and society is
dishonored, and God defied, and the doom of the destroyed opens before
you--get money! Though the melted gold be poured upon your naked,
blistered, and consuming soul--get money! Get money! It will do you
good when it begins to eat like a canker! It will solace the pillow
of death, and soothe the pangs of an agonized eternity! Though in the
game thou dost stake thy soul, and lose it forever--get money!
The bad newspaper hesitates not to assault Christianity and its
disciples. With what exhilaration it puts in capitals, that fill
one-fourth of a column, the defalcation of some agent of a benevolent
society! There is enough meat in such a carcass of reputation to gorge
all the carrion-crows of an iniquitous printing-press. They put upon
the back of the Church all the inconsistencies of hypocrites--as
though a banker were responsible for all the counterfeits upon his
institution! They jeer at religion, and lift up their voices until all
the caverns of the lost resound with the howl of their derision. They
forget that Christianity is the only hope for the world, and that, but
for its enlightenment, they would now be like the Hottentots, living
in mud hovels, or like the Chinese, eating rats.
What would you think of a wretch who, during a great storm, while the
ship was being tossed to and fro on the angry waves, should climb up
into the light-house and blow out the light? And what do you think of
these men, who, while all the Christian and the glorious institutions
of the world are being tossed and driven hither and thither, are
trying to climb up and put out the only light of a lost world?
The bad newspaper stops not at publishing the most damaging and
unclean story. The only question is: "Will it pay?" And there are
scores of men who, day by day, bring into the newspaper offices
manuscripts for publication which unite all that is pernicious; and,
before the ink is fairly dry, tens of thousands are devouring with
avidity the impure issue. Their sensibilities deadened, their sense
of right perverted, their purity of thought tarnished, their taste
for plain life despoiled--the printing-press, with its iron foot, hath
dashed their life out! While I speak, there are many people, with
feet on the ottoman, and the gas turned on, looking down on the
page, submerged, mind and soul, in the perusal of this God-forsaken
periodical literature; and the last Christian mother will have put
the hands of the little ch
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