ness" of a message or an action to carry it through -he did not want either it or himself to win because it was dressed up and for that reason alone secure a following. He believed that "goodness" ought to win by virtue of its innate claim on man and felt, therefore, that a cause approved by "goodness" would ultimately win if it were made clear to the people. A good many men have been elected because sponsored for by church membership, and sometimes that has led people to expect too much from an individual or it has caused them to shift the burden too far from the individual's shoulders and so hold the church as such responsible. When Mr. Roosevelt entered politics lawyers frequently quoted the Scriptures to enforce their messages or even to appeal in an unjust case to the religious instincts of a jury. Politicians went so far as to join the church to get votes. Artificial reformers thus wore hypocritical garbs as they rode into office and openly disgraced the church. At the same time when church members failed it was supposed to prove the spuriousness of their faith because common opinion very carelessly accredited church membership as a claim to superior holiness when it should have been accepted, as now, merely as the enrollment of a student in the school of Christ to learn goodness. Mr. Loeb, agreeing with the above putting of the case, went on to say:

Mr. Roosevelt did not want to have any artificial aid— he wanted his character and his measures to carry him through, and hence after he entered politics vigorously he refused also to take any further Masonic degrees, fearing that it would be interpreted as a bid for backing.

Mr. Washburne, an earnest churchman and one of the eight students who for four years fellowshiped with Mr. Roosevelt in his private Harvard boarding club and afterward a Congressman, in a personal letter says, "I never heard him discuss strictly religious topics. You know 'The shallows murmur but the deeps are dumb.'"

This chapter could not be closed better than by a statement prepared by Herman Hagedorn as a memorial resolution on Roosevelt's death for the National Council of Boy Scouts. It is fine evidence that he was a Christian:

He was found faithful over a few things and he was made ruler over many; he cut his own trail clean and straight, and millions followed him toward the light.

He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all time.

Men put their trust in him, women found a champion in him, kings stood in awe of him, but children made him their playmate.

He broke a nation's slumber with his cry, and it rose up. He touched the eyes of blind men with a flame and gave them vision. Souls became swords through him, swords became servants of God.

He was loyal to his country, and he exacted loyalty; he loved many lands, but he loved his own land best.

He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joyous and tireless, being free of self-pity, clean with a cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale.

His courtesy knew no wealth or class; his friendship no creed or color or race. His courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, of victory, of defeat.

His mind was eager, his heart was true, his body

and spirit defiant of obstacles, ready to meet what might

come.

He fought injustice and tyranny, bore sorrow gallantly; loved all nature, bleak spaces and hardy companions, hazardous adventure, and the zest of battle. Wherever he

went he carried his own pack; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide.

CHAPTER XII

WAS HE A CHRISTIAN?

TESTIMONY

HIS OWN

"The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor or ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking down on his task because it is cast in the day of small things."

Ye shall know them by their fruits.-Matt. 7. 16.

A

MERE set of cold creedal tests cannot prove

one a Christian. But there are distinctive "marks." "Profession" does not make one a Christian, though it may help one to more completely develop the traits of a Christian. Only the shirker remains out of the church in order that he may not be as sternly judged by the world as if a member. If we believe we are God's sons, then we ought to act like it whether an open member of the church or not. No man is relieved from "duty," nor can one defend a lower standard of living simply because not "in the church." A sincere man may be a heretic and still be a Christian, though he will suffer from his erroneous "doctrines" and actions as will an orange tree when wrongly cultured or a wheat field ignorantly handled. A right belief helps get larger fruitage. To study Mr. Roosevelt is to be convinced that he was very nearly right because he bore so many fruits of the Spirit. Let us look at the

"marks" that prove Mr. Roosevelt to be a Christian. These traits or "marks" will be presented in categorical statements preceding corroborative evidence. He was innately and constantly reverent.

Newspaper men are prone to joke about everything, including religion, but Mr. Roosevelt carried such an air of reverence that they never treated that subject lightly in his presence. "He set them a good example," said Mr. Thompson. "While he turned jokes, for example, on every other phase of Mr. Bryan's life, he avoided doing what others did, namely, turn jokes about his religion. He never practiced or encouraged criticism of anyone's religious views; that was, to him, a sacred matter. While he never said a corrective word, the newspaper boys admit that they were influenced unconsciously by his character and 'faith.' They cleansed their language, walked circumspectly, and hid from him their evil and despicable deeds, if they had any."

President Roosevelt was much criticized because he tried to take from the coins the words "In God we trust."

In a letter to a protesting clergyman he expressed the conviction that to put such a motto on coins worked no benefit, but positive injury, since it aug. mented an irreverence which was likely to lead to sacrilege. He felt that such a rich and dignified sentence "should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit."

He agrees that the phrase should be inscribed on public buildings and monuments where it will carry