Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-03-06
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lar press as Il mightieF Reinforcement of
religion. let rs make il the avenue of re-
iigious Information. My advice, often
given 10 friends who propose to start a
new paper. is: Don't Don't. Employ
The papers already started The biggc.a
financial hole ever dug in this American
continent is the hole ia which good peo-
pie throw their NOR : wAen they start 4
newspaper. 1t is almost ~ good and as
quick way OF getting iii ot money as
baFin& stock in gold mine. Nor more
printing presses. hui the right use OF
those alFeld, established All their
cylinders. all their steam power. all their
pens, all their types. all their editorial
chairs and reportorial rooms are avail
able IL you would engage them in behalf
OF civilization and Christianity.
reinforcement OF Religion.
Again, ii you would secure the secular
press as q mightier reinforcement Of re-
ligion and the pulpit, extend widest aud
HIGHEST Christian coariesies to the repre-
seatatiyes of journalism. Give them
easy chairs and plenty of room when
thes come to report occasions. For the
most part rhcy are gentlemen OF educa-
legeS, with fanlilies to support by their
literary craft. many of them weary with
the push of Il business that is precarious
and tluctuating, each one OF them the
avenue of information to thousands Of
readers. their impression of the services
10 be the impression adopted by multi
tudcs. They are connecting links be-
tween sermon, or soDl, or prayer,
and this great population that tramp up
and down the streets day by day and
year by year with their SORROWS uacom-
forted and their sins ulnpardoned. 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 thousand
sermons preached to-day there will not be
three preached to journalists and proba-
bly, not one. or all the prayers offered
for classes of men innumerabie the pray
ers offered FOR the most potential class
will be 50 few and rare that they will be
thought preachers idiosyncrasy. There
are many journalists in our church mem
berships, but this world will never be
brought to God until some revival of re-
ligion sweeps eyer the land and takes
irto the kingdom of God all editors, re-
porters, compositors, pressmen and news
boys And if you have not faith enough
to pray for TINT 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 char-
lot drag heavily. The great final battle
l,ot. AL 81
don, | think, will not be fought with
swords and shells and guns, but with
pens-qull pens, steel pens, gold pens,
fountain pens. and before chat the pens
must he converted. The L1ost diyinely
honored weapon Of the past has been the
pen. and the most divinely h.,pnred weap-
on of the future will be the pen: proph-
cts pen and evangelist's pt.h and apos-
ties pen, followed by editor pen and
authors pen and reporters pen. God
save the pen, The wings g the Apoc-
alyptic angel will be the plipted page.
The printing press will ro! ahead OF
Christ's chariot to clear the way
But some one might ask, you'd you
make Sunday newspapers al;C a re-en-
forcement?'' ! have learn ,d to take
things as they are. | would ike TO see
the much scoffed at old Puritan sabbaths
come back again. | do not shink the
modern Sunday will turn out say better
men and women than were yai.r grand
fathers and grandmothers undai the old
fashioned Sunday To say l%tIling of
other results, Sunday newspa pers are
killing editors. reporters. compGSitors and
pressmen. Every. man. woman and child
is entitled to twenty-four houls of moth
ing to do. If the newspapers 2tit on an
other set of hands, that does at relieve
the editorial aud reportorial rsGm of its
cares and responsibilities. O;.r literary
men die fast enough without killing them
with Sunday work.
God and the Printing Press.
All things are possible with God. and
my faith is up until nothing il. the way
of religious victory would surprise me.
All the newspaper printing presses of the
earth are going TO be the Lord S and tele-
graph and telephone and type wsll yet an
nounce nations born in di, The
first book ever printed was the Bible, by
Faust and his son-in-law, Schoeffer. in
AGO. aud that conservation of type to the
Holy Scriptures was a prophe, y of the
great mission of printing for tbs, eyangel-
ization of all the nations. The ,ather of
the American printing press WIS a cler-
gyman Rev. Jesse Glover. and e3at was
prophecy of the religious use that the
gospel ministry in this countrt were to
make of the types.
Again, we shall see the secular press
as Il mightier reinforcement q, religion
and the pulpit by making our religious
utterances more interesting and spirited,
and then the press viii reprodt - them.
On the way TO church some thi,te years
ago a journalist said thing Kat has
kept me ever since thinking. are you
going to give us any points si,-day!'
What do you meant | askeI lie
said. II mean by that anything hat will
he striking enough to be remembered :
Then | said to myself. What ri ut have
we in the pulpits and Sunday .h.ools to
take the time of the people If ,Ae have
nothing to say that is memorable" David
did not have any difficulty in re II ember-
ing Nathan's thrust. Thou q the
man.. nor Felix in remembering Paul 5
| point blank utterance on righteousness,
temperance and Judgment to cJile, nor
the English king any difficulty in re-
mcmbering what the court preac,er said
when, during the sermon agalnst sin,
| the preacher threw his handkerchief into
| the kings pew to Indicate wa.n he
meant.
The tendency Of criticism in t1e theo-
| logical scminaries is to file off ffJn our
! young men all the sharp FONTS anil make
| them too smooth for any kind OF rxecn-
| ton. What we want, all of Us. = more
3 - sr.t.s