The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-06-27

nenL Is the mole into winch good men put
their money when they start newspa-
per. 1t is almost as quick way of losing
money as to buy stock in a gold
mine of Colorado. Not more newspapers,
but better employment OF those already
established. Again: If we would secure
the secular printing press in a mightier
reinforcement for religion and the pulpit
we must extend wider and higher Chris
ton courtesies to those who are the rep
resentatives 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, men who
have families to support with their literary
craft many of them weary with the push
o. an occupation so uncertain and so
changeable. They are the avenue of in
telligence to multitudes of readers, and
their impression of services is the impress
sion to be adopted by multitudes outside.
They are the connecting links between
sermon and prayer and hymn, and that
great outside population which tramp
up and down these streets year after
year with their sorrows uncontrolled and
their souls unsaved Eight hundred thou
sand people in Brooklyn and yet less than
n hundred thousand in churches. So there
is more preaching done by the reportersof
these cities than by the ministers. Take
the newspaper men then in your prayers
and into your sermons. If there shall be
100000 sermons preached in America to-
day, there will not be three sermons
preached 10 journalists. All of the prayers
offered FOR men in all STYLES of occupations.
The prayers offered for this most poten-
tial class viii be very few and assigned to
the idiosyncrasy of a preacher. And yet,
if this world is ever brought to God there
are TO be revivals of religion which will
sweep editors and reporters, and pressmen
and newsbOys into the kingdom of Jesus
Christ Have you not enough faith
TO toll for that and pray for that?
Then get out of our circles and
fight on the other side for you are among
the unbelievers who make the wheels of
the Lords chariot drag heavily The
great final battle between truth and error,
the armageddon will not be fought with
guns and shells and swords, but with
pens, quill pens, steel pens, gold pens,
fountain pens. But first OF all the pens
must be converted. "But, says some one,
would you make the Sunday newspapers
reinforcement? Most certainly would
i have learned to take things as they are
II | could have my way l would have the
old Puritan Sunday, the scoffed at Puri-
tan Sunday, come back again. The mod
ern Sunday will turn out no better men
and woman than were your crandfathers
and grandmothers under the old style Sun
day. Sunday newspapers are killing ed
ltors and reporters and tvpesetters. Every
man, women and child is entitled to
twenty-fOur hours every week with
nothing TO do, absolutely nothing to
do, and, though our friends may dele
gate the work of the newspapers for
twenty-four hours to other hands, the re-
sponsibilities and the cares will not be
lifted from editorial chairs and repertorial
rooms. These are facts. Literary men
are diving fast enough without any extra
killing OF the Sunday newspaper But
the Sunday newspaper has come to stay.
1t viii stay longer than any Of us STAY
What, then, shall we do? Let us implore
all those who write for them, and who
edit them, and who publish them, and
who print to fill them with moral and re-
hgious information, and with live sermons,
and with facts elevating. Let us implore
them to drop out all the divorce cases and
fill the columns with good advice as to
how husbands and wives ought to live
lovingly together. Let us ask them to
put la small type the behavior of the
swindling church member, and put in
large type the Christian contribution to
seaside sanitarium or asylum for feeble
minded children. Let us ask them
to put all the meanness on the
part OF Christian men in type that
is called pearl or agate and all generosity
and great heartedness on the part of Chris
tan people in type called BREWER or bour-
geois. If you cannot stop Sunday news
papers let us have the Sunday newspaper
converted. The fact is that the SUNDAY
newspaper Is a vast improvement upon
the Sunday newspaper of Olden times. Oh,
what a beastly thing was the Sunday
newspaper OF .hirty years ago. Why, it
would destroy a mans reputation for re-
spectability to have the end of it sticking
out OF his coat pocket And who knows
but that the Sunday newspaper will yet
become 4 pOsitiyely-through prayer and
consultation with our literary friends
become religious newspaper, printed on
Saturday night and distributed on Sunday
as in the churches now we distribute the
Sunday School AdUOcdteS. Again: If we
would make the secular printing press a
mightier reinforcement for religion
and the pulpit, we must in our pulpits
and in our Sunday-schOols and
in all our religious work be more
spirited and more and more interesting,
and then the secular printing press will
reproduce what is said. About fifteen
years ago, on a Sabbath morning on my
way to church, a journalist overlook me
and he said: "Are you going to give us
any points today" 1 said: what do
you mean by points ?" well" he said,
81 mean are you going to say anything
striking that can be remembered ?" Then
bethought myself, what right have we
in pulpits and in reformatory institutions
and in Sunday-schoos to take the time of
the people if we have not anything to say
that is memorable? The style of criti-
cism in theological seminaries has a ten
dency to file off the sharp points of young
men and send them out into the
work without any power of execution.
| What we want is points, sharp points
memorable points, and less hum
drum. Sunday-school teachers, people
at toll in refOrmatory institutions, young
ministers, old ministers, what we want is
points, and if thing uttered is dead it is
a hundredfold more dead when it is laid
out in cold type. Now since every man,
woman and child in this assemblage has
something to do with the newspaper-it is
either issuing it, or purchasing it; it is
either printing it, or editing it or reading
/ it, we all have something to do with it,
/ propose this day a solemn treaty, signed
/ June IL, l8SS---a solemn treaty between
the pulpit and the secular printing press.
treaty that will be ratified by multitudes
ifitis rightly fashioned, treaty promis-
/ inc that ua uiti holm aonb ofhar in tho