The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-12-18
SACRED GEOGRAPHY
DR.. TaImage Travels Along
The Historic Roads in
Palestine.
He Continues His Review of
What he Saw and Heard
in P. lestine.

BROOKLYN, N. Y, special-Dr. Talmage
delivered the 18th sermon Of his series on
Palestine and the adjoining countries. The
subject was Damascus, and he text. Gas he
journeyed he came near Damascus" Acts
tx, B. DR.. Talmuge 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 continent seem so at
tractive 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
violent storm had opened upon us its volley
OF hail, and snow, and rain, and wind, as if
to let us know what the Bible means when
prophet and evangelist and Christ himself
spoke OF the fury of the elements. The at.
mospheric rath broke upon us about 1
O'Clock in the afternoon and we were until
night exposed to it. With hands and
feet benumbed and our bodies chill
to the bone, we made our slow
way. While high up on the rocks,
and the gale blowing the hardest, sig
nal of distress halted the party, for down
IN the revines one of the horses had fallen
and his rider must not be lett alone am id that
wilderness of scenery and horror oistorm.
AS the night approached, the tempest thick
ened and blackened and strengthened. Some
OF our attendants going ahead had gained
permission for us to halt for the night in the
mud hovel [ speak Of Our first duty on ar
rival was the resuscitatiOn of the exhausted
OF our party. My room was without win
dow, and an iron stove without any top in
the center of the room, the smoke selecting
my eyes IN the absence OF q chimney.
Through an opening in the door, Arab faces
were several times thrust up to how
was progressing But the tempest ceased
during the night and before it was fully day
we were feeling for the stirrups of our saddled
horses, this being the day whose long march
will bring us to that city, whose name can
not be pronounced in the hearing of the in.
teigent the Christian without making
the blood to tinge and the nerves to thrill.
and putting the best emotions of the soul
into Observation-Disclosures!
During the day we passed CRsarea Philippi,
the northern terminus OfChrist g. Ourneyings,
North Of that He never went. We lunch at
noon, seated on the fallen columns of one Of
Herod's palaces.
} At + O'Clock in the afternoon, coming to
hilltop, we saw on the broad plain city.
which the most famous camel driver of all
time, afterward called Mohammed, the proph-
ct and the founder of the most stupendous
system Of error thatshas 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 denied entrance to the heavenly.
But no city that ever saw plays hide and
seek with the traveller The air is so clear
the distant objects seem close by. You come
on the top of q hill and Damascus seems
only a little way off. But down you go into
a valley and you see nothing for the next
half hour but barrenness and rocks regur-
gitated by the volcanoes and other ages
Up another hill and down again. Up again
c,,l Il RI {to,
almost exhausted you reach the last hilltop
and the city Of Damascus, the Oldest city un-
der the whole heavens, and built by Noah's
grandson, grows upon your vision. Every
mile of the journey now becomes more solemn
and suggestive and tremendous.
This was the very road, for it has been the
only road for thousands of years, the road
from Jerusalem to Damascus, along which a
cavaIcade OF mounted officers went about
1,S49 years ago, in the midst of them a
fierce little man who made up by magnitude
of hatred for Christianity for his diminutive
stature, and was the leading spirit and,
though suffering from chronic inflamm alton
OF the eyes, from those eyes flashed more in
dignation against Christs followers than
any one of the horsed procession. This lit
tie man, before his name was changed to
Paul, was called Saul. So many of the
mightiest natures of all ages are condensed
into smallness OF stature. The Frenchman
who was sometimes called by his troops
cold One Hundred Thousand" was often,
because Of his a abbreviated personal presence.
styled Little Nap Lord Nelson, with in
significant stature to start WITH and ono
eve put out at Calvi and his right arm taken
off at Teneriffe proves himself at Trafalgar
the mightiest hero of he English navy. The
greatest of American theologians, Archibald
Alexander. could stand under the elbow of
many OF his contemporaries. Look out for
the little men when they start out for some
tnt Uni, SLOW, >f,,
derbolt IS only condensation of electricity
Well, that galloping group OF horsemen on
the road to Damascus were halted quicker
than bonn shell or cavalry charge ever halt
ed regiment. The Syrian MONDAY because
OF the clarity of the atm osphere 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 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 uttering the
two words, the second word like the first
SAUL Saul!' For three days that fallen
equestrian was totally blind, for excessive
light will sometimes extinguish the eyesight.
And what corner and crystalline lens could
endure brightness greater than the noon
day Syrian sun? l had read it a hundred
times, but it never so impressed me before
and probably will never so impress me
again, as l took my Bible from the
saddle bags and read aloud to our comrades
in travel: "As he iourneyed, he came near
Damascus and suddenly there shned round
about him u light from heaven and he fell
to the earth and heard q voice saying unto
him, Saul! Saul! Why persecutest thou
mel! and he said, Who art thou, Lord?'
And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest.'"
But we cannot stop longer on this road
for we shnll see this endorsed equestrian
1ater 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, and as we leave snowy Her
mon behind US and approach the shadow of
the cupolas Of 200 mosques. we cut
through the circumference of many miles of
garden which embower the city. So luxuri.
ant are these gardens, so opuIent in colors,
so luxurious OF fruits, 80 glittering with
fountains. SO rich with bowers and kiosks
that the Mohammedan's heaven was fash
Toned after what are to be seen here of bloom
and truitage. Here in Damascus at the right
season are cherries, and mulberries, and
>apricots, and almonds, and pistachios and
pomegranates, and pears, and apples, and
plums, and citrons, and all the richness of
the round worlds pomolopv No wonder