The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-02-27

spirits of their fellow-pioneers. It was not a sask that could have been &C.,
 complished by men desirous to live in the soft places of the earth and to walk easily on liee's journey. They had to
 possess the spirit of the martyrs; but
 not of martyrs who could merely suf- fer, not of martyrs who could oppose only passive endurance to wrong. The
 pioneer preachers warred against the
 forces of spiritual evil with the same
 fierfiy zeal and energy that they and
 their fellows showed in the conquest
 of the rugged continent. They
 had in them the heroic spirit,
 the spirit that scorns ease if it
 must be purchased by failure to do
 duty the spirit that courts risk and a
 life of hard endeavor if the goal to be
 reached is really worth attaining. Great
 is our debt to these men and scant the
 patience we need show toward their
 critics. At times they seemed hard and narrow to those whose training and surroundings had saved them from sim liar tempetations; and they have been criticised, as all men, whether mission aries, soldiers, explorers, or frontier set- tiers. are criticised when they go forth
 to do the rough work that must inevit- ably be done by those who act as the first harbingers, the first heralds, of civilization in the worlds dark places. 1 It is easy for those who sta vat home
 in comfort. who never have to see hu- ! manity in the raw, or to strive against the dreadful naked forces which ap- | pear clothed. hidden and subdued in civilized life-it is easy for such to crit icise the men who, in rough fashion, and amid grim surroundings, make ready the way eor the higher life that is to | come afterwards; but let us all remem- be- that the untenpted and the effort
 less should be cautious In passing too
 heavy judgment upon their brethren
 who may show hardness who may be guilty of shortcomings, but who never theless do tke great deeds by which | mankind advances. These pioneers of
 Methodism had the strong, militant vir- 1 tues which go to the accomplishment | of such great deeds. Now and then
 they betrayed the shortcomings natural | to men of their type; but their short
 coming's seem small indeed when we l place beside them the magnitude of the
 work they achieved.
 And now, friends, in celebrating the
 wonderful growth of Methodism, in re- Joicing at the good it has done to the
 country and to mankind, 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 spur to effort for noble aims.
 speak to you not only as Methodists T speak to you as American citizens.
 The pioneer days are over. We now all
 Of us form parts of a great civilized | nation, with complex industrial and | social life and infinite possibilities both for good and for evil. The instruments ! with which and the, surroundings in which we work have changed immeas-
 urably from what they were in the days
 when the rough backwoods preachers
 ministered to the moral and spiritual
 needs of their rough backwoods congre- gations. But if we are to succeed the spirit in which we 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 suc- I cess, 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 l adjunct to their theology. standing sep
 arate and apart from their daily life. | They had it with them week days as | Io1y
 the spiritual from heysecular. They | did not have one kind of conscience for
 one side of their lives and another for another. | We'll, if we are to succeed as a nation we 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 in tense practicality of spirit. if they had not possessed the broadest and deepest sympathy for and understanding of, | their fellow-men. But, in addition to
 the hard, practical common sense need | ed 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 either the man or the nation that aspires to do great deeds. In the century opening the play of the infinitely far-reaching forces and ten dencies which go to make up our social system bids fair to be even fiercer in its activity than in the century which has just closed. If during this century the
 men of high and fine moral sense show themselves weddings; if they possess only that cloistered virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact with the raw facts of actual life; if they
 dare not go down into the hurly- -burly where the men of might contend for the
 mastery; if they stand aside from the
 pressure and conf1ict-then as surely as
 the sun rises and sets all of our great
 material progress. all the multiplication
 of the physical agencies which tend for
 our comfort and enjoyment, will go for
 naught and our civilization will become
 a brutal sham and mockery. If we are
 to do as I believe we shall and will do,
 if we are to advance in broad human-
 ity in kindliness, in the spirit of broth
 erhood, exactly as we advance in our
 conquest over the hidden forces of na-
 ture, 1t must be by developing strength
 in virtue and virtue in strength, by
 breeding and training men who shall be
 both good and strong, both gentle and
 to+, xxyh WIT