Semi-weekly independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-28
CAPITAL CITY Sermon,

mage they may be glad to hear what he
thinks of them while he discusses Il sub
ject in which the whole country is inter
ested. His texts Sunday were, And the
wheels were full of eyes Ezekiel ", ~.
For all the Athenians and strangers
which were there spent their time in moth
Ing else but either TO tell or to hear some
new things" acts xvii. ID.
What is preacher to do when he finds
two texts equally good and suggestive?
In that perplexity | take both. Wheels
full of eyes? What but the wheels of
newspaper printing press? Other wheels
are blind They roll on. pulling or crush
ing. The manufacturer 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 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 ev
cry year 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.
nearsighted, farsighted 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 in
vestigation. eyes that twinkle with mirth.
eyes glowering with Indignation. eyes ten
n Of .f..f.. #
hope, blue eyes, black eyes, green eyes.
holy eyes, evil eyes, sore 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 a class of peo-
pie in Athens who spent their time either
in gathering the news or telling it. Why
especially in Athens? Because the more
intelligent people become the more in
quisitive they are-not about small things,
but great things.
What Is the News?
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 Mt Picking n newspaper
that has been printed every week for l 900
years, printed on silk. Rome succeeded
by publishing the Acta Diurna, in the
same column putting fires, murders. mar
riagcs and tempests. France succeeded
by physician writing out the news of
the day for his patients. England sue
cecded under Queen Elizabeth in first pub
fishing 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 it one-third of n column in the Lon
| don Morning Chronicle, about as much
as the nswpaper of our day gives to n
small fire. America succeeded by Benja-
min Harris first weekly paper, called
Public Occurrences. published in Boston
in 1850. and by the first daily. the Ameri-
| can Advertiser, published in Philadelphia
in 1IS4.
The newspaper did not suddenly spring
upon the world, but came gradually. The
| genealogical line of the newspaper is this:
The Adam Of the race was q circular or
news letter creased 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 struggle it
came to its present development! No
sooner had it's power been demonstrated
than tyranny and superstition 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 for him to write of anything but
natural history Austria could not endure
Kossuth's journalistic pen pleading for the
redemption of Hungary. Napoleon L., try
ing to keep his iron heel on the necks of
| nations, said. Editors are the regents of
sovereigns and the tutors of nations and
are only fit for prison." But the battle
for the freedom of the pres was fought
In the courtroOms of England and Amer
lea and decided before this century began
by Hamiltons eloquent plea for ]. Peter
Zenger's Gazette in America and Frs
kines advocacy of the freedom of publ
cation in England. These were the Mar
athon and Thermopylae in which the
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
topples of literary and political despotsm.
1t is notable that Thomas Jefferson who
wrote the Declaration of American indie
pendence, wrote also, eff had to choose
! between government without newspa-
pers, or newspapers without govern
| ment, l should prefer the latter" Stung
by some base fabrication coming to us in
prin., we come to write or speak of the
unbrid,ed printing press, or, our new book
ground up by an unjust critic, we come
to write or speak of the unfairness of the
printing press. or perhaps through our
own indistinctness of utterance we are
reported saying just the opposite of
what we did say, and there is small riot
of semicolons. hyphcns and commas, and
we come to speak or write of the blunder-
Ing printing press, or, seeing paper
| hlled with divorce cases or social scandal.
we speak and write of the filthy printing
press. or. seeing 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 the lampoonery. and the empiri-
cism, and the sans culottism of the print