Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-05-22
Presbyterians Report Work
in Foreign Lands.
PRES. ROOSEVELT TALKS
He Says Great Work Must Be Rough
President Pays Tribute to strenu-
Gus Doors of the Word-centennia
of Organized Missionary Effort.

New York, May 21.-The general as
sembly of the Presbyterian church
gave up the early part of today's ses
sion to the consideration of foreign
missions. The reports of the standing
committee on foreign missions de-
clared last year was the best one in
the history Of the Presbyterian foreign
missions. The board has been able to
get through the year without debt and
a number of persons in heather lands
had become members of the church.
The total receipts for the year were
Sl,12S.600 as against $99S,325 the year
before.
Roosevelt Talks.
Last night President Theodore
Roosevelt delivered an address to the
general assembly in the interest of
home missions. The audience packed
Carnegie Hall to the doors.
The Presidents Address.
The President spoke as follows:
1T is a pleasure on behalf of the
people of the United States to bid you
welcome on this hundredth anniver-
Z sary of the beginning of organized
home missionary work by the Presby-
terrain church. In one sense, of course,
all fervent and earnest church work
is part of home missionary work.
Every earnest and jealous believer,
every man or woman who is doer of
/ the word and not hearer only, is a
lifelong missionary in his or her field
Of labor-a missionary by precept,
and by what is a thousandfold more
than precept, practice. Every such
believer eXerts influence on those
within reach, somewhat by word and
infinitely more through the ceaseless
yet well-nigh unseen, pressure, all
the stronger when it's exercise is I'M
conscious, of example, of broad, low
ing charitable neighborliness.
But tonight we celebrate hundred
years of missionary work, done not in
cidentally, but with set purposes; a
hundred years of earnest effort to
spread abroad the gospel to lay deep
the moral foundation upon which true
national greatness must rest The
century that has closed has seen the
conquest of this continent by our peo-
plC.ss. IL SCL4uCl q SollIluSiI lOuSu
work All really great work is rough
insithe doing. though it may seem
smooth enough to those who look back
upon it, or who gaze upon it from afar.
Toughness is unavoidable part of the
deed. We display but patience with
those who, sitting at ease in their
own homes, delight to exercise quer-
elous and censorious part of Judgment
upon their brethren, who, whatever
their shortcomings, are doing strong
mems work as they bring the light of
civilization into the worlds dark
places. The criticism of those who
live softly, remote from the strife, is
of little value; but it would be difficult
to overestimate the value of the mis-
sionary work of those who go out to
share the hardship, and, while sharing
it, to wage war against the myriad
forms of brutality.
st is such missionary work that pre-
vents the pioneers from sinking peril
ously near the level of the savagery
against which they contend. Without
it the conquest of this content would
have little but an animal side
t Without it the pioneers fierce and
rude virtues and sombre faults would
have been left unlit by the flame OF
pure and loving aspiration. Without
1t the life of this country would have
been life of inconceivably hard and
barren materialism. Because of it.
i . =