Creeper

 

 

     Many years ago our oldest daughter decided to make an archway for the entrance to the garden as you can see.

 

 

 

 

     After a while it was decided to take some of the vine from the other side of the driveway by the cabin that was growing wild and planted some by each side of the arch.  As the years went by it was very prolific with its leaves and was happy with its situation.  We learned that the name of this vine is the Virginia creeper. 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

Time tells and the arch could no longer stand and hold all the branches so it was removed and there is now a mound of Virginia creeper in that spot but we sure enjoyed it for a long time.  In the fall the color is quite awesome to behold when it turns red and the trumpet vine turns yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Planting Vines On Sunday


 "In the early part of the fourth century occurred an event which could not have been foreseen, but which threw an immense weight in favor of Sunday into the balances already trembling between the rival institutions, the Sabbath of the Lord and the festival of the sun. This was nothing less than an edict from the throne of the Roman Empire in behalf of "the venerable day of the sun." It was issued by the emperor Constantine in A.D. 321, and is thus expressed:-  

"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest, the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven. Given the seventh day of March; Crispus and Constantine being consuls, each of them for the second time."   

Of this law, a high authority thus speaks:-   

"It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday; and who, according to Eusebius, appointed it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman Empire. Before him, and even in his time, they observed the Jewish Sabbath, as well as Sunday; both to satisfy the law of Moses, and to imitate the apostles who used to meet together on the first day. By Constantine's law, promulgated in 321, it was decreed that for the future the Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work." 

Another eminent authority thus states the purport of this law:- 

"Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (A.D. 321) that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but he allowed the country people to follow their work on that day." 3 

Thus the fact is placed beyond all dispute that this decree gave full permission to all kinds of agricultural labor. The following testimony of Mosheim is therefore worthy of strict attention:-  

"The first day of the week, which was the ordinary and stated time for the public assemblies of the Christians, was in consequence of a peculiar law enacted by Constantine, observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been."    

What will the advocates of first-day sacredness say to this? They quote Mosheim respecting Sunday observance in the first century - which testimony has been carefully examined in this work 2 - and they seem to think that his language in support of first-day sacredness is nearly equal in authority to the language of the New Testament; in fact, they regard it as supplying an important omission in that book. Yet Mosheim states respecting Constantine's Sunday law, promulgated in the fourth century, which restrained merchants and mechanics, but allowed all kinds of agricultural labor on that day, that it caused the day to be "observed with greater solemnity than it had formerly been." It follows, therefore, on Mosheim's own showing, that Sunday, during the first three centuries, was not a day of abstinence from labor in the Christian church. On this point, Bishop Taylor thus testifies:-" 




1873 JNA, HSFD 343 





 




 "The angel that had power over fire cried, "Thrust in Thy sharp sickle, and gather the Margin

clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe." Two vines have been growing in the earth, one of heavenly origin; the other of the earth, earthy. Christ is the true vine, and His people are the branches. The vine of the earth, Satan, has many branches; its growth is far more luxuriant than the heavenly one, but it is the vine of Sodom,-its "grapes are grapes of gall; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of dragons." Terrible is the vintage when the angels gather the clusters, and throw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.  

Nation rises against nation; because the angels no longer hold the winds of strife. The whole earth gathers to fight in the great battle of Armageddon; and so great is the slaughter that for miles about the city, blood flows to the horse bridles. At last the Father's throne is moved, and heaven's gates are thrown open, as Christ and the Father, seated together on thrones of life, surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousands of angels, approach the earth. There is silence in heaven.  

The waiting saints hear the voice of Jehovah as it rolls through the earth. They look upward toward a small cloud which appears in the eastern horizon. It comes nearer and nearer; and as its glory unfolds, earth beholds her King, seated upon it. In the hand of the  

King, is the law of God, which is as a sharp twoedged sword, and the wicked fall before the brightness of His countenance. Those who are one with Christ, will be drawn upward to the Lord of life, and will mingle with the hosts about the throne."




1905 SNH, SSP 264