The Penn's Grove record., 1896-03-27
REv. Or. TaLuaGE.
The Eminent Divine's Sunday
Sermon.
i'ubject: "Newspapsrs and Their In
fiuence.n


Isxrs: "And the wheels werefull OF eye :
~Ezekiel K, IL. For all the Atheniaas an {
STRANGERS which were there spent their une
In nothing else but either 10 tell or TO near
some new thing. Acts xvii, al.
What is a preacher to do when he finds two
texts equally good and suggestive In tnae
perplextty l take both. Wheels full OF eyesf
What but the wheels Of a newspaper PRINT
ing presst 0tnet wheels are blind. Iney
roll on, pulling or crushing. Toe
turer's wheel-how il grinds the operator
with fatigues and rolls over nerve and mus
Gle and bone and heart, not knowing Wnat
IT does. The sewing machine wheel sees nor
the aches and pains fastened 10 it-tfgnter
than the band that moves It, sharper tnan
the needle which it plies. Every ONE Of
every hour Of every day of every montn o.
every year there are hundreds OF thousands
OF wheels OF mechanism, wheels Of enterprise,
wheels OF hard work, in motion, but they are
syeless-
Tueir entire business is to look and report.
They are tull Of optic nerves, from axle 10
periphery. They are like those spoken OF py
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 OF investigation. eyes
that twinkle with mirth, eyes glowering with
Indignation. eyes tender with love, eyss Of
suspicion, eyes OF hope, blue eyes, piacK
eyes, green eyes, holy eyes, evil eyes, sore
eyes, political eyes, literary eyes, histor1cas
eyes, religious eyes. eyes that see every.
thing. "And the wheels were full OF eyes
But In my second text IL the worlds cry Tor
the newspaper. Paul describes 9 class OF
people in Athens who spent their lime eiIner
In gathering the news or telling 1t. why
L.. L--a nAaar4na fhn nnFA N
teliigent people become, the more inquisi-
tive they reno about small things, but
great things.
The question then most frequently is the
question now most frequently asked, Wnat
Is the news? To answer that cry is the text
for fhe newspaper the centuries have put
their wits to work. China first succeeded
and has at Pekin anewspaper that has peen
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 succeeded by a physician writing out
the news OF the day for his patients. Eng
land succeeded under Queen Elizabeth ID
first publishing the news OF the Spanish
armada, and going on until she had enough
enterprise. when the battle OF Waterloo was
fought, deciding the destiny OF Europe. %
give 1t one-third Of a column In the LONDON
Morning Chronicle, about as much as ths
newspapers OF our day gives Of q small IRE.
America succeeded by Benjamin Harris's FIRST
weekly paper called Public Occurrences, pub
Iished In Boston in 1890, and by the nrst
daily, The American Advertiser, published
In Philadelphia in LISA.
The newspaper did not suddenly spring
upon the world, but came gradually. I'M
genealogical line OF the newspaper is this;
The Adam OF the race was q circular or newi
| letter. treated by divine impulse In human
nature, 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 alas, by what 9
| struggle 1t came to its present Development
| No sooner had its power been demonstrated
, than TYRANNY and superstition shackled 1t,
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 1t, unsafe tol
| him to write OF anything but natural his
fory. Austria could not endure Kossuth's
journalistic pen pleading for the redemp-
tion 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 Nations and are only Mt fol
| prison." But the battle for the freedom Of
| the press was fought in the court rooms oil
| England and America and decided before
| this century began by Hamilton's eloquent
| plea for ]. Peter Zenger's Gazette In
| America, and Erskine's advocacy OF the
freedom OF publication in England.
These were the Marathon and Tner-
! mopylae in which The freedom Of the press
was established In the United States and
| Great Britain, and all the powers Of earth
| and hell will never again be able 70 put or
| the handouts and hopples OF literary nnd
| political despotism. 1t Is notable thai
| Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration
| OF Independence, wrote also: I'll l had 4
| choose between a government without news
| papers or newspapers without = government
| base fabrication coming to US In print, w
/ come 10 write or speak OF the unbridle(
| printing press; or. our new book ground vi
| hy an unjust critic. we come to write o.
! sneak Of the unfairness of the printing press
| ar. oerhaps, through our W indistinctnes
| Of utterance, we are reported as saying jus
| the opposite OF what we did say, and there 1
a small riot OF s~emicolons, hyphens AM
| commas. and We come to speak or write o
| the blundering printing press; or, seeing
| nauer Allied with divorce cases or socia
| scandal. we speak and write OF the nth,
\ printing press; or, seeing a Journal, through
| bribery. wheel round from political sid,
to the other in one night, we speak OF tn
corrupt printing press, and many talk abou
| the I~alnpoonry, and the empiricism, and tn
sans culottism OF the printing press.
But Idiscourse now on q subject you hhv'
| never heard-theimmeasuraDle and eyerlast
| ing blessing of a good newspaper. Thsnl
| God for the wheel full of eyes Thank Coz
| that we do not have, like h kthenians, I,
10 about to gather up and relate the tidlng'
l Of the day. since the omnivorous Newspaper
/ does both for us. The grandest tempora
| blessing that God has given to the nineteenth
century is tbe newspaper. We would hav'
! better appreciation OF this blessing II W
knew the money, the brain, the losses. tn
exasperations, the anxieties, the wear AM
tear Of heartstrings, involved In the produc
| lion OF a good newspaper. Under the I'm
| preston that almost anybody can make
| n-ewspaper. scores of inexperienced capital
ists every wear enter the lists, and conse
| a~uently during the last few years a news
paper has died almost every day. The dis
ease is epidemic. The larger papers swallow
the smaller ones, the wh~aletaking down mn,
miunows at one swallow. With more thai
| 1000 dailies and weekliesinthe United State.
and Canada. there are but thirty-six a hal
century Did. Newspapers do not ayeragl
more than 1--we wears existence. The mos
M them die Of cholera infantum. 1t Is high
time that the people found out that the mos
successful way TO sink money and keep !
sunk Is to start a newspaper. There come
| a time when alnlOsN oNofy ohet9oieAttSh WV
the newspaper mania and starts n or hay'
| stock In one he must or die.
The course OF procedure Is about this.
literary mar has an agricultural or seientifI
or political or religious idea which he wan
to ventilate. He has no money Of his own
literary men seldom have. But he talks o
hfs ideas among confidential friends unit
thew become infiamed with the idea, an,
forthwith they buy type and press and rem
composing room and gather q corps OF edi
tors. and with a prospectus thst proposes t
cure everything the first copy is hung on tn
attention Of an admiring world. Ate
awhile one OF the plain stoekholders ind
thar no great revolution has been eifected b
this daily or weekly publication that neithe
sun nor moon stands still; that b worn
goes on lying and cheating and stealing Jos
: a Il did before the first issue. The a~foresai
matter OF fact stakeholder wants 10 sell GU
his stock, but nobody wants to buy, an
other stockholders get injected and sick Q
a~sWspapsEdom, and an enormous bill at tn
paper factory rolls into an ayslsnehe. a.
fhs prinfers refuse to work until 9 ws9s
arc bald np, and the composiior bows 70 q
managing editor, and the managing editt
boWs 10 the editorAn-chlei, q the olitol
i tn-ahisf bows to the directors. and the oire1
tors bow to the world at large, and ALT
subscrfbers wonder why their paper doean
epnA ne EqEld vii Aeys Y eaEa xaAs