The Secular Press and Religion.

Southland Times, Issue 133357, 20 January 1896, Page 3

The Secular Press and Religion.

TO THE EDITOE. Sir, — There is one marked feature in regard to the matter served out to the public in the daily and weekly newspapers which can scarcely escape observation and that is the almost total absence of news of a religious character. lam not referring to your paper specially, but to newspapers generally. The requirements of the sporting, the commercial, and the pleasure-loving portions of the community are duly and amply provided for, but so far as my observation goes the religious portion are totally neglected in the matter of news and reading matter generally. That a crack batsman made so many runs in a match, that a certain horse won the Derby, that a certain play ran so many nights with crowded houses, that a man fell from bis horse and broke his leg, that wool is up, mutton down, and wheat flat is duly notified with copious detail, bnt that in a certain place a number of earnest workers had banded together to raise the fallen and rescue the perishing, that as the result of their labours a number of persons bad been brought out of spiritual death into eternal life ; that a servant of God in a certain place had been successful in reviving a cold and formal church and had by the infection of his own enthusiasm made it a centre of intense moral and religious activity— such news is only conspicuous by its absence. The professedly, certainly, and I would hope the really religious portion of the community is not in a small minority. Then why should they be treated in an exceptional manner and the kind of news which they desiderate be tabooed in the newspapers ? Have they not as subscribers an equal right to consideration with those above specified ? Now I know what you are thinking and going to say. You will say that there are papers published specially to meet the requirements of those who desiderate religious news, let them subscribe to one of these. In reply to which I would observe : first, that there is no such paper published in Invercargtll and most of the smaller centres of population ; second, all of these papers are of a denominational character, and many prople do not require denominational, but general news ; third, your observation will equally apply to other classes of the community, and " what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.' I have not writtt n this by way of complaint, but because I, like Rosa Dartle, roally "want to know" the why and the wherefore, and whether there is really any good reason to be advanced for the exclusion of religious news from the newspapers.— l am, &c, Enquirer. 18th Jan.