THE BUILDERS OF A NATION.

Mataura Ensign, 23 September 1908, Page 2

THE BUILDERS OF A NATION.

President Iloosevelt. who has been recently spoken of in England as America's greatest preacher, in the course of an address recently to the General Conference of the Episcopal Church, said: —lt is the task of Christians to do the work of the Lord on the farm and in the mine, in the counting-house and in the factory, in the shops and beside the blasting furnaces, just as it was the task of our spiritual forebears to wrestle with the souls of the men and women who dwelt in the wilderness. No nation in the world has more right than ours to look with proud confidence toward *bo future. On the whole, 1 think it can be said that we have grown better and not worse, for if there is much evil good also greatly abounds, and if wrong grows, so iu ever greater measure grows the stern sense of right, before which wrong must eventually yield. It would be both unmanly and unwarrantable to become faint-hearted or despairing about the nation's 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 feel n confident assurance that iu the struggle we shall win, and not lose, that the century that has just opened will seo great triumph for our people. But the surest way to achieve this triumph is, while never losing hope and belief in our progress, yet at the same .time to refuse to blind ourselves to what is evil in the complex play of the many forces working through and with and' against one another in the upbuilding of our social structure. There is much that tends towards evil as well as much that tends toward good; and the true patriot is that man who*, without losing faith in the good, does his best to combat the evil, to stamp it out where that is possible, and at least to minimise its results. Prosperity such as ours, necessary though it be as the material basis of national greatness, inevitably tends to undue exaltation of the merely material side of the national character; and we must largely rely on the efforts of such men and women as those I am addressing to build up the spiritual life, without which the material life amounts to nothing. As generation succeeds generation the problems :change in their external shape; old 'needs vanish and new needs arise; but it remains as true as ever that in the last analysis national success depends on the character of the individual man and the individual woman; we need good laws; we need to have these laws honestly and fearlessly administered; we need wealth, we need science and art, and all the kindred activities that spring from the clever brain and deft hand. But most of all we need the essential qualities that in their sum make up tlio good man and the good woman; most of all we need that fine and healthy family life the lack of which makes any seeming material prosperity but a glittering sham. If the average man is brave and hardworking and clean-living, if the average woman has the qualities which make a good wife and good mother, if each has self-respect, and if each realises that the greatest thing in life is the chance to do service—whv, then the future of the nation is assured.— From tlio 'Homilctic Review' for July, which contains on excellent portrait of the President, and is otherwise n verv excellent number.