Press and Pulpit

New Zealand Tablet, 16 July 1908, Page 9

Press and Pulpit

' La pluma,' says the author of ' Don Quixote,' ' es lengua del alma' — 'the pen is the tongue of the soul.' And Longfellow told how, even in his time, that soul-tongue had become a clarion. In our day of linotypes and fast rotary presses the voice of the clarion has been intensified as by a great megaphone, and its sound, like that of the Gospel, is gone out unto the ends of the earth. It has, in fact, almost become a truism to state that, to an extent, the press has usurped the functions that long pertained to the platform and the pulpit. Nowadays there is no cause, however sacred or however strong, that can afford to dispense with the clarion-note of the press. And Bishop Ketteler of Mayence had his finger fair upon the pulse of the time when he once said that if St. Paul were alive to-day he would be a newspaper editor. The earnest preacher does a world of good. Like Goldsmith's pastor of Sweet Auburn,

' He tries each art, reproves each dull delay, Allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way.'

But (says the Bishop of Salford, England), 'no matter how learned and eloquent a preacher might be, no matter what multiplication we have of platforms and pulpits, the spoken word can never reach the same distance as the written word, which penetrates into all classes, to all distances, which remains when the spoken word has long since passed away and been forgotten.' Which moves the 'Catholic Times' to remark: * When the truth of this remark has been realised perhaps we shall begin to cultivate our Catholic press more largely, and make an effort to create amongst our people the habit of reading Catholic journals. The latter is the most important point of all. The creation of that habit is an object worthy of our most eloquent and learned preachers and speakers, and the absence of it is a decided weakness in our position, a flaw in our armor.'