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table truth is a safer traveling companion than the pleasantest falsehood." He based his attitude on an ancient and wise code, and he could not have had a better justification.

I have always felt most strongly that it was mischievous and wrong for a man to get up before a number of boys and girls and preach to them to "take no thought of things of the body," not "to regard their own interests in any way," to think of "noth ing whatever but others," when they knew that he did not follow any such course of action himself.

-REALIZABLE IDEALS.

CHAPTER VIII

A STUDENT OF RELIGION

The study that interested Roosevelt most was natural history. He specialized in that study while at college, and at one time thought he would adopt natural history as a profession. John Burroughs considered Roosevelt one of the best naturalists in the country, and Burroughs had ample opportunity to observe his capacity during a tour of Yellowstone Park that the two made together in the spring of 1903. Speaking of the experience, Burroughs wrote:

"Throughout the trip I found his interest in bird life very keen, and his eye and ear remarkably quick. He usually saw the bird or heard its note as quickly as I did—and I had nothing else to think about, and had been teaching my

eye and ear the trick of it for over fifty years. Of course his training as a big game hunter stood him in good stead, but back of that were his naturalist's instincts and his genuine love of all forms of wild life."

This "genuine love of all forms of wild life" was an index to Roosevelt's character. Much of his reverence for God, for the Bible, and for the institution of the church grew out of his intimate knowledge of the wonders of creation.

He was deeply interested also in the study of religion, its origin, history, and present effect. This interest appeared in the most unexpected places; for instance, in one of his accounts of frontier adventure, he switched suddenly from a discussion of the inefficient militia system to an explanation of the place of the various Protestant sects in the life of that time, as follows:

"The extreme individualism of the frontier, which found expression for good and for evil both in its governmental system in time of

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