Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-11-20
TALMAGE OUT AT NIGHT.
What he Saw on Wall Street and in
Newspaper Offices.

Rev. Dewitt Talmage, ofthe Brook
Ign Tabernacle, preached another of
his sensational sermons on the 18th,
from this text: The devil is come
down unto you having great wrath,
because he knoweth that he hath but
a short time. Rev. xii: u" The.
following is an extract from his ser
mon, as telegraphed to various leading
papers in the West it refers to one
of his night trips around New York
Up and on! AS the solitary %clatter
of our horses hoofs rang out on the
night air, we passed Wall street, and
looking down two rows of lights had
revealed to us that not a foot was stir
ring. But we could imagine that there
came up on the night air the cachinna-
tion of men on whose hands the stocks
had gone up aud the sigh of the job
bers on whose hands the stocks had
gone down. Only half a mile long,
that street, yet the avenue of popular
accumulation and appalling bankruptcy
and wild swindle, and suicide and ca
tastrophe and death. On the sough of
the wind that swept from that street
toward old Trinity there seemed to.
whisper the questions: Where is
Swarthout? Where is Ketcham2
Where is Gay? Where is Fisk?
Where is Commodore Vanderbilt, the
bull, and Daniel Drew, the bear2
Where is Black Friday? Then the
clock at the head of the street tolled
nine three for the b~ankrupted, three
for the swindled, three for the dead,
3" Hurry ON, George / said to the
driver, for, though l have no belief in
ghosts, | wanted to get past the
solemn, forsaken and al~l-suggestive
scene of Wall street by night, where,
by the flicker of the gas-light there
was something that might be taken for
the wandering spirits of ten thousand
fortunes, dead and damned.
fastening on, up a few blocks, what
are those majestic buildings all ablaze
from foundation to eapstone? The
printing-houSes of New York daily
newspapers. We get out and go in,
and go up from editorial rooms to the
type-setters' and prOof-readers' loft.
These are the FORCES where the thun-
derbOlts of public opinion are forged,
great torrent of opinions, of accidents,
of crimes, of political wrath, of ruined
regulations and Of avenged character.
Who can tell the mightiness for good
or evil of a daily newspaper? Fingers
Of steel picking off the end of tele-
graphic wire the facts of religion and
philosophy and art, and information
from the four winds of heaven. The
Associated Press began in 1855 to
pay S200,00O for news, some Of the
newspapers paying $4,000 extra for
special dispatches, and others, indie
pendent of the Associated Press, with
their own wire-rake gathering up the
sheaves of news from all the world.
1t is high time that good men UNDER
stood that the press is the mightiest
engine of all the centuries. BY the
high-water mark ON the type-ease you
can tell the ebb or flow Of the great
tides fcivilizationo or Christianity. The
. combined circulation of New York
daily newspapers in 1885 was only
10000 a day. Now it is 100000. ant
/ at the estimate that five people perusc
: each paper, they have two and a hal
million Of readers per day. 1t used
to be a mystery how, according tC
bible statement, nations were to bC
/, born in a day. 1t seems to me cas-,
! now. Get the Geographic operator,
and the editors converted, and in
twenty-four hours all nations will SCI
i the salvation of God. In midnight
! New York there is nothing more full
. Of solemn import than the midnight
! printing press. But with what achinl
! eyes and exhaustion of health tn,
work goes on | noticed that nigh.
! that not more than one out of tel
: seemed to have brawny health. TIL,
, mal-OdOrs of ink, however, complet,
!. the ventilation, and the necessity o
: toll at hours when God has drawn TIL
! curtains of the world for natura
sleep, the pressure of publishing ever,
morning or evening, whatever break
J down, the temptation to intoxicat
: ing stimulants in order to keeI
: up the nervous system through
. hours of untimely occupation
temptations which only the strong
I est can resist-make the lives o
newspaper men something to be sym
! pathized with. Don't begrudge tn.
three or five cents you pay for thu
|. newspaper, for in addition to tn
knowledge gained you are paying 70
aeepless nights and smarting eye-ball
and fatigues Of brain and early sepul
cher.
= With the buzz and click and roa
! and beHildering activity Of the mid
= night newspaper Offices in my mind.
\ started up town. Now | said, lie
Us strike out from Broadway to til
! right, and see what chance there is 70
New York twenty years from now
: The vast majority ofthe present drunk
i ards will die drunkards, the vast ma
= jority Of thieves will die thieves. an
Of paupers will die paupers, and Of tn
! destitute will die destitute, Wha
e then2 Give IL up and consider GU
cities lost2 MOI We never felt 8
little like giving them up nor 80 full
high and exhilaFant hope.
y, VOTING IN CYPRUS.