The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-06-13
THE sHQRD's USES.
A Sermon to the Military By Rev.
M T. Dewitt Talmage.
what the Sword Has Achieved I'm the
Worlds History-The Mission and Doom
OF the Great weapon-Arbitration
Sure to Come.

ment at Brooklyn. His subject was:
Tho Sword-Its Mission and It's Doom"
Tho 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-the
sword. Sometimes the message Is ap-
plaudatory, and sometimes damnatory,
sometimes as drawn, sometimes as
sheathed. In the Bible, and in much
secular literature, the sword represents
all jsvelins. all muskets. all carbines,
all guns, all police clubs all battle axes,
all weaponry for physical defense or at
tack. 1t would be an interesting thing
to give the history Of the pillow and fol-
low its burrows 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 its way on down through
the literature of nations, from its, first
word in the first book to the last word
some author wrote last night as he
closed his manuscripts. 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 in the car
penters shop yesterday. But in this,
my annual sermon as chaplain of the
Thirteenth regiment I propose taking
q weapon that has done work that
neither plow nor zen 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 right
eousness, as another sword may be
bathed in hell, and the sword of cruelty
and wrong. There is great difference
between the sword of Winklereid and
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 excavations when it
has had divine mission, when in many
crises of the worlds historyit hasswung
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
the tree of life. OF the officer of the
law st. Paul declares: "He 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,
o most mighty" One of the old battle
shouts of the Old Testament was: 1.-THE
sword of the Lord and of Gideon"
Christ in a 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: II
come not to send peace but sword. "
OF Christs 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 sword, or Caleb's
sword, or Gideon's sword, or Dayid's
sword, or Washington's sword, or
Marion's sword, or Lafayette's sword, or
'Wellington's sword, or. Kosciusko's
sword, or Garibaldi's 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 fer ma
tions 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 and crouch before the wrong.
Turn over the leaves OF the worlds his
tory and find that there has never been |
a tyranny stopped or a nation liberated !
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 Saracens at |
Tours, and kept Europe from being over
whelmedA by Mohammedanism, and, |
subsequently all America given over TO
Mohammedanisn7 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 Jean Of Arc2 .,.za.--z-- |
In December last looked off and saw
in the distance the battlefield of Mara |
thon, and asked myself wha twas it that,
on that most treme HdOus day in history, |
stopped the Persian hosts, representing
moi, only Persia but Egypt and Tripoli
and Afghanistau and Beloochistan and
Armenia; host that had Asia nnder
foot, and proposed to put Europe under
foot, and if successful in that battle
would have submerged by Asiattc bar
barism European civilization and as
in after tine. American
The swords Of Miltiades
and Themistecles and Aristides. At
the waving of these swords the eleven
laneers of Athens on the
run dashed against the one hundred
insolent Persians and trampled
them down or pushed them back into
the sea. The sword of that day saved
the best part Of the hemispheres,
trinity of keen steel flashing in the two
light Of the setting sun of
barharisnn, the hight Of the rising sun of
civilizati ton. Hail to these three great
swords bathed in Heaven!
What put an end to infamous Louis
XIV.'s plan of universal conquest BY
which England would have been made
to kneel on the steps of the Tuileries
and the Anglo-Ssxon race would have I
been halted and all Europe paralyzed2
The sword of Marlborough at Blenheim.
Time came when the Roman war eagles,
whose beaks had been plunged into the
heart of nations must be prougt down
from their eyries.' Allother attempts
had disgracefully failed, but the Ger
mans the mightiest for Drawn and
brain, undertook the work, and, under