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

hungary. Napoleon l., wanting 10
keep his iron heel on the neck of ma
tions, 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 free
dom of the press was fought in
the court rooms of England and
the United States before this century
began, when Hamilton made his great
speech in behalf of the freedom of j.
Peter Zenger'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 Thermopy-
lac, where the battle was fought which
decided the freedom of the press in
England and America, and all the pow
ers of earth and hell will never again
be able to put upon the printing press
the handouts and the hopples of lit
erary and political despotism. 1t is
remarkable that Thomas Jefferson,
who wrote the Declaration of INDIE
pendence, also wrote these words
IF l had to choose between a gov
eminent without newspapers, and
newspapers without a government,
would prefer the latter" Stdng by
some new fabrication in print, we
come to write or speak about an ''un-
bridled 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 indistinctness of utterance we are
reported as saying just the opposite of
what we did say, and there is small
riot of semicolons and hypens and
commas, aad we come to write or talk
about the ''blundering printing press"
or we take up newspaper full of
social scandal and of cases of divorce,
and we write or talk about ''filthy
scurrilous printing press" But this
morning ! ask you to consider the i'm
measurable and everlasting blessing of
a good newspaper.
find no difficulty in accounting for
the worlds advance. What has made
the change? Books" you say. No,
Sir! The vast majority of citizens do
not read books. Take this audience,
Or any other promiscuous assemblage,
and how many histories have they
read? How many treatises on consti-
tutional law, or political economy, or
work of science? How many elaborate
poems or books of travel? Not many.
In the United States the people would
not average one such book year for
each individual! Whence, then, this
intelligence, this capacity to talk
about all themes, secular and
religious; this acquaintance with
science and art; this power to appre-
ciate the beautiful and grand? Next
to the Bible, the newspaper, swift
winged and everywhere present, flying
over the fence, showed under the door,
tossed into the counting-house, laid on
the work bench, hawked through the
German, Irishman, Swiss, Spaniard,
American, old and young, good and
bad, sick and well, before breakfast
and after tea, Monday morning, Satur-
day night, Sunday and week day.
now declare that | consider the news
paper to be the grand agency by which
the Gospel is to be preached, igno-
rance cast out, oppression dethron.
ed crime extirpated, the world raised
Heaven rejoiced, and God glorified. In
the clanking of the printing press, as
the sheets fly out, hear the voice Of
the Lord Almighty proclaiming to al
the dead nations of the earth: "Laza
rus, come FORTH" and to the retreatine
surges of darkness, LET there bt
light" In many of our city newspa
pers, protesting no more than secular
information, there have appeared dur
ing the past 80 years some of the grand
est appeals in behalf of religion, ant
some of the most effective interpreta
tons of Gods government among thu
nations.
There are only two kinds of newspa
pers-the one good, very good, tn,
other bad, very bad. A newspaper
may be started with an undecided
character, but after it has been goinl
on for years everybody finds out jus
what it is; and it is very good or it i
very bad. The one paper is the EN-
bodiment of news, the ally of virtue
the foe of crime, the delectation of ele
waited taste, the mightiest agency Oh
earth for making the world better. TIL
other paper is brigand among mora
forces; it is beslimer of reputation, i
is the right arm of death and hell. it i
| the mightiest agency in the univers
for making the world worse and bat
Ting against the cause of God. TIL
one an angel of intelligence and mercy
the other fend of dark
. ness. Between this Archangel an
{ this Fury is to be fought the great bat
tie which is to decide the fate of tn
: world. If you have any doubt as t.
: which is to be victor, ask tn
: prophecies, ask God; the chief batterie
, with which He would vindicate tn
= right and thunder down the wrong ar
t now unlimbered. The great Arranged
: don of the nations is not to be tough
t with swords, but with steel pens; no
S with bullets, but with type; not wit
/. common, but with lightning perfectin
: presses; and the Sumters, and tn
: Moultries, and the Pulaskis, and tn
Y Gibraltars of that conflict will be tn
editorial and the editorial rooms c
n our great newspaper establish
/, ments. Men of the press, Go
: has put more stupendous re
e sponsibility upon you than upon an
o other class of persons. What lon