The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-02-26

Esssl IdrcSSeS, so that
bsA#1A AsSaA MNf hav for many
tASgiNaS~ nWMW years been allowed
REV. TALMAGE. the privilege O.
preaching the gospel every week &c
every neighborhood in Christendom,
and in many lands outside of Christen
dom. Many have wondered at the
process by which it has come to pass
and for the first time in public place
state the three causes. Many year;
ago, q young man who has since be
come eminent in his profession, was
then studying law in a distant city.
He came to me, and said that for lack
of funds he must stop his studying,
unless through stenography 1 would
give him sketches of sermons, that he
might by the sale of them secure meal
for the completion of his education.
l undertook to serve him; of course,
free of charge. Within three weeks
there came a request for those steno'
graphic reports from many parts OF
the continent. Time passed on, and
some gentlemen of my profession,
evidently thinking that here was
hardly room for them and for myself
in this continent, began to assail me,
and became so violent in their assault
that the chief newspapers of Americs
put special correspondents in my
church Sabbath by Sabbath to take
down such reply as l might make. ]
never made reply, except once, for
about three minutes, but those CORE
spondents could not waste their time
and so they photographed the sermons
to their particular papers After a
Xii. n. ArfS TT11npoh 81 Nan
York. systematized the work into a syn
dictate until through that and other syn
dicates he has put the discourses wee
by week before more than go, 0Oo, 000
people on both sides of the sea. There
have been so many guesses on this sub
iect many of them inaccurate, that /
now tell the true story.
The newspaper is the great educator
of the 18th century. There is no force
compared with it. 1t is book, pulpit.
platform, forum, all in one. And
there Is not an Observation-Disclosures,
literary, commercial, scientific, agri-
cultural or mechanical-that is not
within its grasp. All our churches,
and schools, and colleges, and asylums,
and art galleries feel the quaking of
the printing press. The institution of
newspapers arose in Italy. In Venice
the first newspaper was published,
and during the time Venice was
warning against Solyman IL in DIAL
malta, it was printed for the purpose of
giving military and commercial infors
nation to the Venetians. The ~hrstnews-
paper pu blished in England was in 1888,
and called the English Mercury. Who
can estimate the political, scientific,
commercial and religious revolutions
reused up in England for many years
past by the press? The first attempt
at This institution in France was in
1881, by q physician, who published
the News for the amusement and
health of his patients. The French
nation understood fully how TO appre-
ciate this power. So early as in 1890
there were in Paris 1859 journals. But
in the United States the newspaper has
come % unlimited sway. Though in
1775 there were but 81 in the whole
country. the number of published jour
mails is now counted by thousands; and
to-day-we may as well acknowledge
1t as not-the religious and secular
newspapers are the great educators OF
the country.
But alasi through what struggle the
newspaper has come to it's present de-
velopment. Just as soon as it began
to demonstrate its power, superstition
and tyranny shackled it. There iE
nothing that despotism SO much fears
and hates as the printing press. A
great writer in the south of Europe de-
clared that the king OF Naples had
made IL unsafe for him to write on any
subject save natural history. Austria
could not bear Kossuth's journalistic
pen pleading for the redemption of
Hungary. Napoleon l., wanting to
keep his iron heel on the neck of ma
lions, said that the newspaper was the
regent of kings, and the only safe place
to keep an editor was in prison. But
the great battle for the freedom Of the
press was fought in the court rooms
of England and the United States
before this century began, when
made his great speech
in behalf of the freedom OF J. Peter
Zepger's Gazette in America, and
when Erskine made his great speech
in behalf of the freedom to publish
Paine's Rights Of Man in England.
Those were the Marathon and the
Theremopyle where the battle was
fought which decided the freedom OF
che press in England and America and
oil the powers of earth and hell will
never again be able to put upon the
printing press the handouts and the
hopples of literary and political des-
potism. It is remarkable that Thomas
Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration
Independence, also wrote these
II ATA r - - I@Aaa Aakr7Aa- N
government without newspapers, and
L would prefer the latter"
by some new fabrication
In print, we come to write pr speak
about an "unbridled printing press"
Our new book ground up in unjust
criticism, we come to write or speak
about the unfair printing press"
Perhaps through our own indistinct-
ness of utterance we are reported as
just the opposite Of what we
did say, and there is a small riot Of
and hyphens and commas,
we come to write or talk about
the "blundering printing preston we
take up a newspaper full of social
scandal and of cases of divorce. and we
or talk aboutn "dlthy, scurrilous
printing press" But this morning 1
ask you TO consider the Unreasonable
and everlasting blessing Of a good
newspaper.
Ihnd no difficulty in accounting for
the worlds advance. What has mada
the changer Books" you say. No,
siri The vast majority of citizens do
not read books. Take this audience,
any other promiscuous assemblage,
and how many histories have they
readS How many treatises on consti-
tutioRal law, or political economy, or
Of science? Hoy many elabc-
rate poems or books Of traVelP Not
many. In the United States the peo-
pie would not average one such book
a year for each individual! Whence,
then, this intelligence, this capacity
talk about all themes. secular and
religious; this acquaintance with
and art; this power to nppra-
ciste the beautiful and Rrand2 Next
TO the Bible, the newspaper, swift
and everywhere present, fly
ing over the fence, showed under the
door tossed into the counting