Milford chronicle., 1893-12-22
'PAUL'S CONVERSION.
DR.. TALMAeE FINDS LESSONS IN THE
Prosecutors EXPERIENCE.

TEnQECQ OtAO ENF ElAlEtNGEa
It Is often Necessary For Man TO FAN In
Order to Rise Again, to Go Through the
Valley of Humiliation Before Preach.
ing.
BIRMINGHAM. Ala. Dec. 10 i Rev. DR.
Falmage, who lectured in this city yester-
day, having spoken during the week at
Nashville, Memphis and other cities
preached here this forenoon to large audi
ence under the auspices of the Baptist
church. Thesubjeet was, ''Unhorsed, " and
the text chosen was Acts tx, 3-5; "And as
be iourneyed he came near Damascus, and
suddenly there shined round about him a
light from heaven, and he fell TO the earth
and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he
said, Who at thou, Lord? And the Lord
said, am Jesus whom thou persecutest."
The Damascus Of Bible times still stands,
with population of $4,000. 1t was a gay
city Of white and glistening architecture,
its minarets and crescents and domes play
ing with the light of the morning sun; en-
powered in groves Of olive and citrOn and
orange and pOmegranate; famous river
plunging its brightness into the scene; a
city by the ancients styled "a pearl sur
rounded by emeralds."
A group of horsemen are advancing upon
that city. Let the Christians Of the place
hide, for that cavalcade coming over the
hills is made up of prosecutors, their leader
small and unattractiye in some respects, as
leaders sometimes are insignificant in per
son-witness the Duke of Wellington and
DR.. Archibald Alexander. But there is
something very intent in the eye of this
man of the text and the horse he rides is
lathered with the foam of long and quick
travel of 1876 miles. He urges on his steed,
! for those Christians must be captured and
silenced, and that religion of the cross
must be annihilated.
( Suddenly the horses shy off and plunge
until the riders are precipitated. Freed
from the riders, the horses bound snorting
away. You know that dumb animals at
the sight of an eclipse, or an earthquake, or
anything like a supernatural appearance,
sometimes become very uncomfortable. A
new sun had been kindled in the heavens,
putting out the glare of the ordinary sun
Christ, with the glories of heaven wrapped
about him, looked out from a cloud, and
the splendor was insuflerable, and no won
der the horses sprang and the equestrians
dropped.
Dust covered and bruised, Saul attempts
to get up, shading his eyes with bis hands
from the severe luster of the heavens, but
unsuccessfully, for he is struck stone blind
as he cries out, "Who art thou, Lortls" And
+ Jesus answered him: Il am the one you
have been chasing. He that whips and
seourges those Damascene Christians whips
and scourges me. 1t is not their back that
IS bleeding-it is mine. 1t is not their heart
that is breaking-it is mine. I am Jesus
whom thou persecutest"
HE FELL TO RISE AGAIN.
From that wild, exciting and oyerwhelm-
ing scene there rises up the greatest preach
er of all the ages-Paul, in whose behalf pris-
ons were rocked down. before whom sol
diers turned pale, into whose hand Medi-
terranean sea captains put control of their
shipwrecking craft, and whose epistles are
the avant courier Of a resurrection day.
1 learn from this scene that aworldly fall
sometimes pfecedes a spiritual uplifting.
IA man does not get much sympathy by
falling off a horse. People say be ought
not to have got into the saddle if he could
not ride. Those of US who were brought
M in the country remember well how the
from the brook, we suddenly lost our ride.
When in grand review general toppled
from the stirrups, it became a national mer-
nment.
Here is Paul on horseback-a proud man,
riding on with government documents in
his pocket, a graduate Of a most famous
school, in which the celebrated DR.. CANA
liel had been a professor, perhaps having al
ready attained two Of the three titles of the
school-rab, the first; rabbi, the second,
and on his way to rabbak, the third and
highest title. l know from his tempera-
ment that his horse was ahead of the other
horses But without time to think of what
posture he should take, or without cOnsid-
Grafton for his dignity, he is tumbled into
the dust, and yet that was the best ride
Paul ever took. Out of that violent fall he
hrose into the apostleship. So it has been
in all ages, and so it is now.
You will never be worth much for God
ard the church until you lose your fortune,
or have your reputation upset, or in some
WAY, somehow, are thrown and humiliated,
You pust go down before you go up. Jo-
seph finds his path to the Egyptian court
through the pit into which his brothers
threw him. Daniel would never have
walked amid the bronzed lions that adorned
the Babylonish throne if he had not first
walked amid the real lions of the cave
And Paul marshals all the generations Of
Christendom by falling fiat on his face on
the road to Damascus.
Men who have been always prospered
may be efficient servants of the world, but
will be of no advantage to Christ. You
may ride majestically seated on your char
ger, rein in hand, foot in stirrup, but you
will never be worth anything spiritually
until YOU fall Off They who graduate from
the school of Christ with the highest hon
Ors have on their diploma the seal of a
lions muddy paw, or the plash of an an
yry wave, or the drop of a stray tear, or the
brown scorch of a prosecuting fire. In 800
eases out Of LOCO there is no moral or spir-
itual elevation until there has been a thor
Ough worldly upsetting.
BRAVE MEN FOR CHRIST.
Again, learn from the subject that the
religion of Christ is not a pusillanimous
thing People in this day try to make us
believe that Christianity is something for
men Of small ealiber for women with no
capacity to reason, for children in the infant
class under 6 years Of age, but not for stall
wart men. Look at this man of the text!
do you not think that the religion that
could capture such a man as that must
have some power in it? He was a logician;
be was a metaphysician; he was an all CON
huering orator; he was poet of the highest
type He had a nature that could swamp
the leading nlsr Of his own day, and hurled
against the sanhe Arin he made it trembe.
He learned all he could get in the school
of his native village; then he had gone to
higher school, and there mastered the
II A. VV.l,.. I Il IL
self in bellies lettres, until in after years he
astonished the Cretans, and the Corin-
thians, and the Athenians, by quotations
from their own authors. l have never
found anything in Carlyle or Goethe or
Herbert Spencer that could compare in
strength or beauty with Paul's epistles.
I do not think there is anYthing in the