¥ Be § be ape sem rE ——r THE BIBLE'S GREAT CIRCLES. —pn. OUR GOOD AND EVIL ACTIONS. rrr fe ee Dr. Talmage Preaches a Sermon in tho Sunny Southland. Ee Rev. Dr. Talmage, who is now making a tour of the Southern cities, preached atAtlan- ta, Ga., Sunday. The throngs in and around the audience hall were beyond estimate. The subject chosen was, ‘The Circle of the Earth,” the text being Isaiah xi, :22, “It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth.” 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 most beautiful figure in all geometry is the circle. God made the universe on the plan of a cir- cle. 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 will roll more easily that way than in straight lines, : The hisiory of the world goes in a circle. Why is itthat the shipping in cur day is im- proving so rapidly? Is it because men are imitating the old model of Noah's ark. A ship carpenter gives that as his opinion. Al- though so al derided by small wits, the ship of Noah's time beat the Majestic and the Etruria, and the City of Paris, of which we boast of so much. Where is the ship on whe sea to-day that could outride a deluge in -which the heaven aud the earth were wreck- «ed, landing all the passengers in safety?— wtwo of each kind of living creatures, thous- :ands of species. 1f the makers of colored glass go on im- proving, they may in some centuries be :able to make something equal to the east window of York Minster, which was built dn 1200. If the worldstands long enough, & may have a city as large as they had in olden {imes, Babylon, five times the size of London. You go into the potteries in Eng- land, 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 tle style of pottery known so 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 on until it becomes the circle. Well now, my friends. what is true in the material universe is true in God's morai government and spiritual arrangement. But 1t is sometimes the case that this circle sweeps through a century, or through mauy centuries. The world started with a theo- cracy for government; that is, God was the President and Emperor of the world. Peo- ple got tired of a theocracy. They said: “We don't want God directly interfering with the affairs of the worl; give us a mon- archy.”” The world has a ‘monarchy. From a monarchy it is going to have a lim- ited monarchy. “After a while. the limited monarchy will be given up, and the repub- Jican form of government will be every- where dominant and recognized. Then the world will get tired of the re- Publican form of government, and it will ave an anarchy, which is no goverament at all. And then, all nations finding out that man is not capable of righteously gov- erning man. will ery out for a theocracy. and say: ‘'Let God come back and conduct | the aftairs of the world.” 1 But it is often the case that the rebound | is quicker and the circle is sooner com- pleted. You resolve that you will do what good you can. In one week you put a word of counsel in the heart of a Sabbath school child. During that week same yougivea let- ter of introduction to a young man struggl- ing in business. During the same week vou make an exhor:ation ina prayer meeting. It is ali gone; you will never hear of it, per- haps, vou think. A few years after a man comes up to you and says, "You don’t know me, do you?’ Yousay: “No, I don't re- member ever to haveseen you.” Why," he says, *‘I was in the Sabbath school class over which you were 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 is where live. One day a man comes to you and says, “Good morning.” You look at him and say. “Why, you have the advantage of me, cannot place you.” He says, “Don’t vou remember 30 years ago giving a letter of in- troduction to a young man—a letter of in- troduction to Moses H. Grinnell!’ *Yes, yes, 1 do.” He says, “J am the man: that was my first step toward a fortune; but I have retired from business mow, and am giving my time to philanthropies and public interests. Come up and see nie.” Or a man comes up to you, and says, “I want to introduce myself toyou, I went in- to a prayer-meeting in Atlanta some years ago; I sat back by the door: you arose to male an exhortation; that talk changed the course of my life,and if I ever getto heaven, under God I will owe my salvation to you.” In only 10, 20 or 30 years, the circle swept out and swept back again to your own gra.e- ful heart. But sometimes itis a wider cir- cle, and does not return for a great while, I saw a bill of expenses for burning Latimer and Ridley. The bill of expenses says One load of fir fagots.... ........ ..3s. 4d. Cartage of four loads of wood.. 2s. Jtermn, a pOSt........... eam a Item, two chains... Item, two staples....... . td. Item four laborers...... el 2s, 8d. 4 hat was a cheap tire, considering all the circumstaaces; but it kindled a light that shone all around the world and aroused the martyr spirit, and out from that burning Latimer and Ridley rolled the circle wider and wider starting other circles, convoluting, overrunuing, circumscribing, overarching all heaven —a circle. Put what is true of the good is just as true of the bad. You utter aslander against your neighbor. it has gone forth from your teeth; it will never come back, you tnink. You cannot dodge it. It rolls into your bosom, and after it, roll in a word ofan old book. which says, With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” You maltreat an aged parent, You be- grudged him the room in your house. You are impatient of his whimsicalities and garrulity. It makes you mad to hear him tell 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. 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 o the grinding will be low, and you will tell the same story twice, and your children wiil wonder if you are going to live forever and wonder if you will never be taken away. A gentleman passing along the street saw a son drageing his father into the street by the hair of his head. The gentlcmen, out- raged at this conduct was about 10 punish the offender, when the old man arose and said: *‘Don’t hurt him; its all right; 40 years ago this morning | dragged out my father by the hair of his head!" + Itis a circle. Do you know that the judgment day will be only the points at which the circles join, the good and bad we have done coming back to us, unless divine intervention hinder—com- ing back to us with welcome of delight or curse of condemnation. : ; Oh [ would like to see Paul, the invalid missionary, at the nioment when hw infla- ence comes to full orb—his inruence rolling out through Antioch, through Cyprus, through Ly 2, through Corinth, through Athens, through Asia, through Iaurope, through America, through the first century, through five centuries. throu rh A nturies, ghrough all the earth, through heaven; and at last the wave of influence having made full circuit, strikes his great soul. Oh, then I would like to see him. No one can tell the wide sweep of the circle of his influence, save the one who is seated on the circle of the earth. 1 should not want to see the countenance of Voltaire when his influence comes to full orb. When the fatal hemorrhage seized him at 83 years of aze 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 Ger- many, widening through all Europe. widen- ing through America, widening through the one hundred and fifteen yeas that have gone by since he died, “Well now,” say pzople in this audience, “this in some rai 72C\8 is a very glad theory, and in others a very sad one; we would like to have all the good wc have every done come back to us, butthe thoughtthat all the sins we have ever committed will come back to us, fills us with attright.” My brother, I have to tell you God can break that circle, and will do so at your call. {can bring 20 passages of scripture to prove that when God, for Christ's sake, for- gives a man, the sins of his past life, never come back. The wheel may roll on and roll on, but you take your position behind the cross, snd the wheel strikes the cross and is shattered forever, The sins fly off from the circle into the perpendicular, falling at right angles with complete oblivion. Forgiven! Forgiven! The meanest thing aman can do is, after some difficulty has been settled, to bring it up again; and God will not be so mean as that. 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 he is sure to forget, and that is pardoned transgression. How do know it? I will prove it. “Their sins and their iniguities will [ remember no more.” Come into that state this morning, my dear brother, my dear sister. *‘Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven.” But do not make the mistake of thinking that this doctrine of the circle stops with the life; it rollsion through heaven. You might quote in opposition to me what St, John says about tbe city of heaven. He says it ‘lieth four square.” That does seem to militate against tuis idea, but you know there is many a square house that has a family circ e facing each other, and in a eir- cle moving and I can prove that this is soin regard to Heaven. St. John savs, “1 heard the voice of many angles round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders,” Aganh he says: “There was a rainbow round the throne,” The former two instance a circle: the last either a circle or semicircle. The seats focing each other, the angels fuc- ing each other. Heaven an amphitheatre of glory. Circumferences of patriarch and prophet and apostle. Circumstances of Scotch Coven -nters and “Theoan legion and Albigenses. Circumstances of the good of all uges. Periphery of sp'endor unimagin- ed and indescribable. A circle! A circle! But every circumference must have a cen- tre, and what is the centre of this heavenly circumference? Christ. His all the glory. His all thee praise. His all the crowns. All heaven wreathed into a garland around 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. Nar- row 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, seated on the circle of heaven! On Christ, the solid rock I stand; A!l other ground is sinking sand. BAD SERVICE IN AMERICA. “We Are the Only People Who Willingly Pay for Pour Help. The Americans are the only peopla in the world who pay well for bad cooking and detestable service, grudg- ingly given, glad in most instances (if rural housekeepers) to “get a girl,” no matter how inefficient and dis- qualified she may be, for the work of the house. She must be fed, clothed and respected and her wages paid, writes Mrs. Sherman in the North American Review. She may break crockery to any extent, often to that of thousands of dollars; she may throw away sugar and flour and meat and potatoes by bad cookery; she may be insolent to her mistress, taking her own time for going out day or evening; and she may badly wash the flannels and scorch the gen- tlemen’s shirts; the mistress must put up with if, else the precious creature will leave and the lady must do her own work; or as a dressmaker who had badly cut some gowns for an employer remarked, putting the frag- ments in at the door: “Here, finish your gowns yourself.” This is not good political economy. "The servant should be taught moral obligation. We must remember that there is no tyranny in a republic; there can be pone but the tyranny of the masses. And as the welfare of the millions is bound up in this question, as the comfort and prosperity of our great estate must depend upon the indus- trial ability and honesty of those who serve us for wages, it follows that the first thing to teach a servant isa sense of moral obligation. When we take into consideration the early his- tory of those who come to us as do- mestic servants, the marvel turns out to be not that they are so deficient, but that they are not more so. Look | at the poorer classes in the streets of Glasgow, for instance. We need nov cross to the adjacent kingdom. We krow all about “the pig and the pra- ties,” and really from Pig-and-t’ratie- . dom come some of the best of our nurses and maide. No one who has kept house a number of years but has a sprinkling of delicious and refresh- ing gratitude, in her reminiscence, over some dear and faithful Biddy. Their faults are those of ignorance and that double brain which is al- ways tripping itself up (the cause of the Irish bull), the impossibility of a clear comprehension of the straight road, blinking and being blinded by their own wit, and their aimless, in- accurate absence of logic. How much could be done by giving these Norahs the healthy and bracing influence of honest puritan training in a New England town! We all know what it has done for some of them—made them perfect servants. A Touisville and Nashville night watch man, benumbed with cold, caused a col lision on the Licking river bridge at Mill dale, Ky. Engineer Walter Gibson of Louis ville was fatally injured. Engineer James Carr and Fireman Goodman, of Leuisville snd John Wanks, of Milldale, were pain- fully hurt. Sea ee A Santa Fe passenger train was wrecked mear Keokuk, Ia, by a broken rail. Wil. liam Ross, waiter in the dining ear, was { killed and eight other train employes ia iured. SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON FOR SUNDAY, JAN. 29, “The Spirit of The Lord”, Zech. 1-10. iv. Golden Text: Zech, iv.8. Com- mentary. 1. "And the anzel that talked with me came again and wakel me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleen.” The mortal body can stand but little of joy or sorrow without refreshing sleep. Even on the mount of transfiguration and in the garden of Geth- semane, the mozt joyful and the most sor- rowful events of Scripture, wa see holy men asleep. As to an anzel's touch see I Kings XiX. 5, 7; Acts xii, 7; Dan. x., 10, and re- member that they minister unto you if yon are an heir of salvation (Heb. 1., 14.” A spiritual sleep or inability to grasp or evan Lecome interested very much in tha things of God i: greatly to be denlored, bur is very common even among Christians. Caresand riches and pleasures of this life ~hoke the word (Luke wviii., 14). Following men in- stead of THE MAX, or dependiny upon ordi- nances instead ot upon Hiy, tend to soirit- ual sleep (I Car. 1ie., 1; xi, 30). But see Rom., xiii., 11; Eph. v., 14, and set us ask God by His Spiritsto awaken us at any cost, 2. “And said unto me, What seesc thou? And I said, I have looked, and, behold, a candlestick all of gold.” The prophet would think of the golden candlestick of the taber- nacle and those of the temple. © They gava light in the holy plac: and were daiy trimmed and replenished with oi’. Israel had been chosen and brought out of Egypt to be a light for God among the nations. ‘I'heir sin and captivity hal obscured the light, which was God, in taeir midst. The prophet is now being tauzht that God will vetmake Israel a lignt notwithstanding her j resent desolate condition. Not only shall she be cieansed and ciothed as in tae pre- vicus vision, but it shall be said to her: *‘Arise, shine, for thy light 1s come, nodrthe glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” ‘“I'ne Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory” (Isa. Ix. 1, 19, 20). 3. **And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the eather upon the left side thereof.” By reading verse 12 with verses 2 and J it would seem that the prophet saw a lampstand bearing seven lamps; a great central bowl having either one or seven pipes leading to each lamp; then on the other side an olive tree, with a golden pipe trom each tree to the central Lowl—in other words, a self-supplying lamp stand apart from any help of man. 4. “So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, Wkat are tbese, my Lord?’ This question js re- peated in verses 11 and 12 and answered in verse 14, and as those verses are not includ- ed in the lesson this 1s the place to consider them. As without the oil there could be no hight and without the trees no oil, we see the importance of this question and answer. What then is meant by the two anointei ones? The only cass of people anocinted in Scripture are priests and kings (a propbet once). Jesus is the great Priest-King. He was typefied in these offices by Aaron and Moses, tut at the time of the lesson by Joshua of the prevous chapter and Zerub- baebl of this chapter. lf you would ba a light in this world for Him, you must know Him not cnly as your priest, having put away your sins and living to make interces- sion for you, but also your personal king or Jord or proprietor, you being ready todo whatever He may appgnt. 5. “Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou pot what these be?! And I said, No, my Tord.” See also versa 13. Contession of ignorance, combined with willingness to be taught, is a good attitude of soul, and where this is found God will send g teich:r—an angel if neal be—to show us that which is noted in the Scripture of Truth (Dan. x., 21). See the story of Cornelius and Peter and the angel in Acts x. 6. “This is the word of the Lord unt) Zerubbabel, saying Not by might nor by ower, but by My Spirit, saith tne Lord ol osts.? Not the wisdom nor the might ot map, but only the Spirit of God can accom- plish any work for Gol. We are not to glory in wisdom or riches or might, buc only in the Lord (Jer. ix., 23, 24). Jesus said, ‘Without Me ye can do notning” (John xv., 5). And even the men wno nad been nearest to Him had to wait for the decent of the Spirit, that they might be encured with power ior service {Luke xXiv., 49: Actsi., 8). 7. “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt becoms a plain.” A mountain may represent any great ditliculty and is sometimes used to represent a kingdom (Jer. li., 24, 25... The kingdom of satan sball yec ve thrown down. All the kingdoms of this world