THE IDEAL MAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7687, 23 April 1903, Page 2

THE IDEAL MAN.

MR ROOSEVELT'S ELOQUENT ADDRESS ON WESLEYISM.

Four t>hous«and Methodists attended a great meeting held at tho Carnegie Hall at New York on Feb. 26, to celebrate the. two hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Wesley. The meeting was also intended to, celebrate the recent raising of th* Methodist xh;u::;jti'e.ring fund of £4,000,000.

Wesley's birth actually occurred on June 28, but t'iKi anniversary celebration was arranged earlier, to enable Mr Roosevelt to attend and deliver the principal address. The Carnegie Hail was packed from pit to dome, and hundreds wtco unable to gain admittance.

Mr Hoosevelt, who came specially from Washington to. attend the meeting, was given an enthusiastic reception, tho whole audk-iucy rising and cheering heartily. The President, iv. his address, eloquently referred to the enormous growth of Oj© American Methodist Church, and the noble part it had played in the development and progress of America. He pleaded for the preservation aaid development in the Americans of to-day and the. future of th© rugged virtues of tha pioneers who laid the foundations of the nation.

He. paid an eloquent tribute to the- wonderful work accomplished by the early Methodist preachers, who 'travelled' through tlw backwoods, lived amid grim surroundings, and everywhere brouglib Christianising and civilising influences. Ho concluded":—

"In the hard, cruel life of the -border,, with its gnm struggle against the. forbidding forces of wild nature- and wilder men, there was much to pull ilho frontiersman down. If te had been kit to himself, without moral teachings or spiritual guidance,, sad would have been his fate, and therefore ours, and from this we have been largely rescued by tho fact that, 'together with the rest of the pioneers, went pioneer, preachers, and all honour be given to t.h© Methodists for ths great- proportion, of the.«o preachers whom they furnished.