Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1901-03-16
good society. that fact will be estab-
Reinforcement of Religion.


Again, if you would secure the secu-
lar press as a mightier reinforcement
of religion and the pulpit, extend wild
est and highest Christian courtesies
to the representatives of journalism
Give them easy chairs and plenty of
room when they come to report occa-
sions. For the most part they are gen.
tlemen of education and refinement,
graduates of colleges, with families to
support by their literary craft, many
of them weary with the push of busi-
ness that is precarious and huctuating,
each one of them the avenue of infor-
nation to thousands of readers, their
impression of the services to be the
impression adopted by mu1titudes.
They are connecting links between a
sermon, or a song, or prayer, and this
great population that tramp up and
down the streets day by day and year
by year with their SORROWS uncomfort-
ed and their sins unpardoned. Oh, the
hundreds of thousands of people in
our cities who never attend churches!
Our cities are not so much preached to
by ministers of religion as by reporters
Put all journalists into our prayers
and sermons. OF all the hundred thou
sand sermons preached today there
lists and probably not one. OF all the
prayers offered for classes of men in
Vulnerable the prayers offered for the
most potential class will be SO few and
rare that they will be thought a
preachers idiosyncrasy. There are
many journalists in our church mem
/ berShipS, but this world will never be
! brought to God until some revival of
! religion sweeps over the land and takes
/ into the kingdom of God all editors,
reporters, compositors, pressmen and
newsboys. And if you have not faith
enough to pray for that and toll for
that you had better get out of our
ranks and join the other side, for you
! are the unbelievers who make the
/ wheels of the Lords chariot drag heav-
lily. The great final battle between
truth and error, the Arma geddon, 1
| think, will not be fought with swords
and shells and guns, but with pens
| quill pens, steel pens, gold pens, foun-
tain pens, and before that the pens
| must be converted. The most divinely
honored weapon of the past has been
the pen, and the most divinely honored
| weapon of the future will be the pen;
/ prophets pen and evangelist's pen and
apostles pen, followed by editors pen
God save the pen, The wings of the
Apocalyptic angel will be the printed
page. The printing press will roll
ahead of Christ's chariot to clear the
way.
God and the Printing Press.
All things are possible with God, and
my faith is up until nothing in the way
of religious victory would surprise me.
fhn ~f
the earth are going to be the Lords,
and telegraph and telephone and type
will yet announce nations born in a
day. The first book ever printed was
the Bible, by Faust and his son-in-law
Schoeffer, in AGO, and that consecra-
ton of type to the Holy Scriptures was
a prophecy of the great mission OF
printing for the evangelization of all
the nations. The father of the Amer
lean printing press was a clergyman
Rev. Jesse Glover, and that was a
prophecy of the religious use that the
gospel ministry in this country were to
make of the types.
Again, we shall see the secular press
, as mightier reinforcement of religion
, and the pulpit by making our religious
, utterances more interesting and spir-
tied, and then the press will reproduce
them. On the way to church some 81
years ago a journalist said thing thai
has kept me ever since thinking. Are
. you going to give us any points to-
, day?" What do you mean2" 1 asked
, He said, Il mean by that anything tha
will be striking enough to be remem
, bered." Then L said to myself, ''Wha
, right have We in the pulpits and Sun
day schools to take the time of the peo
, pie if we have nothing to say that j!
memorable," David did not have an,
I difficulty in remembering Nathani
| thrust, Thou art the man. nor Feli1
, in remembering Paul's point blank ut
, terance on Righteousness, temperanc,
and judgment to come, nor the Englisl
, king any difficulty in rememberin:
what the court preacher said when
preacher threw his handkerchief int,
the kings pew to indicate whom b
| meant
The Church and the Press
$ Now. as you all have something t.
2 do with the newspaper press, either il
r issuing a paper or in reading it, eithe
. | as producers or patrons, either sell
= ers or purchasers OF the printed sheet
t 1 propose on the Lords day a treaty t.
. | be signed between the church and tn
S printing press, treaty to be ratifiet
!. by millions of good people if we right
E ly fashion it, treaty promising tha
f we will help each other in our work o