Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1890-06-02
USE OF THE SWORD.
DR.. TALMAGE breaches TO A BROOKLYN
REGIMENT.
The Flashing Steel in History-Ihe Sword o
Righteousness and It's Work-The Day
Of General Disarmament is.
at Hand.
sn.cinL I.llaram % IA Rsaisler


ately in front OF the platform, and their
friends thronged the galleries. The
hymn sung was the National Air:
My country. lis OF thee.
Sweet land Of liberty"
The subject of the sermon was; The
Sword-Its Mission and its Doom"
The text. Isaiah 81: ,: My sword shall
be bathed in heaven"
Three hundred and iifty-One times
does the Bible speak OF that sharp,
keen, curved, ineXorable weapon, which
flashes upon MS from the teXt-the
sword. Sometimes the mention is APP
plaudatOry and sometimes damnatOry,
sometimes rs 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 defence
or attack. 1t would be an interesting
thing to give the history Of the plongh,
and follow its furrow all down through
the ages, from the first crop in Chaldea
10 the last crop in Minnesota. 1t would
/ be interesting to follow the Pen as it
/ has tracked 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 rs
| he closed his manuscript. 1t 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 i'm the car
pcnter'S shop yesterday. But in this
my annual sermon as chaplain of the
Thirteenth Regiment, propose taking
lup weapon that has done a work that
neither Pow nor Pen nor Hammer ever
accomplished. My theme is the Sword
its mission and its doom.
THE SWORD OF THE TENT
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
la great difference between the sword OF
/ Winklercid and the sword of Cataline,
| between the sword of LeOnidaS and the
sword of Benedict Arnold. In our effort
/ to hasten the end OF war, we have hung
1 the sword with abuses and execrationS,
when il has had divine mission, and
when in many crises of the worlds his
/ tory il has swung for liberty and justice,
I At the very opening of the Bible and on
I the east side of the Garden OF Eden,
/ God placed flaming sword to defend
the tree of life. OF the officer Of the
| law, ST. Paul declares: ''Ilc beareth
not the sword in vain Through
Moses God commanded: Put every
man mis- sword by his side" David in
! his PRAYER, says: ''Gird thy sword
upon thy thigh, o most mighty One
of the battle shouts of the Old TeSta-
ment was, The sword of the Lord and
of Gideon" Christ, IN a great exigency,
said that such weapon was more inn
portant than coat, for He said: He
that hath no sword, let him sell his gar
mcnt aud buy one. Again He declared:
Il come not TO send peace but Il sword"
OF ChriSt'S second coming it is said:
''Out Of his mouth went sharp two
edged sword" Thus, sometimes figura-
lively, but oftener literally, the divine
mission Of the sword is announced. What
more conSecrated thing in the world
/ than JOShua's word, or Caleb'S sword,
Gideon'S sword, or David'S sword, or
/ WashingtonS sword, or Marion'S sword,
or Lafayette'S sword. or Wellington'S
or KOSciuSko'S sword, or GarbaldfS
sword. or hundreds 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. 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 cringe
aud crouch before the wrong.
Turn over the leaves OF the
worlds history, and find that there has
never been tyranny stopped or ma
tion liberated except by the sword. |
am not talking to you about the way
things ought 10 be, but the way they
have been. What force drove back the
SaraceuS at Tours, and kept Europe
from being overwhelmed by Moham-
mechanism. and, subsequently, all Amer
| ica given over TO MohammendaniSm?
The sword of Charles Martel and his
men. Who can deal enough in infni-
ties to tell what was accomplished for
the worlds good by the sword of Joan
/ OF Are?
TO COME DOWN To LATER AGES,
! all intelligent EngliShmen unite with all
Intelligent Americans in saying that 1t
was the best thing that the American
colonies swung off from the government
of Great Britain. 1t would have been
the worst ahSurdity Of four thousand
wears if this continent should have
continued i'm loyalty to throne on the
other side of the sea. No one would
Dropose a GOvernor-Ge General for the Uni
led States as there is GOvernor-Gener-
al for Canada. We have had splendid
queens in our American Capitol; but we
could hardly be brought 10 support
queen on the other side of the Atlantic,
lovely and good as victoria Is
The only use we nave Iol
eorls and lords and dukes IN
this country is, to treat them well when
they pass through to their hunting
grounds i'm the Far West, or when their
fortunes have failed. reinforce them by
wealthy matrimonial alliance. Imagine
this nation yet a part of English pos
sessions. The trouble the mother
country has to-day with Ireland would
be a paradisaic condition compared with
the trouble she would have with us
England and the United States make
excellent neighbOrS, but the two laml-
lies are too large to live in the same
house. What a god-Send that we should
have parted, and parted long ago.
So now the sword has its uses, al
though it is a Sheathed sword. There Is
not an armory in Brooklyn, or New
York. or Philadelphia, or Chicago or
Charleston, or New Orleans, or any
American city, that could be spared.
We have in all our American cities a
ruffian population who, though they are
small in number, compared with the
good population, would again and again
make rough and stormy times if, back
of our MAYORS and common councils, and
police. there were not in the armorleS
and arSenalS some keen steel, which,
if brought into play, would make
ouick work with mobocracy. There
are in every great communl-
~ unprincipaled men who like
row on a large scale, aud they beat
themselves with sour mash and old rye
and other decoctionS, enriched with
blue vitriol. potash, turpentine' sugar
of lead, Sulphuric acid, log WOOD
strvchnine. night-Shade, and other
precious ingredients, and take down
whole glass with Il rcSounding AN. oil
IContinued on Third Page.