I
published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled _The Church and the
Press_, showing that the churches might almost monopolize the supply of
books, and become the teachers and the rulers of the nations, I said,
"If the Church at large would do its duty, every dark place on earth
might be visited, and the seeds of truth and righteousness sown in every
part of the globe in a few years." With regard to our own Connexion I
said, "Our Magazine and Book-room, which ought to be promoting the
intellectual and religious improvement of the Connexion and the world,
are doing just nothing at all, or next to nothing. The leading articles
of the Magazine are among the dullest and most useless things ever
printed. The Book-room, which has capital enough to publish thirty or
forty new books a year, does not issue one. An institution which ought
to be filling the Connexion and the country generally with the light and
blessings of Christianity, and which is capable of being made a blessing
to the world at large, is allowed to 'stand there all the day idle.'"
I then proposed, as a means of stimulating the Book Committee and the
Editor of the Magazine to greater activity, that I and my friends should
be allowed to publish a periodical, and to establish a Book-room, at our
own expense.
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