Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-03-03

our people, with the exception only of
the work of self-preservation under
Lincoln, was the work of the pioneers
as they took possession of this CONT
nent. During that century we pushed
westward from the Alleghanies to the
Pacific. southwark to the Gulf and the
Rio Grande, and also took possession
of Alaska The work of advancing
our boundary, of pushing the frontier
across the forest and desert and noun
tain chain, was the great typical work
of our nation; and the men who did it
the frontiersmen, the backwoods-
men, plainsmen, mountain men-form-
ed class by themselves. 1t was an
iron task, which none but men of iron
soul and iron body could do. Those
men who carried it to a successful
conclusion had characters strong alike
for good and for evil. Their rugged
natures made them powers who served
light or darkness with fierce intensity;
and together with heroic traits they
had those evil and dreadful tendencies
which are but too apt to be found in
characters of heroic possibilities. Such
men make the most efficient servants
OF the Lord if their Astounding vitality
and energy are directed Alright; and if
misdirected their influence is equally
potent against the cause of Christianity
and true civilization. In the hard and
cruel life of the border, with it's grim
struggle against tine forbidding forces
of wild nature and wilder men, there
was much to pull the frontiersman
down. If left to himself without moral
teaching and moral guidance, without
any of the influences that tend toward
the uplifting of man and the subduing
of the brute within him, sad would
have been his and therefore our fate.
From this fate We have been largely
rescued by the fact that together with
the rest of the pioneers went the pi-
oneer preachers; and all honor be Civ
en- to the Methodists for the great pro-
portion of these pioneer preachers
whom they furnished
These preachesr were of the stamp
| OF old Peter Cartwright-men who suf-
fered and overcame every hardship in
common with their flock, and who in
addition tanned the wild and fierce
spirits of their fellow-pioneers. 1t
was not a task that could have been
accomplished by men DESTROYS to live
in the soft places of the earth and to
walk easily on life's journey. They
| had to possess the spirit of the mar
tyrs; but not of martyrs who could
merely suffer, not of martyrs who
could oppose only passive endurance
to wrong. The pioneer preachers
warred against the forces of spiritual
evil with the same fiery zeal and en-
ergy that they and their fellows show
ed in the conquest of the rugged con-
tinent. Thy 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 mer and
scant the patience we need show to-
ward their critics. At times they
seemed hard and narrow to those
whose training and surroundings had
saved them from similar temptations;
and they have been criticised, as all
men, whether missionaries, soldiers,
explorers, or frontier settlers, are crit
| icised when they go forth to do the
rough work that must inevitably be
done by those who act as the first har-
1 bingers, the first heralds, of civiliza-
| ton in the worlds dark places. 1t is
easy for those who stay at home in
comfort, who never have to see hui
manity in the raw. or to strive against
the dreadful naked forces which APP
pear clothed, hidden, and subdued in
| civilized life-it is easy for such to
criticise the men who, in rough fash
ion, and amid grim surroundings,
make ready the way for the higher
life that is to come afterwards; but
let us all remember that the untempt-
ed and the effortless should be eau
tious in passing too heavy judgment
upon their brethren who may show
hardness, who may be guilty of short
comings, but who nevertheless do the
great deeds by which mankind ad
vances. These pioneers of Methodism
had the strong, militant virtues which
go to the accomplishment of such
great deeds. Now and then they be-
trayed the shortcomings natural to
men Of their type; but their short
comings seem small indeed when we
place beside them the magnitude OF
the work they achieved.
| "And now, friends, in celebrating
the wonderful growth of Methodism
in rejoicing at the good it has done
to the country and to mankind,
need hardly ask a body like this to re
member that the greatness of the fath
ers becomes to the children shame
full thing if they use it only as ar
excuse for inaction instead of as {
spur to effort for noble aims. | speal
to you not only as Methodists--I speal
to you as American citizens The
pioneer days are over We now all o.
us form parts of, a great civilized ma
| t;oy, with o,,,plax, d,,c+,.;,l