The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-12-19
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tempted, 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-
But / must say that this city of Da-
mascus. as 1 see it now, is not as alb
sorbing as the Damascus of olden times
i 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
bargain makers of to-day, marbled and
divaned and fountained and upholstered
and mosaiced aud arabesqued and coll
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 600 lamps of pure gold, sim
gle prayer offered in this mosque
said to be worth so, 900 prayers
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 great
vide street, great thoroughfare cross
ing the city from gate to gate, along
III lob tray I'D rNl1 Id tha -
all nations There goes Abraham, the
father of all the faithful He has in
this city been purchasing a celebrated
slave. There goes Ben Hadad of Bible
times leading thirty-two conquered
monarchs There goes David, King,
warrior and sacred poet There goes
Tamerlane, the conqueror. There goes
Horoun al Raschid, once the commander
of an army of ninety-fve thousand
Persians and Arabs.
There comes 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 going and interjoining, the
blade SO keen it could cut in twain an
object without making the lower part of
the object tremble, with an elasticity
that could not be broken though you
brought the point of the blade clear
back to the hilt and having a watered
appearance which made the blade seem
as though just dipped in clear fount-
ain, a 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
But what most stirs my soul is blind
man passing along the street, small of
stature and insignificant in personal
appearance. He was one of that caval-
cade coming from Jerusalem to Damas-
Gus to kill Chris tians; and we saw him
and his horse tumble up there on the
road some distance out of the city, and
he got up blind. Yes, it is Saul of
Tarsus now going along this street
called Straight He is led by his
friends, for he can not see his hand be-
not Judas the bad, but Judas the good
In another part of this city one
Ananias, not Ananias the liar,
but Ananias the Christian, is
told by the Lord to go to this house of
Judas in Straight street and put his
hands on the blind eyes of Saul, that
his sight might return. oh" said
Ananias, II dare not go. That Saul is
a terrible fellow He kills Christians
and he will kill me-" 60" said the
Lord, and Ananias went. There sits in
blindness that tremendous prosecutor.
He was a great nature crushed
He had started for the city of
Damascus for the one purpose of
assassinating Christ's followers but
since that fall from his horse he had en-
tirely changed. Ananiss steps up to
the sightless man, puts his right thumb
on one eye and the left thumb on the
other eye, and in an outburst of SYM
patty, and love, and faith says:
Brother Saul! Brother Saul! the Lord,
even Jesus that appeared unto thee in
the way as thou earnest has sent me
that thou mayst receive thy sight and
be filed with the Holy Ghost"
Instantly something like scales fell
from the blind mans eyes, and he arose
from that seat the mightiest evangel of
all ages
There are many people in this house
to-day as blind as Paul was before
Ananias touched his eyes. And there
are many here from whose eyes the
scales have already fallen. You see all
subjects and all things differently-God,
and Christ, and eternity, and your own
immortal spirit
Sometimes the scales do not all fall
at once. When / was a boy, at Mount
Pleasant, one Sunday afternoon read
ing Doddridge's Rise and Progress of
Religion in the Soul. that afternoon
some of the scales fell from my eyes
and saw little. After I had been in
the ministry about a year, one Sunday
afternoon in the village parsonage read
ing the Bible story OF the SYro-Pheni-
clans faith other scales fell from my
eyes and 1 saw better. Two Sunday
evenings ago while preparing for the
evening service in New York, picked
up book that did not remember to
have seen before, and after l had read
page about reconsecration to God
think the remaining scales fell from my
eyes. Shall not our visit to Damascus
to-day result. like Paul's visit in vision
to the blind and increased vision for
those who saw somewhat before.
was reading Of painters child who
became blind in infancy. But after
the child was nearly grown a surgeon
removed the blindness. When told that
this could be done, the child's chief
thought her mother being dead, was