TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS, DAMASCUS.
Damascus is now pretty much as it was eighteen hundred years ago. The places mentioned in connection with Paul are still pointed out—with what degree of certainty, I can not say. Of course I visited the places where “he fell to the earth,” and where “he was let down over the wall in a basket.” At this point the wall is some thirty feet high, and is surmounted by a house which is occupied by a Christian family. The reputed houses of Ananias and Judas are partly underground, and are built of huge stones. These strongly built houses are certainly very old; and it has been suggested that if Ananias and Judas did not live in them at the time of Paul, some other people did.
If I should to-day begin to proclaim the gospel of Christ with the same zeal and earnestness that characterized the ministry of Paul, I would have to be let down over the walls in a basket, or else be butchered on the street.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE NAAMAN HOSPITAL FOR THE LEPROSY.
Naaman, the Leper—His Visit to Elisha—The Prophet’s Command—Naaman Cured—House Turned into a Leper Hospital—Off to the Lepers’ Den—Origin, History and Nature of Leprosy—Arrival at the Gloomy Prison—Abraham, “I Didn’t Promise to Go into the Tomb with You”—“Screw your Courage to the Sticking Point”—Johnson’s Reply—Suspicious of the Arab Gate-Keepers—A Charge to Abraham—Life in Johnson’s Hands—Mamie and the Currant-Bush—Among the Lepers—Judgment Come—Graves Open—Living Corpses—Walking Skeletons—Strewing out Coins—An Indescribable Scene—An Indelible Picture—Horrible Dreams.