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 <ret th.» very hest that is made in clothing at near
lv half price. We mention a lew prices:
Any light colored suit in store for men. that were I and
18.00 now go lor .<-N.'iO
All the summer suits which were sold at T.tKl and .s.lHl now
go for $4.50
Youth's light colored suits which were sold 'it S.OO and 5.50
now go fit s:>.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.