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

acknowledge It as religious
and secular newspapers are the great
educators of the country.
EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE PRESS
But, alas, through what struggle the
newspaper has come to its present de-
velopment, Just as soon as it began
to demonstrate it's power superstition
and tyranny shackled it. There is
nothing that despotism SO much fears
and hates as the printing press. \
great writer in the south of Europe de-
clared that the king Of Naples had
made it 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 /, wanting to
keep his iron heel on the neck Of na-
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 freedom of the
press was fought in the courtrooms 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 free
dom to publish Paine's Rights of Man"
in England. Those were the Marathon
and the ThermOylae where the battle
was fought which decided the freedom
of the press in England and America,
and all the powers of earth and hell
will never again be able to put upon
the printing press the handouts and
tho horr1ac IF 1itnrory on6 nO1itiaa1
despOtism.
It is remarkable that Thomas Jeffer-
son, who wrote the Declaration of In
pendence, also wrote these words, IF
| had to choose between q government
without newspapers and newspapers
without a government, | would prefer
the latter" Stung by some ley fabri-
cation in print, We come to write or
speak about the unfair printing
press" Perhaps through cur own in
distinctneSs of utteranCe we are re-
ported as saying just the opposite OF
what we did say, and there is a small
riot of semicOlons and hypens and
commas, and we come to write or talk
about the ~"blundering printing press"
or we take up a newspaper full Of
social scandal and of cases Of divorce,
and we write or talk about a 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
works of science? How many elabo-
rate poems or books of travel? Not
many. In the United States the peO-
pie would lot average one such book
a year for each individual. Whence
then this intelligence, this capacity to
ak about all themes, secular and re-
ligious; this acquaintance with science
and art, this power to appreciate 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 cars.
All read it-White and blac--, German,
Irishman, Swiss, Spaniard, American,
old and young, good and bad, sick and
we'll, before breakfast and after tea,
Monday morning, Saturday night, Sun
day and weekday. | now declare that
| consider the newspaper TO be the
grand agency by which the gospel is
to be preached, ignorance cast out, OPP
preston dethrOned, crime e~Xtripated,
the world raised, heaven rejOiced and
God glOriiied. In the Clanking of the
printing press, as the sheets fly out, |
hear the voice Of the Lord Almighty
prOclaiming to all the dead nations of
the earth, Lazarus, come forth" and
to the retreating surges of darkness,
Let there be light" In many of our
city newspapers, protesting no mOr
than secular information, there have
appeared during the past thirty years
sOme Of the grandest appeals in behalf
of religion and some of the most effec-
tive interpretations of Gods govern
ment among the nations.
GOOD AND BAD NEWSPAPERS.
Their are only two kinds of newspa-
pesr-the n good, very good; the
other, bad, very bad. A newspaper
may be started with an undecided
character, but after it has been going
on for years everybody finds out just
what it is, and it is very good or it is
very bad. The one paper is the en-
bodiment of news, the ally of virtue,
the foe of crime, the d~electatiOn of ele-
waited taste, the mightiest agency on
earth for making the world better.
The other paper is a brigand among
moral forces, it is a beslimer of repu-
tatiOn, it is the right arm Of death and
hell, it is the mightiest agency in the
universe for making the world worse
and battling aginst the cause of God
the one an angel of intelligence and
mercy, the other a fiend Of darkness.
Between this archangel and this fury
is to be fought the great battle which
is to decide the fate of the world. If
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