News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-12-11


an touches strong drink But the
polygamy, the many wifehood of Mo
hammedanism has made that religion
the unutterable and everlasting curse
OF woman, and when woman sinks the
race sinks. The proposition recently
made in high ecclesiastical places for
the reformation of Mohammedanism
instead of its obliterarion is like an at
tempt to improve a plague or educate
leprosy. There is only one thing
that will ever reform Mohammedan-
ism, and that is its extirpation from
the face of the earth by the power of
the gospel of the Son of God, which
makes not only man but woman free
for this life and free for the life to
come
The spirit of the horrible religion
which pervades the city of Damascus
along whose streets we walk and out OF
whose bazars we make purchases, and
in whose mosques we study the wood
carvings and bedizenments, was de-
monstrated as late as 1860, when in
this city it put to death six thousand
Christians in forty eight hours, and put
to the torch three thousand Christian
homes, and those streets we walk today
were red with the carnage, and the
| shrieks and groans of the dying and
dishonored men and women made this
| place a hell on earth. This went on
until Mohammedan, better than his
religion, ADD el-kader by name, q great
soldier, who in one war had with TWEEN
| ty-fve hundred troops beaten sixty
! thousand of the enemy, now protested
| against this massacre and gathered thu
! Christians of Damascus into castles and
private houses and filled his own home
with the affrighted sufferers.
After while the mob came to his
door and demanded the Christian
dogs" whom he was sheltering. And
Abd-el- Kader mounted horse and
drew his sword, and with a few of his
old soldiers around him charged on
the mob and cried: 'Wretches! Is
this the way you honor the prophet?
My his curses be upon you! Shame
on you'll Shame! You will yet live
to repent. You think you may do
rs you please with the Christians,
but the day of retribution will
come. The Franks will yet turn your
mosques into churches. Not a Chris
tan will l give up. They are my
| brothers. Stand back or l will give
ny men the order to fire" Then by
the might of one great soul under God
the wave of assassination rolled back.
Huzza for Abd-el-Kaderi Although
now we Americans and foreigners pass
through the streets of Damascus up-
hindered, there is in many parts of the
city the subdned kissing of a hatred for
Christianity that if it dared would put
to death every man, woman and child
in Damascus who does not declare allie
glance to Mohammed.
But / am glad TO say that q wide,
hard, splendid turnpike road has within
a few years been constructed from Bey-
rout on the shore of the Mediterranean
to this city of Damascus, and, if ever
again that wholesale assassination is
attempted, French troops and English
troops would, with jingling bits and
lightning hoOfs, dash up the hills and |
down on this Damascus plain and leave |
the Mohammedan murderers dead on |
the floor of their mosques and seraglios |
1t is too late in the history of the world |
for governments to allow such things |
as the modern massacre at Damascus |
For such murderous attacks on Chris
tan disciples the gospel is not so APP
propriate as bullets or sabers sharp and |
heavy enough to cut through with one
stroke from crown of head to saddle.
NOT THE OLD DAMASCUS.
But I must say that this city of Da-
mascus as | see it now is not as absorb
ing as the Damascus of olden times
turn my back upon the bazars, with
rugs fascinating the merchants from
Bagdad, and the Indian textile fabric
of Incompatible make and the manu-
featured saddles and brides gay enough
for princes of the orient to ride and
pull, and baths where ablution becomes
inspiration, and the homes of those bar |
gain makers of today, marbled and di- |
vaned and fountained and upholstered !
and mosaiced and arabesqued and col |
onnaded until nothing can be added |
and the splendid remains of the great |
mosque of John, originally built with |
gates so heavy that it required five men
to turn them, and columns of porphyry
and kneeling places framed in diamond
and seventy-four stained glass windows
and six hundred lamps of pure gold,
single prayer offered in this mosque
said to be worth thirty thousand pray
ers offered in any other place.
turn my back on all these and see
Damascus as it was when this narrow
street, which the Bible calls Straight,
was a great wide street, a New York
Broadway or u Partisan Champs Ely
sees, a great thoroughfare crossing the
city from gate to gate, along which
tramped and rolled the pomp of all ma
tions. There goes Abraham, the father
of all the faithful. He has in this city
been purchasing Il celebrated slave |
There goes Ben Uadad of Bible times
leading thirtytwo conquered mon
archs. There goes David, king, war
rior and sacred poet. There goes Tam
erlane, the conqueror. There goes
Haroun al Raschid, once the com
mander of an army Of ninety-five thou |
sand Persians and Arabs. There comes |
a warrior on his way to the barracks |
carrying that kind of sword which the |
world has forgotten how to make-a
Damascus blade, with the interlacings |
of color changing at every new turn OF |
the light, many cOlors coming and go |
ing and interjoining, the blade so keen
it could cat in twain an object without !
making the lower part of the object |
trenble, with an elasticity that |
could not be broken, though you I
brought the point of the sword clear
back to the hilt, and having q watered |
appearance which made the blade seem
as though just dipped in a clear foun
tain, triumph of cutlery which a thou
sand modern foundrymen and chemists
have attempted in vain to initiate. On |
the side of this street damasks, named |
after this city, figures OF animals and |
fruits and landscapes here being first |
wrought into silk-damasks, and spec |
linens of danaskeening, by which in
this city steel and iron were first graved |
and then the groves filled with wire OF |
administering. But stand back |
or be run over, for here are at the gates !
of the city laden caravans from Aleppo |
in one direction, and from Jerusalem |
in another direction, and caravans of /
all nations, paying toll to this suprem-