ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12628, 16 October 1905, Page 2

ROOSEVELT'S RELIGION.

President Roosevelt delivered a lay sermon to the Christian Brotherhood of Oyster Bay the other Sunday. The organisation before which the President spoke is a non-sectarian body composed principally of the male members of the ©everal local churches, and the President consented to speak on condition that no previous announcement should be made of his intention. Consequently almost everybody was astonished when the President appeared on the platform, carrying his own Bible. ".

"I want to read," said the President, "several different texts which it seems to me have especial bearing upon tho wca'k of brotherhoods like this, upon the spirit in which not only all of us who are 'members of this brotherhood, but all of us who strive to be decent Christians, are to apply our Christianity on week days as well as oil Sundays. The first verses I want to read can be found in the seventh chapter of; Matthew, the Ist, 16th, and 17th verses-:— First—" Judge not that ye be not judged." Seventeenth—" Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?" Seventeenth —"Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt truce bringeth fo»th evil fruit." Eighteenth—" A good tree cannot bring forth evil fa-nit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." " Judge not that yet be not judged." that means treat each of your brothers .with charity. Be not quick to find fault. Above all, be not quick to judge another man who, according to his light, is striving to do Ibis duty, as each of us here hopes he as striving to do his. Let ua ever iremembeir . that not only we have divine authority for that statemerit that by our fruits we shall be known, 'but that also it is true that mankind will tend to judge us by our fruits.

The next quotation I wish to read to; you is found in Matthew xxv., 37-40 inclusive:—" Then shall the righteous j answer him saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered arid fed Thee ? Or thirsty and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a etranger and took Thee in, or naked and .clothed' Thee ? Or when saw we Thee siofcor in prison and came

unto Thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them: Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren ye have done it unto Me."

That is what this brotherhood means by trying to worship the -Creator by acting toward His creature as He would have us act, to try to make our religion a druving force in our lives, to do un^o others aa we would have them do unto us.

The next text I wish to read is found in I. Corinthians xii., beginning with the first veree :—

" Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not ehnri. Ly_ I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so thus 1 ec;:ld remove mountains, and have not chanty, I am nothing; and thought i bestowed my goods to feed the tooI*, and though, I gave my body to be buiud, and have not charity, .it profilel h me nothing.. Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."

" And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these, is charity."

Let each'of us exea-cise the largest tolerance for ih:s brother, who is trying though in a. different way to lead a decent life, who is trying to ilo good in his own fashion; let each try to show practical sympathy with that brother, not be too quick to criticise. In closing, I want to read just a few verses from the epistle of James,- the chapter, 27th verse: " Pure religion and undedled bsfoi'e God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction •and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

If a man will try to serve God tho Father by being kindly to the many around him who neeu such kindnccs and by being upright and honest himself, then we have the authority of the good Book for saying that we are in honour bound to treat him as a good Cliiri'stian and extend the hand of brotherhood to him.

At the conclusion of his address, the President shook hands with the members.