Year: 1868

man strives to show us that certain
series of events or particular course OF
action tends toward the destruction of all
things; another eonclusively proves that
| the same series of events, the same course
of action, must end in general happiness
and prosperity.


Side by side we find deaths and mar
riages, impeachment and the police
courts, valuable inventions and new fol
lies of fashion; Congressional debates
and eminent riots, records of Stock Ex-
change, gambling, and of church conven-
tions, laughable sketch of dog fight,
and a sad story of desertion and death.
All must be said in good pure language,
clearly and forcibly. Men seem to expect
that the very moment an editor has in
telligsnce of some noteworthy event, he
shall sit down in the midnight hustle of
the office of morning paper, and then
and there dash off long columns of such
eIoquence preachers and lawyers and all
other men may not rival its fervor, its
force, chastity of language, its purity of
STYLE, after days and weeks and months
of choice, continuous toll.


People hear lecture, a sermon, po-
litical speech or an address of any kind,
and going away they entleavor to re-
hearse to those who were kept ut home
some of the good things the speaker
said, but find that they can tell but very
little; and that little is very imperfectly
told, at least in most cases. Yet they
thin k it perfectly right, indeed eminently
proper for them to complain if some
poor devil OF a reporter some knight
of the lead-pencll, who listened with
weary brain, and noted with tired fin
gers, does not present them, at their cot
fee, with full, accurate and graphic re-
port of the address, with all the accom-
panying proceedings. .


The fact of the matter is that we think
too much OF what the newspaper may
be and may do, too little of what it is
and does. When we recollect its humble
beginning we do not wonder that it is no
better. but that it is so good and in
this, as in many other things, the thought
of mans absolute inability to secure per-
fection is pressed upon us. | admit that
the newspaper of to-day has serious de-
fects but SO long as believe that what
might best have been was, | can scarcely
allow that some Of .hese defects might
have been remedicd already.


The Future is charged with the'neble
task Of still further purifying and elevat-
ing the character, of still further extend
ing the influence of this mighty agent
for morality or immortality, for good or
Il ~ - FL oil
responsible for the faithful performance
of this obligation it is our duty to cor
slider the weight of the responsibility
devoIvcd upon us. No one can habitual
ly hear sinful talk, witness sinful scenes,
or read sinful books without becoming
sinful, at least in some degree. No one
can customarily see and give ear to i'm
purity, without, in time, thinking and
talking impuritY. A particular doctrine
cannot be continually iterated and reiter-
atcd to man, without his finally conclud-
ing that there must be some basis of
truth in the matter, and possibly decid-
ing to give it his support. Aside from
the fact that a Journal has multitudes of
readers, it has such facilities ofrepetition
for convincing them that nothing can
equal its power for good or evil so that
there is pressing need of the utmost
care in selecting the views and statements
that shall be presented through its col
umns. 1t is not possible to deny the ex-
cessive influence of the journal and OF
the journalist unless We also deny the
control exercised over human nature by
the force of repetition and no one can
deny the power of repetition, who has
felt his character imperceptibly and sure
ly modified and nodded by the character
OF those around him-not by the ones he
met once for all, but by those who were
his constant companions.


In addition to the powers of repetition
which journalism possesses, in addition
to the hold it now keeps upon the pub
lie attention, it must also be considered
as having become i'll the latter days the
actual tribune and censor of the commu-
nifty. Aside from the editor there are
now four classes of professional men
whose business it is to care in some way
for the interests of their fellow-men !;
but the nature Of their occupations is
such as either to give them one-sidcd
views and biased judgments concerning
matters'of public interest and welfare,
or else to preclude them from exercising
the necessary control over the popular
will, even when they advocate the better
cause.


For. the preacher with his sermons,
prayer-meetings, congregational visits,
is so busily engaged that he has little
time for hunting out the crimes which
lurk in the by-ways, and even if he had
sufficient leisure to use in that manner,
both his ignorance concerning much OF
the worlds wickedness, as well as his po-
sition and dependence upon others would
prevent his taking any such action
The lawyer finds that-he is so fully occu-
pied with defending those accused OF
real guilt, that he has no opportunity
left to pry into, much less to talk about
faults which are hidden or merely hypo-
thetical. While the physician, who hab-
ltually rides by night until the gray of
dawn lights him TO his bed, there to steal
a hurried sleep, who is continually solv-
ing the prime problems of life and death,
has little, patience and little strength for
the questions, important though they be,
. Iof Il hot ~