The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-06-21
PRESS AND PULPIT.
SUNDAY MORNING SERVICES IN THE
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.

SUNDAY MORNING SERVICES IN THE
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
Rev. DIR. Talmage Would Secure the seeu-
lar Press a Reinforcement of Re
ligion and the Pu1pit-The Modern Sun
day Newspaper.
BROOKLYN, Juns 17.-At the service
in the Tabernacle this morning, the Rev.
L. De Witt Talmage, D. D., took for the
subject of his discourse, "Pulpit and
Press Made Allies" His text was Luke
xvi, 8: ''The children of this world
are in their generation wiser than the
children of light" He said:
Sacred stupidity and solemn incom-
potency and sanctifed laziness are here
rebuked by Christ. He says worldlings
are wider awake for opportunities than
are Christians. Men of the world grab
occasions while Christian people let the
most valuable occasions drift by unim-
proved. That is the meaning of our
Lord when he says: ''The children of
this world are in their generation wiser
than the children of light
4 marked illuctration of the truth of
that maxim is in the slowness of the
Christian religion to take possession of
the secular printing press The oppor-
tunity is open and has for some time been
open, but the ecclesiastical courts and
the churches and the ministers of religion
are for the most part allowing the golden
opportunity to pass unimproved. That
ftxx.t Il r.
the fact that all the secular newspapers
are glad of any religious facts or statistics
that you present them. Any animated
and stirring article relating to religious
themes they would gladly print. They
thank you for any information in regard
to churches. If a wrong has been done
TO any Christian church or Christian in
stitution, you could go into any news
paper of the land and have the
real truth stated Dedication services,
ministerial ordinations and pastoral
installations, corner stone laying of
church, anniversary of a charitable So
ciety will have reasonable space In any
secular journal, if it have previous notice
given. If l had some great injustice
done me, there is not an editorial or
reportorial room in the United States into
which could not go and get myself set
right, and that is true of any well known
Christian man. Already the daily -secu-
lar press during the course of each week
publishes as much religious information
and high moral sentiment as does the
weekly religious press. Why then does
not our glorious Christianity embrace
these magnificent opportunities? ! have
before me a subject of first and last i'm
portance: How shall we secure the secu-
lar press as mightier reinforcement to
religion and the pulpitG
The first thing toward this result is
cessation Of indiscriminate hostility
against newspaperdom. You might as
well denounce the legal profession be-
cause of the shysters, or the medical pro-
fession because of the quacks. or mer-
chandise because of the swindlipg bar
gain Makers as to slam-bang newspapers
because there are recreant editors, and
unfair reporters, and unclean columns.
Gutenberg, the inventor of the art OF
printing was about to destroy his types
and extinguish the art because it was
suggested to him that printing might be
suborned into the service of the devil,
but afterward he bethought himself that
the right use of the art might more than
overcome the evil use of it, and SO he
spared the type and the intelligence of
all modern ages. But there are many
today in the depressed mood of Gutten-
berg with uplifted hammer want
ing to pound to pieces the type. who
have not reached his better mood
in which he saw the art of printing to be
the rising sun of the worlds illumination.
If instead of fighting newspapers we
spend the same length of time and the
same vehemence in marshaling their
help in religious directions, we would be
as much wiser as the man who gets con-
sent of the railroad superintendent to
fasten a car to the end of a rail train,
shows better sense than he who runs his
wheelbarrow up the track to meet and
drive back the Chicago limited express.
The silliest thing that a man ever does is
to fight n newspaper, for you may have
the floor for utterance perhaps one day in
the week, while the newspaper has the
floor every day of the week. Napoleon,
though mighty man, had many weak
nesses, and one of the weakest things he
ever did was to threaten that if the Eng
hsh newspapers did not stop their adverse
criticism of himself he would with 400,-
900 bayonets cross the channel for their
chastisement.
Don't fight newspapers. Attack pro-
vokes attack. Better wait till the ex-
citement blows over and then go in and
get justice, for get it you will if you
have patience and common sense and
equipoise of disposition. 1t ought to be
a mighty sedative that there is an enor-
nous amount of common sense in the
world, and you will eventually be taken
for what you are really worth, and you
cannot be pulled up and you cannot be
written down, and if you are the enemy
of good society that fact will come out,
and if you are the friend of good society
that fact will be established. l know
what l am talking about, for I can draw
on my own experience. All the respect
able newspapers as far as I know are my
friends now. But many of you remem-
Der the time when l was the most
continuously and meanly attacked
man in this country. God gave
mo grace not to answer back, and
kept silence for ten years, and much
grace is required. What said was per-
verted and twisted into Just the opposite
of what did say. My person was ma
igned, and l was presented as gorgon,
and was maliciously described by per-
sons who had never seen me as a mon
strosity in body, mind and soul. There
were millions of people who believed
that there was large sofa in this pulpit,
although we never had anything but a
chair, and that during the singing by the
congregation 1 was accustomed to lie
down on that sofa and dangle my feet
over the end. Lying New York CORE
spondents for ten years misrepresented
our church services, but we waited,
and people from every neighborhood
of Christendom came here to find the
magnitude of the falsehoods concerning
the church and concerning myself. A
reaction set in, and now we have justice.
full justice, more than justice, and as
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