The Forrest City times., 1888-06-23
DR. PHARMACIES SERMON.
PULPIT AND PRESS MADE ALLIES


 tcai Religion May Re Suhserved by theSs- cular Press
 BROOKLYN, June 1a-At the service in the Tabernacle this morning, the Rev T. De wit Talmagc, D. D., took for the subject of bis discourse, Pulpit and Press Made Al. lies" His text was Luke xvt '. s, 'sThe children of this world are in their genera. uon wiser than the children of light" He said.
 Sacred stupidity and solemn lncompetency and sanctifed laziness are here rebuked by Christ He ssYs workings are wider awake Tor opportunities than are Christians Men or the world grab occasions while Christian people let the most valuable occasions drift by unimproved. That is the meaning of our Lord when he says; ''The children of this world are fin there generations wiser than the children of light"
 marked illustration of the truth of thst maxim is in the slowness of the Christian re. hgion to take possession of the secular print Ing press. The opportunity Is open and has Tor some time been open, but the ecclesiastical courts and the churches and the ministers of religion are for the most part allowing the golden opportunity to pass unimproyed. That tne opportunity is open declafe from the Tact that all the secular newspapers are glad Of any religious facts or statistics that you present them. Any animated and stirring srti- eie relating to religious themes they would glaaly print Ieey thank you for any infor- h.a sa'ioh I@ regard to churches If wrong nss oeen done 10 any Christian church or Christian institution, you could go Into any newspaper of the land and have the real truth stated. Dedica- tion services, ministerial ordinations and pastoral installations corner stone laying of church, anniversary of a charitable society Will have reasonable space in any secular Journal If it have previous notice given. If 1 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 man. Already the daily secular press during the course of each week publishes us much religious information and high moral sentiment as does the weekly religious press. Why then does not our glorious Chriatianty embrace these magnif- cent Opportuuitiess l have before me subject of first and last importance: How shall we secure the secular press as a migbtier reinforcement to religion and the pulpit
 The frtst thing toward this result is ces- sation of indiscriminate hostility against newspaperdom. You might as we'll deuounce the legal profession because of the shy sters or the medical profession because of the
 
 swindling bargain makers, as to slam-bang newspapers because there are reereant edi- tors and unfair reporters and unclean col umns. Guttenberg, the inventor of the art of printing, was about to destroy his types and extingush the art because 1t was sug- gested to him that printing might be suborn- ed into the service Of the devil, but after ward he bethought himself that the right use of the art might more than overcome the the erll use of 1t and so he spared the type aud the intelligence of all following ages. But there are many to-day in the depressed mood of Guttenberg with uplited 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 frighting newspapers we spend the same length Of time and the same vehemence In marshalling their help in religious direc- tions, we would be as much wiser as the man who gets consent of the railroad supcrintend- ent to fasten car 10 the end of q rail-train shows better sense than he swho runs his wheelborrow up the track to meet and drive back the Chicago limited express. The sill Hest thing that man ever does Is to fight a 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 ad verse criticism of himself be would with four hundred thousand baYoneis cross the Chan n2l for their chastisemeut.
 Don't fight newspapers Attack provokes | attack Better wait till the excitement blows l over and then go in and get justice, for get 1t you will if you have patience and common sense and equipoise of disposition. It ought 1 to be mighty sedative that there is an enor- nous amount of common sense in the world, and you will eventually bc taken for what l you are really worth, and you cannot be putfed | up and you cannot be written down, and if you are the enemy of good society that fact will come out and if you are ihe friend of | good society that fact will be established. 1 know what am talking about for l can draw l on my own experience. All the respectable | newspapers as far as l know are my friends | now. But many or you remember the l time when l was the most continuously and l meanly attacked man in this country. God | gave me grace not to answer back and l kept | silence for ten years, and much grace is re- | Qured. What said was perverted and twist ed into just the opposite of what did say. | My person was maligned and was presented as a gorgon, and was maliciously described by persons who had never seen me as a mon- strosity in body, mind and soul. There were millions Of people who believed that there was large sofa in this pulpit. a though we never had anything but chair, and that dur ing the singing by the congregation 1 was ac- customed to lie down on that sofa and dangle my feet over the end. Lying New York cor respondents for ten years misre presented our church services, but we waited and people from every neighborhood of Christendom came here 10 find the magnitude of the false hoods concerning the church and concern Ing myself A reaction set in and now we have justice, full justice, more than justice and as much over praise as once we had un- der appreciation, and no man that ever lived was so much indebted to the newspaper press for opportunity to preach the Gospel as l am Young men in all professions and occupa- tions, wait, You can afford to wait. Take rough misrepresentation as Turkish towel to start up your lauguid circulation, or a system of massage and Swedish movement whose poSes and pulls and twists and thrusts are salutary treat ment There is only one person you need to manage and that is your self Keep your disposition sweet by com munion with the Christ, who answered not again, the society Of genial people, and walk out in the sunshine with our hat of and you VIII come out all right And don't join the crowd of people in our day who spend much ol their time damn ng newspapers.
 Again: if you would secure the sec ular press as mightier reinforcement of religion and the pulpit, extend widest and highest Christian courtesies 10 the representatives 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 busi- ness that is precarious and iiuetuating, each one Of them the avenue Of information to thousands of readers, their impression of the services to be the impression adopted by null titudes They are connecting links between a sermon or a song or prayer and this great population that tramp up and down the streets day by day and year by year with thek sor- sows uncontrolled and their sins unpardoned. More than eight hundred thousand people in Brooklyn and less than seyentY-flve thousand in churches, so that our cites are not so much preached to by ministers of religion as by reporters. Put all journalists into our prayers and sermons. Of all the hundred thousand sermons preached today, there will not be three preached 10 journalists, and probably not one. Of all the prayers offered for classes of men innumerable, the prayers 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 in- to the kingdom of God editors aud reporters, compositors, pressmen and newsboys. And If you have not faith enough 10 pray for that and toll for that you had better get out of he nd snf a QfIeY side for