Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-16
DEFENDING SUNDAY PAPERS.
A Chicago Minister Says Satan Can't Stand
Printers Ink.

frlnter 5 INK.
Chicago Herald.
Rev. Robert Mcintyre has been the
pastor of Grace Methodist Episcopal
church just seven weeks. When he stood
in the pulpit last night and quietly an
nounced the text for his evening dis
course no one thought it would furnish
him with a theme to fire bomb into the
ranks of the conventional clergy who are
crying: Down with the Sunday news
paper!''
''He that is not against US is on our
side, - read the preacher.
Then he looked over the faces of his
congregation and said, "Satan can't
stand ink - He told of how the ink
stained wall where the bottle of the dark
flnid that irate Luther hurled in his rage
at the picture of saint and missed was
yet shown with pride in
Germany. That ink, he declared,
was stilled in the progress of Christianity,
and it was but the beginning of a fatal
blow to evil. He told of the work of
the Saxon monk and how ink had after
ward been one of his mightiest weapons,
and how the pulpit came TO be allied with
the press.
''In our present day. said the di-
vine, 'the pulpit and the press are one.
God has joined them together. l do
not agree with the ministers who de-
nounce the daily papers and regard them
as foes, workers of iniquity. l declare
that the pulpit and daily newspapers are
twins and should work hand i'll hand. [
know preachers are prone to cayil at the
newspapers because they have stolen our
audiences. That is an indisputable fact;
they have taken our congregations from
us. But l want to ask what good it
will do lis to shout ourselves red in
the face over the matter and cry
stop thief, or beg of the newspapers
to please give our hearers back and
cease their Sunday issues. We must
learn to acknowledge the power of the
press. The editor is a more powerful
man than the preacher. He speaks to
but a few hundreds. He has
an advantage. He has the inspira-
ton of multitude of hearers. That,
too, had been stolen from us-the inspir-
atiQns-alOng with the hearers, for no
gfltssfaiks as well to 800 people rs to 5000
:or 5000. But L don't believe we
need to surrender our congregations
to the papers. l believe that
if the skies showed newspapers
a foot deep they cOuldn It keep the people
from coming out to listen to any honest
man to whom God has given the gift of
eloquence, who has a message to speak
to mankind. If the papers take away
minister s audience it is his own fault,
and because he is party to it.
eff the congregations forsake the
churches for the Sunday paper
it is because the papers have
what the preachers have not
the feeling of the people, the power to
touch the people. The trouble with the
preachers of the present time is
that they are not in unison
and concord with the people. The
men who make newspapers are. They
are part of the people itself. But the
minister of modern days is a creature
almost set apart. Unlike those of the
olden time, he has been trained from
school days for theology, and has
never earned a dollar by work in his
life. He has never known what it
was to walk mp to man 5 door
and ask him for n job. When he goes
out to talk with commercial men and me-
chanics he doesn t know what to say He
has no conception of their needs or their
lives. He is n fine theorist, but as far
away from the people as if he tloated in
the blue of the heavens instead of walked
on earth.
''The newspaper is with the people; its
workers are among and of them. 1t
touches every chord of life, and is the
greatest power for good minister's ex-
pressions. 1t is real, not specter, like
him. Pure men, good men, holy
men are the majority of the
preachers. verify believe you could go
out haphazard and select any twelve
preachers in Chicago and they would be
just as good men as those who walked on
earth with our Lord. But they do not
draw near to the lives and the hearts of
the people and the newspaper does.
''The newspaper has performed more
good in casting out the devils of supersti-
ton, of prejudice, and of evil doing than
any other agency. Those who have no
fear of God before their eyes are afraid
of the press. 1t holds up wrong-doers
before the world unfiinchingly, and all
sinners shrink from its exposures. The
modern editor is like the pope, when he
made the workers of iniquity tremble
before him.
60 Are you not proud?' asked one of him.
Proud? I must be proud
l must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God
Afraid of me
tGThp editor is cOnceited and nroud