The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-06-29


be rented in some semi OmnipO tent secu-
lar publication, and so the religious in
formation would be sent round and round
the world. The world moves so swiftly
to-day that news a week old is stale. Give
US all the great church facts and all the
revival tidings the next morning or the
same evening. My advice, often given to
friends who propose to start new paper,
is: ''Don't! don't! Employ the papers al
ready started"
Again: If you would secure the secular
press as a mightier reinforcement Of
religion and the pulpit, extend widest and
highest Christian court estes to the repre-
sentatives of journalism. Give them easy
chairs and plenty of room when they
come to report occasions. For the most
part they are gentlemen of education and
refinement, graduates of colleges, with
families to support by their literary craft,
many of them weary with the push of |
business that is precarious and fuctuat-
ing, each one of them the avenue of in
formation to thousands of readers, their |
impression of the services to be the i'm |
preston adopted by multitudes. They |
are connecting links between sermon, |
or a song, or a prayer, and this great |
pOpul alton that tramp up and down the /
streets day by day and year by year, with |
their sorrows uncontrolled and their sins |
unpardOneG.
more Lnau CJU,UOU people III brooklyn
and less than $4,000 in churches, so that |
our cities are not so much preached to by
ministers of religion as by reporters. Put
all journalists into our prayers and SER
mons. OF all the hundred thousand SER
mons preached to-day there viii not be
three preached to journalists, and proba-
bly, not one. OF all the prayers offered
for classes of men innumerable, the pray
ers offered for this most potential class
will be so few and rare that they will be
thought preachers idiosyncrasy. This
world will never be brought to God until
some revival of religion sweeps over the
land and takes intOthe Kingdom of God ed
itOrs and reporters, ,cOmpOSitOrs, preSsmen
and newsboys. And if you have not faith
| enough to pray for that and toll for that
you had better get out of our ranks and
join the other side, for you are the unbe
| levers who make the wheels of the LORDS
| chariot drag heavily. The great final bat
| tie between truth and error, the Arma-
| geddon, l think, will not be fought with
| swords and shells and guns, but with
/ pens, quill pens, steel pens, gold pens,
fountain pens, and, before that, the pens
must be converted. The most divinely-
| hOnOred we apOn of the past has been the
! pen, and the most divineIy- -honored weap-
on of the future will be the pen; prophets
| pen, and evangelist's pen, and apostles
4 pen, followed by EDITORS pen, and re-
/ .
the pen! The wing Of the Apocalyptic an
/ gel will be the printed page. The print
| ing press will roll ahead of Christ's cAari-
| OF to clear the way.
But" some one might ask, ''would you
make the Sunday newspaper also a re- en-
forcement?" Yes, l would. Ihave learned
to take things as they are. l would like
to see the much scoffed-at old Puritan
| Sabbaths come back again. 1 do not
| think the modern Sunday will turn out
] any better men and women than were
| your grandfathers and grandmothers
under the old-fashioned Sunday. To say
nothing of other results, Sunday news
| papers are killing editors, reporters, COM
| positOrs and pressmen. Every man, wOm-
an and child is entitled to twenty -four
| hours of nothing to do. If the newspapers
| put on another set of hands that does not
| relieve the editorial and reportoriaI room
of its cares and responsibilities. Our
literary men die fast enough without
killing them with Sunday work. But the
Sunday newspaper has come to stay.
1t viii stay good deal longer than any
of US stay. What then shall we do? I'm
plOre all those who have any thing to do
with issuing it to fill it with moral and
religious information, live sermons and
facts elevating. Urge them that all
divorce cases be dropped, and instead
| thereof have good advice as to how hus-
bands and wives ought to live lovingly
together. Put in small type the behavior
! of the swindIing church member, and in
large type the contribution of some
Christian man toward an asylum for
feeble minded children or a seaside
| sanitarium. Urge all managing editors
to put meanness and impUrity in type
pearl or agate, and charity, and fidelity,
and Christian consistency in BREWER or
, bourgeois. If we can not drive out the
Sunday news paper let US have the Sun
day 1t wspaper converted.
The fact is that the modern Sunday
newspaper is a great improvement on the
old Sunday newspaper. What beastly
thing the Sunday newspaper thirty
years ago! 1t was enough to destroy a
? mans respectability to leave the tip end
of it sticking out of his coat pocket? What
editOrials What advertisements! What
picturesl The modern Sunday newspaper
, is as much an Improvement on the old
, time Sunday newspaper as one hundred is
more than twenty y-five; in other words,
l about seventy-hve per cent. improve
t ment. Who knows that by prayer and
, kindly consultation with our literary
, friends we may have it lifted into posi-
lively religious sheet printed on Saturday
I night, and only distributed, like the amer
icdR Messenger, or the Missionary Journal
( or the Sunday School AdUOcdte, on Sabbath
I | mornings. All things are possible with
, | God, and my faith is up until nothing in
\ | the way of religious victory would sur
+ | prise me. All the newspaper printing
+ | presses of the earth are going to be the
= Lords, and telegraph and telephone anC
type will yet announce nations born in
= day. The first book ever printed was tbs
n | Bible by Faust and his son-in- law Schoef
/ fer in 1860 and that conservation of type
D to the Holy Scri lures was prophesy OF
8 | the great mission of printing for the
2 eyangelization Of all the nations. The
2 father of the American printing pres.
o was a clergyman, Rev. Jesse Glover, anC
It that was prophesy of the religious us'
that the Gospel ministry III this country
j, were to make of the types.
!. Again, we shall secure the secular pres,
Y as a mightier reinforcement of religion
q and the pulpit by making our religious
S utterances more interesting and spirited
p and then the press will reproduce them
= On the way to church some fifteen years
q ago a journalist said a thing that has KEEP
d me ever since thinking.
l. Are you going to give US any points to
: day?"
/. ''What do you mean?" I asked. H
n said:
+. Il mean by that any thing that viii b
T. striking enough to be remembered"
t Then 1 said to myself: What right hav
u we in our pulpits and Sunday schools {,
e take the time of people if we have nothing
s to say that is memorable. David did no
y have any difficulty in Remembering
= Nathan's thrust: Thou art the man >
Z nor Felix in remembering Paul's pOiEt
/ blank utterance on righteousness, TEN
II perance and judgment TO come; nor tn
a English King any difficulty in remember
Il ing what the court preacher said when
> during the sermon against sin, the preach
U er threw his handkerchief into the King
pew to indicate whom he meant. Tn
i tendency OF criticism in the theological
n aarl.ir a-ias is 20 lie Of Frnrn otrr 49,,