The Nicodemus cyclone. [volume] (Nicodemus, Graham County, Kan.) 1887-1888, 1888-06-29

eStADllsned. All their cylinders, all tn ELF
steam power all their pens, all their types,
all their editorial chairs and repororial rooms
are available II you would engage them in
behalf of civilization and Christianity.
Again: if you would secure the sec
ular press as o mghtier reinforcement
OF religion and the pulpit extend
widest and highest Christian courteses
to 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
ana 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 fluctuatng, each
| one Of them the avenue Of information to
| thousands of readers, their impression of the
services to be the impression adopted BY null
| tltudeS. They are connecting links between
sermon or song or prayer and this great
| population that tramp up and down the streets
day by day and year by year with their sor-
| s0Ws uncontrolled and their sins unpardOned.
| More than eight hundred thousand people in
| Brooklyn and less than seventY-tive 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 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 idOsyncrasv. 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 and reporters,
| 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 hnfWppn n no s
don, think, will not be fought with
swords and shells and guns, but with
pens, quill pens, steel pens, gold
pens, fountain pens and, before that. the
pens must be converted. The most divinely-
hOnored weapon of the past has been the pen
and the most diyinely -honored weapon Of the
future will be the pen; prophets pen and
evangelisps pen and apostles pen followed by
editor 8 pen and reporters pen and authors
pen. God save the pen! The wing of Apo
calvptic angel will be a printed page The
printing press will roll ahead of Christ's
chariot to clear the way.
But" someone might ask, ''would you
make the Sunday newspapers also a re-en-
forcement:" Yes, | would. l have learned
TO take things as they are. | would like to
see the much scOffed at old Puritan Sabbaths
come back again. do not think the modern
Sunday will turn out any better men and
women than were your grandfathers and
grandmothers under the Old fashioned Sun
day. 10 say nothing of other results, Sunday
newspapers are killing editors, reporters COM
pOsltOrs and pressmen. Every man, woman
and child is entitled to twenty four hours of
nothing to do. II the newspapers put On an
other set of hands that does not relieve the
editorial and reportOrial room Of its cares and
responsibilities. Our literary men die fast
enough without killing them with Sunday
work. But the Sunday newspaper has come
TO stay. What then shall we do? ImpOre all
those who have anything to do with issuing
1t to fill 1T with moral and religious infOrma-
ton; 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 to-
gether. Put In small type the behavior of
the sWindlng church members
ana in large type the cor,
tributiOn of some Christian man toward
an asylum for feeble minded children or
seaside sanitarium. Urge all managing ed-
tors to put meanness and impurity in type
pearl or agate and charity and fidelity and
Christian consistency in BREWER or bourgeois
II we cannot drive out the Sunday newspaper
let US have the Sunday newspaper con-
verified. The fact is that the modern Sun
day newspaper is a great Improvement on the
Old Sunday newspaper. What a beastly thing
was the Sunday newspaper thirty years ago!
Ii was enough to destroy mans respecta-
bility to leave the tip end Of it sticking out
of his coat pocket. What editorials! What
advertisements! What pictures! The mod
ern Sunday newspaper is much an Improve
ment on the old time Sunday newspapers as
one hundred is more than twenty-five; In
other words about, seventy-fve per
cent Improvement. Who knows that
by prayer and kindly cnsultatiOn
with our literary friends we may
have it Lifted into positively religious sheet
printed on Saturday night and only dstrib
uted, like the American Messenger, or the
Missionary journal. or the Sunday School
Advocate on Sabbath mornings. All things
are possible with God and my faith is up until
nothing in the way of religious victory would
surprise me- All the newspaper printing
presses of the earth are going to be the
LOrd's, and telegraph and telephone and
type will yet announce nations born i'm day.
The first book ever printed was the Bible by
Faust and his sOn-in-law SChOcffer in 1860, |
and that conservation of tpye to the Holy |
Scriptures was a prophecy of the great mis-
sion of printing for the evan@elizatiOn of all |
the nations. The father of the American
printing press was clergyman, Rev. Jesse
Glover, and that was q prophecy of the !
religious use that the Gospel ministry |
in this country were to make of the types.
Again: we shall secure the secular press
as a mightler reinforcement Of religion and |
the pulpit by making our religious utteranc-
es more interesting and spirited. and then
the press will reproduce them. On the way
to church some fifteen years ago, a journalist
said thing that has kept me ever since
tiIIHhIHG' ARE YOU going 10 give us any
points tO-day!' ''What d. YOU mean!" !
asked. He said: Il mean bv that anything
that will he striking enough to be remember
ed" Then said to myself What right have
we in our pulpts and Sunday schools 10 take
the time of people if we have nothing 10 saw |
that is memorable. David did not lave any
in remembering Nathan's thrust:
Thou art the man." nor Felix i'm remcm-
berng Pau's point blank utterancr on
righteousness, temperance and judgment to
come; nor the English king any difficulty in
what the court preacher said.
when. during the sermon against sin the
preacher threw his handkerchief into the ,
kings pew to indicate whom he meant. The |
tendency of criticism in the theological semi |
naries is TO file off from our young men all /
the sharp points and make them too smooth /
for any kind Of execution. What we want |
all of Us, is more point, less hdmdrum. If |
we saw the right thing in The right way the |
press will he glad 10 echo and re-echo t. /
Sabbath-schOOl teachers, reiOrmers, Young |
men aud old men in the ministry. what we /
all want If we are TO make the printing press
an ally in Christian work Is that which tie /
reporter spoken of suggeStei-points. sharp /
points, memorable points But II the thing /
lie dead when uttered by living voice II viii /
be n hundredfold more dead when il is laid /
out in cold type.
l.