tion of
the _Golden Legend_. But these saints and martyrs were making a
beginning; we are fighting to keep what we have won, and it would be a
huge failure on our part if we could keep nothing of it, but had to
begin all over again.

The business of the press, then, at this present crisis, is to keep the
cause for which we are fighting clearly before us, and this it has done
well; also, because we do not fight best in blinders, to tell us all
that can be known of the facts of the situation, and this it has done
not so well.

The power of the newspapers is that most people read them, and that many
people read nothing else. Their weakness is that they have to sell or
cease to be, so that by a natural instinct of self-preservation they
fall back on the two sure methods whereby you can always capture the
attention of the public. Any man who is trying to say what he thinks,
making full allowance for all doubts and differences, runs the risk of
losing his audience. He can regain their attention by flattering them or
by frightening them. Flattery and fright, the one following the other
from day to day, and often from paragraph to paragraph, is a very large
part of the newspaper reader's diet. If he is a sane and busy man, he is
not too much impressed by either. He is not mercurial enough for the
quick changes of an orator's or journalist's fancy, whereby he is called
on, one day, to dig the German warships like rats out of their harbour,
and, not many days later, to spend his last shilling on the purchase of
the last bullet to shoot at the German invader. He knows that this is
such stuff as dreams are made of. He knows also that the orator or
journalist, after calling on him for these achievements, goes home to
dinner. No great harm is done, just as no great harm is done by bad
novels. But an opportunity is lost; the press and the platform might do
more than they do to strengthen us and inform us, and help forward our
cause.

I name the press and the platform together because they are essentially
the same thing. Journalism is a kind of talk. The press, it is fair to
say, is ourselves; and every people, it may truly be said, has the press
that it deserves. But reading is a thing that we do chiefly for
indulgence and pleasure in our idle time; and the press falls in with
our mood, and supplies us with what we want in our weaker and lazier
moments. No responsible man, with an eager and active mind, spends much
of his time on