Connecticut western news., 1890-06-04
GODS GIFT OF DEFENSE.
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON BEFORE THE
 THIRTEENTH REGIMENT.

DR. TAlMAGE'S SERMON BEFORE THE
 THIRTEENTH REGIMENT.
 It Has Swung for Liberty and Justice.
 The Time Is Coming When Nations Will
 Disband Their Armies and the Sword
 Will Return to Its Scabbard Forever.
 BROOKLYN, June 1.-Chaplain T. De Witt Talmage this evening preached the annual sermon before the Thirteenth regiment, in the Academy of Music. The staff officers and members of the regiment were immediately in front of the platform, and their friends thronged the galleries. The hymn sung was the national air:
 My country, tis of thee,
 Sweet land of liberty.
 The subject of the sermon was: The Sword-Its Mission and It's Doom" The text, Isaiah xxxiv 5: My sword shall be bathed in heaven"
 Three hundred and fifty-one times does the Bible speak of that sharp, keen, curved, memorable weapon, which flashes upon us from the text-th, sword. Sometimes the mention is ap- plaudatory and sometimes damnatory, sometimes as drawn, sometimes as sheathed. In the Bible, and in much secular literature, the sword represents all javelins, all muskets, all carbines, all guns, all police clubs, all battle axes, all weaponry for physical de- fense or attack. It would be an inter esting thing to give the history of the Flow, and follow it's furrow all down through the ages, from the first crop in Chaldea to the last crop in Minnesota.
 It would be interesting to follow the Pen as it has tracked it's way on down through the literature of nations, from it's first word in the first book to the last word which some author last night would be an interesting thing to count the echoes of the Hammer from the first nail driven, down through all the mechanism of centuries to the last stroke in the carpenters shop yester day. But in this, my annual sermon l I propose taking up a weapon that has done work that neither Flow nor Pen nor Hammer ever accomplished My theme is the Sword-its mission and it's doom
 The sword of the text was bathed in heaven; that is, it was sword of righteousness as another sword may be bathed in hell, and the sword of cruelty and wrong. There is a great difference between the sword of Wink lereid and the sword of Cataline, be- tween the sword of Leonidas and the sword of Benedict Arnold. In our eff fort to hasten the end of the war, we have hung the sword with abuses and generations, when it has had divine mission, and when in many crises of the worlds history it has swung for liberty and justice, civilization and righteousness and God. At the very opening of the Bible and on the east side Of the Garden of Eden, God placed a flaming sword to defend the tree of life.>
 Of the officer of the law, St. Paul de- clares: ''He beareth not the sword in vain" Through Moses God command ed: Put every man his sword by his side" David, in his prayer, says: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, o most mighty" One of the old battle shouts of the Old Testament was: "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon" Christ, in great exigency said, that such a weapon was more important than a coat, for he declared: "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one." Again he declared; "I come not to send peace but a sword" Of Christ's second coming it is said: "Out of his mouth went sharp, two edged sword" Thus, sometimes fguratively, but oftener literally, the divine mission of the sword is announced.
 CONsECRATED SWORDS.
 What more consecrated thing in the world than Joshua's sword, or Caleh's sword, or Gideon's sword, or David's sword, or Washington's sword, or Mari on's sword, or Lafayette's sword, or Wellington's sword, or Kosciusko's sword, or Garibaldis sword, or hun dreds of thousands of American swords that have again and again been bathed in heaven. Swords of that kind have been the best friends of the human race. They have slain tyrannies, pried open dungeons, and cleared the way for nations in their march upward. It was better for them to take the sword and be free, than lie under the oppressor's heel and suffer- There is something worse than death, and that is life if it must cringe and crouch before the wrong.
 Turn over the leaves of the worlds history and find that there has never been a tyranny stopped or a nation lib erated except by the sword. am not talking to you about the way things | ought to be, but about the way they have been. What force drove back the Saracenss Tours and kept Europe l from being overwhelmed by Moham mechanism and subsequently, all America given over to Mohammedanism2 The sword of Charles Martel and his men. Who can deal enough in infinities to tell what was accomplished for the worlds good by the sword of Joan of Arc2 In December last I looked off and saw in l the distance the battle field of Mara thon, and asked myself what was il l that on that most tremendous day h