The Russellville Democrat., 1890-12-18
RUssELLvIILE POPE THURSDAY, DECEMBER

11t his narrow strcet, which the Bible calls Straight, was great wide
 street. New York Broadway
 or Parisian Champs Elysees,
 great thoroughfare crossing the
 city from gate to gate, along which tramped and rolled the pomp of all na- tions. There goes Abraham, the father
 of all the faithful He has in this city
 been purchasing 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 Haroun al
 Raschid, once the commander of an
 army of ninty-fve thousand Persians
 and Arabs. There comes warrior on his way to the barracks. carrying that
 kind of sword which the world has for gotten how to make, Damascus blade, | with the interlacings of color changing
 at every new turn of the light, many
 colors coming and going and interjoin- l ing, the blade so keen 1t could cut in | twain an object without making the | lower part of the object tremble, with an elactieitv that could
 not be broken, though you brought the point of the sword clear back to the hilt, and having watered appearance
 which made the blade seem as though | just dipped in clear fountain, a triumph of cutlery which thousand
 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 specimens of damaskeening, by which in this city steel and iron were first graved and | ld-damaskeening. 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 supremacy. Great is Damascus
 But what most stirs my soul is neither chariot, nor caravan, nor bazar, nor | palace, but blind mau passing along niflcant of personal appearance. Oh, yes, we have seen him before. He was | one of that cavalcade coming from Jerusalem to Damascus to kill Chris tians, and we saw him and his horse | tumble up there on the road somo dis tance out of tho city, and he got up | blind Yes, 1t Is Saul of Tarsus now | going along this street called Straight. He is led by his friends. for he can not | htc nd haf hfo far +1 | the house of Judas; not Judas the
 bad, but Judas the good In another rart of this city one Ananias-not Ana. | lias the liar, but Ananias the Christian lis told by the Lord togo to this house of Judas on Straight street and put
 his hands on the blind eyes of Saul, l that his sight mightreturn. "Oh," said l Ananias, ''I do not go; that Saul Is a | terrible fellow. He kills Christians,
 and he will kill mo-" Go" said the | Lord, and Ananias went. There sits in
 blindness that tremendous persecutor.
 He was 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 has entirely
 changed. Ananias steps up to the sight
 less man, puts his right thumb on one | eye, and the left thumb on the other
 eye, and. in an outburst of sympathy and | love and faith, says: Brother Saul | Brother Saul the Lord, even as Jesus
 that appeared unto thee In the way as | thou earnest, has sent mo that thou
 mayst receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost" Instantly some- I thing like scales fell from the blind
 mans eyes, and he arose from that seat the mightiest evangel of all | the ages, a Sir William Hamilton for
 metaphysical analysis, John Mill ton for sublimity of thought White | field for popular eloquence, John | Howard for widespread philanthrophy,
 but more than all of them put together | inspired. thunderbolted, multipotent, apostolic Did Judas the kind host of | the blind man, or Ananies the visitor,
 see scales drop from the sightless eyes? think not. But Paul knew they had | fallen, and that is all that happens to any Of us when we are converted. The | binding scales drop from our eyes, and | Wt Sct tulHRS
 A Christian woman, missionary among
 most degraded tribe. whose religion
 was never to wash or improve personal appearance, was trying to persuade one
 of those heather women not only of
 need of change of heart but change Of
 habits, which would result in change of
 appearance, but the effort failed until
 the missionary had placed in her
 own hallway looking glass.
 passing through the hall, saw
 herself in the mirror for the first time. she exclaimed: Can 1t be
 possible l look like that?' and, appalled,
 at her own appearance, she renouneed
 her old religion and asked to be in-
 instructed in the Christian religion
 And so we feel that we are all right in our sinful and unchanged condition
 until the scales fall from our eyes, and
 in the looking-glass of Gods word we see ourselves as we really are, until
 Divine grace transforms us
 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-G 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, reading "Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" that afternoon some of the scales fell from my eyes and l saw little. After had been in tho ministry about year. one Sunday aft ernoon, in the village parsonage, read ing the Bible story of the Syro- Phenician's faith, other scales fell from my eyes and saw better. Two Sunday evenings ago. while preparing for the evening service in New York, l picked up book that l did not remember to have seen before, and after had read a page about reeonsocration to God think the remaining scales fell from my eyes. Shall not our visit to Damascus to-day result, like Pauls visit, in vision