The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1908-05-18
METH0DISTs
ARE PRAISED
IN an Address to Them Per-
sonalIy by President
Roosevelt.
MOTHERHOOD is NOBLE
And the Home Must Ever Be
Good Evil Exists But
Good is Supreme.

4 = IS, i -
WASHINGTON, D. O., May IS
Al 3 meeting at the American ssniver-
sity here Saturday Of the Methodists
attending the General Conference Al
Baltimore, President Roosevelt In an
address said:
~ Is a pleasure to be with You
today and 10 bid you welcome on be-
half OF the Nation, here in the capital
OF the Nation Important though
the Methodist Church Is in many
Lands, there Is none In which II has
played so great and peculiar part;
as here In the United States. Its
history is indlssolubly interviewer.
with the hostory of our country for
the six score years since the constr
tutional convention made us really a
nation. Methodism in America en-
tered on its period of rapid growth
I just about the time of Washington's
first Presidency. It's essential de4
mocracy, Its fiery and restless energy!
of spirit, and the wide play that ii
gave to individual initiative, all tend
ed to make Il peculiarly congeniaI to-
hardy. and yirile folk, Democratic
to the core, pricing individual inde-
pencence above all earthly posses
3sions, and engaged in the rough and
stern work Of conquering continent
Methodism spread even among the
old communities and the long-settled
districts Of the Atlantic tide water;
but It's phenomenal growth was from
these regions westward. The whole
country is under a debt OF gratitude
to the Methodist circuit riders, the
Methodist pioneer preachers, whose
movement westward kept pace with
the movement of tn frontier, who
shared all the hardships in the life
of the frontiersman, while at the
lsame time Ininistering to that from
tiersman's spiritual needs, and seeing
that his pressing material cares and
the hard and grinding poverty of his
life did not wholly cxtinguish the d.
vine FIRE within his soul. Such was
your work in the past; and your work
in the present is as great; for the
need and opportunity for service
widen as the field of national inter-
est 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
livelihood by that days work; and
those who with sincerity, and effic-
iency, and deep conviction, band to-
gether for mutual help. are those
who can. do most to keep the gulf
from becoming too wide. True re-
ligion, through church organizations,
through phllanthropic organizations,
in all the field OF kindred 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 1t, and strove toward 1t in
the vanished past. 1t is your task
to do the work Of the Lord on the
farm and in the mine, in the count
ingroom and the factory, in the car
shops and beside the blasting fur
naces, just as 1t was the task oil
your spiritual forebears to wrestle
for the souls of the men and women
who dwelt on the stump-dotted clear
tngs in the wilderness.
No nation in the world has more
right than ours to look with proud
confidence toward the future. No
where else. has the experiment OIL
democratic government, of govern
ment by the people and for the peo-
pie, Of government based on the prin-
ciple OF treating each man ON his In
nate worth as a man, been tried on
SO vast a scale as with us; and on
the whole the experiment has been
more successful than anywhere else.
Moreover, on the whole, l think I'll
can be said that we have. grown bet
ter and not worse; for II there is
much evil, good also greatly abounds,
and II wrong grows. SO In even great
er measure grows the stern sense Of
right before which wrong must event.
ually yield. It would be both un-
manly and unwarranted to become
faint-hearted or despairing about the
Nations future. Clear-eyed. and far
sighted men who are both brave Of
heart and cool OF head, while not for
a moment refusing to see and
acknowledge the many evils around
us, must yet also feel confident as
suranoe that In the struggle we shall
win and not lose, that the century
that has Just opened will see great
triumph for our people.
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