Grand Haven Daily Tribune  February 2, 1901

Paul at Damascus.

(Acts IX: 8-5.)

―

BY DAVID FLETCHER HUNTON.

―

See the cavalcade of soldiers

Riding with unusual speed!

They are nearing to Damascus,

And with Paul far in the lead!

See their helmets, spears and trappings,

Glistening in noonday sun!

See the charges, foam bespattered―

Rearing Romans―every one.

See our hero!  He is standing

Upright in his stirrups now!

See him swing his burnished helmet

While sweat drops from his brow!

He has warrants in his pockets,

To arrest the Christians there!

And he’s “Breathing threats and slaughter,”

To this people, everywhere!

Ho! Ye followers of Jesus !

Fly!  for Paul is close at hand!

Seek the caves among the mountains!

Shun the persecutor’s band!

Oh! then proud and haughty scorner,

Pride goes forth before a fall!

Man proposes plans of action―

God disposes of them all!

See that avalanche of brightness

Streaming from the skies!

See!  ‘Tis flooding all the roadway!

Blinding all the soldiers’ eyes!

See their trembling, frightened horses,

Backward on their haunches lay!

See them rearing, plunging, bounding

Free and riderless away!

Paul’s unhorsed!  He’s bruised and bleeding!

And so blind he cannot see!

And yet he hears these words from heaven,

“Saul!  why persecutest me?”

“Who are thou Lord?”  He then queried―

Shrinking from the dazzled light―

And then the answer came from heaven,―

I am Jesus, whom you fight!

“When you persecute the Christians.”

“On the land and on the sea,”―

“When you bind and scourge and slay them”

“You are persecuting me!”

Paul, though fallen, ‘humbled, beaten,

Still was prompt and manly too!

And he cried in meek submission,

Lord!  What wilt thou have me do?

From this downward turn of fortune―

From the overwhelming fall,

Rose a preacher of the gospel,

And the giant of them all.

Oft, our failures and our troubles,

Incident upon the sod:

Causes us to look to heaven―

Tends to drive the soul to God!

Daniel, from the den of lions,

Poor helpless, and alone,

Rose to be a trusted ruler,

Second only from the throne!

Joseph, from that “pit” in Canaan,―

From a woman’s bad report―

Walked in “purple and fine linen,”

In old Egypt’s royal court!

Moses, from that ark of rushes,

And his Hebrew mother’s guile:

Rose to be a mighty leader

Of his people on the Nile!

He, obeying God’s directions,

Set a million Hebrews free―

Brought them from Egyptian slavery,

To a land of liberty!

Grand Haven, Mich.

Dec. 25, A. D. 1894