News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-07-05
SUNDAYS SERMON.
ONE OF REV. DIR. TALMAGE's
STERLING DISCOURSES,
Subject: Pulpit and Press Made
Allies"

|
TEXT: "THe children of this porld ar
IN their generation tUiSer than the chiLdrel
| of fHght"-Luke xvi, s.
Sacred stupidity and solemn incompetenc
and sanctified laZiness are here rebuked b.
| Christ He says worldings are wider awak
| for opportunities than are Christians. Mel
| of the world grab occasions while Christian
| people let the most valuable occasions drif
| by unimproved. That is the meaning of oul
| Lord when he says: "The children of thi
world are in their generation wiser than the
| children Of light"
marked Illustration of thu truth of thai
| maxim is in the slowness of the Christian re
! ligion to take possession of the secular print
| ing press. The opportunity is open, and haI
! for some time been open, but the ecclesiasti
] cal courts and the churches and the minister!
| of religion are for the most part allowing the
| golden opportunity to pass unimproyed
| That the opportunity is open l declare from
| the fact that the secular newspapers 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
| info nation in regard to churches II a
wrong has been done to any Christian
church or Christian institution you
could go into any newspaper of the land
and haze the real truth stated. Dedica-
tlOn services, Ministerial OruInlllOnS ana
pastoral installations, corner stone laying OF
a church, anniversary of charitable society
will have reasonl. le sp1c9 in any secular
journal, if it have previous notico given. If
had some great injustice done me there IS
not an editorial or reportorial room in the
United States into which 1 could not go and
get myself set right, and that is true of any
well known Christian. 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 glori-
GUS Christianity embrace these magnificent
opportunities / have before me subject of
first and last importance How shall we Sc
cure the secular press as a mightier re-en-
forcement to religion and the pulpit.
The first thing toward this result is cessa-
ton of indiscriminate hostility against news
paperdom. You might as well denounce the
legal profession because of the shysters, or
the medical profession because of the quacks,
or merchandise because of the swindling ar
gain makers, as to slambang ne Hsp1pers be
cause there are recreant editors and unfair
reporters and unclean columns. 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 print
ing 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 50 he
spared the type and the intelligence of all fol-
lowing ages. But there are many to day in the
depressed mood of Gutenberg 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 in
stead of fighting newspapers we spend the
same length of time and the same vehemencs
in marShaling their help in religious direc-
tions, we would be as much wiser as the man
who gets consent of the railroad superin-
tendent to fasten a car to the end of rail
train shows better sense than he who runs
his wheelharrow up the track to meet and
drive back the Chicago limited express. The
81 liest thing ttrat a man ever does is to fight
a newspaper, for you may have this 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 ad-
verse criticism of himself he would with four
hundred thousand bayonets cross the channel
for their chasJisement
Don't fight newspapers Attack -provokes
attack b tier wait till the excitenent blows
it you will if y GU have patience and common
sense and elujpo!se of disposition. 1t ought
to be q mi shty 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 canno.
be puffed up tnd you cannot be written
down and if you are the enemy of good so
ciety that fact will come out, and If you are
the friend of good society that fact will be
established. | know what / am talking
about, for l can draw on my own experience. |
All the responsible newspapers as far as
know are my friends now. But many OF
you remember the time when | was
the most continuously and meanly at |
tackled man in this country. God gave |
me grace not to answer back, and kept |
silence for ten years, and much grace Is |
required. What l said was perverted and |
twisted into just the opposite of what did |
say. My person was maligned, and | was
as gorgon, and was mallclously
described by persons who had never seen me
as a monstrosity in body, mind and soul.
There were m lions of people who believed
hat there was a large sofa in this pulpit. al
though never had anything but chair,
and that during the singing by the congrega~
ion / was accustomed to lie down on that
sofa and dangle my feet over the end. Lying
New York correspondents for ten years
our church services. but
We waited and people from every nelghbor-
hood of ChriStendom came here to find the
magnitude of the fasehoods concerning the
,hurch and concerning myself. A reaction
et in and now we have justice, full justice,
more than Justice and as much overpraise as
,nce we had under appreciation, and no man
hat ever lived was so much indebted to the
newspaper press for opportunity to preach
he Gospel as | am. Young'men in the min
y
)atOnS, wait. You can afford to wait.
Take rough Misrepresentation as Turkish
owel to start up your languld circulation,
II system of massage or Swe1lsh move
nent, whose poles and pulls and twists and
hrUsts are siutary treatment There IS
me person you need to manage and that is
Yourself. Yeep your disposition sweet by
with the Christ who answered
lot aga;n, the society of genial people, and
walk in the sunshine with your hat off and
you will come out all right. And don't join
he crowd OF people in our day who spend
much or CGeir tine dimning newspapers.
Again, in this effort to secure the secular
)ress as a m ghtier re- enforcement OF religion
md the pulpit, let us make it the avenue of
eligiOur information. If you put the fact
# churches and denominations of Christians
'nly into the columns of religious papers,
which do not in this country have an aver
ge of more than ten thousand subscribers,
What have you done as compared with what
-ou do if you put these facts through the
Iaily pap RS which have hundreds of thou
ands of readers' Every little denomination
uust have its little organ, supported at great
xpen G. when, with one half the outlay, "a col.
mn or half column of room might be
ented in some Semi-omnipotent secular pub.
cation, and so the religious information
would be sent round AMI round the world,
he world moves so swiftly to-day that news
week old is stale. Give us all the great
hurch facts and all the revival tldlngs the
ext morning or the same evening. My ad-
ice often given to friends who propose TO
tart a newspaper, is: Don't! Don't! En-
loy the papers already started :" The big
est financial hole ever dug in this American
is the hole in which good people
brow their money when they start news
aper 1t is almost as good and as quick
,ay of getting rid of money as buying stock
l a gold mine in Colorado Not more print
lg presses, but the right use of those already
sta bished. All their cylinders, all their
cam power, all their pens, all their types,
Il their editorial chairs and reportorial
1oms are available if you would engage
lem in behalf of civilization and Girls
anity-
Again: If you would secure the secular
-ess mightier reinforcement of religion
ld the pulpit, extend widest and highest
,urteses to the representatives of journal
m. Give them easy chairs and plenty OF
'om when they como to report occasions.
Dr. the most part they are gentlemen Of ed
'ation and refinement graduates of colleges,
it'll families to support by their literary
aft, many of them weary with the push OF
business that is precarious and fluctuating,
ch one of them the avenue of information to
ousands of readers, their impression of the
rvices to be the impression adopted
multitudes. They are connecting
lks between sermon or song
prayer and this great popula,
IN that tramp up and down the streets day
day and year by year with their sorrows 1
and their sins unpardoned s
ore than eight hundred thousand people in
'ooklyn, and less than seventy-fve thousand
churches, so that our cities are not so
j h preached to by ministers of religion as
reporters. Put all journalists into our
ayers and sermons. OF all the hundred
ousand sermons preached to day, there will
t be three preached to journalists, and
obably not one OF all the prayers offered
r classes of men innumerable the prayers
'ered for this most potential class will be so
" and rare that they will be thought a
eacher's idiosyncrasy. This world will