The Value of a Religious Newspaper.
THE Weekly Review, in soliciting the assistance of its readers for promoting its circulation, makes some very suggestive remarks concerning the value of a religious newspaper. Take the newspaper now in your hand, which costs eighteen shillings per annum [the price of the REVIEW is $2], and see if there be not a standard of value which will show up the amazing cheapness of the article. There are forty columns on an average filled up with reading matter after deducting the necessary space for advertising. About one-half of this reading matter consists of carefully made selections from what is already in print somewhere, but not generally accessible. We mention this as an item in its value. The very selection of a paragraph, an article, or an item of news is a guarantee that it is at least worth reading. Some reason must exist for its being chosen by the editor in preference to others that have been passed by. However perfunctorily this department may be managed, every selected article has at least to be read and pronounced upon. In fact the selections in any judicious paper embrace the richest thoughts of the ripest minds in all ages, and the experience of the best men. Those little paragraphs, which seem to have been chosen only to fill just so many inches of space, often condense the most important facts and truths. Let the reader examine the successive issues of his newspaper, and he will wonder at the range which it takes over the whole domain of productive thought. Here will be a brief exposition of some important principle; there some archaeological discovery; here a happy contribution on some great truth; now a strong polemic against infidelity and error; then an encouraging article on the progress and triumph of our faith. But it is useless to particularize, since the largest enumeration would fail to be exhaustive. We are amazed to discover how the newspaper brings the whole world of science and philosophy under contribution, to advance the knowledge and promote the interests of the reader. We admit that much of this is hastily written. Grant in all its paths the melancholy complaint of poor Hugh Miller about “the shavings of his mind rolling off dry and crisp upon the floor.” After we have made the largest reduction which even a captious criticism may propose, there is a priceless value in the matter in the newspaper which we cannot estimate. We shall often find the best thoughts of living men, carefully considered, and used by them in other and larger forms, but all the better for being compressed into the terse expressions which a newspaper demands. Often there are discussed those profound principles which underlie all the activity and life of the age to which we belong, and we are thus brought into sympathy with the ideas which are ruling the world. We make a great mistake if we throw aside our paper after a hurried glance at its contents. That family which receives not its weekly newspaper misses the cheapest and most efficient educational instrument that can be found. Our deep conviction is that a good newspaper is the cheapest and best vehicle for disseminating truth that human wisdom has devised. We are only beginning to discover in this country the power for good or evil possessed by the press. It has a distinct function from that exercised by the pulpit, and might be used as a mighty power for good.