246 Presidential Addresses 



nevertheless do the great deeds by which mankind 

 advances. These pioneers of Methodism had the 

 strong, militant virtues which go to the accomplish 

 ment of such great deeds. Now and then they be 

 trayed the shortcomings natural to men of their 

 type ; but their shortcomings seem small indeed when 

 we place beside them the magnitude of the work 

 they achieved. 



And now, friends, in celebrating the wonderful 

 growth of Methodism, v in rejoicing at the good it 

 has done to the country and to mankind, I need 

 hardly ask a body like this to remember that the 

 greatness of the fathers becomes to the children a 

 shameful thing if they use it only as an excuse for 

 inaction instead of as a spur to effort for noble aims. 

 I speak to you not only as Methodists I speak to 

 you as American citizens. The pioneer days are 

 over. We now all of us form parts of a great civil 

 ized nation, with a complex industrial and social life 

 and infinite possibilities both for good and for evil. 

 The instruments with which, and the surroundings 

 in which, we work, have changed immeasurably 

 from what they were in the days when the rough 

 backwoods preachers ministered to the moral and 

 spiritual needs of their rough backwoods congrega 

 tions. But if we are to succeed, the spirit in which 

 we do our work must be the same as the spirit in 

 which they did theirs. These men drove forward, 

 and fought their way upward, to success, because 

 their sense of duty was in their hearts, in the very 

 marrow of their bones. It was not with them some- 



