Show MINiSTERS TALK O I SA1 S PAPR Some Recognize in Them a Great Power for Good POWER OF THE PEESS VIVIDLY SHOWN SUNDAY PAPER SAVES MANY SOUTHS FROM TORPOR Rev Richard Dana ThinUi the Sunday Sun-day Iapers Are XVeelle si ml That the Moral Effect of lost oJ Them is Decidedly Had Too JIaiiy Rely on Vulgarity For WitBa nas Idea of a Sunday Vnper Rev Curry Rather Agrees With Him Boston Nov 14The Sunday which engaged Newspapers was the topic hicb gaged the attention of a large attendance attend-ance at the session of the Episcopal Church Congress at Music hal this evening Bishop Lawrence presided The first speaker introduced was Rev Robert A Holland D D of St Louis He said in substance that Sunday newspapers were as diverse as their number and no word that characterized character-ized one would exactly describe another an-other In a masterly manner he showed how the neuLiaper of the present day was a searchlight thrown into every searhlgt hiding place placelol cr of the P sIs s-Is condemnation turns crowns to death caps Many a rich scairp fears it who does not fear the civil laws He knows not the day nor the hour when upon some liason some orgie some swindling the newspaper will come asa as-a thief in the night and strip off his Talse reputation and wrap him m Shame that will burn the very flesh from his bones Virtue does feats and whenever its deeds are featly the newspaper worthy oil lthe paper notes them as wortty 01 t Worlds eye What of the day in the seven called the day of rest Shall the worlds consciousness con-sciousness sleap then or be mol than ever awake For myself I must hold in truth to its daya day of sun and the observance of it to be the holiest which is sunny most olive tvitn light it is also a Because it is a holy day n holiday It bhls men feast not fast inolkla The Sunday newspaper without detaining detain-ing the fen Who seek the highest heaven heav-en caves millions of poor souls from listless stupor miions ignorant pastimes by drawing Chair interest in toe world s than daily life to an ampler reading to ini laly lfe 11 book work days r rmitt I is their one their museum their art gallery An Important Institution Rev George Curry D D presented the next paper He said in part It goes < without saying that the secular sec-ular newspaper is one of our most important im-portant institutions it is necessary to Insttutons the present type of civilization it is thus indispensable to free government thus it Is so much so that you may safely institution yet say it is a quasidivine insttuton the Sunday paper occupies us with our days interest It oens the stores for us and puts us in the midst of the markets and takes us frequently in column after column through scenes of sin and horror I is hard to see how people pan justify jus-tify the immediate prefacing o their prayers and the holy communion by partaking an hour before of the world the flesh and the devil through the columns of the Sunday papers Rev Alexander McKay Smith of Washington then spoke Richard Dana the next speaker to support his claim as to the needlessness needless-ness of Sunday newspapers used the summary of a particular paper showing show-ing the matter provided for the edification edifica-tion of its readers A Gloomy View For purposes of comparison Mr Dana said he had obtained twentyone papers from the cities of Boston New York Philadelphia Baltimore Chicago Chica-go Cincinnati St Louis Louisville and San Francisco What first impressed him was the size of these journals the average of them being in reading matter mat-ter alone equal to one and onehalt times the contents of the New Testament Testa-ment The illustrations of the papers were for the most part crude and inartistic inart-istic The moral effect of five of them was bats and two very doubtful Only two papers out of the twentjone had anything like a serious bit of church reading One of these had two sand s-and a half headed Church Circles containing an original hymn a short prayer or collect and an address and a very good one too on bravery This constituted about the onethousandth part of the paper The characteristics of the Sunday papers Mr Dana had examined was a belittling of subjects treated as if to bring them dawn to the intelligence of inferior minds There were undoubtedly articles here and there on interesting topics of the day and occasionally well treated arti cles were seen but in other papers but n small part of the whole and many a reader trying to confine his attention to the best articles alone would find himself le into reading many things to theloss of his time brains and mental men-tal selfrespect Then too the man who takes the Sunday paper just for the purpose of glancing at a few items must ixmember that he is taking into Ibis home with the illustrations the headlines and the alluring stories The weekday j per is usually lead on the way to or from the office or store but the Sunday paper is read in the home In concluding Mr Dana said So far I have spoken of the Sunday paper only as it is at present As L > what it might b made in the future if millions of papers taken into millions of families on Sundays could give the news ia a shore and dignified manner with same well thoughcout discussion of the Interesting topics of the day stories of good style and elevating tendency adapted to the general reader helpful literature and suggestions fca reading good poatry and a fair variety of what is at least not harmful and altogether about onethird the present length then though I oaJieve most of us would be better without i still It would be a g eat improvement over our present state of affairs and perhaps in some families would possibly be a real benefit The present condition of the papers is lowering not elevating Every foreigner coming to this country observes the fact and every true man be he American or foreign born laments la-ments it Sunday Paper Champion R HaJIP liolof irinneepolis championed the cause of the Sunday neWspiipsrs in an able manner and Rev W Kirkus D D of Jersey City was the closing speaker in a humorous manner criticizing the speakers who had spoken against the Sunday newspaper news-paper Tomorrow mornings session will be L I < r devoted to a discussion of religious orders church in the Protestant Episcopal I |