Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-03-08
PhE PRINTED WORD.
almage Says Sacred Stupidity and
3Laziness is Rebpk.ed by Christ,
|hll for Wscrm Friendship Between Those
Who ,'reach the Gospel and Those
Who Make Newspapers.
ICopyright 1901. !

than the children Of light" d
Sacred stupidity and solemn incompe- t
tency and sanctifed laziness are here re- I
buked by Christ, He says worldlings are S
Christians. Men of the world grab occa- ?
si5ns, while Christian people let the most !
Valuable occasions drift by unimproved. 7
That is the meaning of our Lord when He '
SAYS, "The children of this world are in ?
their generation wiser than the children i
of light" $
that maxim is in the slowness of the G
Christian religion to take possession OF the /
secular press. The opportunity is open,
and has been for some time open, but
the ministers of religion are for the I
most part allowing the golden opportunity
so pass uninproved. That the opportu-
nifty is open L declare from the tact that
all the secular newspapers are glad OF any
religious facts or statistics that you pre-
sent them. Any animated and stirring
article relating to religious themes they
would gladly print. They thank you for
any information in regard to churches. Ii
a wrong has been done to any Christian
church or Christian institution, you could
20 into any newspaper office of the land
and have the real truth stated. Dedica::
ton services, ministerial ordinations and
pastoral installations, cornerstone laying
of church, anniversary of charitable
society will have reasonable space IN any
secular journal if it have previous notice
given,
y Ii I had some great injustice done me,
there is not an editorial or reportorisl
room in the United StgatHyss t set ricbt and
could ID, not Il Of any weiiknown Christian
man. I
Why, then, does not our glorious Chris
tianity embrace these magnificent oppor-
tunities? 1 have before me a subject Of
first and last Importance: How shall we
secure the secular press as mlghtler re-
enforcement to religion and the pulpit!
The first thing toward this result is
cessation of indiscriminate hostility against
newspaperdom. You might as well de-
nounce the legal profession because Of the
shysters or the medical profession because
of the swindling bargain makers as to
slambang newspapers because there are
recreant editors and unfair reporters and
unclean columns. Gutenberg, the inventor
of the art of printing, was about to de-
stroy his types and eXtinguish the art be-
cause it was suggested to HIM that PRINT.
ing might be suborned into the service OF
the devil but afterward he bethought him
self that the right use of the art might
more than overcome the evil use of it,
and SO he spared the type and the intelli-
gence of all following ages. But there, are
MANY to-day in the depressed mood OF
Gutenberg, with uplifted hammer, want
ing to pound to pieces the type, who have
not reached his better mood in which he
saw the art of printing to be the rising
sun of the worlds illumination.
If, instead of fighting newspapers, we
spend the same length OF time and the
same vehemence in marshallng their help
in religious directions, we would be as
much wiser as the man who gets consent
of the railroad superintendent to tasten
car to the end of rail train shows better
sense than he who runs his wheelbarrow
ND the track to meet and drive back the
Chicago limited express.
The slliest thing that man ever does
is to fight newspaper, Tor you may nave
the floor for utterance perhaps Tor one day
in the week, while the newspaper has the
floor every day in the week.
Napoleon, though a mighty man, had
many weaknesses, and one OF the weakest
things he ever did was to threaten that If
the English newspapers did not stop their
adverse criticism of himself he would, with
100000 bayonets, cross the channel 1or
their chastisement.
Don't fight newspapers. Attack pro-
vokes attack. Better wait until the eX-
element blows over, and then go IN and
get justice, for get it you will If you. have
patience and common sense and equlpolse
of disposition :,
1t ought to be a mighty sedative that
there is an enormous amount OF common
sense in the world, and you will eventually
be taken for what you are really worth,
and YOU cannot be pulled up, and you cam
not be written down, and if you are the
enemy of good society that fact will come
out, and if you are the friend OF good So
ciety that fact will be established. :
know what am talking about, fol,
can draw on my own experience. All the
respectable newspapers, as lar as know,
are my friends now. But many of you re-
member the time when | was the most
continuously and meanly attacke5 man in
this country. God gave me grace not to
answer back, and l kept silence for ten
years, and much grace was required. What
[ said was perverted and twisted into just
the opposite of what | did say. There
were millions of people who believed that
there was large sofa in my. pulpit, al
though we never had anything but chair,
and that during the singing by the con-
gregation / was accustomed to lie down
on that sofa and dangle my feet over the
end. Lying New York correspondents
for ten years misrepresented our church
services. But we waited, and people from
every neighborhood of Christendom came
there, to find the magnitude of the false
hoods concerning the church and concern
ing myself. A reaction set in, and soon
we had Justice, full justice, more than JUS
tice, and as much overpraise as once we
had interpretation, and no man that
ever lived was SO much lndeoted 10 tne
newspaper press lOI uhiUy w PAN"NAA
the gospel as l am.
Young men in the ministry, young men
in all professions and occupations, wait.
You can afford to wait. Take rough mis-
representation as a Turkish towel to start
up your languid circulation or system
of massage or Swedish movement, whose
pokes and pulls and twists and thrusts are
salutary treatment.
There is only one person you need to
manage. and that is yourself. Keep your
dispositions sweet by communion with
Christ, who answered not again, get So
ciety of genial people and walk out IN the
sunshine with YOUR hat off and you will
come out all right. And don't join the
crowd of people in our day who spend
much of their time damning newspapers.
Again, in this effort to secure the secu.
lar press as a mightier reinforcement of
religion, let us make it the avenue of re-
liqious information. If you would secure
the press as mightier reinforcement of
religion and the pulpit extend widest and
highest Christian courtesies to the repre-
sentatives of journalism. Give them easy
chairs and plenty of room when they come
to report occasions. For the most part
thew are gentlemen of education and re-
fnement, graduates of colleges, with lam
lies to support by their literary craft,
many of them weary with the push OF
business that is precarious and ft-ctuatlng,
each one of them the avenue OF n tmatlon
to thousands of readers, their I'M ression
of the services to be the impression
adopted by multtudes. They are connect
ing links between sermon or song OF
prayer, and this great population that
tramp I'D and down the streets day by
L. fhQIr