TUTORS OF NATIONS. NEWSPAPERS THE SUBJECT OF OR. j TALMAGE'S SERMON. I>]sßemlnatora of Knowledge to tbe Multi tude and an Accurate History of the Time—The Moat Potent Influence For Good on Karth. WASHINGTON, March 22.—Newspa per row, as it is oalled here in Wash ington, tbe long row of offices connected witb prominent journals throughout the j land, pays so much attention to Dr. Talmage they ruay be glad to hear what ho thinks of them while he discusses a (subject in which the whole country is interested. His text today was,"And , the wheels were full of eyes" (Ezekiel x, 12), "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their | time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts xvii, 21). What is a preacher to do when he finds two texts equally good and sug gestive? Iu that perplexity I take both. Wheels full of eyes? What but the wheels of a newspaper printing press: Other wheels are blind. They roll on, pulling or crushing. The manufacturer's wheel—how it grinds the operator with fatigues and rolls over nerve and mus cle and bono and heart, not knowing what it does. The sewing machine wheel sees not the aches and pains fas tened to it—tighter than the band that moves it, sharper than the needle which it plies. Every moment of every hour of every day of every month of every year there are hundreds of thousands of wheels of mechanism, wheels of enter prise, wheels of hard work, in motion, but they are eyeless. Not so the wheels of the printing press. Their entire businoss is to look | and report. They are full of optic nerves, from axle to periphery. They are like those spoken of by Ezekiel as full of eyes. Sharp eyes, near sighted, far sighted. They look up. They look down. They look far away. They take ; in the next street and the next hemi sphere. Eyes of criticism, eyes of inves tigation, eyes that twinkle with mirth, eyes glowering with indignation, eyes tender with love, eyes of suspicion, , eyes of hope, blue eyes, black eyes, green eyes, holy eyes, evil eyes, sore eyes, political eyes, literary eyes, his- | torical eyes, religious eyes, eyes that see everything. "And the wheels were full of eyes. " But iu my second text is the world's cry for the newspaper. Paul describes a class of people in Athens who spent their time either in gather ing the news or telling it. Why espe cially in Athens? Because the more intel ligent people become, the more inquisi- , tivo they are—not about small things, but great tilings. OeDealogy of the Neirnpaper. The question then most frequently is the question now most frequently asked, What is the news? To answer that cry in the text lor the newspaper the centuries have put their wits to work. China first succeeded, and has at Peking a newspaper that has been i printed every week for 1,000 years, printed on silk. Rome succeeded by publishing The Acta Diurna, iu the same column putting tires, murders, marriages and tempests. France suc ceeded by a physician writing out the news of the day for his patients. Eng land succeeded under Queen Elizabeth in first publishing the news of the Span ish armada, and going on until she had enough enterprise, when the battle of Waterloo was fought, deciding the des tiny of Europe, to give it oue-third of a column in the Loudon Morning Chron icle, about as much as the newspaper of our day gives of a small fire. America succeeded by Benjamin Harris' first weekly paper called Public Occurrences, published in Boston in ItiitO, and by the first daily, The American Advertiser, published in Philadelphia in ITB4. The newspaper did not suddenly spring upon the world, but came gradually. The genealogical lino of the newpaper is this: The Adam of the race was a cir cular of news letter, created by divine impulse in human nature, and the cir cular begat the pamphlet, and the pam phlet begat the quarterly, and the quar terly begat the weekly, and the weekly begat the semiweekly, and the semi weekly begat the daily. But alas, by what a struggle it came to its present development! No sooner had its power been demonstrated than tyranny and su perstition shackled it. There is nothing that despotism so fears and hates as a printing press. It has too many eyes in its wheel. A great writer declared that the king of Naples made it unsafe for him to write of anything but natural history. Austria could not endnro Kos suth's journalistic pen pleading for the redemption of Hungary. Napoleon I, trying to keep his iron heel on the neck of nations, said, "Editors are the re gents of sovereigns and the tutors of na tions aud are only fit for prison." But the battle for the freedom of the press was fought iu the courtrooms of England and America and decided before this century began by Hamilton's eloquent plea for J. Peter Zenger's Gazette in America, aud Erskine's advocacy of the freedom of publication in England. These were the Marathon and Ther mopylae in which the freedom of the press was established in tbe United States and Great Britain, and all tbe powers of earth and hell will never again be able to put on the handcuffs and hopples of literary and political des potism. It is notable that Thomas Jef ferson, who wrote the Declaration of American Independence, wrote also: "If I had to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers with out a government, I should prefer the latter. " Stung by some base fabrication coming to us in print, we como to write or speak of the unbridled printing press; or, our new book ground up by an un just critic, we come to write or speak of the unfairness of the printing press; or, perhaps, through our own indistinctness at utterance, we are reported as saying just the opposite of what we did say, and there is a small riot of semicolons, I hyphens and commas, and We come to | speak or write of the blundering print- [ ing press; or, seeing a paper filled With ; ! divorce cases or social scandal, we speak i : aud write of the filthy printing press;! i or, seeing a jourual, through bribery, wheel round from one political side to 1 rhe other in one night, we speak of tho corrupt printing press, ami many talk ; about the lampoonry, and tho empiri- ! cism, and the saus cnlottism of the printing press. Ail Kverlaotiug: UleMitiug. But I discourse now ou a subject you i have never heard—the immeasurable and everlasting blessing of a good news paper. Thank God for the wheel full of eyes. Thank God that we do not have, like the Athenians, togo about to gatli , er up and relate the tidings of tho day, since the omnivorous newspaper does both for us. Tho grandest temporal blessing that God has given to the nine teenth century is the newspaper. We ; would have better appreciation of this blessing if we knew the money, the brain, the losses, the exasperations, the anxieties, tho wear and tear of heart- ; strings, involved in the production of a good newspaper. Under the impression , that almost anybody can make a news paper, Bcores of inexperienced capitalists every year enter the lists, and conse- ; quently during the last few years a newspaper has died almost every day. The disease is epidemic. The larger pa pers swallow the smaller ones, tho whale taking down 50 minnows at one 1 swallow. With more than 7,000 dailies and weeklies in the United States anil Canada, there are but lit! a half century old. Newspapers do not average more than five years' existence. The most of them die of cholera infantum, it is high time that the people found nut that the most successful way to sink money and keep it sunk is to start a newspaper. There comes a time when almost every ouo is smitten with the newspaper mania and starts one, or have stock iu one he must or die. Tho course of procedure is about this: A literary man has an agricultural or : scientific or political or religious idea which he wants to ventilate. Ho bus no money of his own—literary men seldom havo. But he talks of his ideas among confidential friends until they become inflamed with the idea, and forthwith they buy type and press and rent com posing room and gather a corps of edi- i tors, and with a prospectus that proposes to cure everything the first copy is flung on the attention of an admiring world, i After awhile one of the plain stockhold , era finds that no great revolution has been effected by this daily or weekly publication; that neither sun nor moon stands still; that the world goes on ly ing and cheating and stealing just as it did before tho first issue. The aforesaid matter of fact stockholder wants to sell out his stock, hut nobody wants to buy, and other stockholders get. infected and sick of newspaperdom, and an enormous bill at the paper factory rolls into an avalanche, and tl. printers refuse to work until back wages are paid up, and j the compositor bows to the managing 1 editor, nnd tbe managing editor bows to i the editor in chief, and the editor in i chief bows to the directors, and the di- j 1 rectors bow to the world at large, and all the subscribers wonder why their paper doesn't come. Tho world will | ; have to learn that a newspaper is as 1 much of an institution as the Bank of England or Yale college and is not an enterprise. If you have the aforesaid agricultural or scientific or religious or political idea to ventilate, you had bet- I ter charge upon the world through the columns already established. It is folly for any one who cannot succeed at any thing else to try newspaperdom. If you cannot climb the hill back of your house, it is folly to try the sides of the Matter horn. Cornea Through 1 ire. To publish a newspaper requires the skill, tho precision, tho boldness, the vigilance, the strategy of a commander in chief. To edit a newspaper requires that, one be a statesman, an essayist, a geographer, a statistician, and in ac quisition encyclopediac. Toman, to govern, to propel a newspaper until it shall be a fixed intitution, a national fact, demand more qualities than any business ou earth. If you feel like start ing any newspaper, secular or religious, understand that you are being threat ened with softening of tho brain or lu nacy, and, throwing your pocketliook in to your wife's lap, start for some insane asylum before you do something des perate. Meanwhile, as tho dead news papers, week by week, are carried out to the burial, all the living newspapers give respectful obituary, telling when they were born and when they died. The best printers' ink should give at least one stickful of epitaph. If it was a good paper, say, "Peace,to its ashes." If it was a bad paper, I suggest the epi taph written for Francis Chartreuse: "Here continneth to rot tho body of Francis Chartreuse, who, with an in flexible constancy and uniformity of I life, persisted in the practice of every , human vice, excepting prodigality and 1 hypocrisy. His insatiable avarice ex empted him from the first, his match less impudence from the second." I say this because I want you to know that a good, healthy, long lived, entertaining newspaper is not an easy blessing, but one than comes to us through the fire. First of all, newspapers mako knowl edge democratic and for the multitude. The public library is a haymow so high up that few can reach it, while the newspaper throws down the forage to our feet. Public libraries are the reser voirs where tho great floods are stored high up and away off. The newspaper is the tunnel that brings them down to the pitcberß of all the people. The chief . use of great libraries is to make news papers out of. Great libraries make a few men ond women very wise. News papers lift whole nations into tlia sun light. Better have 50,000,000 people moderately intelligent than 100,000 tolons. A false impression is abroad that newspaper knowledge is ephemeral be cause periodicals are thrown aside, and aot cue ont of ton thousand people files them for fut me reference. Such knowl edge, bo fur from being ephemera], goes into the very structure of the world's heart and brain and decides the destiny of churches and nations. Knowledge on i the shelf is of little worth. It is knowl edge afoot, knowledge harnessed, know] edge in revolution, knowledge winged, knowledge projected, knowledge thnn derbolted. So far from being ephem eral, nearly all the best minds and hearts have their hands on the printing press today and have had since it got emanci pated. Adams and Hancock and Otis used togo to the Boston Gazette aud compose articles on the rights of the people. Benjamin Franklin, Do Witt Clinton, Hamilton, Jefferson, were strong in newspaperdom. Many of the immortal things that have been pub- • lished in book form first appeared in what yon may call the ephemeral period ical. All Macaulay's essays first appeared in a review. All Carlyle's, all Kuskin's, all Mcintosh's, all Sydney Smith's, all Uazlitt's, all Thackerary's, all the ele vated works of fiction in our day, are reprints from periodicals in which they appeared as serials. Tennyson's poems, Burns' poems, Longfellow's poems, Emerson's poeuis, Lowell's poems, Whittier's poems, were once fugitivo pieces. You cannot find ten lit erary men in t! jrisiendom, witli strong minds and great hearts, but are or have been somehow connected with the news paper printing press. While tlie book will always have its place, the newspa per is more potent. Because the latter is multitudinous do not conclude it is nec essarily superficial. If a man should from childhood to old age see only his Bible, Webster's Dictionary and his newspaper, he could be prepared for all the duties of this life and all the happi ness of the next. A Mirror of Life. Again, a good newspaper is a useful mirror of life as it is. It is sometimes ; complained that newspapers report the evil when they ought only to report the good. They must report the evil as well as the good, or how shall we know what ; is to be reformed, what guarded against, ■ what fought down? A newspaper that i pictures only the honesty aud virtue of ! society is a misrepresentation. That family is best prepared for the duties of life which, knowing the evil, is taught to select the good. Keep children under the impression that all is fair and right in the world, and when they go out into it they will be as poorly prepared to struggle with it asachild who is thrown into the middle of the Atlantic and told to learu how to swim. Our only com- ! plaint is when sin is made attractive j and morality dull, when vice is painted with great headings and good deeds are putin obscure corners, iniquity set up in great primer and righteousness in non pareil. Sin is loathsome; make it loath some. Virtue is beautiful; make it beau tiful. It would work a vast improvement if all our papers—religious, political, lit erary—should for the most part drop ; their impersonality. This would do bet- ! ter justice to newspaper writers. Many j of the strongest aud best writers of the country live and die unknown aud are denied their just fame. The vast public i never learns who they are. Most of them are on comparatively small in- come, and after awhile tlieir hand for gets it cunning, ami they are without resources, left to die. Why not, at least, liave his initial attached to his most im portant work? It always gave additional force to an article when you occasional- | ly saw added to some significant article : in the old New York Cornier and En qnirer J. \V. W., or in The Tribune H. ' (■}., or in The Herald .1. Or. 11, or in j The Times H. J. R , or in The Evening j Post W. (j. 13., or in The Evening Ex- Dress E. B. T)if> Most I'otent 1 nfliittiicc*. Another step forward for newspaper- j dom will be when in our colleges and . universities we open opportunities for : preparing candidates for the editorial ! chair. We have in such institutions j medical departments, law departments, j Why not editorial departments? I)o the legal and healing professions demand ' more culture and careful training than the editorial or reportorial professions? I know men may tumble by what seems accident into a newspaper office as they may tumble into other occupations, but it would be an incalculable advantage if those proposing a newspaper life had ail institution to which they might goto learn the qualifications, the responsi bilities. the trials, the temptations, the dangers, the magnificent opportunities, of newspaper life. Let there be a lec tureship in which there shall appear the leading editors of the United States tell ing the story of their struggles, tlieir victories, their mistakes, how they work ed and what they found out to be the best wav of workimr. There will be strong men who will climb up without such aid into editorial power and efficiency. So do men climb up to success in other brancher by sheer grit. But if we want learned institutions to make lawyers and artists and doctors and ministers, we much more need learned institutions to make editors, who occupy a position of influence a hundredfold greater. Ido not put the truth too strongly when I say the most potent influence for good on earth is a good editor and the most potent influence Jjpr evil is a bad one. The best way to re-enforoe and improve the newspaper is to endow editorial pro fessorates. When will Princeton or Har vard or Yale or Rochester lead the way? Another blessing of the newspaper is the foundation it lays for accurate his tory of the time in which we live. We for the most part blindly guess about the ages that antedate the newspaper and are dependent upon the prejudices of this or that historian. But after a hundred or two years what a splendid opportunity the historian will have to teach the people the lesson of this day. Our Bancrofts got from the early news papers of this country, from the Boston News-Letter, the New York Gazette, and The American Rag Bag, and Royal Qazetteer and Independent Chronicle, and Massachusetts Spy, and the Phila delohia Aurora, accounts of Perry's vie- Tory, an if Hamilton's duel, and Wash ington's death, and Boston massacre, and i lie oppressive foreign tax on lnx . uries which turned Boston harbor into a teapot, and Paul Revere's midnight | ride, and Rlvode Island rebellion, and South Carolina nullifaotion. But what a field for the chronicler of the great fu- ; tare when he opens the files of a linn- ! died standard American newspapers, : giving the minntiu* of all things occur ring under the social, political, ecclesi astical, international headings! Five hundred vei.is from now, if the world lasts so long, the student- looking for stirring, decisive history will pass by the misty corridors of other centuries and say to flio libraries, "Find me the volumes igive the century in which l lie American presidents were assassiuat , ud, the civil war enacted and the cot toii gin, the Meum locomotive and teh> graph and electric pen and telephone and cylinder presses were invented." Front \Vheel ot the Laril'n Chariot. Once more I remark that a good newspaper is a blessing as an evangelist ic influence. You know there is a great change in our day taking place. All the secular newspapers of the day—for 1 am not speaking now of the religions news papers —all the secular newspapers of the day discuss all the questions of Hod, eternity and the deud, and all the quest ions of the past, present and fu ture. There is not a single doctrine of theology but has been discussed in the last ten years by the secular newspapers of the country. They gather up all the news of all the earth bearing on reli gious subjects, and then they scatter the news abroad again. The Christian newspap' r will be the right wing of the apocalyptic, angel. The cylinder of the Christianized printing press will be the front wheel of the Lord's chariot. 1 take the music of this day, and 1 do not mark it diminuendo —1 mark it crescendo. A pastor on u Sabbath preaches to a few hundred, or a few thousand people, and on Monday, or during the week, the printing press will'take the same sermon and preach it ! to millions of people. God speed the printing press! God save the printing | press! God Christianize the printing i press! When I see the printing press standing with the electric telegraph on the one side gathering up material, and the lightning express train on the other side waiting for the tons of folded sheets of newspapers, I pronounce it the mightiest force in our civilization. So I commend you to pray for all those who manage the newspapers of the land, for all type setters. for all reporters, for all editors, I for all publishers, tliut, sitting or stand ing in positions of such great influence, they may give all that influence for God and the betterment of the human race. An aged woman making her living by knitting, unwound the yarn from the ball until she found in the ceuter of the ball there was an old piece of newspa per. She opened it and read an adver tisement which announced that she had become heiress to a large property and that fragment of a uewspaper lifted I her from pauperism to affluence. And I do not know but as the thread®f time uurolls aud unwinds a little further ; through the silent yet speaking newspa per may lie found the vast inheritance of i the world's redemption. Jotitis shall reign where er tlie sun Docs his sin etssive journeys run. His kingdom stretch from shore to shore Till suns .-hall rise ami set no more. RIGHTS IN HOLDING A TITLE The yuestion Mooted In Connection With liovernor Atkinson'* Appointment.. The question of how a woman's right to preserve her own individuality may or may not he changed by her marriage has been much mooted in connection with the titled conferred upon Miss Lewis Butt, of Augusta, Oa. At the time of the unveiling ia Richmond, Va., of the Jefferson David monument, Miss Butt, who was on a Visit in that city, was surprised that among the many Southern States rep resented in the decorations Georgia had no place. The day before the cere monial was to come off she got permis sion of herself undertake the orna mentation of the exterior of one of the handsomest bouses in the town, and at night hold a large reception, at which she was congratulated and lauded by Governor Atkinson of Georgia, who de clared that she had rendered the State a political service. Miss Butt replied that she should be made a member of the Governor's staff. The Governor agreed that such an acknowledgment should be made, and that if he were re elected he would make the appoint ment. Last autumn saw Governor Atkinson again installed in office, and Miss Butt received an appointment to the staff. She began to fulfil the duties of her post, riding with tlie staff on parades and receiving with them, and several times represented tlie Governor at functions he could not attend, bearing always, of course, the title of colonel. The young woman's marriage some two months ago brought about a complica tion iu tho matter of names, for in quisitive people began to demand whether >lie* should be called Colonel Lii:!t or Cunningham, or whether she li:<;l a il!it to the title at all. The qiU'.-.'tion is still unsettled, but Mrs. Cunningham is in possession ot the sword of office, the only portion of uniform she assumed. It is a hhnd forae jewelled affair, which was pre sented to her by the staff. PiMtiil it*:". Although Turi.i v m .me mm is ago en gaged a German i.Kiei:;l to reorganize its postal sysn-i.i. it has not yet been able to win iliu eonllftenee of foreign residents, who continue to make use of the Austrian. German. Kngllsh, French and Russian postofflces in pref erence to the Turkish. - Keep Cool! SCREEN DOORS, Window Screens, Poultry Netting Hammocks, Porch Chairs and up, Coal Oil stoves of Nickless make, Gasoline Stoves. HARVESTING TOOLS in abundance. Brick for chimneys, always on hand. Nails, steel cut, #1.45 per keg. Western Washer, best made; Building paper, per roll, tjoo sq. feet- Poultry Netting, i ft. to 6 ft. wide, i-2 ct. sq. foot. Jeremiah Kelly, HUGHESVILLE. Onr Declaration of War Has been in effect for a number of years and our Bombardment of High Prices Has created havoc of late in the sale of MOWING MACHINES, DRILLS, HARROWS, PLOWS, LUMBER WAGONS, BUGGIES, and ROAD WAGONS all at the lowest cash price. PHOSPHATE, ThiJtv tons of different grades will be sold at a low figure. W. E. MILLER, Sullivan County, Pa. (Ue are Bound TO CLOSE OUT — Every Dollars Worth of SUMMER GOODS in This Store, anil to do so effectually and surely we will use no half way measures. deductions that are large enough to make it an object lor your purchas ing. Mere is a chance to .oO Children's suits which were sold at :>.50, 4.00 and 5.00. now #'2.50. Men's cashmere pants at «»."► cents are less than halt price. All wool pants at 1.00. Knee pants, 19 cents. All wool knee pants at 25 cents Men's working shirts at 17c. '2sc and .'i.lc. are the cheapest prices e\er ollered. Straw hats at your own prices. Ladies' gapes, skirts, wrappers, shirt waists, corsets and gloves at prices you will surely buy, even to store them away for future use. Sweeping prices in ladies', gents', misses', anil ehildrens' shoes. Mens' line shoes at 95c, they are fully worth 1.50 Come and see the bargains we are ollering now. We must have the loom lor our large stock tor fall and winter, and the prices w ill be do object. Come ami see lor yourself, will be glad to ipiote you prices. | n __L n A4< The Reliable Dealer in Clothing jaCOH rCI Boots and Shoes. HUGHESVILLE, PA.