The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-06-21

much overpraise as once we had under
appreciation, and no man that ever lived
was so much indebted to the newspaper
press for opportunity to preach the Cos
pei as ] am. Young men in the ministry,
young men in all professions and occu.
pations, wait. You can afford to wait.
Take rough misrepresentation as Turk
ish towel to start Up your languid circu-
:ation, or system of massage or Swedish
movement whose pokes and pulls and
twists and thrusts are salutary treatment
manage, and that is yourself. Keep your
disposition sweet by communion with
Christ, who answered not again, the
society of genial people, and walk out in
the sunshine with your hat off and you
will come out all right. And don't join
the crowd of people in our day who spend
much of their time damning newspapers.
Again: in this effort to secure the sec
ular press as a mightier reinforcement
of religion and the pulpit, let us make it
the avenue of religious information. IF
you put the facts Of churches and de-
nominations of Christians only into the
column of religious papers, which do not
in this country have an average of more
than 10000 subscribers, what have you
done as compared with what you do if
you put these facts through the daily
papers, which have hundreds of thou
sands of readers? Every little denomina-
ton must have its little organ, supported
at great expense, when with ene-half the
outlay column or half column of room
might be rented in some semi-omnipo-
tent secular publication, and SO
the religious information would be
sent round and round The world.
The world moves so swiftly today that
news week old is stale. Give us all the
great church facts and all the revival
tidings the next morning or the sameeve
ing. My advice, often given to friends
who propose to start a new paper, is
''Don'tl Don'tl Employ the papers
already started" The biggest financial
hole ever dug in this American continent
is the hole in which good people throw
their money when they start news
paper. 1t is almost as good and as
quick way of getting rid of money as
buying stock in gold mine in Colorado.
Not more printing presses but the right
use of those already established. All
their cylinders, all their steam power,
all their pens. all their types. all their
editorial chairs and reportorial rooms are
available if you would engage them in
behalf of civilization and Christianity.
Again: if you would secure the secular
press as mightier reinforcement of re-
hgion and the pulpit, extend widest and
highest Christian courtesies 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 educa-
ton and refinement, graduates of col
leges, with families to support by their
literary craft, many of them weary with
the push of business that is precarious
and flnctuating, each one of them the
avenue of information to thousands of
readers, their impression of the services
to be the impression adopted by
multitudes. They are connecting
links between a sermon or song
or prayer and this great popula-
ton that tramp up and down the streets
day by day and year by year with their
sorrows uncontrolled and their sins un-
pardoned. More than eight hundred
thousand people in Brooklyn, and less
than seyenty-fve thousand 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 sermons. Of all the hun
dred thousand sermons preached today
there will not be three preached to jour-
nalists, and probably not one. OF all the
xo{To nj, <>f
merable, the prayers offered for this
most potential class viii be SO few and
rare that they will be thought preachers
idiosyncrasy This world will never be
brought to God until some revival of re-
ligion sweeps over the land and takes
| into the kingdom of God editors and re-
| porters, 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
unbelievers who make the wheels Of the
Lords chariot drag heavily. The great
| final battle between truth and error, the
Armageddon, think, will not be fought
with swords and shells and guns, but
with pens, quill pens, steel pens, gold
HChOs 1Oulltetl1l DCiiOs anu, DSlOfO thdly
the pens must be converted. The most
divinely honored weapon of the past has
| been the pen, and the most divinely hon
ored weapon of the future will be the
pen, prophets pen and evangelist's pen
and apostles pen followed by editors
pen and reporters pen and authors pen.
God save the peni The wing of the
Apocalyptic angel will be the printed
page. The printing press will roll ahead
of Christ's chariot to clear the way.
But" some one might ask, 'swould
you make the Sunday newspapers also a
re-enforcementW Yes, l would. have
learned to take things as they are. ]
would like to see the much scoffed at old
Puritan Sabbaths come back again. dc
not think the modern Sunday will turn
out any better men and women than
were your grandfathers and grandmoth.
ers under the old fashioned Sunday. Tc
say nothing of other results, Sunday
newspapers are killing editors, reporters,
compositors and pressmen. Every man,
woman 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 re-
portorial room of its cares and response
bilities. Our literary men die fast enough
without killing them with Sunday work.
But the Sunday newspaper has come to
stay. 1t will stay good deal longer
than any of us stay. What then shall
we do? Implore all those who have
anything to do with issuing ii
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 husbands and
wives ought to. live lovingly together
Put in small type the behavior of the
swindling church member and in large
type the contribution of some Christian
man toward an asylum for feeble minded
children or seaside sanitarium. Urg'
all managing editors to put meannes
and impuTi!y in type pearl or agate an(
charity and fidelity and Christian con
sistency in BREWER or bourgeois. If W,
cannot drive out the Sunday newspapers
let us have the Sunday newspaper con