Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-05
Discourse Of Rev. DR.. TaImage in
the City of Brooklyn.
Annual Sermon as Chaplain Before the
Thirteenth Regiment Sword,
Its Mission, Its Doom.
1t has Developed Courage, that Sublime Ener'
gy Of the Soul which Defes the Uni
verse When in the Right.
snecial 70 the Gazette.

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academy Of music. The staff officers and
members of the regiment were immedi-
ately in front of the platform, and their
friends thronged the galleries. The
hymn sung was the national air:
my country, tbs of the,
Sweet land Of liberty"
The subject of the sermon was: "The
Sword - Its Mission and Its Doom. ~
The text, Isaiah xxxiv. 8: 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 mention is applaud
atory 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
carbiues, all guns, all police clubs, all
battle-axes, all weapons for physical de-
fence or attack. 1t would be an inter-
esting thing TO give the history of the
plough, and follow its 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 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 20 count the echoes of
the hammer from the first nail driven,
down through all the mechanism of CEN
turtles TO the last stroke in the carpenters
shop yesterday. But in this my annual
sermon as chaplain of the Thirteenth
regiment, propose to take IN weapon
that has done work that neither pillow
nor pen nor hammer ever accomplished.
Ny 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
batbed in hell, and the sword of cruelty
and wrong. There is a great difference
between the sword of Winklereid and the
sword of Catalina, between the sword of
Leonidas and the sword of Benedict Ar
mold. In our effort TO hasten the end of
war, we have hung the sword with
abuses and excavations, when it has had
divine mission, and when in many
crisis of the world s history it has
SWUNG FOR LIBERTY AND JUSTICE,
civilization and righteousness and God.
Al very OpOnluB VI LllO DlDl0 a4o Oh
the east side of the Garden of Eden, God
placed q 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,
most mighty One of the old battle
II, ~, ~ IL
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: al
come not to send peace but a sword. -
OF Christ's second coming it is said;
''Out of his mouth went a sharp, two
edged sword. - Thus, sometimes fig
uratively, but oftener literally, the
divine mission of the sword is announced
What more consecrated thing in the
world than Joshua's sword, OF Caleb 8
sword, or Gideon IS sword, or David's
sword, or Washington sword, or Ma
rion's sword, or Lafayette's sword, or
Wellington's sword, or Kosciusko' 8
sword, or Garlbald IS 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 wa for ma
tons in their march upward. IL was
better for them to tehc lie sword and be
free, than lie rnier the oppressor's heel
and suffer. There is something worse
thar death, and that is life if it must
grunge aud crouch before the wrong Turn
over the leaves of the world Is
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 70 be, but
ABOUT THE WAY THEY HAVE BEEN.
What force drove back the Saraeens at
Tours, and kept Europe from being over
whelmed by Mohammedanism, and, sub
sequently, all America given over to
Mohammedanism? The sword Of Charles
Martel and his men. Who can deal
enough in infinitles TO tell what was ao-
compllshed for the worlds good by the
sword of Joan of Arc? In December
last 1 looked off and saw in the distance
the battlefield OF Marathon, and asked
myself what was II that, on that most
tremendous day in history, stopped
lne PERSIAN nOSts, representing
not only Persia, but Egypt, ana
Tripoli, and Afghanistan, aud Belooch-
istRn, and Armenia; q host that had
Asia under foot and proposed to put Eu-
rope under foot, aud, if successful in
that battle, would haYe submerged by
Asiatic barbarism, European civilization,
and, az q consequence in after time,
American civilization? The swords of
Miltiades, and Themistocles, and Aris-
tides. At the waving of these swords,
the IL 200 lancers of Athens on the run,
dashed against the 100 900 insolent Per-
slams, and trampled them down or
pushed them back into the sea. The
sword of that day saved the best part of
the hemispheres, a trinity OF keen steel
flashing in the two lights-the light OF
the setting sun of barbarism, the light of
ths rising sun of civilization. Hail to
these three great swords bathed in
heavenl
What put an end TO infamous Louis
XNI.'s plan of universal conquest by
which England would have been made to
kneel on the steps of the Tuileries and
the Anglo-Saxon race would haye been
halted and all Europe paralyzed? The