Again Edward Norman looked up.  “I state my honest conviction on this point.  Of course, I do not pass judgment on the Christian men who are editing other kinds of papers today.  But as I interpret Jesus, I believe He would use the influence of His paper to remove the saloon entirely from the political and social life of the nation.”

“8.  Jesus would not issue a Sunday edition.

“9.  He would print the news of the world that people ought to know.  Among the things they do not need to know, and which would not be published, would be accounts of brutal prize-fights, long accounts of crimes, scandals in private families, or any other human events which in any way would conflict with the first point mentioned in this outline.

“10.  If Jesus had the amount of money to use on a paper which we have, He would probably secure the best and strongest Christian men and women to co-operate with him in the matter of contributions.  That will be my purpose, as I shall be able to show you in a few days.

“11.  Whatever the details of the paper might demand as the paper developed along its definite plan, the main principle that guided it would always be the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world.  This large general principle would necessarily shape all the detail.”

Edward Norman finished reading the plan.  He was very thoughtful.

“I have merely sketched a faint outline.  I have a hundred ideas for making the paper powerful that I have not thought out fully as yet.  This is simply suggestive.  I have talked it over with other newspaper men.  Some of them say I will have a weak, namby-pamby Sunday-school sheet.  If I get out something as good as a Sunday-school it will be pretty good.  Why do men, when they want to characterize something as particularly feeble, always use a Sunday-school as a comparison, when they ought to know that the Sunday-school is one of the strongest, most powerful influences in our civilization in this country today?  But the paper will not necessarily be weak because it is good.  Good things are more powerful than bad.  The question with me is largely one of support from the Christian people of Raymond.  There are over twenty thousand church members here in this city.  If half of them will stand by the news its life is assured.  What do you think, Maxwell, of the probability of such support?”

“I don’t know enough about it to give an intelligent answer.  I believe in the paper with all my heart.  If it lives a year, as Miss Virginia said, there is no telling what it can do.  The great thing will be to issue such a paper, as near as we can judge, as Jesus probably would, and put into it all the elements of Christian brains, strength, intelligence and sense; and command respect for freedom from bigotry, fanaticism, narrowness and anything else that is contrary to the spirit of Jesus.  Such a paper will call for the best that human thought and action is capable of giving.  The greatest minds in the world would have their powers taxed to the utmost to issue a Christian daily.”