The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-30 00:00:00

AN ADMIRABLE SPEECH ON THE PRESS

By a Catholic Priest.

The Edinburgh Courant gives the following re--
port of a lecture delivered by a priest in the
Catholic Church, Cowgate, on Sunday night :
Dr. Marshall, after a few introductory remarks
said—l often thought, What did our early ancestors
do without books and newspapers, the circulating
library, the teeming Press, and the various periodi-
cals that come out quarterly, monthly, weekly, and
daily, supplying us with food for thought? Great
and glorious things were achieved by our ancestors,
and yet there was no Press. Men married and were
given in marriage—marriages of lust, marriages of
convenience, marriages of love; deaths, coming
and going, buying and selling ; dynasties
were founded, arose, fought, and conquered ;
poets sung, philosophers taught, society existed
and flourished, and yet no Press, no books,
no newspapers ! The Press came up at the time that
tobacco did ; I like them both. But when there was
no Press and no printed books, was there anything
to supply their place? Yes; there was. Society
could never have progressed, nor civilisation existed,
if there had not been something as powerful in that
day as the Press is in ours. They had their orators,
poets; dramatists, tragedians, philosophers, school-
men, heralds, and bards. When I speak of the
Press, I don't merely mean ink, paper, types, ma-
chines, and compositors, but I mean the great talent
behind—those who direct it, and make us happy
possessors of it. Whether the power of the Press
will increase, I don't know. I can hardly imagine
that it will become greater or more glorious than it
is at the present moment. Here we have the won-
derful machinery that can impress so fast—
that can bring the printed impression before us
at every hour of our existence. Here we have
the electric wires—the flashing telegraphs from
the most distant regions of the world, with news
true and false, with such speed that no
man can speak in Parliament, or utter a single sen-
timent anywhere that is for the advantage of his
fellow-men to hear, but almost as soon as he has
uttered it, and perhaps before he has finished speak-
ing, it is in print. Here we have not only labour,
skill, and industry, but we have the most intelli-
gent men of the day, men of the greatest learning
and intelligence, employed on the Press. Not that
everything that is in a newspaper is true, for I can-
not believe that all that is said about the wonder-
ful turnips or the ,magnified gooseberries—(laugh-
ter)—1 cannot believe all that is contained in a
Reuter's telegram ; I do not believe all the critiques
that are printed in regard to every songster that
sings or every painter that paints. But we are
not to suppose that the Press is all evil; and so
at the present moment it gives us what the
Pagans, the early Christians, and the inhabi-
tants of Europe possessed. We have but small
poets now compared with those that went
before us; we have eo wonderful philosophers that
would compare with those of old—with Plato or
Aristotle—with men of such talent as Socrates or
Julius Cw3ar ; but here we have something to sup-
ply the places that these men occupied. We have
all this in the wonderful Press that we possess at the
present moment, whose powers cannot be exagger-
ated ; and there is not asingle preacher in the uni-
verse who would bestow more praise upon it and do
more homage to it than the humble individual be-
fore you. Now comes the question, How does the
Press affect religion and society ? Many men, and
I believe no men more than the respectable gentle-
men of the Press themselves, have an idea that
the Press is hostile to religion. All ignorant
men think so, all superstitious men think so,
all bigoted men think so. God preserve me
from being classed with any of these ! Still,
men think so, and many members of the Press,
in their writings, and what they put forth in
books and newspapers, seem to imagine that this is
really the case. I must tell you honestly that I
cannot believe that the Press can ever be hostile to
religion or destructive to society. I can give you
my reasons for my opinion. In the first place, my
great guide is the Church. What does the Church
itself do with regard to the Press ? Decidedly it
makes use of it. At Rome, Milan, and Venice, the
Press is worked with wondrous power; and in the
first few years after the discovery of the art of
printing, Italy issued works, which they specially
tell us are on theology and the classics, in the pro-
portion almost of ten to one that resulted from the
German Press. Under the influence of the Popes,
under the influence of the most leading and power-
ful families of Italy, tne rress arose in mat country
to a wondrous power; and from it there
issued printed books that are to be counted
in the first century of the invention, not
by huadreds, but by thousands. Therefore,
if I find in God's providence such gifts, skill,
and discovery, so active, earnest, and energetic, in
making use of the Press, I would never think that
the Press se In be hostile to the Church. I find that
the Church has outrivalled all other powers to the
present day, until in spite of Printing-house-
squar e
and the enormous engines that are at work to give
us the great Times newspaper, I will challenge
all England, France, and Germany to touch, in the
race, the great Propaganda Press in Rome, which
gives us not only the Fathers, the Scriptures, the
classics of Greece and Rome, but such remains of
literature as may *be found in the treasures of
Arabia or spread before us in the Sanscrit. I have
other reasons, however, for my assertions. In the
first place—pardon me, gentlemen of the Press, if I
should knock a little of the conceit of you—l admit
your power, I glory in your energy ; but I must
remind you that you are not an institution,
though you often assert it. I must all you plainly
that you are not an ' Estate' though you pretend to
be. Great and powerful and valuable as you are,
you are no more an institution than a looking-glass
is a young body's face—(a laugh)—or a duet a
pianoforte, or a telescope an astronomical observa-
tion. Like the orators, er the bards, or the heralds,
or the actors of old, you only reflect the public
mind—no doubt an immense service, an immense
use to society. The Press only reflects the public
opinion; and just as men think, or wish to think,
or desire to think, the Press is obliged to utter.
Tory to Tory, Whig to Whig, Radical to Radical
—each lean has his own newspaper. The comma-
,cial man reads the " City article ;" the prizefighter
takes in Bells Life in London. Go and write a
paper that the public does not like—put St. Paul
and St. Peter to edit a Times and a Morning
Chronicle in Rome and Athens, and how many
subscribers would they have ? Give me the
power to write a journal in Edinburgh, and
see how- long I would be out of the Gazette
(Laughter.) Gentlemen of the Press, you do well,
but remember you are only a portion of society, not
the masters of society; you have no head, no orga-
nisation, no principle, no aim but to se'l your paper
and get men to read it. Do it with all the inge-
nuity yon can. Those who write truthfully and
sincerely will earn a good and honest existence, but
the false man, the untrue man will do the same for
his own purposes. As the orators of Greece and
Rome spoke the minds of the Grecians and Romans,
so you speak the minds of Frenchmen, Scotchment
Englishmen, and Irishmen. You are a wonderful
power, a great engine, but you are no instittiotna;s
With and therefore the Church cannot fear you, ex-eehlithe
it dreads and fears society. In connexion
Press there is plenty of lies, plenty
ll lies,
of what is bad; but unless society
w't believe
of errors
do.n plenty
and all falsehood, and all sin—which
I look
—then the Press is not all falsehood °r sin.
society--
upon the Press merely as may be bad.
not as its head or its heart. The Press.
what is the Press
the toue
What is the Press in America--
ctieety of the one, and
in France—in spite of thea
other ? What is the
the wonderful intellect
described.c by itself ? There
Press in our country
it--plen
ty of falsehoods.
are plenty of evils
kee—Why do you speak so
But then it may be as
favourably of it ? Because the freedom of the Press
corrects itself. The newspapers correct themselves
by accusing one another, laughing at one another,
and insulting one another. I should be sorry to
see the slightest restriction put
on the liberty of
the Press. Give it rope enough and it will hang
itself—(laughter)—and since its charges against
the Church are untrue, all I have to say is, that
‘i when rogues fell out honest men get their
own."
(Laughter.) But it may be asked, does not the

Exchange on London, 271 to 273. Coffee good,
first 6,600 to 6,700. Shipments since the departure
of the last steamer, 80,606 bags, of which 18,000
were for the Channel. Sales, 45,000 bags. Stock,
135,000 bags. Freights, 40s. to 475. 63.
BAHIA, DEC. 12.
Exchange on London, 271. Catton, 26,000 reis.
Sugar, 2,400 to 25,000 reis.

PERNAMBUCO, DEC. 15.

Exchange on London, 27i to 28i. Sugar, 3,800
rein; browns, 2,200 to 2,600 rein. Cotton, 26,000

The Messageries Imperiales steamer Estramadnre
arrived here on the 13th inst.,

The "Great Eastern" Lottery Scheme.

A correspondent of the Manchester Eraininer
furnishes the following details of the scheme for the
disposal of the great ship by lottery :—The proposal
is that subscriptions for tickets shall be reserved to
citizens of Great Britain. With this proviso it is
proposed that all subscribers of £1 and upwards
shall receive a numbered certificate for each £1 sub-
scribed, and the subscription to cease when
£240,000 has been subscribed. Should the associa-
tion not become the purchasers of the ship, all
holders of certificates to receive their money back
free of any but actual expenses, in no case to exceed
is. per share. Should any holder of certificates not
reclaim his money within six months of a publica-
tion in all the London and Liverpool daily papers of
the inability of the trustees to purchase the vessel,
the amount of such unclaimed subscriptions to be
forfeited. Should the association become the pur-
chasers, the trustees will immediately proceed to
make a division of the property among 200 of the
subscribers in the following manner :—A public
lottery to be held in Frankfort, with all usual pre-
cautions as to integrity, and the drawings to take
place in the presence of two or more Notaries Public,
and of the secretary and one or more of the trustees.
The successful numbers to be of the following
values (should the full amount have been subscribed,
and rateably in proportion), and represented by
proportionate shares in the ship :-1 prize, value
£40,000 ; 1 prize, value £20,000 ; 3 p►izes, LlO,OOO
each, value £30,000 ; 6 prizes, £5,000 each, value
£30,000; 12 prizes, £2,500 each, value £30,000;
35 prizes, £l,OOO each, value £35,000 ; 50 prizes,
£5OO each, value £25,000 ; 25 prizes, £4OO each,
value £lO,OOO ; 65 prizes, £3OO each, value £19,500;
2 prizes. £250 each, value £5OO. 200 prizes. Total
value £240,000. Less a commission of five per cent.
and charges, and the necessary disbursements of the
ship from the time of her purchase until her trans-
fer by the trustees to the 200 successful subscribers,
a published account of which, and a list of the win-
ning 200 numbers, will be advertised in the leading
journals. The remaining shares to be blanks. Al
precautions have been taken not to infringe any
enactments, and thus any interference with the
lottery taking place cannot be reasonably antici-
pated. Should, however, any unforeseen difficulty
after the purchase of the vessel arise, the trustees
bind themselves to again cause the ship to be put
up to auction, and to return the proceecis propor-
tionately to all holders of certificates of subscription.