The San Francisco call., 1905-01-30
CHURCH DUTY
TO IMMIGRANT
President Speaks at Dedi-
cation of Restored Luther
Place House of Worship
MUST HELP NEWCOMER
Roosevelt Points Out Value
of Helping Hand Extended
to Transplanted Citizen
MUST HELP NEWCOMER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29.-President
Roosevelt delivered an address to-day
at the dedication OF the Luther-place
Memorial Church. which was seriously
damaged by fire just one year ago to-
night. The church has been entirely
restored. The President entered the
church while the services preliminary
to the sermon were in progress and
was shown to a seat in the pulpit. At
the conclusion of the services he was
introduced. President Roosevelt said:
From the standpoint from which 1 am
Obliged SO continually to look at matters
there is a peculiar function to be played by
the great Lutheran church in the United
states OF America This is a churca which
had its rise to power in. and. until it emil
grated to this side of the water. had always
had its fullest development in the two great
races of Northern and Middle Europe, the
Germans and the Scandinavians. The
is now the United States very shortly after
the first permanent settlements we're made
within our limits, for when the earliest set
tiers came to dwell around the mouth of the
Delaware they brought the Lutheran worship
with them, and 1t was with the earliest
German settlers, who came to Pennsylvania
and arterward to New York and the mountain
Gus regions in the western part of Virginia
and the States south of 1t.
From that day to this the history of the
growth in population in this nation has con-
sisted largely, in some respects mainly, of the
arriVsA OF successive waves OF newcomers 10
our shores and the prime duty of those already
in the land is to see that their own progress
and development are shared by these newcom-
ers. 1t is a serious and dangerous thing for
any man to tear loose from the SOIL from the
region in which he and his forbears have
taken root, and to be transplsnted into new
land. He should receive all possible aid in
that new land; and the ard be rendered
him most effectively by those who can appeal
to him on the ground of spiritual kinship.
Therefore the Lutheran church can do most
In helping upward and onward So many Of
the newcomers to our shores; and Ii seems to
me that it should be, 1 tempted to say,
well nigh the prime duty of this church to see
that the immigrant, especially the emigrant
of Lutheran faith from the Old World, wheth-
er he come from Scandinavia Germany, or
whether he belonged to one of the Lutheran
countries OF Finland Hungary or Austria,
may be not suffered to drift of with
friendly hand extended to him out of all the
church communion, away from all the innu-
ences that tend toward safeguarding and up
lifting him and that he finds ready at hand
those ready to bring him into fellowship with
existing modes.
The Lutheran is destined to be one of the
two or three greatest and most important
tionaI churches in the United States: one of
the two three churches most distinctly
American. most distinctivey among the forces
that to tell for making this country
greater In the future.
Therefore a peculiar load of responsibility
rests upon the members of this church. 1t is
an important thing for the people of this
nation to remember their rights, but it is
important thing for them to re-
member their duties. eF
In the last analysis the work of statesmen
and soldiers. the work OF the public man.
shall go for nothing If 1t is not based upon
the spirit of Christianity working in the mil
lions OF homes throughout this country so that
there may be that social. that spiritual, that
moral foundation without which no country can
ever rise to greatness.
Let me congratulate you and congratulate all
of us that we live in such land and at
time that we expect natural that there
should be an interdenominational service of
THANKSGIVING such a ceremony is to take
place this afternoon. in which the pastors of
other churches join to congratulate themselves
and you upon the rebuilding OF this church.
One of the constant problems of life is to try
to cultivate breadth without shailowness, just
as want to try to cultivate depth without
narrowness