But the Doctor can bear no rival; he must reign supreme. John Childs, of Bungay, and Dr. Adam Thomson, of Coldstream, destroyed the Bible monopoly; but Dr. Campbell had the command of the press, and took the credit to himself. An eminent publisher started a newspaper and a religious magazine, and the Doctor looked coldly on him till he sold the newspaper and gave up the magazine. When the ‘Anti-State-Church Society’ was formed, the Doctor was one of its members, but it had a ruling spirit who was not the pastor of the Tabernacle, and the Doctor’s zeal soon died away. The Doctor also professes to be with the Teetotalers; but they don’t all go to Bolt Court, and the Doctor damns them with faint praise. If the Congregationalists grow restive, it matters little; they have no chance against him; they have been delivered over to the Doctor, body
and soul. It is in vain they struggle to be free. Will the Doctor publish what would militate against himself? Will the Doctor withhold from publishing when it gives him the chance of an easy triumph? Of course, a man is a fool to enter into a controversy with a newspaper editor. The editor is omnipotent; you must give in. If it is folly to kick against the pricks, it is the height of folly to encounter the editor of a newspaper. Hence the Doctor’s triumphs have been easy; but they have been due more to the weakness of his foes than to any strength of his own.
As to the utter weakness of the Doctor in execution, let us turn to the ‘British Banner.’ A man may be heavy, rambling, in the pulpit; but with his pen he may be quite the reverse. The ‘Banner,’ when under the Doctor’s care, was a failure. That was to have been a paper to Christianize the world; to win over the discontented infidelity and chartism of our age; to pervade the land with a living Christian faith: for this, Doctor Campbell had a support such as was never given to man before. The Doctor told us that there was an infidel press; that that infidel press circulated by tens of
thousands; and that it behoved Christian men to try and arrest such a state of things. Christian men believed the Doctor, and invested him with tremendous power. And what has been the consequence? That the world has a fresh sectarian paper, and that the readers of the infidel press remain just where they were. Is this a success?
Take another test. The London weekly papers exchange with the country ones; the consequence is, many of the leaders appearing in the former are reprinted in the latter. This is about the best test you can have of what a newspaper is. The editors of the country papers are very fair representatives of the intelligence of the age. What they reprint must be generally good. You would expect this to be so, and it actually is the case. The papers which have the highest reputation for talent and clearness of view are precisely the papers most quoted from. But who ever saw a reprint of a leader from the ‘British Banner’? If the leaders in the ‘Banner’ were as distinguished for the vigour of language, for the correctness of their views, they would be reprinted as extensively as the papers the ‘Banner’ was intended to supersede. If the Doctor’s aim were good, if it were desirable to start a paper
that should be Christian, and yet popular, so that it should circulate everywhere, the Doctor’s failure has been complete; for he has not only not done so, but he has hindered the men who would.
Like most vituperative men, Dr. Campbell is terribly thin-skinned. You may praise, but you must not blame. He seems conscious that honest criticism would tear him to shreds and tatters. We heard of a Scottish paper in the habit of giving pulpit portraits. It was expected the Doctor would be served up in course of time. The Doctor let it be understood that, if anything of the kind were done, he would write the paper into the Broomielaw: and the matter dropped.
The last time I heard the Doctor he was preaching about the Chinese. He told us, what most of us knew well before, that China was a very large country, that it had a wall eighteen hundred miles long, that Confucius lived three or four hundred years before Christ; but there was one thing he did not tell us—that the Chinese call a man of talk, and swagger, and rhodomontade, a paper tiger. But perhaps the Doctor was wise, as comparisons are odious. After all, that such a man, with his fulsome eulogies and violent
invective, should have come to be a power, is a melancholy fact—a fact indicating that Dissent will have to undergo a very formidable purifying process before men of taste, and intellect, and learning will be found willing to join its ranks.