Year: 1878


A resolution lately passed in con-
vention of Vermont Congregationalists
declared that every Christian family
ought to take and carefully read some
religious paper.


No one who rightly appreciated the
power OF the newspaper press for good
or evil would have voted against the pas
sage of that resolution, though a wise
man might have removed an amendment
striking ont the word Christian. For
every family, whether its members are
what are called protesting Christians or
not whether they 60 to churck on Sun
day or otherwise spend the day of rest,
ought by all means to read religious
journal. Very few households in this
country are too poor 10 spare the cost of
such chronicler, monitor and educator,
for in these times there nothing SO cheap
as a daily or weekly paper, and very few,
indeed, are willing to go without the
reading of one or the other, no matter
how biting their poverty.


When we speak of religious paper,
we of course mean one which is really
and not merely nominally religious.
There are several hundred weekly pa
pers in the country that bid for patronage
simply on the ground oftheir piety and
by making appeals to sectarian sympa-
thies and animosities rather than to the
better sentiments which Christianity
should nourish. Most of these journals,
we are compelled to say, do religion as
much harm as good, and many of them
are its actual enemies. Instead of sound
healthy, robust, practical religion, they
preach sickening cant and cheap senti-
ment ,lity, and make merchandise of holy
things. They pay more attention to the
form than the substance of religion, and
fritter their time away in the DISCUSSION
| fpetty matters. They are not to be trust
ed as guides to right views of current
subjects, for, of all things, they are apt to
be most afraid of the plain naked truth
They also serve to intensity sectarian bit
terness and to encourage spirit of religi-
/ Gus intol france. Therefore the more in
telllgent and critical men get, and the
wider the range of their thoughts and
/ sympathies, the less they think of the
nominally religious papers and their per
functory preaching of a cut-and-driet
piety.


Nothing better shows the character o
these so-called religious papers than theil
manner of treating the Great Fraud by
which Hayes got intot the White House,
In defiance of law, justice, morals and re-
ligion, by forgery, conspiracy, bribery ant
bargaining, the man who was elected
president by the people was cheated out
of the office and the man they had reject
ed was put into it. 1t was one of the
greatest crimes ever committed against
popular government, and every right
minded citizen rebelled against it in hi,
heart. Yet these ostentatiously religion.
papers sat by and saw the outrage done
without so much as raising their voice.
against it And when it was finally per.
fected and its fruits grasped by the
conspirators, many OF these pious sheets
fell down and worshiped successful
Fraud!


They profess to be engaged in educat.
ing the conscience of the country and in
purifying its morals; but if the people ha1
listened to their soothing and cowardly
language they would have condoned and
forgotten the offence committed against
them and against truth and justice, anC
thus paved the way to the permanent
loss of their right to elect their president
Al time when every voice should have
been raised in denunciation of a crime
whose temporary success made it the
more odious and blighting in its effect
If left unpunished and unstigmatized
these professed guardians of religion held
their peace or openly acquiesced in the
infamy.


We cannot, therefore, do less than call
them false religious guides, which the
people would do well to avoid. They are
not the preachers and defenders of re-
lIgion which makes men honester and
better and strengthens them for the per-
formance of their public and private du-
ties; and the religion which does not do
that is not worth having.


Fortunately the country has journals
which are controlled by religious plin-
ciples that compel them to make wal
upon fraud, however successful and nc
matter how strongly intrenched; and
these are the religious papers which every
family should take and read.-N. y
sun.