Connecticut western news., 1901-03-07

started. The biggest financial hole
ever dug In this American continent is
the hole In which good people throw
heir money when they start n newspa.
per. 1t is almost as good and as quick
n way of getting rid of money as buy
ing stock in n gold mine. Not more
printing presses. but the right use of
those already established. All their
cylinders, all their steam power, oil
their pens, all their types. all their edi-
torial chairs and reportorial rooms, are
available If you would engage them In
behalf of civilization and Christianity.
! Reinforcement of Religion.
I Again, If you would secure the secu-
lar press as n 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 occasions.
For the most part they are gentlemen
of education and refinement, graduates
of colleges, with families to support by
their literary craft, many of them
weary with the push Of business that
is precarious and tiuctuating, each one
of them the avenue of information to
thousands of readers, their impression
of the services to be the impression
adopted by multitudes. They are con-
Meeting links between a sermon or a
song or prayer and this great popu-
T! lation that tramp up and down the
| streets day by day and year by year
| with their sorrows uncontrolled and
| their sins unpardoned. Oh, the hun
dreds of thousands Of people in our
| cities whe 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
/ will not be three preached to Journal
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 preach
er's idiosyncrasy. There are many
| journalists in our church memberships,
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, report
ers, compositors, pressmen and news
boys. And IL 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 I'M
believers who make the wheels of the
Lords chariot drag heavily. The great
6nal battle between truth and error,
/ r will
fought with swords and shells and
guns, but with pens-quill pens, steel
pens, gold pens, fountain pens, and be-
fore 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 and authors
pen and reporters pen. God save the
pen! The wing of the Apocalyptic an
gel will be the printed page. The print
Ing press will roll ahead of Christ's
chariot to clear the way.
Sunday Newspapers.
But" some one might ask, would
you make Sunday newspapers also
reinforcement l have learned to
take things as they are. l would like
to see the much scoffed at old Puritan
| Sabbaths come back again. l do not
think the modern Sunday will turn out
any better men and women than were
your grandfathers and grandmothers
Under the old fashioned Sunday. To
say nothing of other results, Sunday
newspapers are killing editors, report
ers, compositors and pressmen. Every
< nan, woman and child is entitled to "a
hours Of nothing to do. If the news
papers put on another set of hands,
that does not relieve the editorial and
| reportorial room of its cares and re-
sponsibilities. Our literary men die
fast enough without killing them with
Sunday work.
| All things are possible with God, and
my faith is up until nothing in the way
Of religious victory would surprise me.
All the newspaper printing presses of
the earth are going to be the Lords,
and telegraph and telephone and type
will yet announce nations born in
day. The first book ever printed was
the Bible, by Faust and his son-in-law,
Schoeffer, In 146O, and that consecra-
ton of type to the Holy Scriptures was
prophecy Of the great mission of
printing for the evangeliZation of all
the nations. The father of the Ameri-
can printing press was a clergyman,
Rev. Jesse Glover, and that was q
Fprophecy Of the religious use that the
gospel ministry in this country were to
make of the types.
Again, we shall secure the secular
press as mightier reinforcement Of
religion and the pulpit by making our
religious utterances more interesting
and spirited, and then the press will re-
produce them. On the way to church
some 30 years ago a journalist said a
thing that has kept me ever since
thinking, Are you going to give us
any points todayP" What do you
meanY l asked. He said, Il mean by
that anything that will be striking
enough to be remembered" Then
said to myself, what right have we In
our pulpits and Sunday schools to take
the time of people If we have nothing
to say that Is memorablep David did
not have any difficulty in remembering
Nathan's thrust, Thou art the man."
nor Felix in remembering Paups point
blank utterance on righteousness, tenn
perance and judgment to come, nor the
English king any difficulty In remem-
bering what the court preacher said
when during the sermon against sin
the preacher threw his handkerchief
into the kings pew to indicate whom
he meant.
Ally of Christian Work.
The tendency of criticism in the theo-
logical seminaries Is to file off from our
young men all the sharp points and
make them too smooth for any kind Of
execution. What we want, all of us, is
more point, less humdrum. If we say
the right thing in the right way the
will b u 49,