Sharp County record., 1890-06-26
MISSION OF THE SWORD.
DR.. Talmage Discourses to the Thir-
teenth Regiment.
Used in Righteousness the Sword Is Po-
tent to Redress Wrong-In the
Hands of Tyrant II re-
COMES n Thing Of Evil

I' lbllbNlllH aiiANA ''Af'N''
livercd by Rev. Il. Dewitt Talmage in
the Brooklyn Academy Of Music before
the Thirteenth Regiment, from the
text:
My sword shall be bathed In Heaven
! isaiah xxxir., ).
Three hundred and fifty-one times
does the Bible speak Of that sharp, keen,
| curved, inexorablc weapon, which
| flashes upon us from the teXt-the sword,
Sometimes the mention is applaudatory
and sometimes damnatory, sometimes as
drawn, sometimes as sheathed. In the
! Bible. and in much secular literature,
the sword represents all jayelins, all
musketS, all carbines all guns, all 20
lice clubs, all battle-axes, all weaponry
for physical defense or attack. ltwould
be an interesting thing to give the his
tory of the plow, and follow its furrow
all down through the ages, from the llrst
crop in Chaldea to the last crop in Min
nesota. 1t would be interesting to fol-
low the pen as it has traced its way on
down through the literature Of nations,
from its first word in the first book to
the last word which some author last
night wrote as he closed his manuscript.
1t would be an interesting thing to count
the echoes of the hammer from the hrst
nail driven, down through all the mech
anism of centuries to the last stroke in
the carpenters shop yesterday. But in
this, my annual sermon as chaplain OF the
Thirteenth Regiment, | propose taking
up weapon that has done work that
neither plow nor pen nor hammer ever
accomplished. My theme is the sword
its mission and its 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 great
difference between the sword OF Wink
elried and the sword of Cataline, be-
tween the sword of Leonidas and the
sword of Benedict Arnold. In our effort
to hasten the end of war, we have hung
the sword with abuses and eXecrations,
when it has had Divine mission, and
when in many crises of the worlds his
tory 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 flaming sword to defend
tho tree of life. OF the officer of the
law st. Paul declares: Gle beareth not
the sword in vain" Through Moses God
commanded "Put every man his sword
by his side" David, in his prayer, says;
"Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0 most
mighty" One Of the old battleshouts
of the Old Testament was: "The sword
of the Lord and of Gideon" Christ, in
great exigencyy said, that such a
weapon was more important thana coat,
for He declared; "lIe that hath no
sword let him sell his garment and buy
one" Again He declared 81 come
not to send peace but sword" OF
Christ's second coming it is said "0ut
of His mouth went sharp, two-edged
sword" Thus, sometimes fguratively
but oftener literally, the Divine mission
Of the sword is announced.
What moro consecrated thing in the
world than Joshua's sword, or Caleb's
sword, or Gidoon's sword, or David S
sword, or Washington's sword or
Marions sword, or Lafayette's sword,
or Wellington's sword, or Kosciusllo's
sword, or Garibaldi's sword, or hun
drcds of thousands of American swords
that have again and again been bathed
in Heaven. Swords of that kind have
been tho best friends of the human
race. They have slain tyrannics, pried
open dungeons and cleared the way for
nations in their march upward. 1t 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 cringc and crouch before the
wrong.
Turn over the leaves of the worlds
history and find that there has never
been tyranny stopped or a nation lib
Grated except by the sword. | am not
talking to you about the way things
ought to be, but about the way things
havc been. What force drove back tic
Saroccns at Tours, and kept Europe
from being overwhelmed by Mohom'
mechanism, and, subsequently, all Amer
lea given over to MohNmmcdarismE
The sword of Charles Martcl and his
mon, Who can deal enough intlnitos
to tell what was accomplished for the
worlds good by the sword Of Joan OF
Are, In December last looked Off and
saw in tho distance the battlefield OF
Marathon and asked myself what was
! II that ON that most tremendous day In
history stopped the Persian hosts, rep.
rcsentng not only Persia, but Egypt,
and Trpoli, and Aighonistan, and BE.
| lJochistan, and Armenia; host that
had Asia under foot and proposed to
put europe under foot and, II success
tul in that battle, would have sub.
merged ny Asiatlc borbOrIsm Eu.
ropoan civilization, and, Ns conso'
Qucnco in after time, American oivili-
| Mtion? The swords OF MiltIOdCs, and
| Thomistoclos, aud AristIdoS At the
waving of these swords the eleven
thousand ancors Of Athcus on the run,
dashed against the one hundred thou
4 sand insolont porsINns, and tramplcd