The Central Cross

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 31, 1882

The Central Cross.

IN the palace of Justice at Rome they take you sometimes in a chamber with strangely painted frescoes on the ceiling, around the walls and upon the floor, in all kinds of grotesque forms. You cannot reduce them to harmony, you cannot make out the perspective; it is a bewildering maze of confusion. But there is one spot in the floor of that room, and one only, standing upon which, every line falling into harmony, the perspective is perfect, the picture flashes out upon you, instinct with meaning in every line and panel. You can see at that point, and that only, the design of the artist that painted it. I believe that this world is just as bewildering a maze looked at from every point except one. I look back upon the records of history; I look back upon the speculations of science; I endeavor to gaze into the future of this world's career; wherever I turn I am opposed by the mysteries that hem me in and crush me down, until I take my