Whig and tribune. [volume] (Jackson, Tenn.) 1870-1877, 1872-01-20
The Newspaper Press.

Rev. T. ID. w. Talmage, OF Brook
lyn, in a recent sermon, presented
7 the following earnest, 5 stirring
thoughts respecting the power and
capabilities of the newspaper press.
I An instrumentality Of such vast in
! huence as this in our day should be
welded by those who appreciate
! their momentous responsibility, and
] employ it for the improvement and
/ elevation of their fellow-men. The
eloquent discourse is reported pho
/ geographically in the Methodist:
The newspaper is the great educa-
tor of the nineteenth century there
| is no force compared with il. 1t is
book, pulpit, platform, forum, all in
/ one. And there is not an interest
I religious, literary, commercial, SCI
/ entific, agricultural.o .or mechanical
| that is not within its grasp. All our
| churches, and schools, and colleges,
and asylums, and art galleries, feel
| the quaking of the printing press.
In our pulpits we preach to few
/ hundreds or thousands of people
/ the newspaper addresses an audi
| ence of twenty thousand, fifty thou
sand, or two hundred thousand. We
preach three or four times a week
they every morning or evening of
the year. If they are right, they are
gloriously right; if they are wrong,
they are awfully wrong.
Lind no difseulty IN accounting
| for the worlds advance. What has
made the change? Books" you
say. No, sir. The vast majority OF
1 - effizapa do MT raaA honEa In the
United States the people would not
average one book year for each in
dividual. Whence, then, this Intel
| hgence-this capacity to talk about
all themes, secular and religious
this acquaintance with science and
Art-this power to appreciate the
beautiful and grand? Next to the
Bible, the newspaper-swift-winged
and everywhere present-hying over
the fence, showed under the door,
tossed into the counting-house, laid
on the workbench, hawked through
the cars. All read it. White and
black, German, Irishman, Spaniard,
Swiss, American, old and young,
good and bad, sick and well, before
! breakfast and after tea, Monday
morning, Saturday night, Sunday
and week day.
consider the newspaper to be the
grand agency by which the gospel is
to be preached, ignorance cast out,
oppression dethroned, crime extir-
pated, the world raised, heaven re-
joiced, and God glorified. In the
clanking ofthe printing press, as the
sheets fly out, hear the voice of the
Lord Almighty proclaiming to all
the dead nations of the earth. "LaZ-
arus, come forthl' and to the re-
treating surges of darkness, Let
there be lightr
Nations are to be born in a day."
Will this great in-rush into the
| kingdom of God come from the per-
sonal presence Of missionary or phi
| lanthropist7 No. When the time
comes for that grand demonstration
of the Spirit, think the press in all
the earth will make the announce
ment, and give the call to the ma
! tions. AS at some telegrapbic CEN
tire, an operator will send the mes
sages north and south, and east and
west, San Francisco and Hearts
Content catching the fash at the
! same instant; so, standing at some
| centre to which shall reach all the
electric wires that cross the conti-
nent and undergrad the sea, some
one shall, with the forefinger of the
right hand, click the instrument that
shall thrill through all lands, across
all islands, under all seas, through
all palaces, into all dungeons, and
startle both hemispheres with the
news, that in few moments shall
rush out from ten thousand times
ten thousand printing presses Of the
earth: "Jesus hath comel Fall into
line, all ye nationsi Glory to God
in the highest, and ON earth, peace
goodwill toward menl Hallelu,
| jah 20