Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-12-08

twain an object without making the
! lower part of the object trein BILE, with
au elasticity that could not be broken,
| though you brought the point of the
sword clear back TO the hilt. and having
a watered appearance which made the
| blade seem as though just dipped in
| clear fountain, triumph of cutlery
/ which a thousand modern foundrymen
! ana chemists have attempted in vain
10 initiate. On the side of
this street, damasks, named after
this city, figures of animals, ana fruits,
and landscapes here being first wrought
into silk-damasks. And specimens OF
damaskeemng By which in this city steel
aui iron were first graved. and then the
grooves filed with wire of gold-Dsm-
| askeening. But stand back or be run
over for here are ut the gates of the city
laden caravans from Aleppo in one d.
reciion, and from Jerusalem in another
direction, and caravans of all nations
paying toll 20 this supremacy. Great IS
Damascus.
But what most s.!rs my soul is neither
chariot, nor caravan, nor bGZaar, nor
palace, but blind man passing along
the street. small of stature and insight
ficant i'll personal appearance. Oh, yes;
we have seen him before. He was one of
that cavaleade coming from Jerusalem
to Damascus 20 kill Christians, and We
saw him and his horse tumble up there
on the road some distance out of the city
and he got up Diind. Yes, it is Saul of
Tarsus now gong along this street called
Straight. He is led 10y his friends, for
he cannot see his hand before his facs,
unto the house Of Judas; not Judas the
bad,
BUT JUDAS THE GOOD.
In another part of the city one AnaOias.
not Anauias the liar, but Anania, the
Christian. is told by the Lord to go to
this house of Judas on Straight street,
9ad put his hands on the blind
eyes OF Saul that his sight
might return. "Oh. - said Ananins, 81
dare not go; that Saul is terrible fell
low. He kills Christians, and he will
kill me- "Go,'' said the Lord, and
Auanias went. There sits in blindness
that tremendous persecu.or. He was
great nature crushed. He had started
for the city OF Damascus tor the one
purpose of assassinating Christ's follow
ers, but since that fail from his horse he
has entirely changed. Anauias steps up
to the sigh,less mau, puts his right
thumb on one eye, and the lett thumb
OH the other eye, and In an outburst of
sympathy and love and faith says:
'Brother Saul! Brother Saul. the Lord.
even Jesus that appeared unto thee in
the way Us thou earnest, has sent me
That thou mayest receive thy sight, and
be filled with the Holy Ghost lu-
stautly something like scales fell from
the blind iuau's eyes, and he rose from
that seat the migbti-st eyGngel of al! the
ages q SirW lillian Hamilton for metaphy-
steal ANALYSIS, a John Milton for sublim-
iiy Of thought, Whitateld for popu-
lar eloquence, John Howard for
wide spread philanthropy but more than
all of them put together inspired, thun-
derholted, muliipotent, apostolic. Did
Judas, the kind host of this blind man
OF Auanias the visitor, see scales drop
from the sigh,less eyes? [ think not.
But Paul knew they had fallen. and
that is ulI that happens 10 any of US
when we are converted. The binding
scales drop from our eyes, and We seq
things differently.
A CHRISTIAN WOMAN,
missionary among most degraded
tribe whose religion was never TO wash
or improve personal appearance, was
trying to persuade one of those hrathen
women not only Of need of change of
heart, but change of habits, which
would result in change of appearance. *
but the effort failed until the
missionary has. placed in her own hall
way a looking glass, and when the bar
buric woman passing through the hall
saw herself in the mirror for the first
time, she exclaimed: :Can it be pos
sible look like that?" and appalled, at
bar an
old religion and asked to he instructed
In the Christian religion. And so we
feel that we are all right In our sinful
aud unchanged condition, until the
scales fall from Our ewes, AID III the
looking glass of God 5 word we see our
selves rs we really are, until Divine
grace Transforms us.
There are many people in this house
to-day as blind as Paul was before Ana
MAS touched his eyes. And there are
many here from whose eyes the scales
have already fnllen. You see all subjects
and all things differently-God, and
Christ, and eternity, and your OWE i'm
mortal spirit. Sometimes the scales
do not all fall at once. When
l was boy at Mount Plensa"t,
one Sunday afternoon reading Dodd-
ridges Rise ana Progress of Religion in
the Soul, Ihat afternoon some OF the
scales tell from my eyes and I saw
little. After had been 10 the ministry
about gear, one Sunday afternoon in
the village parsonage reading the Bible
story of the Syro-Pheuician faith,
other scales fell from nv ewes and saw
better. Two Sunday evenings ago,
while preparing for the evening service
In New York, picked up book that
did not re member to have seen before,