The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-02-25
NEWSPAPERS GOOD AND RAn.

ReateO ms lecture on "NeWBpaperB--(loOd and
Bad, last evening, before the largest congrega-
hOn which has as yet assembled in the Second
Reformed Dutch Church.
The lowering aspect OF the weather forebod-
ing rainy night, tended not to detain our
citizens, who came in such great numbers that
the doors of the church were closed-all the
standing and sitting room inside, the pulpit
steps, benches, and seats being fully occupied.
We present our readers with a full report of this
lecture, drawn from the following passages OF
Scripture
"RlOIUledge shall be increased DAN xii, L.
"And he brought me TO The door Of the court ana
aOhen looked, behold, hole in the lUdU. Then
and acie1l had digged in he t0aU, behold, a door
And ne said unto me, Go in, and behold the
lotcked aboninations that they dohere 80 ,Oent
fn and sdlU; and behold, every form OF creeping
hing, and aboninabte beasts and all he id6ts Of
Re house Of Israeli portrdDed upon the t0aH round
aboia."-Ezek. viii, Z, 8, 8, TO-
The first passage Is q prophecy of the multi
plcaton of intelligence. the fulhlment ofwhich
shall come chiefly through the Chrlstianized
printing press. The second passage represents
the prophet as breaking through the wall that
hides the denominations of ancient Jerusalem.
newspaper may do and the last Will call me to-
dig in the wall that hides much sin, and con-
front q roll OF lniqultous newspapers, yet wet
Gom the printing press.
The newspaper is the great educator of the
nineteenth century. There is no force COM
pared with it, II is book, pulpit, platform,
1Orum, all in one. And there Is notan interest,
religious, literary, commercial, scientific, agri-
cultural, or mechanical, that is not within its
grasp. All our churches, and schools, and col
leges, and asylums, and art galleries feel the
quaking of the printing press.
shall try tonight to bring to your parlor
tables the periodicals that are worthy of the
Christian f1reSide and try to pitch into the gut
ter of scorn and contempt those newspapers
that are not fit for the hand of your child or the
vision of your wife.
The institution of newspapers arose in Italy.
In Venice the first newspaper was published;
and monthly during the time that Venice was
malta. 1t was printed for the purpose OF giving
military and commercial Information to the
Venetiahs.
The first newspaper published in England
was in 1888, and called the English Mercury.
Others were styled the Weekly DScOUerer, the
Secret OiCl, Herdcttus RiddnS. ETC., etc. Who
can estimate the political scientific, CONNER
England for many years past, by BetpS Weekly
Despatch, the Standard, the Morning Chronicle,
the Post, and that "Prtnce OF Liars" the London
Times
The first attempt at this institution in
lshed the NeiCS, for the amusement and health
OF his patients The French nation under
Napoleon with his own hand wrote articles for
il, and so early in 1929 there were in Paris
1859 journals. But in the United States the
newspaper has come to unlimited sway,
Though in l775 there were but thirty y-seven in
the whole conntry, the number of published
Journals is now counted by thousands, and
to-day, we may as well confess 1t as not, the
religious and SECULAR newspapers are the great
educators of Philadelphia.
In our pulpits we talk to a few hundred peo-
pie; they gather an audience Of about three
hundred thousand If they are right, they are
magnificently right; and If they are wrong, they
are awtully wrong.
copal, the Methodist, the Baptist and Lutheran
societies. the Ledger, THE EvENING TELE-
GRAPH, Inquirer, Press, Age, North An.erican,
BtHetin Star Daily Neios, Saturday Night, Dis
patch. Mercury, IrdnScrtpt Sunday MoLpthg
Times, Evening Herald and others, are welding
an influence the length and the breadth whereof
cannot be estimated except by the rod with
which God measures the land and the sea.
Of q breaches sermons
week; the newspaper presses preach one mil
lion eight hundred thousand sermons week
We each give one hundred and two discourses
year; they give, by their sheets IN clrcula.
tion, sixty-seven million nye hundred and
in accounting for the worlds advance! Four
centuries age, in Germany. in courts OF justice,
men fought with their fists to see who should m
judges decision was unsatisfactory, then the
judge fought with the counsel. Many OF the
lords could not read the deeds OF their own
estates What has made the change? "Books!"
you say. No, sir! The vast majority OF citizens
do not read books.
Take this audience, or any other promiscuous
assembage, and how many histories have they
read? How many treatises on constitutional
law, or political economy, or works of science2
How many elaborate poems or BOOKS Oh traveII
"Xenophon,S or "aerodotus" or "Percival?''
Not many! In the United States the people
would not average one book year 1or each IN IN
This capacity to talk about all themes, secular
and religious? This acquaintance with science
and grand?
Next to the Bible. the newspaper swift
winged and everywhere present Flying over
the fence, showed under the door, tossed into
the counting house, laid on the workbench,
hawked through the cars! All read 1t! White
and black, German, Irishman, Swiss, Spantard,
American, old and young, good and bad, SICK
and well, before breakfast and after tea, Mon
day morning Saturday night, Sunday and
week day
l now declare that consider the newspaper
to be the grand agency by which the Gospel is
preached. Ignorance cast ont. OnDreSSiOn
dethroned. crime extirpated, the world raised,
Heaven rejoiced and God gloriied. In the
clanking OF the printing press, as sheets fly out,
hear the voice of the Lord Almighty proclaim
ing TO all the dead nations OF the earth, "Laza-
rus, come forth!' and to the retreating surges
of darkness LET there be light"
In many OF our city newspapers protesting
no more than secular information, there have
appeared during the past five years some OF
the grandest appeals in behalf of religious
liberty, and some OF the most effective inter-
pretations of Gods government among the
nations. That man has shrivelled heart
who begrudges the five pennies that he pays to
the neWsboy who brings the world to his feet.
There are to-day connected with the edito-
rial and reportorai corps of newspaper esta-
blishments men of the highest culture and
most unimpeachable morality, who are living
on the most limited stlpends, martyrs to the
work to which they feel themselves called.
While YOU sleep in the midnight hours, their
peps NV and their brains ache in preparing the
morning Intelligence. Many of them go un-
rested and unappreciated; their check blanched
and their eyes half quenched with midnight
work, towards premature graves, 10 have the
sIproof.sheet" of their life corrected by Divine
mercy glad at last to escape the perpetual au-
noyances OF fault-fnding public, and the rest
less, impatient cry for more copy, ;, ,,y,,,.,.,
''Nations are to be born in day. VIM this
great thrush into the kingdom OF COD come
from personal presence OF missionary and
philanthropist? mo- When C9e ~ uliiS jit J3'ties t