The hydraulic press., 1859-12-17
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THE PRESS AND THE PULPIT.

An English writer has called the press the
third estate in the realm. In America, 1t is
the first. Once the pulpit occupied the fore
most place, and its influence could mould
opinion and guide the course OF empire
Mankind were then concerned chiefly about
the future, of which they knew even even less
than they did of the present, and the priests
controlled them through their fears of the
future But new church arose, whose
priests are the disciples of science, Men
awoke to knowledge of their capacities and
rights, became interested in the world on
which they take such grand voyages around
the sun, and declared that the pulpit is .'the
flag that follows not the rudder that steers"
the world
Some writer who discourses in the Placer
Courier plainly apprehends this fact, and
uses few figures to prove it. He was an
ticipated, however, twelve years ago, by
Jas. r. Lowell, the'poet, who said 81 know
of no so responsible position as that of the
public journalist. The editor of our day
bears the same relation to his time that the
clerk bore to the ages before the invention
of printing. Indeed, the position which he
holds is that which the clergyman should
hold even now. But the clergyman chooses
to walk off to the extreme edge of the world,
and to throw such seed as he has clear over
into that darkness which he calls the Next
Life. As if nert did not mean nearest and as
if any life were nearer than that Immediately
present one which boils and eddies all around
him at the caucus, the ratification meeting,
and the polls! =
Meanwhile, see what pulpit the editor
mounts daily, sometimes with congregaa-
ton of fifty thousand within reach of
his voice, and never SO much as nodder,
even, among them! And from what Bible
can he choose his text-a Bible which needs
no translation, and which no priestcraft can
shut and clasp from the laity-the open vol
ume of the world upon which, with pen
of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired
Present is even now writing the annals OF
Godp
But let US give our Californian a hearing
on the subject He says:
Society in. California, although in many
respects good, is not what, it ought to be.
Thinking men are well aware OF it. Phi
,anthropists wish it were better. The most
of them look to the public as being the only
hill from whence their strength cometh
look to the pulpit, but more especially to the
Press. Vain will be the endeavors of min
listers if their efforts are counteracted by
editors. But few men can form o cor
rect idea of the amount of moral good or
evil that an editor is capable of doing Nay,
there is not a man ip this world who can
tell What do the works of minister
amount to, when compared. to those of an
editor of newspaper? Let us suppose
that a minister breaches at. Yankee Jim's,
Forest Hill Bath and Michigan Bluff once
week; he addresses during that time from
100 to 200 persons. There is press, in. the
neighborhood from it there comes each
week only 1000 copies of a newspaper; those
are circulated, and each copy is read by no
less than persons the editor during the
week breaches to 5000 persons. The minis
ter breaches one sermon each week, at each
town. the editor fills one half Of his paper
with his writings, which may not be called
preaching by some, but they are either moral
or immoral, good or evil, in their tendency
We see from the above, that single editor
breaches to greater number OF people dur
ing the week than any forty ministers in the
mountains.