SERMONS TO THE PROFESSIONS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 62, 13 March 1877, Page 4

SERMONS TO THE PROFESSIONS.

The following is an extract from a sermon preached in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, New. York, by the Rev. De Witt Talmage "to the Newspaper Profession '': — Men of the press, under God you are to decide whether Ihe human race shall be saved or lost. God has put a more atupendous responsibility upon you than any other class of persons, and is there any doubt about my being right this morning, in addressing myself especially to yon? What long strides your profession hes made in influence aod power since tha day when Peter Sheffer invented cast metal type, and. because two books were found just alike they were ascribed to the work of the devil; and books were. printed oa strips ol bamboo; and the Rev. Jesse Glover invented the first American printing press; and the Common Council of New York in solemn resolution offered forty pounds to any printer who would come there and live; and when the Speaker of the House of Parliament, in England, announced with indignation that the public prints had recognised some of their doings;— until in thia day when we have in this country about five hundred phonographers, and about five thousand newspapers printing in the year 1874, oae billion five hundred million copies. The press and the telegraph have gone down to the same great harvest field to reap, and the telegraph says tothe newspaper: * * I'll rake while you bind," and the iron teeth of the telegraph are set down at one end of the harvest field and drawn clean across and the newspaper gathers up the sheaves, s_ttiag one sheaf on the breakfast table in the shape of a morning newspaper, and putting down another sheaf on the tea table in the shape of an evening paper; and that man who neither reads nor takes a newspaper would in the great Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, have been a greater curiosity thau the big engine! What vast progress since the day when Cardinal Wolsey declared that eil her the printing press must go down, or the Church of God must go down, to this time when the press and pulpit are in combination, and a man on the Sabbnth day may preach tho Gospel to five hundred people, while on Monday morning, tbrogh the secular journals, he may preach that same Gospel to three hundred thousand. Notwithstanding all this that you have gained in position and influence, men of the press, how many words of sympathy do you get during the course of a year? Not ten. How many sermODS of practical helpfulness for your profession are preached during the twelvemonths? Not oue. Howroany words of excoriation, and denunciation, and hypercriticism do you get in that same length of time? About ten thousand. If you are a type-setter and get the type in the wrong font, tbe foreman swears at you. If you are a foreman, and cunnot surmount the insurmountable, aod get the " formes "reudy at just the right time, the publisher denounces you. If you are a publisher nnd make misuianngeinen-, then the owners of the p_per will blister you for lack of dividend. If you are an editor an:l announce an unpopular sentiment, all the pens of Christendom are flung et you. If you are a reporter, you shall be held responsible for the indistinctness of public speakers, and for the blunders of type-setters, and for the fact that you cannot work quite so well in the flickering gaslight and after midnight as you do in tbe noon day. If you are a proof-reader, upou you shall come the uniled wrath of editor, reporter, and reader, because you do not properly arrange tbe periods, and the semi-colons, aud the exclamation points, and the asterisks. Plenty of abuse tor you but no sympathy. Having been in a position where I could see tbese things going on from year to year, I have thought that this morning I would preach a sermoa on the trials of the newspaper profession, praying that God may bless the sermon to all those to whose ears or eyes this message may come. One of the great trials of this newspaper profession is the fact that they are compelled to see more of the shams of the world than any other prof ession. Through every newspaper offi.e, day by day, go the weaknesses of the world, . the vanities that want to he puff.d, the revenges that want to be wreaked, all the mieiukes that want to be corrected, all the dull speakers that want to be thought eloquent, all the meauues9 that wants to get its wares noticed gratis in the editorial columns in order to save the tax of the advertising columns, all' the ni .n who want to be set ri^ht who never were right, all the crackbrained philosophers, witb story as long as their hair and as gloomy as their finger-uaiie, in mourning because bereft of soap; all the itinerant b.res who come to stay five minutes and stop un hour. From the editorial and reportorial rooms ali the follies and shams ol the world ure seen day by clay, aud the temptation ia to believe Deiiher in God, man nor woman. It is no surprise to me that in your profession there are come sceptical men. 1 ouly wonder that you believe anything at all. Unless _in editor or a reporter bave in his present or his early home, a model ol earnest character, or he throw himself upon the grace of God, he must make temporal and eternal shipwreck. Another great trial ot the newspaper profession is inadequate compensation. Since the days ot Hsalitt, und Sheridan, and John Milton, and the wailinga ol Grub-street, London, literary toil, with very few exceptions, has not been

properly requited. When Oliver Goldsmith received a frieud in his house, he the author, had to sit on the window, because there was only oae chair. Linuajus sold his splendid work for a ducat. De Foe, the author of two hundred and eighteen volumes, died penniless. The learned Johnson dined behind a screen, because his clothes were too shabby to allow him to dine with the gentlemen who, on the other side of the screen, were applauding his work?. And so 00, down to the present time literary toil is a great struggle for bread. The world seems to have a grudge against a man who, as they say, jjett, his living by his wits; and the day laborer says to the man of literary toil : " You come down here and shove a plane aud hammer a shoe last, and break cobblestones, aud earn an honest living as I do, instead of sitting there in idleness, scribbling ! " But God knows that there are no harder worked people in all the earth than the newspaper people of this country. It is not a matter of hard times; it is characteristic of all times. Men have a better appreciation of that which appeals to tbe stomach than of that whidh appeals to the brain. They have no idea, of tbe immense financial and intellectual exhaustions of the newspaper press. They grumble because they hjave to pay five cents a copy, and wish they had only to pay three, or paying three, they wiah tbey had only to pay one. While Rogers, of the Boston Journal dies worth a million and a half.of dollars, and Swayne, of the; pfhrtadelghia Ledger, dies worth five hundred thousand dollars, and James Gordon Bennett dies worth five million. dollars, the vast majority of newspaper people of this day have a struggle for livelihood; and if in their hardship and; exasperation they sometimes write things wh.c_Pt_.By ought not to write, let these facts be an alleviation. Another great trial of the newspaper profession is the diseased appetite for unhealthy intelligence. Yo 1 blame the newspaper press for giving such prominence to murders and scandals. '■■ Do you Buppose that so many papers would give prominence to thase things if the people did not demand them ? I go to the meal; market of a foreign city, and I find that the butchers hang up on the most conspicuous hooks, meat that is tainted, while the meat that is fresh and savory is put away without any , special care. I come to the conclusion \ tbat the people of that city love tainted : meat. You know very well that if the great mass of people in this country get hold of a newspaper, and there are in it no runaway matches, no brokenup families, no defamation of men in 1 high position, they pronounce the paper j iusipid. They say : "It is shockingly : dull to-night." I believe it is one of the | trials of the newspaper press, that the : people in this country deinaud moral: slush instead of healthy intelligent! food. Now, you are a respectable man, \ an intelligent man, and a paper-comes! into your hand. : You open it aud there: are three, columns of splendidly written' editorial, recomme.nding some moral '■■ sentiment or evolving . some scientific! theory, la the next column there is a! miserable, contemptible divorce case.! Which do you read firs 1 ? You dip into the editoral long enought to say: 4 Well, thai'_ very ably written,", and you read the divorce caee : from the, " long primer" type at the top to'thej "nonpareil" .type at. the bottom, and! then you ask your wifeifshe lias read' it! Oit is ouly a case of supply and! demand. Newspaper men are not fools. j Tbey know what you want and they! give it to you. I believe'- that if tbej Church and the world bought nothing* butpure, honest, healthful newspapers,! nothing but pure honeßf, healthful news-j paper would be published. If you shouldj gather all the the editors and tbe re-j porters of this country in one greati convention, and then ask of them what! kiud of a paper they would prefer toj publish, I believe they would unani-i mously say : '« We would prefer ; 7toj publish an elevating paper." ' ;So longj as there is an iniquitous demand, Jberej will be an iniquitous supply. I make', uo apology for a debauched newspaper,! but I am Baying these things in order to divide the responsibility, between thosej who print and those who read. i