Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1908-06-03
THE CIRCUIT RIDER
President Roosevelt Pays Trib-
ute TO Methodiste

ute TO Methodiste
In an address last week in Wash
ington before the General Confer
ence of the Methodist Episcopal
| Church, PresideE Roosevelt deliv-
cred an address on "Good Citizen
chip" in which he paid notable
tribute to the pioneer Methodist
preachers who braved dangers and
endured hardsbips for TIE suke OF
preaching the Gospel
Before beginning his address the
President extended his best wishes
to the authorities in their purpose
to plant in Washington City a
great American University that
shall fulfill the dream of The grea-
test and first of American Prssi
dents-George Washington. The
President said, In part:
ut is a pleasure TO be with you
today and to bid you welcome on
behalf of the ration, here in
the capital of the nation. In POI tant
though the Metht dist Church lie IN
many lands, there is none in which
il has played so great and peculiar
a part as here in the United
States, Its history is indissolubly
interviewer with the history Of our
country for the six score years
since the constitutional convention
made us really a nation.
"MethOdism IN America entered
on its period of rapid growth just
about the time of Washington g
first presidency. Its essential de-.
mocracy, its fiery and restless ener-
gy of spirit, and the wide play that
it gave to individual initiative, all
tended to make it peculiarly con.
genial to hardy and vlrile folk,
democratic to the core, pricing in
dividual independence above all
earthly possessions, and engaged
in the rough and stern work of
conquerlng a continent. Methodism
spread even among the old commu-
mites aud the long-settled districts
of the Atlantic tidewater; but it's
phenomenal growth was from these
regions westward. The whole
country is under debt of graft
tude to the Methodist circuit rid
ers, the Methodist pioneer preach
ers, whose movement westward
kept pace with the movement Of
the frontier, who shared all the
hardships in the life of the from
tiersman, while at the same time
ministeriEg to that frontiersman's
spiritual needs, and seeing that
his pressing material cares and the
hard and grinding poverty of his
life did not wholly extinguish the
divine fire within his soul.
"Such was your work in the past;
and your work in tie present is as
great; for the need and Opportuni-
ty for service widen as the field
national interest Widens. 1t is
not true in this country that the
poor have grown poorer; but it is
true that in many sections, and
particularly in our large cities,
the rich have grown so very much
richer as to widen the gulf be-
tween the man of very large
means and the man who makes
each days liviheod by that days
work /; and those who with sinceri
ty, efficiency and deep conviction,
band together for mutual help,
are those who can do most to keep
the gulf from becoming too wide.
True religion, through church Or
CARNATIONS, in all the field of kin
dred endeavor, can manifest itself
as effectively in the crowded and
complex life of to day as in the
pioneer yesterdays, and the souls
of men need the light now, and
strive blindly toward 1t as they
needed it and strove toward it in the
vanished past. 1t is your task to do
the work of the Lord on the farm
and in the mine. in the counting
room and the factory, in the car
shops and beslde the blazing fur
naces, just as it was the task of
your spiritual forebeare to wrestle
for the souls Of the men and wom-
en- who dwelt on the stump-dotted
in the wilderness.