Sharp County record., 1888-07-26
'TALMAGEHS SERMON.
A Discourse on the "Pulpit and
Press as Allies"
The Power of the Press for Good or EVIL
The Folly of Antagonizing lt-A
Force that Should be Guilt
waited 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-
alton wiser than the children OF light luke,
xvi, S,
He said: Sacred stupidity and solemn
incompetency and sanctifed 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 the most valuable occasions drift by
unimproved. This is the meaning OF our
Lord when He says!
The children of this *erld are in their genera
ton 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, bit tie ecclesiastical courts trd
the churches and the ministers of re-
ligion are for the most part allowing the
golden opportunity to pass unlmproyed'
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 a church,
anniversary of a charitable society, will
have reasonable space in any secular
journal, if it have previous notice given.
If / had some great injustice done me,
there is not an editorial or reportorial
room in the United States into which |
could not 90 and get myself set right, and
that is true Of any well-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? have before me
a subject of first and last Importance:
How shall we secure the secular press as
O mightier re enforcement to religion and
the pulpit?
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 shyster, or the medical pro-
fession because of the quacks, or mer-
chandise because of the swindling bar
gain makers, as to slam bang newspa-
pers because there are recreaht editors
and Unfair reporters, and unclean coli
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 m"sze 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 vehemence
in marshaling their help in religious
directions, we would be as much wiser as
the man who gets consent Of the railroad
superintendent to fasten a car to the end
of o rail-train shows better sense than
he who runs his wheelbarrow up the track
to meet and drive back the Chicago lin
tied express. The silliest thing that a
man ever does is to fight q 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 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 Tor 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. 1t ought to be a mighty
sedative that there is an enormous
amount of common sense in the world,
aud 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. l know
what l am talking about for ] can
draw on my own experience. All
the respectable newspapers as far as l
know are my friends now. But many of you
remember the time when was the most
continuously and meanly attacked man in
this country. God gave me grace not to
answer back and | kept silence for ten
years, and much grace is required. What
! said was perverted and twisted into Just
the opposite of what did say. Ny per-
son was maligned and | was presented as
a Gorgon, and / was maliciOusly 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 a chair, and that during the singing
by the congreg CATION | was accustomed to
lie dOwu on that sofa an d dangle my feet
over the end.
Lying New York correspondents for ten