The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1898-03-12

and the iron teeth of the telegraph
are set down at one end OF the
harvest field and drawn clean
across, and the newspaper gathers up
the sheaves, setting down one sheaf on
the breakfast table in the shape of
morning newspaper, and putting down
another sheaf on the tea table in the
shape of an evening newspaper; and
that man who neither reads nor takes
a newspaper would be curiosity.
What vast progress since the days
when Cardinal Wolsey declared that
either the printing press must go down
or the Church of God must 60 down, to
this time, when the printing press and
the pulpit are in glorious combination
and alliance.
One of the great trials of this news
paper profession is the fact that they
are compelled to see more of the shams
of the world than any other profession.
Through every newspaper office, day
by day, go the weakness of the world,
the vanities that want to be pulled, the
revenges that want to be wrecked, all
the mistakes that want to be corrected,
all the dull speakers who want to be
thought eloquent, all the meanness
that wants to get its wares noticed
gratis in the editorial columns in
order to save the tax of the
advertising column, all the men who
want to be set right who never were
right, all the crack-brained philoso-
piers, with story as long as their hair
and as gloomy as their finger-nails, all
the itinerant bores who come to stay
five minutes and stop an hour. From
the editorial and reportorial rooms all
the follies and shams of the world are
seen day by day, and the temptation is
to believe neither in God, man, nor
woman. 1t is no surprise to me that in
your profession there are some skepti-
cal men. i only wonder that you be-
ieve anything. Unless an editor or a
reporter has in his present or in his
early home a model of earnest char
acter, or he throw himself upon the up
holding grace of God, he may make
temporal and eternal shipwreck.
Another great trial of the newspaper
profession is inadequate compensation.
Since the days of Hazlitt, and Sheri-
dan, and John Milton, and the wailings
of Grub street, London, literary toll,
with very few exceptions, has not been
properly requited. When Oliver Gold
smith received friend in his house, he
(the author) had to sit on the window,
because there was only one chair.
Linnaeus sold his splendid work for a
ducat. De Foe, the author of so many
volumes, died penniless. The learned
johnson dined behind screen
because his clothes were too
shabby to allow him to dine with
the gentlemen who, on the other side
of the screen, were applauding his
works. And so on down to the present
time literary toll is great struggle
| for bread. The world seems to have a
grudge against man who, as they say,
gets his living by his wits; and the day
laborer says to the man of literary toll:
You come down here and shove a
plane, and hammer, shoe last, and
break cobble stones, and earn an
honest living, as | do, instead of
sitting there in idleness and scrib-
bling!" But there are no harder
worked men in all the earth than the
newspaper men of this country. 1t
is not matter of hard times; it is char
acteristic at all times. Men have a
better appreciation for that which APP
peals to the brain. They have no idea
of the immense financial and intel
lectual exhaustion of the newspaper
press. Oh, men of the press, it will be
a great help to you if, when you get
home late at night, tagged out and
nervous with your work, you would
just kneel down and commend your
case to God, who has watched all the
fatigue of the day and the night, and
who has promised to be your God and
the God of your children forever!
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 il
the mightiest force in our civilization
So commend you to pray for al
those who manage the newspapers OF
the land, for all typesetters, for all ed
itors, for all publishers, that, sitting
or standing in positions of such great
influence, they may give all that in
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 fount
in the center of the ball there was al
old piece of newspaper. She opened i
and read an advertisement which an
nounced that she had become heires.
to a large property, and that frag
ment of newspaper lifted her VI
from pauperism to affluence. And
do not know but as the thread of tim
unrolls and unwinds little further
through the silent yet speaking news
paper NAV be found the vast inherit
ance of the worlds redemption.
Jesus shall reign whre'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to Shore
Till suns shall rise and set no more.
-
The Future OF Man.
Man has been animal, and he is to b
{ spiritual. To know man we must lool
forward and not backward Man ha