astingly changing. Let us
imagine a perfect circle with a stone permanently fixed in the center
and a man walking within, and every move he makes from side to side
affecting his relations to the center. So it is with God and the
children of men. He is immutable. He is the center of the circle. In the
right hand side of this circle are the innocent and the obedient, in the
enjoyment of all its riches, peace, pardon and all spiritual blessings.
These blessings were provided for all men, and presented in the gospel
of peace; and in the left side of this circle are all the threatenings
of God and all the wickedness and miseries of men. The wicked at the
left are able to _convert_ around to the right. In doing this they leave
their sins and miseries and come around where all the blessings of the
great salvation have always been, are, and will be until time is no
more. In all the work of human redemption there is no place for change
in God. The center has never changed. Man _alone_ changes. God has not
bestowed _special_ pardoning grace. Such phraseology is unknown in the
gospel. "His grace was given us in Jesus Christ before the world began."
2 Tim. i, 9. All that we or any others have to do is to live on the
Christ side of this circle--the right hand. If we are sinners it is our
duty to convert around to the right into new relations containing all
that is grand, glorious and desirable. The sinner, led by the motives of
the gospel, changes sides; leaving the kingdom of darkness upon the
left, and crossing the line drawn through the center of the circle, he
passes into the kingdom of light. It seems strange that intelligent men
and women should be constantly throwing mystery around a matter that is
so plain and simple. But we are aware that, by long dwelling on an idea,
and from the excited and abnormal sensitiveness of the mind, we
sometimes lose ourselves to truth amidst our own creations, which become
in the imagination stern realities, producing a species of monomania or
religious insanity.

Long dwelling upon the idea that conversion is a special work of God
destroys all disposition _to convert_, and causes men to be at ease in
disobedience. We will to do those things, and those only, which we
believe to be in our power. We are not so destitute of common sense as
to undertake that which we know to be out of our power. I never attempt
to fly, or raise a weight that I know to be far above my strength. So it
is in the quest