Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1896-04-01
REV. Or. TaLQaGE.
The Eminent Divine's Sunday
Sermon.
Subject: "Newspapers and Their In
6uence."

Subject: "Newspapers and Their In
huence."
THxrs: "And the wheels were'full of eyes"
Ezekiel 4, II. For all the Athenians anu
strangers which were there spent their time
In nothing else but either to tell or to heaJ
some new thing. xviii, Il.
What Il a preacher to do when he finds two
texts equally good and suggestive? In that
PerpIextty take both. Wheels full Of eyes2
What but the wheels Of a newspaper print
ing press2 Other wheels are blind. They
turer's wheel-how 1t grinds the operator
with fatigues aud rolls over nerve and mus
Gle AMI bone and heart, not knowing what
1t does The sewing machine wheel sees not
the aches and pains fastened TO it-tighter
than the band that moves It, sharper than
the needle which 1t plies. Every moment 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 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 hemisphere.
Eyes of criticism. eyes Of investigation. eyes
that twinkle with mirth, eyes gloweriny 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, historical
eyes. religious eyes. eyes that see every.
N rkaa f,,n 81 -
But In my second text 10 the worlds cry for
the newspaper. Paul describes Q class Of
people in Athens who spent their time either
In gathering the news or telling 1t. Why
especially In Athens? Because. the more In
telligent people become, the more inquisi-
great things.
The question then most frequently is the
question now most frequently asked, What
Is the news? To answer that cry is the text
for the newspaper the centuries have put
their wits to work. China first succeeded
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 physician writing out
the news Of the day for his patients. Eng
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, to
give 1t one-third of column In the London
Morning Chronicle. about as much as this
newspapers OF our day gives Of small fire.
America succeeded by Benjamin Harris's first
weekly paper called Public Occurrences, pub.
Hshed In Boston in 1880, and by the first
daily, The American Advertiser, published
In Philadelphia in 1784.
The newspaper did not suddenly spring
upon the world, but came gradually. The
genealogical line Of the newspaper Is this;
letter. treated by di-ine impulse in humar
nature, and the circular begat the pamphlet
and the pamphlet begat the quarterly, and
the quarterly begat the weekly. and the
weekly begat the semt-weekly, 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 superstition shackled it.
There Is nothing that despottsm 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 for
him to write Of anything but natural his
tory. 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 fit for
pr1SOn. But tnc D6tti0 tOE tuo ucoooul VI
the press was fought in the court rooms OF
England and America and decided before
this century began by Hsmilton's eloquent
plea for J. Peter Zenger's Gazette in
America, and Erskine's advocacy OF the
freedom Of publication in ENGLAND.
These were the Marathon and Their
mopylR in which SSe freedom of the press
was established in the United States and
Great Britain. and all the powers OF earth
and he'll will never again be able TO put on
the handouts and hopples OF literary and
political despotism. 1t Is notable that
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration
of Independence, wrote also: "If had to
choose between government without news
papers or newspapers without government,
/ should prefer the latter" Stung by some
base fabrication coming to rs In print, we
come 20 write or speak OF the unbridled
printing press; or. our new book ground up
by an unjust critic. we come to write OF
speak Of the unfairness Of the printing press;
or, perhaps, through our own tndistinctness
of utterance, We are reported As saying just
the opposite Of what We did say, and there ia
. small riot Of semfcolons, hyphens and
commas, and We come to speak a write oi
the laundering printing press; or, seeing 9
scandal, we 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, and many talk about
tke lampoonry, and the empiicism, and the
s6ns culottism Of the printing press.
But discourse now on q subject You have
never rd-theimmeasurable and everlast-
ing blessing OF a good newspaper. Thank
God for the wheel full Of eyes. Thank God
that We do not have, like the Athenians, to
70 about to gather up and relate the tidings
Of the day, since the omnivorous newspaper
does both for US. The grandest temporal
Ia ~ 4 L.. .<~s,x 80 khoD ~ oA anti
century is the newspaper. We would have
better appreciation Of this blessing II we
knew the money, the brain, tho losses, the
exasperations, the anxiettoe, the wear and
tear Of heartstrings, involved In the produc-
ton of a good newspaper. Under the Inn
preston that almost anybody can make Q
newspaper, scores OF inexperienced capital
lists every year enter the lists, and conse-
quently during the last few years a news
paper has died almost every day. The dis
ease Is epidemic. Tho larger papers swallow
the smaller ones. the whale taking down fifty
1000 dailies and weeklies In the United States
and Canada, there are but thirty-six half
century old. Newspapers do not average
more than i've years existence. The most
Of them die Of cholera infantum. 1t ts high
time that the people found out that the most
successful way TO sink money and keep II
sunk is to start q newspaper. There comes
. time when almost every oneis smitten with
the newspaper mania and starts one, or have
stock in one he must or die.
The course Of procedure is about this.
literary man has an agricultural or scientific
or political or religious idea which he wants
to ventilate. He has no money Of his own
literary men seldom have. But he talks of
bis ideas among confidential friends until
they become inhamed with the idea, and
forthwith tncy buy type and press and rent
composing room and gather corps OF edi-
tons, and With q prospectus that proposes to
attention of an admiring world. After
awhile one Of the plain stockholders finds
that NO great revolution has been effected by
this daily or weekly publication; that neither
sun nor moon stands still; that the world
goes ON lying aud cheating and stealing just
g Il did before the first issue. Tho aforesaid
matter Of fact stockholder wants 70 sell out