The Russellville Democrat., 1888-06-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on the "Pulpit and
 Press as Allies"
The Power of the Press for Good or Evil The Folly of Antagonizing It--A Force that Should be Cuiti-
 vated and Promoted.


 Force that Should be Cuiti-
 vated and Promoted.
 Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage preached a sermon in Brooklyn Tabernacle on the Pulpit and Press Made Allies" taking for his text:
 The children of this world are in their gener- ation wiser than the children of light Luke, xvi, &
 He said: Sacred stupidity and solemn incompetency and sanctified laziness are here rebuked by Christ. He says world lings are wider awake for opportunities than are Christians. Men of the world grab occasions while Christian people let tho most valuable occasions drift by dnimproved. This is the meaning of our Lord when He says:
 The children of this world are in their genera tion wiser than the children Of light.
 A marked Illustration 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 min isters of re.
  golden opportunity to pass unimproved. That the opportunity is open l declare from the fact that all the secular news- papers 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 wrong has been done to any Christian church or Chris tian institution, you could go into any newspaper of the land and have the real truth stated. Dedication services, minis terial ordinations and pastoral instala- tions, cornerstone laying of church, anniversary of charitable society, will have reasonable space in any secular journal, if it have previous notice given. If 1 had some great injustice done me, there is not an editorial or reportorial room in the United States into which l could not go and get myself set right, and that is true of any we'll known Christian man. Already the daily secular press during the course of each week publishes as much religious information and high moral sentiment as does the weekly re- ligious press. Why then does not our glorious Christianity embrace these mag nifcent opportunities? l have before me a subject of first and last importapce: How shall we secure the secular press as a mightier re enforcement to religion and the pulpit?
 The first thing toward this result is cessation of indiscriminate hostility against newspaperdom. You might as we'll denounce the legal profession be- cause of the shyster, or the medical pro- fession because of the quacks, or mer- cnandise because of the swindling bar gain makers, as to slam bang newspa- pers because there are recreant editors and unfair reporters, and unclean col umns. 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 following ages. But there are many to-day in the depressed mood of Gutten- berg, with uplifted hammer, wanting 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 yehemence in marshaling their help in religious directions, we would be as much wiser as the man who gets consent of the railroad superintendent tC fasten 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 Him. tied express. The silliest thing that a jS fn Hfrb 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 weaknesses, and one of the weakest things he ever did was to threaten that if the English newspapers did not stop their adverse criticism of himself he would, with 100000 bayonets, cross the channel for their chastisement.
 Don't fight newspapers. Attack pro- vokes attack. Better wait till the excite ment blows over and then go in and get justice, for get it you will if you have pa tience and common sense and equipoise of disposition. It ought to be mighty sedative that there is an enormous amount of common sense in the world, and you will eventually be taken for what you are really worth, and you can not be puffed up and you can not 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. know what I am talking about, for I can draw on my own experience. All the respectable newspapers as far as know are my friends now. But many of you remember the time when l was the most continuously and meanly- attacked man in this country. God gave me grace not to answer back and l kept silence for ten years, and much grace is required. What said was perverted and twisted into just the opposite of what did say. My per- son was maligned and was presented as a Gorgon, and l was malieiously de- scribed by persons who had never seen me as a monstrosity in body, mind and soul. There were millions of people who believed that there was large sofa in this pulpit, although we never had any thing but chair, and that during the singing by the congregation 1 was accustomed tc lie down on that sofa an q dangle my feet over the end.
 Lying New York correspondents for ter 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, and as much overpraise as once we had appreciation, and no man that ever lived was so much in- deDted 10 the newspaper press for oppor- tunity 10 preach the Gospel as I am. Young men in tho ministry, young men ir all professions and occupations, wait You can afford to wait Take rough mis. representation as a Turkish towel to start up your languid circulation, or a system of massage or Swedish movement whose pokes and pulls and twists and thrusts are salutary treatment There is only one person you need to manage, and that is yourself Keep your disposition sweet by communion with the Christ, who an, swered not again, the society of genial