The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1886-04-28

, lished. If you should gather all the
editors and the reporters of this country
, in one great convention, and then ask of
them what kind of a paper they would
prefer to publish, | believe they would
unanimously say: awe would prefer to
. publish
AN ELES sTTNG PAPER"
, So long as there is an ubiquitous demand,
. there viii be an iniquitcus supply.
. make no apology for debauched news
paper, but ] am saying these things in
order to divide the responsibility be-
tween those who print and those who
read.
Another temptation of the newspaper
profession is the great ailurement that
surrounds them. Every occupation and
profession has temptations peculiar to it
self, and the newspaper profession Is not
an exception. The great draught, as
you know, is on the nervous forces. and
the brain is racked The laundering
political speech must read well for the
sake of the party, and so the reporter, or
the editor, has TO make il read WELL
although every sentence was catastro-
phe to the English language The re
porter must hear all that an inaudible
speaker, who thinks it is vulgar to
speak out, says; and il must be right
the next morning or the next night in
the papers, though, the night before,
the whole audience sat with its hand
behind its ear in vain trying to catch it.
This n,an must go through killing night
work. He must go into heated Assem-
blages, and into unyentilated audience
rooms that are enough to take the life
out of him. He must visit courtrooms
which are almost always disgusting with
rum and tobacco. He must expose
himself at the fire. He must write in
fetid alley-ways. Added to all that, he
must have hasty mastication and irregu
lar habits. To bear up under this tre-
mendous nervous strain, they are tempt
ed to artificial stimulus, and how many
thousands have
GONE DOWN UNDER THAT PRESSURE
God only knows They must have
something to counteract the wet they
must have something to keep out the
chill, and after a scant nights sleep
they must have something to revive
them for the mornings work, This is
what made Horace Greely such a stout
temperance man. He told me that he
had seen so many of his comrades go
down under that temptation. Oh, my
brother of the newspaper profession,
what you cannot do without artificial
stimulus, God does not want you to do
There is no halfway ground for our lit
erary people between teetotalism and
dissipation. Your professional success,
your domestic peace, your eternal saliva
ton, will depend upon your theories in
regard to artificial stimulus. / have
had so many friends go down under the
temptation, their brilliancy quenched,
their homes blasted, that cry out this
morning, in the words of another:
Look not upon the wine when it is
red, when it moveth itself Alright in the
cup; for at the last it biteth like a ser
pent and it stingeth like an adder"
Another trial of this profession is the
fact that no one seems to care for their
souls. They feel bitterly about it,
though they laugh. People sometimes
laugh the loudest when they feel the
worst. They are expected to gather up
religious proceedings, and to discuss re
| llg'ous doctrines in the editorial col
umns, but who expects them to be saved
by the sermons they phonograph, or by
the doctrines they discuss in the edito
| rial columns? The world looks upon
them as professional. Who breaches to
reporters and editors? Some of them
came from religious homes, and when
| they left the parental roof, whoever re
garded or disregarded, they come of
with a fathers benedietion and moth
er's prayer. They never think of those
! good old times, but
TEARS COME INTO THEIR EYES.
and they move around tLis great, roar
ing metropolis homesick. o, if they
only knew what a helpful thing it is for
man to put his weary head down on
the bosom of a sympathetic Cf rst He
knows how nervous and tired you are
| He has heart large enough to take in
all your interests for this world and the
next. . men of the newspaper press,
you sometimes get sick of this world, it
seems so hollow and unsatisfying If
there are any people in all the earth
| that need God, you are the men. aad
you shall have Him, if only this day
you implore His mercy
| A man was found at the foot of Canal
street. As they picked him up from the
| water and brought him to the morgue
they saw by the contour of his fore
head that he had great mental capacity
He had entered the newspaper profes-
sion. He had gone down in health. He
took to artificial stimulants. He went
down further and further, until one
summer day, hot and hungry and sick,
and in despair, he flung himself off tue
dock. They found in his pocket
reporters pad, a lead pencil photo
graph of some one who had loved him
long ago. Death, as sometimes it Will.
smoothed out all the wrinkles that had
gathered prematurely on his brow, and
as he lay there his face was as fair a.
when, seven years ago, he left his coun-
try home, and they bade him goodbye,
forever. The world looks through the
window of the morgue and says, 81, is
nothing but an outcast, but God saws
that it was gigantic soul that pershed,
because the world gave him no chance
Let me ask ali men connected with
the printing press, that they help us
more and more in the effort to make the
world better. | charge you in the name
OF God, before whom you must account
for the tremendous influence you hold
IN this country, to consecrate yourselves
to higher endeavors. You are the men
to fight Lack this invasion of corrupt
literature. Lift up your right hand and
swear new allegiance to the cause of phi
lanthropy and religion. And when, at last
standing on The plains of judgment, you
look out upon the unnumbered throngs
over whom you have had influence, may
it be fonnd that you were among the
mightiest energies that
LIFTED MEN Upon THE EXALTED FAITH
| WAY
that leads to the renown of heaven
. Better than to have sat in editorial
chair. from which, with the finger of
, type, you decided the destinies of EN-
pires, but decided them wrong, that you
had been some dungeoned exile, who,
by the light of window iron grated, on
scraps of a New Testiment leaf, picked
up from the hearth, spelled out the
story of Him who taketh away the sins
of the world.
In Eternity, Dives is the Beggar
i Well, my friends, We will all soon get
through writing and printing, snd proof
! reading and publishing. What then
Our life is book. Our years are the
, chapters Our months are the para
! graphs. Our days are the sentences.
Our doubts are the interrogation points.
, Our imitation of others the quotation
marks. Oar attempts at display dash.
! Death the period Eternity the perora-
tion. o God, where will we spend it I!
,, Have you heard the news, more startling
!, than any found in the journals of the last
six weeks? 1t is the tidings that man is