“I am a member of the church myself, and bear an honorable name therein; but I am unwilling to be classed with a set of bigots who would rob us of our personal liberties and, if possible, place all kinds of restrictive measures about our inalienable rights. I stand for liberty first of all, and tyranny never. Why should one dictate to me what I shall read on Sunday? I look at my Bible more than one hundred times a year, and read a Sunday newspaper only fifty-two times. It was a happy change that started the regular press of the country to yield seven issues a week, and thereby send forth additional rays of enlightenment to a people who are in sad need of all that they can get to increase their intelligence.
“According to my opinion there are so many practices that are worse than reading a Sunday newspaper that Satan must surely be annoyed to see a man engaged in such a harmless pursuit. Happy, indeed, would we all be if the—-”
The two companions passed on and heard no more, until they left this hall and paid a brief visit to Hall No. 38 devoted to “_The Best Way of Conducting a Religious Newspaper_.”
There were very few editors present, but the debate amongst them was vigorous and, at times, very contentious, much to the interest and enjoyment of the spectators.
The question being discussed was: “_How Can We Best Increase the Circulation of the Church Paper?_”
After a few exchanges of opinions, the chairman of the meeting advocated, with grave dignity, that all religious newspapers should be more conformed to the tastes and the level of a hungry world. “There is too great a contrast,” said he, “between the mental condition of the laymen and the high, cold tone of the average religious paper. Let the editor of a church paper do as did his Master Jesus Christ,—come down to the level of the world, where he can reach the heart and the ear of the common people of whom the masses are composed. No paper should be so holy that it cannot adapt itself to the development of the natural as well as the spiritual part of man.”
These remarks were warmly applauded.
Next an editor of a religious paper arose, and spoke with decision:
“I want to be as liberal and broad-minded as God would have me be. I came to this hall with doubtful steps. I cannot say that I have profited thereby. My mind is at variance with the chairman of this meeting. He says: ‘All religious papers should be more conformed to the tastes of the hungry world.’ Let me ask, with all honesty, what is the taste of the hungry world? Is it not a terribly perverted taste, a hungering for the black sins of death? I contend that it is the work of a good paper to be a beacon light, even though it shines from a lofty light-house. It may thereby shine out farther and wider. Away with the doctrine of devils that would pervert the truth and send with merciless fling——”
At this juncture the speaker was seized by an officer who came running in at the ringing of a bell and arrested the editor on the charge of “disturbing the peace,” which, the chairman declared, was due to a diseased state of his mind.