News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-12-11
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches A SERMON
ON DAMASCUS.


Greater Than Some Modern Blindness.
BROOKLYN, Dec THE New York
Academy of Music was filled with an
audience of nearly six thousand per
sons at The Christian Herald service
this evening, when Dr. Talmage deliv.
cred the eleventh sermon of his series
on Palestine and the adjoining coun-
tries. This same sermon, as on pre-
vious Sundays, had been preached in
the morning to another large audience
in the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The subject was Damascus, and the
text, ''As he journeyed he came near
Damascus" Acts tx, 3. Dr. Talmage
said:
In Palestine we spent last night in a
mud hovel of one story, but camels
and sheep in the basement. Yet never
did the most brilliant hotel on any con
tinent seem so attractive to me as that
structure. If we had been obliged to
stay in tent, as we expected to do that
night, we must have persisted. A vio-
1GIt SlOIIlI llSlu OpOliCu dpOI US It's WI
leys of hail and snow and rain and
wind as if to let us know what the
Bible means when prophet and evan
gelist and Christ himself spoke of the
fury of the elements The atmos-
pheric wrath broke upon US about /
o'clock in the afternoon and we were
until night exposed to it. With hands
l..
chilled to the bone, we made our slow
way, while high up on the rocks, and
the gale blowing the hardest, a signal
of distress halted the party, for down
in the ravines one of the horses had
fallen, and his rider must not be left
alone amid that wildness of scenery
and horror of storm. As the night ap-
preached the tempest thickened and
blackened and strengthened Some of
eur attendants, going ahead, had gain
ed permission for us to halt for the
night in the mud hovel 1 speak of.
Our first duty on arrival was the re-
suscitation of the exhausted of our
party Ny room was without a win
dow, and an iron stove without any
top in the center of the room, the
smoke selecting my eyes in the absence
of chimney. Through an opening in
the door Arab faces were several times
thrust up to see how | was progressing.
But the tempest ceased during the
night, and before it was fully day we
were feeling for the stirrups of our sad
died horses, this being the day whose
long march will bring US to that city
whose name cannot be pronounced in
the hearing of the intelligent or the
Christian without making the blood to
tingle and the nerves to thrill, and put
ting the best emotions of the soul into
agitation-Damascus
During the day we passed Casarea
Philippi, the northern terminus of
Christ's iourneyings North of that he
never went We l1nch at noon, seated
on the fallen columns of one of Herod's
palaces.
IN SIGHT OF DAMASCUS.
At o'clock in the afternoon, coming
to hilltop, we saw on the broad plain
a city, which the most famous camel
driver of all time, afterward called
Mohammed, the prophet and the
founder of the most stupendous sys-
tenn of error that has ever cursed the
earth, refused to enter because he said
God would allow man to enter but one
paradise, and he would not enter this
earthly paradise lest he should be de-
MED entrance to the heavenly. But
no city that / ever saw so plays hide
and seek with the traveller The air is
so clear that the distant objects seem
close by. You come on the top of a
hill and Damascus seems only little
way off. But down you go into a val
ley, and you see nothing for the next
half hour but barrenneSs and rocks re-
gurgitated by the volcanoes of other
ages Up another hill and down again
Up again and down again. But after
your patience is almost exhausted you
reach the last hilltop, and the city of
Damascus, the Oldest city under the
whole heavens, and built by Noah's
grandson, grows upon your vision.
Every mile of the journey now be-
comes more solemn and suggestive and
tremendous.
This is the very road, for it has been
the only road for thousands of years
the road from Jerusalem to Damascus,
along which a cavalcade of mounted
officers went, about / ,654 years ago,
in the midst of them fierce little man
who made up by magnitude of hatred
for Christianity for his dfminutive stat
ure, and was the leading spirit and,
though suffering from chronic inflam-
nation of the eyes, from those eyes
flashed more indignation against
Christ's followers than any one of the
horsed procession. This little man,
before his name was changed to Paul,
was called Saul So many of the
mightiest natures of all ages are con-
densed into smallness of stature.
The F'renchman who was sometimes
called by his troops "Old One Hundred
Thousand, " was often because of his alb
breviated personal presence styled Lit
tie Nap" Lord Nelson, with insignifi
cant stature to start with, and one eye
OFF at Teneriffc, proves himself at Ira
falgar the mightiest hero of the En-
glish navy. The greatest of Ameri
can theologians, Archibald Alexander,
could stand under the elbow of many
of his contemporaries. Look out for
little men when they start out for some
especial mission of good or evil. The
thunderbolt is only condensation of
electricity.
A QUICK HALT.
Well, that galloping group of horse
men on the road to Damascus were
halted quicker than bombsheIl or cav
airy. charge ever halted a regiment.
Eng Syrian MONDAY, because of the
clarity of the atmosphere, is the bright
est of all mondays, and the MONDAY
sun in Syria is positively terrific for
brilliance. But suddenly that noon
there flashed from the heavens a light
which made that Syrian sun seem tame
as n star in comparison. 1t was the
face of the slain and assembled Christ
looking from the heavens, and under
the dash of that overpowering light all
the horses dropped with their riders.
Human face and horses name together
in the dust. And then two claps of
thunder followed utteFing the two
words, the second word like the first:
Saul Saul"
For three days that fallen equestrian
was totally blind, for excessive light
will sometimesrextinguish the eyesight
~ ,rbof oor-ooo on6 orvc+ a limo lone