The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-04-03
A DIVINE MISSION.
Rev. Dr.. Talmage SO Declares That
Of the Newspaper Press.
Hts Wonderful Influence for Good or Evil
The Most Potent Agent OF CivIlI-
Eatl0n-A Blessing as Evan
gelistIc Influence.


And tine wheels were full or eyes. Ezekiel,
K, ~. For all the Athenians and strangers
which we're there spent their time In nothing
else but either TO tell OF TO hear some new
thing. Acts, xvii, p.
What Is a preacher to do when he
finds two texts equally good and
suggestive2 In that perplexity take
both. Wheels full of eyes? What but
the wheels of a newspaper printing
press2 Other wheels are blind. They
roll on, pulling or crushing. The man
ufacturer's wheel, how it grinds the
operator with fatigues, and rolls over
nerve and muscle and bone and heart,
not knowing what it does. The sew
ing-machine wheel sees not the aches
and pains fastened to it-tighter than
the band that moves il, sharper than
the needle which it plies Every mo-
ment of every hour OF every day Of
every month Of every year there are
hundreds of thousands OF wheels of
mechanism, wheels of enterprise,
wheels of hard work, in motion, but
they are eyeless. Not so the wheels
Of the printing press. Their entire
port They are full of optic
nerves. from axle to periphery. They
are like those spoken OF by Ezekiel as
full OF eyes Sharp eyes, near-sighted,
far-sighted. They look up. They
look down. They look far away. They
take in the next street and the next
hemisphere. Eyes of criticism, eyes
ofinvestigation; eyes that twinkle with
mirth, eyes glowering with indigna-
ton. eyes tender with love; eyes of
suspicion. eyes of hope; blue eyes.
black eyes, green eyes; holy eyes, evil
eyes, sore eyes, political eyes, literary
eyes, historical eyes, religious eyes;
eyes that see everything. "And the
wheels were full Of eyes"
But in my second text is the worlds
cry for the newspaper. Paul describes
class of people in Athens who spent
their time either in gathering the news
or telling it. Why especially in Athens?
Because the more intelligent people be-
come, the moro inquisitive they are
not about small things, but great
things.
The question then most frequently
is the question now most frequently
Rsl<ed-What is the news? To answer
that cry in the text for the newspaper
the centuries have put their wits to
work. China first succeeded, and has
at Pekin newspaper that has been
printed every week for 900 years
printed on silk. Rome succeeded by
publishing the "Acta Diurna," in the
same column putting fires, murders,
marriages and tempests. France sue
ceeded by a physician writing out
the news of the day for his pa
tients. England succeeded under
Queen Elizabeth in first publishing the
news of the Spanish Armada, and
going on until she had enough enter
prise, when the battle of Waterloo
was fought, deciding the destiny of
Europe, to give IL one-third of a
column in the London Morning
Chronicle, about as much as the news
paper of our day gives of small fire
America succeeded by Benjamin Har-
ris' first weekly paper called public
Occurrences" published in Boston in
1890, and by the first daily, the "Amer-
lean Advertiser" published in Phila-
aelphia in 1884
The newspaper did not suddenly
spring upon the world, but came grad
ually. The genealogical line of the
newspaper is this: The Adam of the
race was a circular or newsletter, ere
Rted by Divine impulse in human ma
ture; and the circular begat the
pamphlet, and the pamphlet begat the
quarterly, and the quarterly begat the
weekly, and the weekly begat the semi
weekly, and the semi-weekly begat the
daily. But alasl by what a struggle
Il came to its present Development
No sooner had its power been dem
Onstrated than tyranny and supersti-
ton shackled it. There is nothing
that despotism SO fears and hates
rs printing press. 1t has too
many eyes In its wheel. A great
writer declared that the king of Ma
pies made it unsafe for him to write
anything but natural history. Aus
tria could not endure Kossuth's Jour
nalistic pen, pleading for the redemp-
ton Of Hungary. Napoleon l., trying
to keep his iron heel on the neck Of
nations, said: Editors are the regents
Of sovereigns and the tutors of ma
tions, and are only fit for prison."
But the battle for the freedom Of the
press was fought out inthe court rooms
Of England and America, and decided
before this century began by Hamil-
toms eloquent plea for J. Peter Zenger's
Gazette" in America, and Erskine's
advocacy of the freedom of publication
In England. These were the Mara
thon and Thermopyle in which the
freedom of the press was established
in the United States and Great Brit
ain, and all the powers of earth and
hell will never again be able to put on
the handouts and hopples of literary
and political despotism. It is notable
that Thomas jefferson, who wrote
the Declaration of American indie
pendence, wrote also: IF / had
to choose between a government
without newspapers or newspapers
without a government, should prefer
the latter" Stung by some base fab
rication coming to us in print, we
come to write or speak of the
unbFidled printing press; or, our
new book ground mp by an unjust
critic, we come to write or speak of
the unfairness of the printing press;
or, perhaps, through our own indis- /
tinctness of utterance. we are reported
ms saying just the opposite of what we
did say, and there is a small riot of semi
colons, hyphens and commas, and we
came TO speak or write Of the blunder-
ing printing press; or, seeing a paper
filed with divorce cases or social scan
dal, vo speak and write of the filthy
printing press; or. seeing a journal,
through bribery, wheel round from one
political side to the other in one night,
we speak Of the corrupt printing press,