And State Papers 247 



thing to be considered as a mere adjunct to their 

 theology, standing separate and apart from their daily 

 life. They had it with them week days as well as 

 Sundays. They did not divorce the spiritual from the 

 secular. They did not have one kind of conscience 

 for one side of their lives and another for another. 

 If we are to succeed as a nation we must have 

 the same spirit in us. We must be absolutely 

 practical, of course, and must face facts as they are. 

 The pioneer preachers of Methodism could not have 

 held their own for a fortnight if they had not 

 shown an intense practicability of spirit, if they had 

 not possessed the broadest and deepest sympathy 

 for, and understanding of, their fellowmen. But 

 in addition to the hard, practical common-sense 

 needed by each of us in life, we must have a lift 

 toward lofty things or we shall be lost, individually 

 and collectively, as a nation. Life is not easy, and 

 least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation 

 that aspires to do great deeds. In the century open 

 ing, the play of the infinitely far-reaching forces 

 and tendencies which go to make up our social sys 

 tem bids fair to be even fiercer in its activity than 

 in the century which has just closed. If during this 

 century the men of high and fine moral sense show 

 themselves weaklings ; if they possess only that clois 

 tered virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact 

 with the raw facts of actual life ; if they dare not go 

 down into the hurly-burly where the men of might 

 contend for the mastery; if they stand aside from 

 the pressure and conflict; then as surely as the sun 



I2 _VOL. XIII. 



