The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-03-04

f. went down further and rurther, IN
til n surne day, hot and hungry
and sick and in dispair. he flung him
self OF the dock They found in his
pocket a reporters pad. a lead pencil.
a photograph Of some one who had
loved him long ago. Death as some
times it will, smoothed out all the
wrinkles that had gathered premature
" on his brow. and as be lay there his
face was as fair as when seven years
before be left his country home and
they babe him good-by forever. The
world looked through the window Of
the morgue and said. It's nothing but
an outcast," but God said il was a gi-
gantic soul that persisted because the
world gave him no chance.
| Let me ask all the men connected with
the printing press that they help US
more and more in the effort TO make
the world better. | charge rot in the
name of God. before whom o must
account for the tremendous influence
you hold in this country, to consecrate
yourselves to higher endeavors. You
are the men to fight back this invasion
OF corrupt literature. Lift up your
right hand and swear new allegiance
10 the cause of philanthropy and re-
ligion. And when at last. sanding on
the plains OF Judgment, you lOok out
upon the u~nnumbered throngs over
whom you have had influence, may il
be found that you were among the
highest energies that lifted men upon
the exalted pathway that leads TO the
renown of heaven. Better than to
have sat in editorial chair, from which,
with the finger of type. you decided
them wrong, that you had been some
dungeoned exile who, by the light of
window iron grated, on scraps of a
New Testament leaf, picked up from
the earth, spelled out the story of him
who taketh away the sins Of the world.
In eternity Dives is the beggar. Well,
my friends. we viii al soon get
through writing and printing and
| proof-reading and publishing. What
then? Our life is a book. Our years
are the chapters. Our months arc the
paragraphs. Our days are the SEN
fences. Our doubts are the interr0ga-
ton points, our imitation Of others
the quotation marks, our attempts at
display a dash, death the period. eter-
nifty tie peroration. o God, where will
we spend it? Have o heard the
news, more startling than any found in
the journals of last six weeks? 1t is
the tidings hat man is lost. Have
you heard the news, the gladdest that
was ever announced, coming this day
from the throne of God, lightning
couriers leaping from the palace gate?
The news-the glorious neWs-that
there is pardon for all guilt and COM
fort for all trouble! Set it up in
double columns and direct it to the
whole race.
ACKNOWLEDGES TO THE SECU-
LAR PRESS.
And now before I close this
thankfully commemorative Of the
1.-TWO ThOusandth" publication, | wish
more fully to acknowledge the services
rendered by the secular press in the
matter of evangelization. All the
secular newspapers of the day-fOr |
am not speaking this morning 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 a sin
gle doctrine Of theology but has been
| discussed in the last ten years by the
secular newspapers of the country.
They gather up all the news of all the
earth bearing on religious subjects,
then they scatter the news abroad
again. The Christian newspaper will
be the right wing Of the Apocalyptic
| angel. The cylinder of the Christian
lied printing press VIII be b front
wheel Of the Lords chariot. | take
the music Of his day, and ! do not
| mark it diminuendo-I mark it cres-
| cendo. A pastor OF q Sabbath
| breaches to a few hundred or a 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 press, God save the printing
press! God Christianize the printing
| press,
When | 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, | pronounce it
the mightiest force in our civilization.
So I commend you to pray for all those
who manage the newspapers Of the
land, for all tvpe-setters, for all edi-
tors, for all publishers, that, sitting or
| standing in positions Of sucn great in
%fuence, they may give all mat influ-
ence 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 an
nounced that she had become heiress
to a large property, and that fragment
| of a newspaper lifted her up from pau
| perism to affiuence. And | do not
know but as the thread Of time unrolls
and unwinds a little farther, through
the silent yet speaking newspaper may
be found the vast inheritance Of the
worlds redemption.
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive Journeys run.
f:iS kiTpIom stretch from shore 10