Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1890-06-06
SERMON BY DIR. TALMAGE
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE TALKS OF
THE SWORD AND ITS MISSION.
His Text Isaiah xxxiv, Sony Sword Shall
BE Bathed In Heaven Discourse Be
fore the Thirteenth Regiment, n.
c., S. n. Y.

annual sermon before the Thirteenth regi-
ment, 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 tho national air:
MY country, it's of thee,
Sweet land Of liberty.
The subject of the sermon was "rhe
Sword-Its Mission and Its Doom" The
text, Isaiah xxxiv, B: My sword shall be
bathed in heaven"
Three hundred and fifty-onc 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 applaudntory and sometimes
damnat ory, sometimes as drawn, sometimes
as shcathed. In the Bible, and in much
secular literature, the sword represents all
javelins all muslets, all carbines, all guns,
all police bs. all battle axes all weaponry
for physical defense or attack. 1t would
be an interesting thing TO give the history
Of the Pillow, and follow its furrow all down
through the ages, from the first crop in
Chadea to the last crop in Minnesota. 1t
would be interesting to follow the Pen as
it has tracked it's 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 frat nail driven down through
all the mechanism of centuries to the last
stroke in the carpenters shop yesterday.
But in this, my annual sermon as chaplain
of the Thirteenth regiment, propose tax
ing up n weapon that has done a work that
neither Plow nor Pen nor Hammer ever
accomplished. Ny theme is the sword-its
mission and its doom.
A SWORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The sword of the text was bathed in
heaven; that is, it was a sword of right
cousness as another sword may be bathed
in hell, and the sword of cruelty and
wrong. There is a great difference be
tween the sword of Winlllereid and the
sword of Catalina, between the sword of
I.eonidas 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 crises of the
worlds history it has swung for liberty
md 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 n 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, 0 most mighty" One of
the old battle shouts of the Old Testament
was, THE sword of the Lord and Of Gid
con-" Christ, in a great cXigcncy, said
that such a weapon was more important
than coat for he declared: lie that hath
no sword, let him sell his garment and buy
one Again he declared: Il come not to
send peace but a sword" OF Cnriscs sec
ond coming it is said: "Out Of his mouth
went sharp two edged sword. Thus,
sometimes figuratively, but oftenec liter
ally, the divine mission of the sword is an
nounced.
What more consecratcd thing in the
world than Joshu3's sword, or Caleb's
sword, or Gideon's sword, or David's
sword, or WashingCon's sword or Maron's
sword, or Lafayctoe's sword, or yelling
TONS sword, or KosciusbO's sword, or Gar
ibaldi's sword, or hundreds of thousands
of American swords that have again and
again been bathcd in heaven. Swords of
that kind have been the best friends of the
human race. They have slain tyrannies,
Dred open dungeons, and cleared the way
Tor nations in their march upward. Ii
was better for them to take the sword and
he 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 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
MI. a
and, subsequently, all America given over
to Mohammedanism? The sword of Charles
Marte and his men, Who can deal enough
in ntinities to tell what was accomplished
Tor the worlds good by the sword of Joan
of Arc?
In December last looked off and saw in
the distance the battlefield of Marathon,
and asked myself what was it that on
that most tremendous day in history,
stopped the Persian hosts, representing not
only Persia, but Egypt, and Tripoli and
Afghanistan, and Beloochistan. and Ar
lnenia; a host that had Asia under foot
and proposed to put Europe under foot,
and if successful in that battle, would
have submerged by Asiatic barbarism
European civilization, and, as "A cOnse-
quence in aftertime, American civilization?
The swords of Miltiades and Themistocles,
swords the eleven thousand lancers of
Athens on therun dashed against the one
hundred Thousand insolent Persians, and
trampledi them down or pushed them back
into the sea. The sword of that day saved
the best part of the hemispheTes, a trinity
of keen steel flashing in the two lights
the light of the setting sun of barbarisn,
the light of the rising sun Of civilization.
Hail to thesethree great swords bathed in
heaven!
THE, SWORDS WORK FOR GOOD.
What put an end to infamous Louis
XVIs plan Of universal conquest, by
which England would have been made to
kneel on thesteps of the Tuileries and the
Angio-Saxon race would have been halted
and an Europe paralyzedS The sword of
Marlborough, at Blenheim. Time came
when the Roman war eagles, whose beaks
had been punched into the hearts of ma
tions, must be brought down from their
eyries. All other attempts had disgrace
fully failed, but the Germans, the mightiest
nation for Drawn and brain, undertook the
work, and, under God, succeeded. What