The Abominations of Modern SocietyTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
The Abominations of Modern Society
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Conduct of life
That man has a shrivelled heart who begrudges the five pennies he
pays to the newsboy who brings the world to his feet. There are
to-day connected with the editorial and reportorial corps of newspaper
establishments men of the highest culture and most unimpeachable
morality, who are living on the most limited stipends, martyrs to
the work to which they feel themselves called. While you sleep in the
midnight hours, their pens fly, and their brains ache in preparing
the morning intelligence. Many of them go, unrested and unappreciated,
their cheeks blanched and their eyes half quenched with midnight
work, toward premature graves, to have the "proof-sheet" of their
life corrected by Divine mercy, glad at last to escape the perpetual
annoyances of a fault-finding public, and the restless, impatient cry
for "more copy."
"Nations are to be born in a day." Will this great inrush come from
personal presence of missionary or philanthropist? No. When the time
comes for that grand demonstration I think the press in all the earth
will make the announcement, and give the call to the nations. As at
some telegraphic centre, an operator will send the messages, north and
south, and east and west, San Francisco and Heart's Content catching
the flash at the same instant; so, standing at some centre to which
shall reach all the electric wires that cross the continent and
undergird the sea, some one shall, with the forefinger of the right
hand, click the instrument that shall thrill through all lands, across
all islands, under all seas, through all palaces, into all dungeons,
and startle both hemispheres with the news, that in a few
moments shall rush out from the ten thousand times ten thousand
printing-presses of the earth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good-will toward men!"
You see, therefore, that, in the plain words to be written, I have no
grudges to gratify against the newspaper press. Professional men are
accustomed to complain of injustice done them, but I take the censure
I have sometimes received and place it on one side the scales, and the
excessive praise, and place it on the other side, and they balance,
and so I consider I have had simple justice. But we are all aware that
there is a class of men in towns and cities who send forth a baleful
influence from their editorial pens. There are enough bad newspapers
weekly poured out into the homes of our country to poison a vast
population. In addition to the home manufacture of iniquitous sheets,
the mail-bags of other cities come in gorged with abominations. New
York scoops up from the sewers of other cities, and adds to its own
newspaper filth. And to-night, lying on the tables of this city, or
laid away on the shelf, or in the trunk, for more private perusal, are
papers the mere mention of the names of which would send a blush to
the cheek, and make the decent and Christian world cry out: "God save
the city!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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