Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1873-06-21
PULPIT A Nd PRESS.

eloquent sermon in Chicago on 1.-The
Press" which, as it has attracted wide
spread attention, we produce in con-
densed form. Taking rs his text Daniel
H.: 81 33, describing the image seen by
Nebuchadnezzar in his dream, whose
head was of fine gold, whose breast and
arms were of silver, etc, the preacher
said: 1.-The great power for good and
evil in modern life, the real ruler of the
State, is the newspaper. Nothing else
i'll modern civilization has gathered to
itself so much of the finest power i'll the
thought and life of man. The newspa-
per article of to-day is, on an average,
better than the newspaper article of
thirty years ago, when Dr. Chalmers de-
clared that the best writing and best
thinking of the day were for and in the
press. Deyouring enterprise, aided by
ample means, searches the whole land
for the brightest genius and finest abil-
ity, and binds their owners to the car of
the press in chains of gold, as old Ro-
man conquerors fastened captive kings
And with the best thought it secures the
keenest enterprise, sending news to Gov
ernmcnts and peoples of incidents affect
ing them ere the swiftest messengers
could bring it. Like the elephants
trunk, which can wrench out pine tree
or pick up pin, the press takes up
alike the murder or the sermon, the
revolution and the strawberry festival,
the gossip of society, the froth and
foam on the surface of life as well as the
great tides beneath. 1t is, therefore, no
great wonder that the newspaper should
be the most potent power of which we
know among outward and visible things.
And we should be proud, above all
things, that this immense power is gem
orally welded by men of broad and lib
eral convictions. Where the great news
papers touch religion, they do 50 in n
wide eyed, incisivc fashion. They give
no quarter to religious bigotry or mar
row and bitter dogmatism. The news
paper is more widely read and more
popular in America than the Bible. 1t
contains the close and quick lesson of
the day, the action and thought of the
world caught, throbbing and alive. on
the wing, and it stirs us as the Bible
stories do not. Nearness, not distance,
lends cnchantment in this case. The
death of Salmon Z. Chase is more to us
than that of Samuel, and Candy slain in
the lava beds than Sisera smitten by
Jael. Were this all there is in news
paper, | could think of no filter visitor
to our homes, no filter supervisor of our
schools and churches, no more impreg-
nable citadel and strong ally for oul
Government than the press. But there
is i'll the press a divine, human, and
an internal element AS in the image
of the text, it's head is of fine gold and
its feet clay-it is glorious and good at
its best, meaner as you go downwards,
and at the bottom mean as mud. And
these elements represent something out
side of the image itself. Powerful and
wonderful rs the press stands before us,
it is the image and reflection of the peo-
pie who stand before it, in hope and
fear, admiring and disliking. That the
American press should distance the
world in enterprise is natural, for enter
prise is national characteristic That
it should be generally keen, bright,
trenchant, quick, and humorous, is also
natural, for these are all natural charac-
teristics of the American people. 1t
packs all the sense of the London Times
into half the space, because We live a
hasty, impatient life, different from the
slow and Flooding processes of England.
1t has hundreds of little personal items
quisitive race on the planet. 1t is SEN
sational-not so much to further the
ends of justice in a great crime as to sell
the most papers. And below all this,
and meancr than all this, and worse than
all this, there are and must be papers
which minister habitually to the vilest
passions of our nature. People of de-
PRAYED tastes will prefer garbage for
their mental diet, as they prefer whisky
to good bread and pure coffee. Here |
would desire not to be misunderstood.
/ believe in the perfect and entire free
dom of the press. The press can do,
and generally does do, work before
which the pulpit quails and holds back,
only coming up, if it comes up at all, in
the reserves. This is the exposure of
personal and public corruption. No
matter if editors are not personally in
fallible; tinger-posts do good service in
indicating the way, though they do not
travel it. But | loathe and condemn the
social treaohery and license which will
bare the breast of its own mother if the
public will pay to see the cancer; this
slime of scandal cleaning ont of the
dark, that you cannot transfx with the
spear of truth any more than you can
transtix a sea-ielly; these pictures that
poison our youth with lascivious sugges-
tion-these are the clay at the feet of