The weekly Oskaloosa herald. [volume] (Oskaloosa, Iowa) 1855-1885, 1873-04-03

iOIu VI pdSos 10 cCouiOiy ioONco
up, and sent to the press room.
Let us go there. Here is where
the wondrous transformation is
wrought; here matter becomes the
exponent of mind. The STORMS"
are properly placed. The great
press slowly moves its arms are
reaching for their strong embrace.
"Stop the press !" s5
The giant rests again. There is
an error of statement to be corrected.
or an Objectionable article to be with
drawn. The types are taken out and
borne away - corpses of dead
thought.
Look now, again, at the mass of
type-dead inert as the earth you
tread on. But see! The white sheet
has fallen upon their upturned faces
the touch of the Press has baptised
them the life that was in them has
passed upon paper, and the new cre-
alton is pregnant with thought
thing with a soul, for it can move the
souls of men. That sheet, SO blank
before, is living power now. A
change has passed over it as marvel
GUS as if, In an instant, the unwritten
face of the boy should put on the
burrows of age, the lines of care, the
impress of manhood's experience,
thought and toll.
Thus the paper is born, and goes
out into the world. No messenger
can overtake it. It's utterance is un,
alterable now. 1t may be explained,
but not erased. The printed words
can no more be recalled, than the
departed spirit can be wooed back to
the cold body whi,h it has left.
Here, now, we have 1.-THE ne VS.
paper! Wonderful product of brain
and toll! One would think it should
be dearly bought and highly priced,
and yet it is the cheapest thing in
world. Five or ten cents will buy it.
One or two dollars will bring it to
your home every week in the year.
| And yet, strange to say, there are
| men "too poor to take newspaper" !"
They can pay FIVE cents for a glass
| of beer, or fifteen cents for bever-
age of unknown composition, called
sscoektail:;' they can pay fifty cents
for a circus ticket, or q dollar for the
theatre, yet they are too poor to buy
a newspapers newspaper, which
is a ticket of admission to the great
| Globe Theatre, whose dramas are
written by GoD himself, "whose
scene-shifter is Time, sud whose
curtains are rung down by Death"
1t is not necessary for me to speak
of the mighty responsibilities which
necessarily attach to the control OF
such a power in the land az is the
newspaper to-day, nor to say that
the editor who rightly apprehends the
| importance of his work must bring
to it reverend spirit and a con-
slant care. TIE humblest sheet in
the land goes in some homes as the
only authoritative messenger from
the great world outside. !; its opinions
are accepted as truth, and its sugges'
tions have the force of law.
The editor stands on the widest
pulpit kuown in modern society
ssThe lawyer has a narrow sphere be-
fore him; the Senator and the Repre-
sentative-the Halls hedge in their
voices 1.-The minister has the parish
walls about his .chufch. But there
is pulpit that now has no limit-it
is the Press. 1t is, literally. the voice
of one that cries in the wilderness
for, all across the populous land the
daily papers speak and there is not
in the modern civilization a place oi
power that can compare with this"
Rev. De Witt Talmage once said
Gin the clinking of the printing press,
as sheets fly out, hear the voice of
the Lord Almighty, proclaiming to
all the dead nations of the earth /:
sLazarus, come forth !" and to the
retreating surges of darkness: "Let
there be light !"
The minister, indeed, sometimes
goes forward and throws what good
seed he may have over into that un-
certain place which we call the 'snext
life" But it is not that the next life
which is nearest to us-the one
which circles in rapid eddies, or
| sweep in strong currents all around
us Does not the furrow, which Time
is even now turning, run forward in
to the Everlasting? and shall we
eyer 4nd anything more real than
this life, which throbs all about us
in the shops, and upon the streets,
in stores and CHURCHES, at the caucus
es and the polls2
To deal with all these mixed and
incongruous elements, 30 IS to hold
an influence over ALTO present the
varying phases of life, and promote
the many interests of the community
to which he speaks--is the work of
the capable, conscientious editor
Lutte A. TAYLOR in Topographic
Messenger.