The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-04-03


dent into a newspaper Office as
they may tumble into other occupa-
tions, but it would be an incalcula bic
advantage if those proposing news
paper life had an institution to which
they might go to learn the qualifica.
tions, the esponsibilities, the trials,
the temptations, the dangers, the mag.
nifcent opportunities of newspaper
life. Let there be n lectureship in
which there shall appear the leading
editors of the United States, telling
the story of their struggles, their
victories, their mistakes, how
they worked and what they
found out to be the best way of work
ing. There will be strong men who
will climb up without such aid into
editorial power and efficiency. So do
men climb up to success In other
branches by sheer grit. But If we
want learned institutions to make
lawyers and artists and doctors
and ministers, we much more
need learned institutions to make
editors, who occupy position of in
huencea hundredfold greater. lido not
put the truth too strongly when say
the most potent influence for good on
earth is a good editor, and the most
potent influence for bad is bad one.
The best way to reinforce and i'm
prove the newspaper is to endow
editorial professorships When will
Princeton, or Harvard, or Yale, or
Rochester lead the way?
Another blessing of the newspaper
is the foundation it lays for accurate
history of the time in which we live.
We for the most part blindly guess
about the ages that ante-date the
newspaper, and are dependent upon
the prejudices of this or that
historian. But after 100 or 200
years what a splendid opportunity
the historian will have to teach
the people the lesson of this day. Our
Bancrofts got from the early newspa-
pers of this country, from the Boston
Newsletter, the New York Gazette
and the American Rag Bag and Royal
Gazetteer and Independent Chronicle,
and Massachusetts, Spy" and the Phil
adelphia Aurora, accounts of Perry's
Victory, and Hamilton's duel,
and Washington's death, and
Boston massacre, and the oppressive
foreign tax on luxuries which turned
Boston harbor into teapot, and Paul
Revere's midnight ride, and Rhode
Island rebellion, and South Caro-
lima notification. But what field
for the chronicler of the great
future when he opens the files
of a hundred standard Ameri.
can newspapers, giving the minuti@ of
I'll fbn al
political, ecclesiastical, international
headingsl Five hundred years from
now, if the world lasts so long, the stu
dent looking for stirring, decisive his
tory will pass by the misty corridors
of other centuries and say to the
libraries: Find me the volume that
give the century in which the Ameri-
can presidents were asSassinated, the
civil war enacted, and the cotton gin,
the steam locomotive, and telegraph,
and electric pen, and telephone, and
cylinder presses were invented"
Once more / remark, that good
newspaper is a blessing as an evan
gelistic influence. You know there is
a great change in our day taking
place. All the secular newspapers
of the day-for l am not speaking
now of the religious newspapers
all the secular newspapers of the
day discuss all the questions of God,
eternity, and the dead, and all the
questions of the past, present and
future. There is not single doctrine
of theology but has been discussed in
the last ten years by the secular news
papers of the country. They gather
up all the news of the earth
bearing on religious subjects, and then
they scatter the news abroad again.
The Christian newspaper will be the
right wing of the apocalyptic angel.
The cylinder of the Christianized
printing press will be the front
wheel of the Lords chariot. l take
the music of this day, and 1 do not
mark it diminuendo-I mark it Gre
scendo. A pastor on a Sabbath
breaches to few hundred, or few
thousand people, and on Monday, or
during the week, the printing press
will take the same sermon and
preach it to millions of people.
God speed the printing pressl
God save the printing press! God
Christianize the printing press!
When l see the printing press stand
ing with the electric telegraph on the
one side gathering up material, and
the lightning express train on the
other side waiting for the tons of
folded sheets of newspapers, pro-
nounce it the mightiest force in our
civilization. So l commend you to
pray for all those who man.
age the newspapers of the land,
for all typesetters, for all re-
porters, for all editors, for all publish
ers, that, sitting or standing in posi-
tions of such great influence, they
may give all that influence for God
and the betterment of the human race.
An aged woman making her living by
knitting, unwound the yarn from the
ball until she found in the center of
the ball there was an old piece of
newspaper. She opened it and read an
advertisement which announced that
she had become heiress to large prop
erty, and that fragment of a newspa-
per lifted her from pauperism to affiu-
ence. And do not know but as the
thread of time unrolls the unwinds a,
little further, through the silent yet
speaking newspaper may be found the
vast inheritance of the worlds redemp-
ton.
Jesus shall reign where er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till suns shall rise and set no more
-=
Manhood.
The best denomination for any mat |
is that which gives him the greatest |