an open proclamation of war against all the religious newspapers of every sort whatsoever. It was an internecine war to be continued henceforth without intermission throughout his life.” The war grew out of the habit of the religious press of stating the doctrines of its own denomination and attacking those of others. Maurice was ever ready to be the champion of a cause he thought had been misrepresented even if he did not agree with it himself. He objected to the anonymous attacks of the religious press, and others as well as Maurice realized the lack of effort on the part of the religious press to state truthfully the actual nature of the views they were opposing. Maurice's “ battle against what he believed to be the immoral and godless domination of anonymous religious journalism , for long an all but solitary fight, was solitary no longer," 58 for many, both defendants and opponents, rallied to his support in demanding a fair interpretation of the views of adversaries.
The wars of the religious press in America have been no less vigorous, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy have from the beginning had their pronounced champions. The Panoplist, or The Christian 's Armory, “ conducted by an association of friends to evangelical truth ,” announced in its first number, July, 1805, that nothing could ever be admitted into it " manifestly inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Reformation as recognized in the articles of churches of evangelical faith.”
The religious press also illustrates the changing tendencies towards early extreme representation of small factions, later protests against rigid points of view on the part of the press, and still later re -groupings that give opportunity for a wider horizon.59 The protests of both Lord Acton and of Maurice against the religious press of their day in England were the same in character that later impelled Harvey W . Scott on the Western coast of America to protest against the rigid sectarianism of still another denomination. The religious press through all of these and
68 F . Maurice , Life of Fredrick Denison Maurice, II , pp . 368 ,369, 370.
59 " The easiest way to kill the true spirit of a religious journal is to make it the mere bulletin of the denominational organizations." - Christian Register , September 4 , 1919, 98: 842.
A summary of “ The Religious Press ” is given in the Dublin Review , July , 1881, 37 : 1 - 29. It is based on The Newspaper Press Directory for 1881.
