The Penn's Grove record., 1901-03-08

papers put or another set of hands, that
does not relieve the editorial and repor-
torial room of its cares and responsible
ties. Our literary men die fast enough
without killing them with Sunday work.
All things are possible with God, and
nv 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 tele-
graph and telephone and type will vet an
uounce nations born in a day. The first
book ever printed was the Bible, by Faust
and his son-in-law, Schceffer, in 1850. and
that conservation Of type to the Holy
Scriptures was a prophecy of the great
/ mission of printing for the eyangelization
Of all the nations. The father of the
American printing press was a clergyman,
Rev. Jesse Glover. and that was a pro-
phecy of the religious use that the gospel
ministry in this country were to make of
the types.
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 exeeu-
ton, What we want, all of us, is more
point, less humdrum. If we say the right
thing in the right way, the press will be
glad and echo and re-echo it. Sunday
school teachers, reformers, young men
and old men in the ministry, what we all
want if we are to make the printing press
an any III CIIislldn WDTh IS InlC WHICH
the reporter spoken Of suggested-points,
sharp points, memorable points. But if
the thing be dead when uttered by living
voice it will be a hundredfold more dead
when it is laid out in cold type.
Now, as you all have something to do
with the newspaper press, either in issu-
ing a paper or in reading it, either as pro-
ducers or patrons, either as sellers or pur-
chasers OF the printed sheet. | propose on
this Lords day a treaty to be signed be-
tween the church and the printing press,
a treaty to be ratified by millions Of good
people if we rightly fashion it, a treaty
promising that we will help each other in
our work of trying to illumine and felici-
tate the world, we by voice, you by pen;
we by speaking only that which is fit to
sneak, You help us, and we will help you
side by side be these two, potent agencies
until the judgment day, when we must
both be scrutinized for our work. health
ful OF blasting. The two worst off men in
that day will be the minister of religion
and the editor if they wasted their oppor-
tunity. Both of us are the engineers OF
long express trains OF influence, and we
will run them into a depot of light or tum-
BE them of the embankments.
What a useful life and what a glorious
departure was that of the most famous of
an American printers, Benjamin Franklin, |
whom inidels in the penury of their re-
sources have often f%raudulently claimed
As their own, hut the printer who moved
that the Philadelphia convention be
opened with prayer, the resolution lost be-
cause a majority thought prayer unneces-
sary, and who wrote at the time he was
vic.ausly attacked, MY rule is to go
straight forward in doing what appears to
me TO be right, leaving the consequences
to Providence and who wrote this
quaint epitaph showing his hope of resur-
rtction. an epitaph that | hundreds OF
times read while living in Philadelphia:
The body OF Benjamin Franklin. Print
er like the cover, OF an old book, its CON
tents torn ont and stripped of its lettering
aud giiding1, lies here food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for
it will las he believed) appear once more
in a new and more beautiful edition, cor
reatli and amended by the Author"
That Providence intends the profession
oi reporters to have a mighty share in the
worlds redemption is suggested by the
fact that Paul and Christ took a reporter
5,5ng with them, and he reported their
addresses and their acts.
Luke was q reporter, and he wrote not
only the book of Luke, but the Acts of
the Apostles, and without that reporters
work we would nave known nothing OF
the Pentecost, and nothing of Stephens
msrtrT3om. and nothing Of Tabithas res.
direction. and nothing OF the failing and
u~nja.lins of Paul and Silas, and nothing
Of tie sAipyTreck at Melita.
Strike out the reporters work from the
Bible and you kill a large part OF the
New Testament. 1t makes me think that
in the future of the kingdom OF God the
reporters are to bear a mighty part.
About twenty-five years ago a represen-
ta.l5e OF an important New York news
papa took his seat in my Brooklyn church
one sunday night about five pews from
the front of the pulpit. He took out pen
al and reporters pad, resolved to carica-
tlTe the whole scene. When the music be-
gan. he began, and with his pencil he de-
aiel that, and then derided the prayer,
and then derided the reading OF the
Scriptures, and then began to deride the
sermon. But, he says, for some reason
bis hand began to tremble, n he. rally,
ing himself, sharpened his pencil and
started again, but broke down again and
then put pencil and paper in his pocket
and bis head down on the front pew and
began to pray. At the close of the service
he came up and asked for the prayers OF
others, and gave his heart to God. And,
though still engaged in newspaper work,
he is an evangelist and hires a hall at his
own expense and every Sunday afternoon
breaches Jesus Christ to the people.
And the men OF that profession are
going to come in a body throughout the
country. | know hundreds OF them, and a
more genial or highly educated class OF
men it would be hard to find, and, though
the tendency of their profession may be
toward skeptieism, an organized common
sense gospel invitation would fetch them
to the front of all Christian endeavor.
Men o. the pencil and pen in all depart
ments, you need the help of the Christian
religion. In the day when people want to
get their newspapers at W cents, and
are hoping for the time when they can get
any OF them at one cent; and as a conse-
,4.rr. IL ..gaaLa, ~ tkn nptptInn prpGa
are by the thousand ground under the cy-
!inders, you want God to take care OF you
and your families.
Some OF your best work is as much IN
appreciated as was Milton's Paradise
Lost. for which the author received S25,
and the immortal poem "Hohenlinden" OF
/ Thomas Campbell when lie first offered 1t
for publication. and in the column called
Notices TO Correspondents appeared the
4 words. TO f. C.-The lines commencing
On Lluden when the sun was low are not
up to our standard. Poetry is not L. C's
forte"
o men OF the pencil and pen, amid your
Un0ppreciated work You need encourage,
meut, and you have it. Printers oil all
CHrisjendom, editors, reporters, compost.
foTs. pressmen, publishers and readers or
that which is printed, resolve that you
will not write, set up, edit, issue or fead
anything that debases body, mind OF soul;
IN the name OF TOD, by Jhe IdyiiiB I'm VI
the hands Of faith aud prayer, ordaln the
printing press for Righteousness and liberty
and saiyation. All of us with some infiu-
encc that will help in the right direction
let ua put orr hands to the work, implor-
ing God to hasten the contamination In
a ship with hundreds Of passengers APP
preaching the South American coast the
man on the lookout neglected his work,
and IN a few minutes the ship would have
been dashed to ruin on the rocks. But a
cricket on board the vessel that had made
no sound all the voyage set up a shril
call at the smell Of land, and the captain,
knowing that habit Of the insect, stopped
the vessel in time to avoid an awful wreck.
Aud 30 insignificant means may now do
wonders, and the scratch OF a pen may
save the shipwreek of a soul
Are sou all ready for the signing oil the
contract, the league, the solemn, treaty
proposed between journalism and evan
gell-ms Let ii be a Christian marriage
Of tine pulpit and the printing press he
ordination Of the former on my head,-the
pen oil The latter in my hand, 1t y appro-
pirate TINT / publish the banns, OF such a
marriage Let them from this day he one
IN the magnificent work OF the world re-