Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-11-15
SUNDAY PAPERS.
Episcopal Congress Denounces
Them Right and Left.
One Says Christians Have Them
selves to Blame for This Evil.
Another Says That Their Chief Danger is in
Being So Good.

opened at Music Hall with Bishop Law
renee in the chair and a large attendance
The topic discussed was Proper Educa-
tion for the Ministry" Rev. 5. ID. Nc
Connell, d. d., Philadelphia, read a
paper in which he said the time for tech
nical training should be shortened and
the time for secular education should be
heightened. Rev. j. Lewis Parke, ID. D.,
Philadelphia. argued for spiritual educa-
ton. Rev Prof. Samuel Hart, ID. D.,
Hartford, CT, argued that candidate for
the ministry must have IA genuine call to
preach. Rev. Henry c. Swentzel, Brook
lyn, said the education of the minister
must be spiritual and the ministry should
have broadminded men.
Rt. Rev. Henry c. Potter, d. d., L. L..
d., bishop of New York, argued for prep
aration, accuracy and responsibility in
the minister Rt. Rev. c. A. Hall. d. ID. ,
bishop of Vermont, said the study for the
ministry should begin with the school
boy and he thought the course should be
more theological Rt. Rev. DR. Rulison
of Pennsylvania, said that men of strong
character and ability were necessary in
the ministry. Bishop Lawrence defended
the theological schools of the church.
Bishop Lawrence presided at the even
ing session. Rev. Il. A. Holland, ID. d.,
st. Louis, was the first speaker. Rev. C..
George Currie, d. d., Baltimore, said the
Sunday newspaper had come to stay. He
was opposed to the Sunday newspaper be-
cause it was violation of the Lords day
and IA serious injury to the moral nature
of the people, but it was necessary to the
present civilization. 1t originated great
reforms and exposed corruption which pri-
vatc citizens dare not touch. The Sunday
newspaper did not reach our souls.
Rev DR. Alexander Machcy Smith,
rector of st. Johns parish, Washington,
ID, c., spoke as follows:
Before Boston audience ! need make
no apology for my secular yet admirable
text from Emerson: The Sabbath,
white with religions of unknown thou
sands of years When this hallowcd hour
dawns out of the deep-a clean page which
the wise may inscribe with truth, while
the savage scrawls it with fetishes-the
cathedral music of history brcathes thro'
it psalm to our solitude.
1T is such IA day we are summoned to de
fend against the world coming in like a
flood, flood whose muddy waves are
burdcned and crested with multiplied mil
lion copies of what we call 1.-THE Sunday
Press | am not here to simply criticize
that press. / believe that the newspaper
is just us admirable for the ability which
constructs it, as are those marine Won
ders, the Campania, the Majestic or the
Paris. But think the Sunday paper is
Just as much n mistake as those vessels
would be, if every voyage they crashed at
f,,lI int thoir I,.l-c hn inIiat
mcnt against the Sunday press is that it is
the week day press that does not know
when to stop. Owing to the peculiar con
dtions of our national life, we have and
cannot help having an almost irresistible
and unrestrained press l, for one, am
grateful for the many high minded editors
we possess
But on one side of their many featured
character, these editors (or shall we say
the proprietors behind them?) have burst
all bounds. The Sunday paper began
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 Eng
lsh cousins We're wiser. True they had
no war to betray them into error. But
when Mephistopheles went bowling and
smirking into London some years ago,
with his Sunday edition, they developed
a backbone like the main-yard of the old
Constitution, and while ours was bending
and swapping like a whip lash, they used
theirs to make new London Bar against
a fresh Jack Cade.
For us the fateful day has passed. The
Sunday paper is, ! fear to be a permanent
feature of our landscape. Nor must we
chiefly blame the editors. 1t is the
Christians who are to blame If they
would neither buy the papers, nor patron
ize the advertisers, the proprietor's ledgers,
like their faces, would soon be 'sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought. AL
most without exception those newspaper
men are favorably disposed to religion,
as they define it. They wish it well, they
treat it with respect Some of them hon
estly think the Sunday paper good thing
for the community. Many of them
have come in since the Sunday issue be
gan. and accept it as a matter of course.
Yet, all unconsciously the work they are
doing is the destruction of one strong fac
tor in all the higher spiritual life of the
community.
"The curse of the modern editor has been
launched against everything he chooses
to call 'puritanical. But / notice that
still today when any quick crisis demands
stern treatment, or when defiant corrup
ton, after repeated victories calls for what
Napoleon dubbed g O'Clock at night
course to meet it, the people begin to look
about for the Puritan spirit. They found
it last week in New York.
"Our accusation against the Sunday pa
per is that it symbolizes, embodies, mul
tiplies and encourages all the influences
which are crushing out the national rest
day. and stunting the higher development
of men. The three battering rams which
in our American life are all day beating
about the head of the average man, are
called Hurry, worry and wrong. Look
at the first of these. Such a man has
hardly time during the week to realize
what the truth is about anything, except
that another man stands ready to do his
work if he fails He has no time to read
anything except his paper on the way to
business, and that hurls at him all the
hurry of the roaring world outside, a thou
Continued on I'd page.