It must be recognized with equal frankness that certain relig ious denominations are everywhere advocating the use of the press as a means of increasing their membership , their church attendance , and their Sunday collections. Church activities are made known not only through news items, but through paid advertisements; clergymen not only do not avoid but seek the
interview ; the bestowal of church printing becomes an important
feature in the alliance between church and press ; the camera is a medium of connection ,and illustrations of church buildings , group pictures of church associations, and press reproductions of illus
trated posters all cement the union .21 Even a church " rose service " is made possible through the promise of a daily paper to pay for the roses and the mutual advantage follows in the first
page publicity given both donor and recipient.22 The alliance of Church and press is notweakened when the demand is made that the Sunday -school lessons be removed from the sectarian press because their editor is a pacifist.23 At two points the press and the Church have been antagonistic , - the press has upheld and the Church has opposed the Sunday edition and the comic supplement. The present result of the
controversy apparently shows that the Church has lessened its opposition to the Sunday issues of morning papers, while many
representatives of the press have been disposed to yield to the opposition to the comic supplement and to substitute for it The sermons of T . De W . Talmage had similarly wide circulation
through the secular press , as had those of H . W . Beecher, Joseph Cook and other notables of the pulpit .
De Witt McMurray, under the title Religion of a News-Paper Man , has
collected the “ religio -philosophical editorials which appeared in the Sunday issues of The Dallas Morning News and The Galveston Daily News.”
An earlier, but very eccentric series of sermons was published in theNew York Sunday Mercury under the title of Short Patent Sermons by “ Dow , Jr. " They were collected in book form and in 1857 reached a four- volume edition .
2 The extent of the use the Church makes of the press is indicated in Charles Stelzle, Principles of Successful Church Advertising; W . B . Ashley comp., Church Advertising ; C . F . Reisner, Church Publicity. It is significant that Roman Catholics and Hebrews advertise their charities but not their religious services. The advertisements of Protestant
churches are rather of the social side of the church as an organization than of the religious beliefs held .
22 C . F . Reisner , Church Publicity , p . 282. 23 See the controversy in the daily press , Mar
