Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-12-13
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
subject. "rhs city of Damascus"

the basement Yet never did the most bril-
| liant hotel on any continent seem 50 attrae-
| tive to ME rs that structure. If we had been
obliged to STAY III tent as we expected tn
do that night, we must have persisted. A
violent storm hal opened upon US its
! volieys 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 atmospheric wrath
broke upon US about l o'cioc6 IN the after
noon End We were until night exposed to
it. " ith hands and feet benutnbed, ami our
bodies chilled to the bone, we made our slow
way. " HE hi3d up ON the rocks, and the
| gaze blowing the hardest. signal of distress
| halted the party, Tor down in the ravines one
| OF the horses had fallen ami his rider must
not be let aone amid that wilderness of
scenery and horror o. storm. As the night
! approached the tempest thickened and b ack-
erred and strengthened. Some of our attend
ants going ahead had gained permission for
us to halt ior the night in the mu J hovel |
| spoke of. Our first duty on arrival was
the resuscitation OF the exhausted OF our
! party. My room WAS without a window,
ano 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 IL the floor Arab faces were sew
1 eral times thrust up to see how ] was pro
! crossing But the tempest ceased during the
| night, and before 1t was fully day we were
| feeling Tor the stirrups of our saddled 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 Christian without making the blood tiRgie
| and the nerves to thrill, and putting the best
| emotions of the soul into agitation Damas-
| Gus.
During the day we passed Casarea Philip
! pi, the northern terminus of Christ's jour-
] l.. - Al. IA
! lunch at roon, seated on the fallen columns
| of one Ct Herod's palaces
At O'Clock in the afternoon, coming to
! hill top, we saw on the broad plain a city,
| which the most famous camel driver of all
| time, afterward called Mohamrned the
| prophet and the founder of the most stu
| pendous system of error that has ever
| cursed the earth, refused to enter because
he said God would allow no 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 tt veler The air is so clear the
| distant objects seem c.ose by. You come on
| the top OF a hill and Damascus seems only
| little way Off. But down you go into val
/ ley and you see nothing for the next half
hour but uarrenness ana rocks regurgitated
| by the volcanoes of other ages. Upanother
hill ard down again. Up again and down
| again. But atte' your patience is almost
! exhausted you reach the last hill top, 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 tue journey now becomes more SOL
/ emn and suggestive and tremendous.
+ This is the very road, for it has been the
/ only road for thousands of years, the road
! IRON Jelll aiem to Damascus along which a
j cava cade of mounted officers went, about
d 1854 years ago, IN the midst of them fierce
! little man who made up by magnitude of
| hatred for Christianity for his diminutive
I stature. and was the leading spirit, and;
/ though suffering from chronic Inflammation
| of the eyes, from those eyes flashed more in
dignaton a ai.1st Christ's followers than any
ole of the horsed procession. This little man,
| teiore his name was changed to Paul, was
! called Saul. So many OF the mightiest
natures of al ages are condensed
into smalness of stature. The Frenchman
| who was sometimes called by his troops ''Old
/ One hundred Thousand was often, because
/ Of his abbreviated personal presence, styled
Little Nap Lord Nelson, with insignif-
/ cent stature to start with aud one eye put out
| at Cavi ana his right arm taken off at Tenee
rife, proves himself at Trafalgar the might
lest nero OF the English navy The greatest
| of American theoogians, Archibald Alex
| andei', could stand under the elbow of many
1 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
W ell, that ganoplng group of horsemen on
! the road to Damascus were halted quicker
than hombshell or cavalry charge ever halt
| ed a regiment. The Syrian MONDAY, be-
cause of tie CHARITY of the atmosphere, is
! the brightest OF all mondays, and the noon
day sun in Syria is positively terrific for
| bllliance. but suddenly that noon there
/ hasheu from the heavens a light which made
/ that Syrian sun seem tame as a star in COM
| parison. 1t was the face of the slain and as
| cended Christ looking from the heavens, and
under the dash of that overDowering light all
| the horses dropped with their riders. Human
face and horses name together in the DUST.
| And then two claps of thunder fol-
lowed utteIing the Two words, the
second word like the first; SAUL
| SaulP For three days that fallen equestrian
was totally blind for excessive light will
sometimes extinguish the eyesght And
| what cor1iea and crystalline lens could en-
dure brightness greater than the Hoonday
! Syrian sum- hau read it a hunired times,
| hut it never so impressed me before. and
! probably will never so impress me again, as
| took my Bible from the saddle bags and
! read aloud to our comrades in travel AS
| he jOUned he cane near Damascus, and
| suddenly there shined round about him a
| light from heaven, and lie fell to the earth
| and heard voice saying unto him, Saul
| Saul, Why Tersecute>t thou Me2 and be
said, Who art Thou, LorlT And the Lord
said, 1 am Jesus whom thou persecutest.'
But we cannot stop 10 ger on this road.
| for we shalt STE this endorsed equestrian
later in Damascus, toward which his horses
head is turned, and at which we must our
selves arrive before night. The evening is
near at hand, aud as we leave snowy Her
mon behind US and approach the shadow
of the cupo,as of two hundred mosques we
cut through circum 'ereuce of many miles
of garden which emboWer the city. So
luxuriaut are these gardens so opulent in
colors, 30 luscious of fruits. so glittering
with fountains so rich with bowers and
kiosks that the Mohammedan's heaven was
/ fashioned after what are to be seen here OF
bloom and truitage. Here in Damascus at
the right season are cherries and mulberries
and apr.cots and almonds and pistachios
and pGmegranatss and pears and apples
and plums and citrons and all the richness
OF the round words pomology. No won
der that Ju ian called this city 1.-THE eve of
the asst. and that the poets of Syria have
styled it "the uster on the neck of doves"
and historians said, at is the golden clasp
which couples the two sides of the world
to- ether
Many travellers express disappointment
with Damascus, hut the trouble is they have
carried in their minds from boyhood the
Look which dezz es so many young people,
The Arabian Nights,n and they come into
Damascus looking for Aladdin's lamp and
Aladdin's ring and the genii which appeared
by robbing them. But as / have never read
''The Arabian Nights, such stuff not being
allowed around cur house in my hovhood,
and nothing lighter in the way of reading
than "Paxter's Sa nts' Everlasting Rest
end D'Aubigny's History of the Reforma.
tion," Damascus appeared to me as sacred
and secular histories have presented it, and
so the city was not disappointment, hut
with few exceptions surprise
Under my window to night in the hotel at
Damascus hear the perpetual ripple and
rush OF the river ALBANIA. Alb, the secret is
out Now l know why all this fora and
fruit, and why everything is so green, and
Tue PLAIN one green emerald. The river
ALBANIA! And not far off the river Pharpar,
which our horses waded through today
Thank the rivers, or rather the God who
made the rivers Deserts to the north
deserts to the south, deserts the east deserts
to the west, but here a paradise And as the
rivers GIhon and Pison AMI Hi1aelssl and
Euphrates made the other paradise. Atana
snd Pharpar make this Damascus paradise.
mat Is what made Gen. Naaman of this city
II Damascus 50 mad when he was told for the
cure of his leprosy 70 go and wash in the river
Jordan, The river Jordan is much of the
year muddy stream and it is never 50
clear as this river ALBANIA that hear rum
bling under my window tonight nor as the
river Pharpar that we crossed to- day. They
are as clear as though they had been sievei
through some especial sieve of the mount
aims. General Naaman had great and patri-
otic pride in these two rivers Of his own coun-
Try, and when Elisha the prophet toll him
that If he wanted to get rid of HIS leproSy