The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-10-23

| tie centuries the Turkish Government. For
! its everlasting insult 10 God and woman let
| 1t perish, And 50 those rocks at the har3or
remain the jaws OF repelted destruction.
AS we descended thf narrow steps ut tho
side of tho ship we heard the claror and
quarrel and swearing !: fiji .een or sixteen
different races Of moi Of all features. and
all colors and all vernacuarS; all different in
appearance, but all alike in desire to get cur
baggage and ourselves ct exorbitant prices.
Twenty ho2tS and only ten passengers TO 60
ashore. The man having charge of lis pushes
aside some and strikes with heavy stick
others, and by viotences that would not bo
tolerated i'll our country, kat which seem ID
De the only ruanne: or making any impress
sion there. clears our way into one Of tho
boats, which heads for the shore. We arc
within fifteen minutes of tho Christ Inn |.
Now VIC heor shouting from tho bench, and
in five minutes We will be lauded. The Prov
OF the boat is caught by men who wade cut
to help us in.
We are tremuiouS with suppressed excite
n1ent, our breath is quick, and from the siile
Of the boat we spring 10 the shore and Suu-
day morning. December /, 1851, about eight
O'Clock, our feet touch Palestine. Forever
to me AMI mine will that day and hour he
corlmemoratI for that pre-eminent mercy.
Letit be mentioned in prayer by my cail-
dren Gnl children'S children after wo are
gone, that morning wo werS permitted to
enter that land l:d gnzs upon those holy
hills and feel the emotions that rise and fall
and weep and laugh and sing AMI triumph ct
such O Decentralization.
On tho back Of the hills one hundred and
fifty feet high Joppa is lifted toward the
skies. II is as picturesque as it is quaint, AMI
rs much unlike any city we have over seen,
as enough it were built il that star Mars.
where few nights ago this very September
astronomers, through unparalleled telescopes,
saw q snow storm raging. How gia'l we were
to be iu Joppal Why, this is the city whero
Dorcas, That queen o. tho needle, lived and
died and was resurractea. You remember
that the poor people came around the dead
body of this benefactress, anl brought Speci-
mems OF h2r kind needlework and said
"Dorcas made this" "Dorcas sewed tiat,"
"Dorces cut and fitted this" "Dorcas
hemnlel that"
According 20 Lightfoot, the commentator.
they laid Re: out in state in public room.
aud the poor wruug their hands and cried
and sent for Pcpr, who performed q miracle
by which the good woman came back to life
and resumed her bene(ectionS. An especial
resurrection day for one woman! She was
the molel by which many women Of our day
have fashioned their lives, and at the first
pear ten thousand Dorcases-Dorcases OF
Brooklyn, Decreases of New York, Decreases
of London, Decreases of all the neighborhoods
and towns and cities of Christendom-just rs
good rs the Dorcas of Joppa which [ visited.
Thank God for the ever increasing skill aai
sharpness and speed and generosity of Der
c2SS reedle.
"What is that man doing% said to the
dragoman III the streets Of J0ppa. "Oh, he
is carrying his bsd.' Multtudes o. people
sleep ont OF doors and that IS the way so
many in those lands become blind. 1t is from
the dew Of the night failing on the eyetid7. As
a result OF this in Egypt every twent!eth
person is totally blind. In Oriental lands
the bed is made Of thin, small mattress. a
blanket and pillow, and when the man rises
in tue mornin'; he just ties up the three into
bundl, and shoulders it and takes it away.
1t was tH That the Saviour referrs when He
said to the sicS man: Take up thy he aud
walk" An American couch or an Ea. ish
couch would require at least four men to
carry It, bat one Oriental can easily manage
his slumber equipment.
But inhale some of the odorS OF the large
tanneries around Joppa. 1t is there to this
day, prosperous business, this tanning Of
hides. And that reminds me Of Simon, the
tanner, who livea OF JopD1 and was tho host
of Peter, the apos, Y. 1 suppose the olfac-
tories of Pete: were rs easily insulte by the
odors Of ta1uery as others. But the Bible
says, HE lodged with ono Simon, tho tan
ncr" People who go out 20 DO reformatory
and missionary and Christian work must not
be too sensitive. Simon no doubt brought
to his homestead every night tho mslodors
Of the calfsilins and OK hides in his tannsry,
but Peter lodged in that homo, not only be-
cause he may not have been invited to the
houses of merchant princes, surrounded by
redolent gardens, but to teach all men and
women engaged in trying to make thu world
better that they must not DO squeamish and
fastidious and finical and over particular IN
doing the work of the world.
The church of God is dying Of fastidious-
ness. We cry over the sufferings OF the
world in hundred dollar pocket hand;ler
chiefs, and then put cent in the poor box.
There are many willing to do Christian work
among the cleaniy, and the refined. and the
elegant, and tho educated. but excuse them
from taking loaf Of bread down dirty a..
le-, excuse them from teaching mission
school among the uncombed and the unwash-.
ed excuse thom from touching the hand OF
one whose finger nails are in mourning for
departed soap. Such religious precisioniSts
can toll in atmoSphereS laden with honey
suckle and rosemary, but not in air floating
up from the malodorous watts. No, no, no!
Excuse them from living with one Simon, the
tanner.
During the last war there wero in Virginia
some sixty or seventy wounded soldiers in q
barn, on the second floor, so near the roof
that the heat of the August sun was almost
insupportable The men were dying from
sheer exhaustion and sutfocation. A distln-
guisbed member of the Christian commission
said to the nurse who stood there, "Wash the
f,, ,,,l IF md
them" Mo- said the nurse 81 didn't come
into tho army to wash anybody's feet"
"Well," said the distinguished member Of tho
commission, bring me water and towel: l
will be very glad to wash their feet" One
was the spirit Of the devil, the other the
spirit of Christ.
But reference to Peter reminds me that we
must so to tho houSetop in Joppa where he
was taught the democracy of religion. That
was about the queereSt thing that ever hap
pened. On our way up to that hoIisetop we
passed an old we'll where the great stones
were worn deep with tho ropes of the buck
cts, and it must be we'll many centuries
old. and think Peter drank out of it. Four
or five goat OF calfskins filled with water lay
about the yard. We soon got up the steps
and o1 the housatop. 1t was in sucn plaza
in Joppa that Peter one noon while he was
waiting for dinner had hungry fit and
tainted away, and had vision or dream or
trance. I said TO my family and friends on
that housetop, Listen while read about
what happened here" And opening the
Bible We had the whole story.
1t seems that Peter on the housetop
dreamed that great blanket was let down
out of heaven, and in il were sheep and goats
and cattle and mules and pigeons and buzz
yards and snakes and all manner of creatures
that fly the air, or walk the field, or crawl
the earth, and in the dream a voics told him
as he was hungry to eat, and he said, II can
not eat things unclean." Three times lie
dreamed it. There was then heard a knock
ing at the gate Of the house on the top of
which Peter Iav in trance, and three men
asked, rs Peter here" Peter, while yet
wondering what his dream meant. dcscends