Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-11-29


they work our way or some other way,
and we feel as though the angel flying
through the midst of heaven, having
the everlasting gospel to preaah had
with the tapping of his wing stirred
the air on our cheek and forehead.
Pray also for religious journalism,
that it may be alert-not abreast Of the
times, but ahead of the times. In this
day, when by cablegram we seem to get
from Europe news five hours before it
starts, we do not want in our religious
columns information scissored out of an
old newspaper or information sent by
means of a letter which comes to US
through the dead letter postoffice be-
cause it was INSTRUCTED, nor do we
want it to take the pace of religious
journalism as it was in 1915, when Ma
thaniel Wilson started his religious pa
per called The Recorder, or when The
Waterman was born in 1919, or when
The Christian Register made it's first
appearance in 1921. The canalboat
drawn by mules on a towpath did we'll
i'll it's time, but now we prefer the YES
tibuled limited express. Because a
thing is pious it need not therefore be
dull. The printing press may beat the
Argus of mythology, for that fabulous
being had only 100 eyes, while the
newspaper has 1000 eyes and 1000
ears and 1 ZOO arms. The secular news
paper gives the secular news and does
not pretend to give its religious mean
ing. The religious press ought to put
all the events of the day in companies,
regiments and brigades and show us in
what direction that divinely disciplined
host is marching and let us know what
victories for God and righteousness they
will win. The Christianized printing
press is to do in our time on large
scale what the battering ram did in old
en- time on smaller scale. That old
war machine was stout timber, hung
by chains to beam supported by posts,
and many men would lay hold Of the
stout timber and swing it backward and
forward until, getting under full mo-
mentum, it would strike into awful
demolition the wall besieged. God grant
that all of US who have anything to do
with the mighty battering ram of our
century, the printing press, may be
clothed of God with especial strength
and oneness of purpose and that, having
pulled it back for one mighty assault,
we may altogether rush it forward,
crushing into everlasting ruin the last
wall Of opposition and the last fortress
of iniquity!
The Enkhorn at Judgment.
And now let all Of US who are con-
nected with either secular or religious
journalism remember that we will be
called into final account for every word
we write in editorial or reportorial or
contributors column-for every type
we set; for every press we move, and
for the style of secular or religious
newspaper we patrOnize or encourage.
In Ezekiel's prophecy the angel of God,
supposed to be Christ, appears with an
inkhorn hung at his side as an attor-
ney's clerk in olden time had an ink
horn at his side. And have no doubt
the inkhorn will have an important
part in the day of judgment-those who
have used it well to receive eternal
plaudit and those who have misused it
to receive condemnation.
Piled up in all the worlds printing
Offices, secular and religious, are the
publications of past years, bound up
year by year, and in those Offices they
can tell just what they printed any
day for the last 20 years, and in the
great day of judgment all that we have
ever written or printed will be revealed
from the mighty volumes of eternity.
All those who have ruthlessly pried in
to the secret of unhappy domestic life
and despoiled homes, come to judg-
ment. All those who have by the PEN
assassinated character, come to judg-
ment. All those who have had anything
to do with salacious and depraved liter
allure, come to Judgment. All those
who have produced pictures admins
trative of vice, come to Judgment. No
one will then dare say, Il knew it was
not true, and / only intended it for
joke" or, 81 had to make my living,
and the paper that [ worked for paid
me in proportion to the startling nature
of the stuff I prepared, " or, 81 correct
ed the falsehood i'll the next issue" or,
81 felt my power in the editorial chair,
having opportunity to address such null
titudes week by week, and I wanted to
keep the church and the world in awe
of me-. - On that great day of Judgment
all the power we have had on earth
will be insignificant compared with the
power that will pronounce our rapture
or our doom, and that which might
have been considered a joke in the
composing room," because it humil-
lated an enemy, will be no joke at all
amid the wreck Of mountains and seas,
ard the inkhorn will there tell of all
we wrote anonymously and under the
impersonality of a newspaper, as well as
that which was signed with our own
name. But what beautiful day for
Frances Havergal, when she gets re-
warded for all the kind things she ever
wrote with the tears of her invalidism;