Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-12-11
HIS SOUTHERN TOUR.
DIR. TALMAGE breaches ON ST. PAUL
AT BIRMINGHAM ALA.

The Miraculous Conversion of the Great
Prosecutor Both an encouragement and
a Warning-Out of Great Tribulations
| Come Zeal and Clear Views of Truth.
BIRMINGHAM. Ala, Dec. 10.-Rev. Dr.
Ta1mage. who lectured in this city yes
Herdav. having spoken during the week
sat Nashville, Memphis and other cities,
preached here this forenoon to large
Evidence under the auspices OF the Bap-
fist church. The subject was Gun
horsed," and the text chosen was Acts
TX, 3-5: ''And as he $ourneyed he came
near Damascus, and suddenly there
shined round about him light from
heaven. and he fell to the earth and heard
"a voice saving unto him, Saul, Saul, why
Dersecutest thou me? And he said, Who
art thou. Lord? And the Lord SAID, L
am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
The Damascus of Bible times still
stands, with a population OF 135, 900. LII
was a gay city of white and gllsten1ng
architecture, its minarets and crescents
and domes playing with the light OF the
morning sun; uncovered in groves OF
olive and citron and orange and pome-
granate; a famous river plunglng It's
brightness into the scene; city by the
ancients styled ga pearl surrounded by
emeralds."
THE COMING TERROR.
A group of horsemen are advancing
upon that city. Let the Christians OF
the place hide, for that cavalcade COM
ing over the hills is made up of persecu-
tors: their leader small and unattractlve
in some respects, as leaders sometimes
are insignificant III persOn-wltness 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 135
miles. He urges on his steed, for those
Christians must be captured and 81
fenced, 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 snort
ing away. You know that dumb AMI
mails. at the sight Of an eclipse, or an
earthquake, OF anything like a supernat-
T1ral aDpearance, 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 cloud, and the splen'
dor was insufferable, and no wonder
the horses sprang and the equestrians
dropped.
Dust covered and bruised, Saul at
tempts to get up, shading his eyes with
his hands from the severe luster OF the
heavens. but unsuccessfully, for he is
struck stone blind as he cries out, "Whc
art thou, Lord?" and Jesus answered him
81 am the one you have been chasing
He that whips and scourges those Dam
ascene Christians whips and scourge:
me. It is not their back that is bleeding
1T is mine 1t is not their heart that Il
breaking; it is mine. am Jesus Whom
thou persecutest.
THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED.
From that wild, exciting and over
iwhelming scene there rises up the great
est preacher of all the ages-Paul-l1
whose behalf prisons were rocked down
before whom soldiers turned pale, int
whose hand Mediterranean sea capta1n
put control of their shipwrecklng craft
and whose epistles are the avant courle
of a resurrection day.
learn from this scene that world,
fall sometimes precedes a spiritual up
lifting. A man does not get much sym
pathv by falling off a horse. People sa.
he ought not to have got into the SADDLE
If he could not ride. Those Of us VIII
we're brought up in the country remem
her we'll how the workmen laughed
when, on our way back from the brook
0-4 10 n
grand review a general toppled from tn
stirrups, it became national merrlment
Here is Paul on horseback prout
man. riding on with government docu
ments in his pocket, a graduate OF amos
famous school, in which the celebrated
EDr. Gamaliel had been a professor. per
haps having already attained two of tn
three titles of the school-rab, the first
rabbi, the second, and on his way t.
rabbak, the third and highest title.
know from his temperament that hi
horse was ahead of the other horses
But without time to think of what pos
lture he should take, or without consid
Ieration for his dignity, he is tumblet
into the dust. And yet that was the bes
ride Paul ever took. Out of that vic
lent fall he arose into the apostleship
So it has been in all ages, and soft is now
PURIFIED BY SUFFERING.
You will never be worth much fo
God and the church until you lose you
fortune, or have your reputation upset
or in some way, somehow, are thrown
land Inundated. You must godown be
fore you go up. Joseph finds his path
the Egyptian court through the pit int
(which his brothers threw him. DAME
would never have walked among tn
tbronzed lions that adorned the Babylon
fish throne if he had not first wake
among the real lions of the cave. An
Paul marshals all the generations c
Christendom by falling fat on his fac