THE KEY DE WITT TALMAGE ON NEWSPAPERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 917, 14 February 1882, Page 3

THE KEY DE WITT TALMAGE ON NEWSPAPERS.

The popular American preacher, T. De Witt Talmage, recently gave from the pulpit his views on the secular Press. His text was :—“And the wheels were full of eyes.” Ezekiel x., 12 ; and “For the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or hear some new things.” Acts xvii., 21. The preacher alluded*! o the antiquity of the newspaper, and said that the first to answer the cry “ What is the news 1” were in China, where 1000 years ago, in Pekin, a journal was issued on silk. After narrating the establishment of the first newspaper in Boston, in 1691 and in Philadelphia in 1784, the speaker added that the newspaper did not suddenly spring up on the world, hut came gradually, The circular begot the pamphlet, the pamphlet the quarterly, the quarterly the monthly, the monthly the weekly, the weekly the daily. But just as soon as the newspaper began to demonstrate ts power it was shackled. “ Useless! Useless ! !. Useless i!! ” ex-

- claims! Talmage. “ There is nothing that despotism hates as it does a newspaper. Even the first Napoiecn said that the only safe place to keep editors was in prison. If I had to choose between a government without the newspaper, and a newspaper ’ without the government, I would choose the latter A filthy newspaper is a curse, but a good newspaper is a blessing. Thank God that the wheels are full of eyes. A good newspaper is the grandest temporal blessing that God has given this country.’ - Mr Talmage next alluded to the prevailing impression that •“ anybody can edit a newspaper.” Said he : “ The theory that everybod y can make a newspaper a sucess is often disastrous. Three or four fortunes are often swallowed up before people are convinced that brains are required to conduct a journal. Although there are 700.0 dailies only thirty-six are half a century old. The average of newspaper life is five years Most of them die of cholera infantum. An editor must be an encyclopedia. More qualities are needed as an editor than in any .other business. 1 say this to save men from bankruptcy. Men who think, that without experience, they can run a newspaper, have softening of the brain Such a man had better throw his pocket book into hjs wife’s lap and rush up to the the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum.— (Laughter.) The newspaper is the tunnel to bring the waters of knowledge to the people. The Bible, Webster’s Dictionary, and a good newspaper : these fit men for this life and the next.” Mr Talmage advocated a personal conduct for newspapers He said that many men wrote brilliant articles, but theiv names were never known He believed that articles of merit be signed by the authors name, and v dieted that such a course would yet be, - adopted. “In that time,” said he, “ thef| - will get credit for all the good they write. Suppose a man’s character is now assailed who is responsible ? It is «once»led in the editorial ‘ we.’ He further advocated an repoitorial department in colleges and institutions of learning as a means of fitting men for positions on newspapers.