The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-11-15
DISTINGUISHED CLERGYMEN.
Interesting Addresses Before Con
gress of Churches.

SIcSS vi CuuICHtSs
Professor Samuel Hart Spoke in the Morn
ing and the Rev. Alexander Mckay
Smith Delivered an Address on Sunday
Newspapers-Other Speakers.
Boston, Mass, Novemb Der 14.-At the
Congress of Churches this morning, Pro-
lessor Samuel Hart discussed the Prop
er education for the ministry" =
The Rev. DR.. Alexander Mackey- NTH
read a paper on Sunday newspapers, OF
which the following are the most essen
ial portions:
Before Boston audience i need make
no apology for my secular yet admira BILE
text from Emerson: The Sabbath,
white with religions of unknown thous-
ands of years. When this hallowed hour
dawns out of the deep-a clean page
which the wise may inscribe with truth,
while the savage scrawls it with fetshes
the cathedral music OF history breathes
thro' it psalm to our solitude"
1t is such day we are summoned to
defend against the world coming in like
a food, flood whose muddy waves are
burdened and crested with multiplied
millions of copies of what we call the
Sunday press" / am not here to simply
criticize that press. / believe that the
newspapers just as admirable for the
ability which constructs it, as are those
marine wonders. the Campana, the Ma
jestic or the Paris. But think the Sun
day paper is just as much mistake as
those vessels would he, if in every voyage
they crashed at full speed into their
docks. The Indictment against the Sun
day press is that it is the work-day press
that does not know when to stop. Owing
to the peculiar conditions of our national
life, we have and caanot help having,
an almost irresistible and unrestra1ned
press. 1, for one, am grateful for the
many hieh-minded editors we possess.
But on one side of the many-featured
character, these editors Tor shall we say
the proprietors behind them?) have
burst all bounds. The Sunday paper be-
gan with the harmless Extra" that
told mothers in the late war in what
battles their sons were that day engaged.
The war ended-the extra went on. Our
English cousins were wiser. True, they
had no war to betray them into error
But when Mephistopheles went bowling
and Sinking into London some years
ago with mis- Sunday edition, they de-
veloped back bone like the main-yard
of the old Constitution. and while ours
was bending and swapping like whip
lash, they used theirs to make new
London Bar against fresh Jack Cade.
For US, the fateful day has passed.
The Sunday paper is, fear, to be per-
manent feature of our landscape. Nor
must we chiefly blame the editors. It
is the Christians VINO are to blame. If
they would neither buy the papers, nor
patronize the advertisers, the proprie-
tors ledgers, like their faces, would
soon be sicklied DER with the pale cast
Of fhov, A 1--we CT
those newspaper men ave favorablJ dis
posed to religion as they define it. They
wish it we'll, they treat it with respect.
Some of them honestly think the sun
day paper a good thing for the commu-
nifty. Many of them have come in since
the Sunday issue began, and accept it as
matter of course. Yet, all unconcious-
ly the work they are doing is the destruc-
ton of one strong factor in all the higher
spiritual life of the community.
The curse CT the modern editor has
been launched against everything he
chooses to call "puritsnical." But I
notice that still today when any quick
crisis demands stern treatment, or when
defiant corruption, after repeated victo-
ries calls for what Napoleon dubbedA"2
o'clock at night courage" to meet it, the
people begin to look about for the Puri-
tan spirit. They found it last week in
New York.
Our accusation against the Sunday
paper is that it symbols yes, EN- bodies,
multiplies and encourages all the infiuen-
ces which are crushing out the national
rest day, and stunning the higher devel-
op ment of men. The three battering
rams which in our American life are all
day beating about the head of the aver
age man. are called: hurry, w Dry, and
wrong. Look at the first of these. Such
man has hardly time during the week
to realize what the truth is about any
thing. except that another man stands
ready to do his work if hefails. He has no
time for anything except his paper on the
way to business, and that hurls at him
all the hurry OF the roaring world out
side. Thousand events following one an
ther, gathering breathIess down the col
umns until he feels like watching a mill
race. All day long he is busy. The
evening paper doses him with the
bring time t. think. but fatigue kills
il. We turn from hurry, and the scene
grows darker. We see wrong all about
us, within us, against us. Aud the only
gospel which most men read-the news
paper-what is it, three-quarters of it,
but the greater wrongs and crimes, and
misfortunes and mis-workinRs of the
world, hurled at US twice a day, six
days in the week. What wonder is that
the average man, between the worries
at home, the worries at work and the
world pressing on him with leaden at
mosphere, becomes unimpressionabl by
spiritual things.
To such man, after such week, Sun
day comes. Does it come as in Elmer
sons vision, white with the religions
OF unknown thousands of years. But
after all, the man has his chance to rest
andsbe clean if he will. He takes it,
so far as his body is concerned. From
banker TO stoker. from Maine to Texas
the day smells of good, honest soap, and
is redolent of clean linen. But here the
majority pause. Snail they go further?
Shall they change the current OF grovell-
ing, materialistic, bestializing week .day
thought? Shall they give the soul a
chance to say whether it exists? Is life
nothing but waiting at dull railway
station between the Unlimited Express
which brought us, and the Local Ac-
commodation which is to carry us away.
with only fortuitous bread and butter at
the lunch counter while, we wait? Has
there once been lived perfect life on
earth, from whichever the average citi-
zen might learn something? Can there
be any possible doubt as to money ruling