The progressive farmer., 1903-06-23
JOHN WESLEY AND OTHER METHODIST
PIONEERS.
President Roosevelt Their Heroism and Their Mes
sage to Our Own Times
PIONEERS.

| ration of the two hundredth anniversary of his
birth. America, moreover, has a peculiar pro-
prietary claim Wesleyas memory for it is on
our continent that the Methodist Church has
received its greatest development In the days
of our colonial life Methodism was not on the
whole great factor in the religious and social
life of the people. The Congregationalists were
supreme throughout most of New England; the
Episcopalians on the seaboard from New York
southwark while the Presbyterian congregations
~were most numerous along what was then the
entire Western frontier; and the Quaker, Catho-
lie, and Dutch Reformed Churches each had de-
velopments in special places. The great growth
of the Methodist Church, like the great growth
of the Baptist Church, began at about the time
of the Revolutionary War. To-day my theme is
purely Methodism.
Since the days of the Revolution not only has
the Methodist Church increased greatly in the
old communities of the thirteen original States,
but it has played a peculiar and prominent part
in the pioneer growth of our country and has in
consequence assumed a position of immense i'm
portance throughout the vast region west of the
Aleghanies which has been added to our nation
since the days when the Continental Congress
first met
And now, friends, in celebrating the wonderful
growth of Methodism, in rejoicing at the good it
has done to the country and to mankind, I need
hardly ask body like this to remember that the
greatness of the fathers becomes to the children
a shameful thing if they use it only as an excuse
for inaction instead of as a spur to effort for
noble aims. I speak to you not only as Metho-
dists-I speak to you as American citizens. The
pioneer days are over. We all of form
parts of great civilized nation, with a complex
industrial and social life and infinite possibilities
both for good and for evil. The instruments with
which, and the surroundings in which, work
have changed immeasurably from what they were
in the days when the rough baczwoods preachers
ministered to the moral and spiritual needs of
their rough backwoods congregations But if we
are to succeed, the spirit in which do our work
must be the same as the spirit in which they did
theirs These men drove forward and fought their
way upward, to success, because their sense of
duty was in their hearts, in the very marrow OF
their bones It was not with them something to
be considered as a mere adjunct to their theology,
standing separate and apart from their daily life.
They had it with them week days as well as Sun
days. They did not divorce the spiritual from
the secular They did not have one kind of con
science for one side of their lives and another
for another.
Well if we are to succeed as a nation must
have the same spirit in us. We must be absolutely
practical of course, and must face facts as they
are The pioneer preachers of Methodism could
not have held their own for a fortnight If they
had not shown an intense practically of spirit,
if they had not possessed the broadest and deep
est sympathy for, and understanding of, their
| felowmen But in addition to the hard, practical
common sense needed by each of us in life, we
must have lift toward lofty things or we shall
be lost individually, and collectively as nation.
Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for
o:+lo, +Lo ,,nnn or the natinr that aSDires to do