The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1896-03-27
TUTORS OF NATIONS.
NEWSPAPERS THE SUBJECT OF DR.
TALMAGE'S SERMON.

rDisseminators of knowledge to the Multi
tude and an Accurate History of th'
Time-The Most Potent Influence Fol
Good on Earth.
WASHINGTON, March S2.-Newspa
Der row, as it is called here in Wash
tngton, the long row of offices connected
with prominent journals throughout the
land, pays SO much attention to Dr.
Talmage they may be glad to hear what
he thinks of them while he discusses &
subject in which the whole country is
interested. His text today was, "Ant
the wheels were full Of eyes" (Ezekie
x, 12), "For all the Athenians and
strangers which were there spent thei,
time in nothing else but either to tel
or to hear some new thing" (Acts xvii.
81.
What is a preacher to do when hi
finds two texts equally good and sug
gestive? In that perplexity / take both
Wheels full of eyes? What but the
wheels of a newspaper printing press
Other wheels are blind. They roll on
pulling or crushing. The manufacturer
wheel-how it grinds the operator with
fatigues and rolls over nerve and mus
Gle and bone and heart, not knowing
what it does. The sewing machine
wheel sees not the aches and pains fas
tened to jt-tighter than the band that
moves it, sharper than the needle which
it plies. Every moment of every hour Of
every day of every month of every yeal
there are hundreds of thousands OF
wheels of mechanism, wheels of enter.
prise, wheels of hard work, in motion.
but they are eyeless.
Not SO the wheels of the printing
press. Their entire business is to look
and report. 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 hemi.
sphere. Eyes of criticism, eyes of inves,
tigation, eyes that twinkle with mirth,
eyes glowering with indignation, 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, his
torical 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. Pau
describes a class of people in Athens
who spent their time either in gather
ing the news or telling it. Why espe-
cially in Athens? Because the more intel
hgent people become, the more 1nquisi-
tive they are-not about small things,
but great things.
GeneaIogy of the Newspaper.
The question then most frequently is
the question now most frequently
asked, 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 Picking a newspaper that has been
printed every week for 1000 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 physician writing out the
news of the day for his patients. Eng
land succeeded under Queen Elizabeth
in first publishing the news of the Span
ish armada, and going on until she had
enough enterprise, when the battle OF
Waterloo was fought, deciding the des'
tiny of Europe, to give it one-third OF
column in the London Morning Chron-
iole, about as much as the newspaper OF
our day gives of small fire. America
succeeded by Benjamin Harris first
weekly paper called Public Occurrences,
published in Boston in 1890, and by the
first daily, The American Advertiser,
published in Philadelphia in 1884.
The newspaper did not suddenly spring
npon the world, but came gradually.
The genealogical line of the Newspaper
Is this: The Adam of the race was Cir
cular or news letter, created by divine
impulse in human nature, and the cir
cular begat the pamphlet, and the PAM
phlet begat the quarterly, and the quar-
terly begat the weekly, and the weekly
begat the semiweekly, and the semi
weekly begat the daily. But alas, by
what struggle it came to its present
development No sooner had its power
been demonstrated than tyranny and su'
perstition shackled it. There is nothing
that despotism so fears and hates as a
printing press 1t has too many eyes in
its wheel. A great writer declared that
the king of Naples made it unsafe foI
him to write of anything but natural
history. Austria could not endure Kos
suth's journalistic pen pleading for the
redemption of Hungary. Napoleon l,
trying to keep his iron heel on the NECK
of nations, said, Editors are the re-
gents 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 in the courtrooms of England
and America and decided before this
century began by Hamilton's eloquent
plea for J. Peter Zenger's Gazette IL
America, and Erskine's advocacy of the
freedom of publication in England.
These were the Marathon and Their
mopyle in which the freedom of the
.,,osS xpac established in the United