largely moral essays. No notices of the theaters were admitted in the news-columns. Rigidly excluded were all advertisements of the theaters; also under the ban were the advertisements of oyster-cellars, now commonly known as saloons. After sus- taining a heavy loss the promoters of the religious North Ameri- can sold the paper for practically the value of the type, press, etc., to George R. Graham and Alexander Cummings. These men, both able writers, succeeded in introducing new life into the newspaper because of their enterprise in getting the news first. After abandoning the original design of the paper they secured as its editor Robert T. Conrad, who had already won distinction as a jurist, a poet, a dramatist, and author.
. From August, 1860, to December, 1861, The Sun, of New York, was made over into a daily religious newspaper. As the story of this experiment has never been told, it might be well to record this interesting experiment in the present chapter. An able, but fanatical, newspaper man, laboring under the delusion that he acted under the direction and guidance of the Lord in answer to prayer, conceived the idea that he should publish a daily religious newspaper. Having no funds himself, he inserted in one of the daily papers an advertisement in which he sought the assistance of some one of means to assist in such a religious enterprise. The advertisement attracted the attention of the Reverend Archibald M. Morrisson, a clergyman living in Phila- delphia. The latter was the son of a Reverend Dr. Stone, of the Episcopal Church, Brookline, Massachusetts. His mother before her marriage had been courted by a wealthy gentleman who lived and died a bachelor, but who later willed all his property, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, to the son of Dr. Stone on the condition that he adopt the name of the testator. Morrisson was a man of fine quality, but thought that the rather peculiar character in which he had received his good fortune imposed upon him an obligation to use it in some reli- gious way. The advertisement just mentioned suggested such a religious use. He answered the advertisement and the two men after a prayer meeting decided that the Lord needed a news-
