Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Jesus Christ -- Influence -- Fiction
"That one factor is the Christian element in Raymond. Say the NEWS
has lost heavily from the dropping off of people who do not care for
a Christian daily, and from others who simply look upon a newspaper
as a purveyor of all sorts of material to amuse or interest them,
are there enough genuine Christian people in Raymond who will rally
to the support of a paper such as Jesus would probably edit? or are
the habits of the church people so firmly established in their
demand for the regular type of journalism that they will not take a
paper unless it is stripped largely of the Christian and moral
purpose? I may say in this fellowship gathering that owing to recent
complications in my business affairs outside of my paper I have been
obliged to lose a large part of my fortune. I had to apply the same
rule of Jesus' probable conduct to certain transactions with other
men who did not apply it to their conduct, and the result has been
the loss of a great deal of money. As I understand the promise we
made, we were not to ask any question about 'Will it pay?' but all
our action was to be based on the one question, 'What would Jesus
do?' Acting on that rule of conduct, I have been obliged to lose
nearly all the money I have accumulated in my paper. It is not
necessary for me to go into details. There is no question with me
now, after the three weeks' experience I have had, that a great many
men would lose vast sums of money under the present system of
business if this rule of Jesus was honestly applied. I mention my
loss here because I have the fullest faith in the final success of a
daily paper conducted on the lines I have recently laid down, and I
had planned to put into it my entire fortune in order to win final
success. As it is now, unless, as I said, the Christian people of
Raymond, the church members and professing disciples, will support
the paper with subscriptions and advertisements, I cannot continue
its publication on the present basis."
Virginia asked a question. She had followed Mr. Norman's confession
with the most intense eagerness.
"Do you mean that a Christian daily ought to be endowed with a large
sum like a Christian college in order to make it pay?"
"That is exactly what I mean. I had laid out plans for putting into
the NEWS such a variety of material in such a strong and truly
interesting way that it would more than make up for whatever was
absent from its columns in the way of un-Christian matter. But my
plans called for a very large output of money. I am very confident
that a Christian daily such as Jesus would approve, containing only
what He would print, can be made to succeed financially if it is
planned on the right lines. But it will take a large sum of money to
work out the plans."
"How much, do you think?" asked Virginia quietly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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