The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1886-04-28
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A .ERMOy BY DR.. TALM AGE.


.ERMoN BY DR.. TALMAGE.
xr-Zacba4iah, !; ''Behsid lying rOll =
DR.. Talmage said: This winged sheet
of the text had on it a prophecy. The
aying roll to day is the newspaper. In
calculating the influences that affect so
cietv you can no more afford to ignore
ii than you can ignore the MONDAY sun
or the Atlantic Ocean.
It Is high time that preach a sermon
expressing my appreciation of what the
newspaper press has done and Is doing
No man. living or dead, is or has been
80 indebted to it as | am, for it gives me
perpetual audience in every city, town
and neighborhood Of Christendom, and
| take this opportunity, before God and
this people, to thank the editors and
publishers and type-setters The world
over, and give fair notice that / shall
take every opportunity of enlarging this
field, whether by stenographic report on
the Sabbath or galIey-proofs on Monday,
or previous dictation. | have said again
and again to the officers of this church,
whoever else are crowded, don't let the
reporters De crowded. Each responsible
and intelligent reporter is ten or fifteen
churches built on to this church. Ninety
| five per cent of the newspapers are now
my friends, and do me full justice and
more than justice, and the other OF
| the 100 are such notorious liars that
| nobody believes them. 1t was in self
! defense that sixteen years ago | EN-
ployed an official stenographer of my
/ own because of the appalling misrepre-
! sentations oe myself and church. From
that things have miraculously changed,
until nosy il is just as appalling in the
marvellous opportunity opened.
/ The newspaper Is
THE GREAT EDUCATOR
of the nineteenth century. There is no
force compared with it, 1t is book,
pulpit, platform, forum, all in one. And
there is not an interest-religious, liter
ary, commercial, scientific, agricultur !,
or mechanical-ihat is not within its
/ grasp. All our churches, and schools,
/ and colleges, and asylums, and art gal
leries feel the quaking of the printing
press.
| The Institution Of newspapers arose in
Italy. In Venice the first newspaper
was published, and monthly, during the
time that Venice was warning against
Solyman ii in Dalmatia. 1t was printed
for the purpose of giving military and
commercial information to the Nene-
tians. The first newspaper published in
| England was in 1888 and called the
English Mercury. Others were styled
the Weekly Discoverer, the Secret Owl,
Heraclitus Ridens, etc
Who can estimate the political, scien-
tifc, commercial and religious revolu-
tions reused up in England for many
years past by Bells Weekly Dispatch,
| the Standard, the Morning Chronicle,
the Post. and the London Times?
| The first attempt at this institution in
| France was in 1851, by physician, who
published the News, for the amusement
and health of his patients. The French
nation understood fully how to appreci-
ate this power. Napoleon, with his own
hand, wrote articles for the press, and
so early as Ia 1920 there were in Paris
| 100 journals But in the United States
the newspaper has
! COME 10 UNLIMITED SWAY.
Though in 1775 there were but thirty
seven in the whole country, the number
of published journals is now counted by
thousands; and to-day-we may as well
acknowledge it as not-the religious and
secular newspaper are the great educa-
tors of the country.
find no difficulty in accounting for
the worlds advance. Four centuries
ago, in Germany, in courts of justice,
men fought with their fists to see who
should have the decision of the court /;
and If the judges decision was unsatis
factory. then the judge fought with the
counsel Many of the lords could not
read the deeds of their own estates.
What has made the change?
"Books," you say.
No, sir! The vast majority of citizens
do not read books. Take this audience,
or any other promiscuous assemblage,
and how many histories have they read?
| How many treatises on constitutional
law, or political economy, or works of
science? How many elaborate poems
or books of travel? How much of
Boyle, or De Tocqueyille, Xenophon, or
Herodotus, or Perciyal? Not manyl
In the United States the people would
not average one such book a year for
each individual
Whence, then, this intelligence 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, flying
over feaces, 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, Swiss, Spaniard,
American, old and young, GO ID and bad
sick and well, before breakfast and after
tea, Monday morning, Saturday night,
Sunday and week day.
/ now declare that | consider the
newspaper to be the grand agency by
which
THE GOSPEL Is 70 r. PREACHED,
ignorance cast out, oppression de
throned, crime extirpated, the world
raised, heaven rejoiced, and God glo
rifed.
In the clanking of the printing press
as the sheets fly out, ! hear the voice oil
the Lord Almighty proclaiming to al
the dead nations of the earth, Lazarus
come forthl' and to the retreatine
surges of darkness, Let there be lightp
In many of our city newspapers, profess
ing no more than secular information
there have appeared during the past ten
years some of the grandest appeals in
behalf of religion, and some of the mos
effective interpretations of Gods gov
ernment among the nations
There are only two kinds of newspa-
pers-the one good, very good, the other
bad, very bad. A newspaper may bs
started with an undecided character
but after il has been going on for years
everybody finds out just what it is; and
it is very good or it is very bad. The
one paper is the embodiment of news
the ally of virtue, The foe of crime, the
delectation of elevated taste, the might
est agency on earth for making tht
world better The other paper is bri-
gand amid moral forces, it is besIimero
reputation, ii is the right arm of deatl
and hell, it is the nightiest agency il
the universe for making the world wors'
I and battling the cause of God Th,