Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1908-05-21
ROOSEVELT on METHoDIsM

President Roosevelt. say what we
may of his policies. he is a yirile man
and loves a yirile religion. He sees
nothing that is commendable in
nambypamby religion, any more than
he does in mollycoddle on two legs.
1t is accordingly no wonder the great
Methodist church, with its proud his
tory of determined struggles and
triumphant progress in the new world
appeals to him with peculiar force.
No man can better admire the sterl-
ing traits of the old circuit riders than
the man in the White House. To
Teddy a preacher may be a saint,
but he is a poor one if he is not a
man with force and convictions and
strength and determination and cour-
age as well as with the softer traits
of Christian love and charity.
Addressing the Methodists at the
laying of the corner stone OF the
great university at Washington the
other day the President spoke as fol-
lows:
Important though the Methodist
Church is in many lands, there is
none in which it has played so great
and peculiar a part as here in the
United States. It's history is indis-
solubly interviewer with the history
of our country for the six score
years since the constitutional con-
vention made us really a nation
Methodism in America entered on
its period of rapid growth just about
the time of Washingtons first Presi-
dency It's essential democracy. its
fiery and restless energy of spirit, and
the wide play that it gave to indivi-
dual initiative all tended to make it
peculiarly congenial to a hardy and
virle folk, democratic to the core,
priZing individual independence above
all earthly possessions and engaged
in the rough and stern work of con-
quering a continent. Methodism
spread even among the old cOmmuni-
ties and the long-settled districts of
the Atlantic tide water; but its pheno-
menal growth was from these reg
ions 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 the
frontier who shared all the hard
ships in the life of the frontiersman
while at the same time ministering
to that frontiersman' spiritual needs.
and seeing that his pressing material
cares and the hard and grinding pow
erty of his life did not wholly ex-
tinguish the divine fire within his
soul. Such was your work in the
past; and your work in the present
is as great: for the need and Oppor-
tunity for service widen as the field
OF 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 parti-
cularly in our large cities, the rich
have grown so yeyr much richer as
10 widen the gulf between the men oil
very large means and the man who
makes each days livelihood by that
day $ work; and those who with sin
cerity. and efficiency. and deep CON
victiOn, 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, through philaHthropic or
CARNATIONS. all in the field of kindred
endeavor, can manifest itself as ef-
fectiyely in the crowded and complex
life of today as in the pioneer yes
terdays; and the souls Of men need
the light now, and strive blindly tow
ard it. as they needed It, and strove
toward it in the vanished past.
II is your task 10 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 beside
the blasting furnaces, just as it was
the task of your spiritual forebears
to wrestle for the souls of the men
and women who dwelr on the stump
dotted cIeariugs in the Wilderness.