News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-06-05
GODS GIFT OF DEFENSE.
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON BEFORE THE
THIRTEENTH REGIMENT.


1t Has Swung for Liberty and Justice.
The Time Is Coming When Nations VIII
Disband Their Armies and the Sword
VIII Return to Its Scabbard Forever.
BROOKLYN, June chaplain T. De
Witt Talmage this evening preached the
annual sermon before the Thirteenth
regiment, 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 the
national air:
My country, it's of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
The subject of the sermon was: The
Sword-Its Mission and Its Doom"
The 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 mention is APP
plaudatory and sometimes damnatory,
sometimes as drawn, sometimes as
sheathed In the Bible. and in much
secular literature, the sword represents
all javelins, all musllets, all carbines,
all guns, all police clubs, all battle
axes, all weaponry for physical de-
fe..se or attack 1t would be an inter
esting thing to give the history of the
Pillow, and follow its furrow all down
through the ages, from the first crop in
Chaldea to 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 as 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 in the carpenters shop yester-
day. But in this my annual sermon
as chaplain of tie Thirteenth regiment,
propose taking up n weapon that has
u
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 a 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
lereid and the sword of Catalina be-
tween the sword of Leonidas and the |
sword of Benedict Arnold. In our eff
fort to hasten the end of the war, we
execrations, when it has had divine |
mission, and when in many crises of |
the worlds history it has swung for
liberty and justice, civilization and |
and God At the very |
opening of the Bible and ON the east
side of the Garden of Eden, God |
placed a flaming sword TO defend the |
tree of life.
OF the officer of the law, ST. Paul de- |
clares He beareth not the sword in |
vain" Through Moses God command |
ed: Put every HAN 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 WIS: 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; Il come |
not to send peace but sword" OF |
Christ's second coming it is said: "Out |
of his mouth went a sharp, two edged
sword" Thus, sometimes figuratively,
but oftener literally, the divine mission
of the sword is announced
CONSOLIDATED SWORDS.
What more consecrated thing in the
world than JOshua's sword or Calebs |
sword, or Gideon's sword. or David's |
sword, or Washington S sword, or Mari |
on's sword, or Lafayette's sword, or
sword, or Kosciusko's |
sword, or Garibaldi's sword, or hun
1reds of thousands OF American swords
hat have again and again been bathed
n heaven. Swords of that kind have
been the best friends of the human
ace They have slain tyrannies, pried
,pen dungeons, and cleared the way for
nations in their march upward 1t was
better for them to take the sword and
'e free, than lie under the oppressor's
leel 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
'een a tyranny stopped or a nation lib
rated except by the sword. | am not
alking to you about the way things
ought to be, but about the way they
AVE been. What force drove back the
Saracens at Tours and kept Europe
rom being overwhelmed by Moham-
mechanism and subsequently all America
yiven over to Mohammedanism? The
word of Charles Martel and his men.
Who can deal enough in infinities to tell
what was accomplished for the worlds
rood by the sword of Joan of Are? In
December last looked off and saw in
he distance the battle field of Mara
hon, and ! asked myself what was it
hat on that most tremendous day in
history stopped the Persian hosts, rep
not only Persia but Egypt,
md Tripoi, and Afghanistan, and Be
oochistan, and Armenia, d host that had
Asia under foot and proposed to put
europe under foot, and, il successful
n that battle, would have submerged
" Asiatic barbarism European civilizar
ion. and. as a consequence, in after
inc American civilization2 The swords
f Miltiades, and Themistocles, and Arts
ides. At the waving of these swords the
leven thousand lancers of Athens on
ne run dashed against the one hun
red thousand insolent Persians, and
rampled them down or pushed them
ack into the sea. The sword of that
ay saved the best part of the hemis-
heres, trinity of keen steel flashing
4 the two lights-the light of the set
ing sun of barbaIism, the light of the
sing sun of civilization. Hail TO these