News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-07-05

steel pens, gold pens, fountain pens and be
. Lore that, the pens must be converted. TIL,
most dlvinely honored weapon of the pas
mas oeen the pen. and the most divinely hon
ored weapon OF the future will be the pen
, prophets pen and evangelists pen and apos-
tle pen followed by e1itor's pen and re.
! PorCerS $ pen and authors pen. Goa save the
pen! 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, would you
forcementT' Yes, would. I have learned
10 take things as they are. l would like to
see the much scoffed at old Puritan Sabbaths
come back again. 1 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.
cay. To say nothing of other results, Sun
day newspapers are killing editors, reporters,
compoSltors and pres'men. 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 reporter al room of
It's cares and responsibilities. Our literary
men die fast enough without killing them
with Sunday work. But the Sunday news
| paper 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 it to fill il
with moral or religious information; live
| sermons and facts elevating. Urge them
that all divorce cases be dropped, and in.
| stead thereof have good advice as to how
| husbands AMI wives ought to live lovingly
| together. Put in small type the behavior OF
the swlndling church member, and in large
| type the contribution of some Christian man
toward an asylum for feeble minded children
or seaside santarium. Urge all managing
| editors TO put m2anneSs and impurity in typs
| peIrl or agate, and charity and fidelity and
Christian consistency in BREWER or bour
| geoiS. Ii we cannot drive out the Sunday
| newspaper let us have the Sunday newspaper
| converted. The fact is that the modern Sun
| day newspaper is great improvement on
the Old Sunday newspaper. What beastly
thing was the Sunday newspaper thirty years
ago! 1t was enough to destroy a mans re-
spectablllty to leave the tip end of it stick.
ing out of his coat pocket. What editorials!
What advertisements! What pictures The
modern Sunday newspaper is as much an
improvement on the old time Sunday news-
paper as one hundred is more than twenty.
five; in other words, about % per cent i'm.
provement. Who knows that by prayer and
kindly consultation with our literary friends
We may have it lifted into positively re.
ligious sheet printed on Saturday night and
only distributed, like the american Messen-
ger, or the Missionary Journal, or the Sun
day School Advocate, on Sabbath mornings,
hM Id things hin ,.;tI are possible with God,
in the way of religious victory would sur
prise me. All the newspaper printing
presses Of the earth are going to be the
Lords and telegraph and telephone and
type will yet announce nations born in day |
The first book ever printed was the Bible by
Faust and his son-in-law, Schoefer, in 1860,
and that conservation of type to the Holy
Scriptures was prophecy of the great mis-
sion of printing for The evangelization of all
the nations. The father of the American |
printing press was clergyman, Rev. Jesse
Glover, and that was prophecy of the re-
ligious uss that the Gospel ministry in this
country were to make of the types.
ban h. L.,
mightier re enforcement of religion and the
pulpit by making our religious utterances
more interesting and spirited, and then the
press will reproduce them. On the way to
said thing that has kept me ever since
thinking. Are you going to give us any
points to-day" What do you meant!
that will be striking enough to be reu.onS
bered." Then said to myself: What right
take the time of people if we ha We nothing to
say that is memorablef David dill not
have any difficulty in rtmemberlng Nathan's
thrust: Thou art the man." nor Felix
in remembering Paul's point blank utter
ance on Righteousness, temperance and |
Judgment to come: nor the English King |
any difficulty in remembering what the |
court preacher said when during the SER
mon against sin the preacher threw his hand
kerchef into the kings pew to indicate whom /
he meant. The tendency of criticism in the
theological seminaries 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
humdrum. If we say the right thing in the
right way the press will be glad to echo and
re-echo it. d, Sabbath school teachers, reform
ers young men and 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 the reporter spoken of suggested
points, sharp points, memorable points
But if the thing be dead when uttered by
living voice, it will be hundredfold more
dead when it is laid out in cold type.
Now as you all have something to do with
the newspaper press either IN issuing paper
or in reading it, either as producers or pa
printed sheet | propose on this SaDoatn
morning June H. 1883, a treaty to be signed
between the church and the printing press
treaty to be ratified by millions of good peo-
pie if we rightly fashion it, a treaty promls-
ing that we will help each other in our work
of trying to illumine AMI felicitate the
world, we by voice, you by pen, we by
speaking only that which IS worth print
ing YOU by printing only that which IS
fit to speak You help us and we will help
you. SIDE by side be these two potent agencies
until the Judgment Day, when we must both
be scrutinized for our work, heatthtu1 or
blasting The two worst OF men in that
day will be the minister of religion and the
editor if they wasted their opportunity.
Both of us are the engineers of long express
trains of influence, and we will run into
a depot of light or tumble them of the en-
bankment.
What useful life and what glorious de
parture was that of the most famous of all
American printers, Benjamin Franklin,
whom infidels in the penury of their re-
sources have often fraudulentlY claimed Ior
their own, but the printer who moved 1nat
the Philadelphia convention be opened with
prayer, the resolution lost because q ma
jority thought prayer unnecessary, and who
wrote at the time he was viciously attacked:
my ru is to 20 straight forward in doing
what appears to me to be right, leaving tne
to Providence, and who wrooe
this quaint epitaph showing his hope OF res,
direction, an epitaph that l hundreds OK
times read while living in Philadelphia:
The Body
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents torn out,
And strlpt of its lettering and gIlding),
Lies here food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will (as he beiievcd) appear once more
In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and Amended
The Author.
That Providence intends the profession OF
reporters to have a mighty share in the
worlds redemption is suggested by the fact
hat Paul and Christ took reporter along
with them and he reported their addresses
md reported their acts. Luke was re-
porter and he wrote not only the book OF
Luke, but the Acts of the Apostles, and
without that reporters work we would have Z
Known nothing of the Pentecost and moth !
ng of Stephens martyrdom, and nothing of
Tabitha's resurrect. on, and nothing of the
aling and uniailing of Paul and Silas and [
nothing of the shipwreck at Melita- Strike
,ut the reporters work from the Bible and
'ou kill large part of the New Testament. !
t makes me think that in the future of the [
lingdom of God the reporters are to bear 6
mighty part
About thirteen years ago representative
# an important newspaper took his seat in Y
his church, one Sabbath night about five |
Jews from the front of this pulpit. He took
nut pencil and reporters pad resolved to carl =
ature the whole scene. When the music oegan
lie began and with his pencil he derided that,
md then derided the prayer, and then derided /
he reading of the Scriptures, and then began [
% deride the sermon. But, he says, for some >
eason his hand began Ito trembla, and he,
allying himself, sharpened his pencil and
tarted again, but broke down again, and b
hen put pencil and paper in his pocket {
md his head down on the front of the pew /
ervice he came up and asked for the
prayers OF others and gave his heart
o God although still engaged in news &
,aper work, he is an evangelist, and hires
lall at his own expense and every Sabbath 4,
Lfternoon breaches Jesus Christ to the peo- e
lie. And the men of that profession are go v
ng to come in body throughout the coun-
ry. l know hundreds of them, and more | -
enial or highly educated class of men 1t =
would be hard to find. and, though the
of their profession may be toward
kepticism, an organized, common sense
tospel invitation would fetch them to the