to me what St. John says about the city of heaven. He says it “lieth four square." That does •not seem to militate against this idea, but you know there ia mony a square house that has a family circle facing each other, and in a circle movlqg, and I can prove that this is so in regard to heaven. St. John so vs, “I heard the voioe of raanv angels round about the throne, and tho beasts, and the elders." ;