The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1890-12-11


at least one regard-it has taught the
people not to believe everything they
see in print. When printing was 9
matter of great expense, labor and care
when the publishing of book was an
undertaking Of grave importance; and
when newspapers we're a very much
less essential adjunct of everyday life
than they now are, men looked with
great circumspection over what they
would put in print. The slow process
of the art gave writer's time to deliberate,
prune and correct 80 that men were &C.
customed to look upon printed words an
the result of mature thought and con.
sideration. The mystery of book max
ing removed the real speaker 80 far from
their auditors, that printed words, like the
utterances of the pulpit, possessed an
authority and sanction which neither
now can claim.
Nor was this feeling altogether un
justified, for men did not formerly rush
into print unless impelled by some pro-
found conviction that they had some
great truth to impart to the world or
else felt within their brains the throes OF
genius struggling to the birth. Behind
printed words there was generally a
purpose and conviction which was
sure to attract belief in some quarter.
But books have been multiplied with.
out number. OF making books there lie
no end There is great demand for
paper on which men shall print their
thought or want of thought, and wheel
on wheel has been set in motion to
spread it all abroad. The press is no
longer kept in motion by the pressure
of the dy, annie thought behind it striv-
ing for expression, but on the other
hand the brains of men are cudgeIed
and sent busting about to provide
material in the form of ideas, whether
it be grain or chaf, to keep the wheels
a,clatter Thirty years ago sly satyrist
suspected that the world was being af
fected by Cadmean madness Perhaps
1t is enough to say that at the present
time there is the same grinding rush in
business of juggling with the alphabet
sin every other form of human activity.
The result has been that books and
print have lost their mystery and there
fore their authority-for what authority
is not founded on mystery? Men are
learning to read anything and every
thing and to accept only that which ap-
peals to their sense of truth. The writer
who would mislead must do. so by an
appeal to the passions or by the deceit
fulness of his logic. He can no longer
give his words false authority by
merely speaking them through the
hollow oracle of the press.
1t is not the object Of these reflections
to discredit the influence of the press,
but merely its authority. There was q
time when all truth, like the light of the
sun, seemed to come from great central
source. Looking toward it the eye was
dazzled but not enlightened. Now, we
recognize that every floating mote may
reflect some ray or phase of truth. 1t is
the diffusion of light by being scattered
and deflacted at every conceivable angle
that brings out objects in their true out
lines. Men who have the care of their
mental eyesight will no longer read in
the direct glare of single authority.
The milder beams which are mixed
with some darkness but which come
transmitted through the medium of the
human mind, are kindlier to the eye.
No one writer and no one thinker can
illuminate the great questions which
engage the thoughts OF men to-day, but
the fierce play of lights that comes from
every quarter serves to show that truth
has many sides. The conflict of opinion
that RACES around the great questions of
property, labor and faith seems at first
to be destructive and to indicate retro
gression because the certainty upon
which they rested is now gone. But
this very confusion is the surest hope OF
the ultimate establishment Of fixed and
acknowledged truth.
Print has become almost as natural
and easy an expression of the mind as
speech itself, 80 that the literature of the
day is merely record of the opinions of
the men of the day, bolstered up by
such show OF reason - can be brought
to bear. 1t rarely asks to be accepted
for more than its worth. With all these
as lights and aids, each one must shape
his own views of truth according to his
own inward reasoning than which he
has no higher appeal. This is the pro-
cess which will eventually lead all minds
to the discovery that what seemed to be
several opinions, becomes q single truth
when viewed from every side. Hence
IL is that men no longer read books TO