The most powerful instrument that a political party can use for the accomplishment of its ends, whether good or bad, is the press, and therefore this should be placed under the control of moral and religious conviction. A press which violates the sanctity of truth and lends itself to unrighteous uses, is a disgrace to the community which gives it support, and which cannot long endure its presence without feeling its disastrous influence. If men sit beneath the shade of the poison-tree, they cannot but inhale its noxious atmosphere. The press should be consecrated to intelligence and virtue; but if, instead of the service which it may render to the highest interests of man, it condescends to become the pander of his prejudices and the slave of his passions, to do the scavenger-work of a party in the unclean ways of falsehood and calumny, it deserves only scorn and reprobation. An independent press is a blessing to a land; but a vagabond or a hireling press is a nuisance. The independence of the press! much talked about, but little exemplified, and probably little understood. It does not consist in recklessness of assertion, or violence of language, in gross misrepresentation, and grosser assault on character; but in maintaining itself above the fluctuations of opinion in the serene heaven of truth and principle, in trying political theories and measures by the standard of a pure morality, in breasting the current of popular or party sentiment when it runs towards evil, and in advocating the right though it have few to speak on its behalf. Why cannot we have a press that shall exhibit this character? Ought it not to exist in a Christian nation? Now, with honorable exceptions, our public journals give no evidence that the conception of such a character was ever entertained, or at best indicate that it is regarded as an ideal excellence, about which practical men need not trouble themselves. The tone of a large portion of the political press on the eve or during the progress of an election--and in our country but little time falls without this description--is unchristian, immoral, barbarous. Strange as it may sound, I believe that the words with which the birth of the Redeemer was celebrated by the heavenly host, "Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, goodwill among men," express the aims which the press should adopt and the spirit in which its labours should be pursued.