The Brookhaven leader., 1888-06-28

as q mighticr Reimbursement OF religion
and the pulpit by making our religious
utteranccs 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 thinking.
"Are you going to give US any points to-
day."
what do you mcan?" asked. He
said
~ mean by that any thing that will be
striking enough to be remembered"
Then / sold to myself: What right have
we in our pulpits and Sunday schools to
take the time of people if we have nothing
to say that is memorable David did not
have any difficulty in remembering
Nathan's thrust: Thou art the man."
nor Felix in remembering Paul's point
blank uttcrance on righteousness, tenn
perance and Judgment to come; nor the
English King any difficulty in remember
ing what the court preacher said when,
during the sermon against sin, the preach
er threw his handkerchief 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
i'll the right way the press will be glad to
echo it and re-echO it. Sabbath school
teachers, reformers, young men and old
men in the ministry, what we all want, II
we are to make the printing press an ally
in Christian work, is that which the re-
porter spoken of suggested-points, sharp
points, memorable points. But if the
no 1..oI N--ba nffara6 nv living
voice, it will be q hundredfold more deac
when il is laid out in cold type.
Now, as you all have something to do
with the newspaper press, either in issu-
ing paper or in reading it, either as
producers or patrons, either as sellers or
purchasers Of the printed sheet, pro-
pose on this Sabbath morning, June II,
1888, a treaty to be signed between the
Church and the printing press, treaty to
be ratified by millions Of good people il
we rightly fashion il, a treaty promising
that we will help each other in our work
of trying to illumne and 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 mt:
| speak. You help Us and we will help you.
Side by side by these two potent agencies
until the Judgment day, when We must
|
| full or blasting. The two worst off men
| in that day will be the minister of relig-
| ion and the editor, IL they wasted their
opportunity Both OF us are the engineer
of long express trains of influence, and
we will run them into depot OF light or
tumble them off the embankments.
What useful life and what glorious
| departure was that of the most famous Of
all American printers, Benjamin Frank
lin, whom infdcls in the penury of their
resources have often fraudulently
claimed for their own, but the
printer who moved that the Phila-
delphia convention be opened with
prayer, the resolution lost because ma
jority thought it unnecessary, and who
wrote at the time he was viciously at
tackled: My rule is to go straight for.
ward in doing what appears To me to be
right, leaving the consequences to PrOvi'
dence," and who wrote this quaint epitapt
showing his hope Of resurrection, an cpl
taph that l hundreds of times read while
living in Philadelphia