I wish to associate myself very sincerely with the resolution of sympathy with the people of the United States on the death of their President. We offer sympathy, in the first place, to the people of the United States as a whole. There is no one in this country who will not extend sympathy also to those who, as political leaders in the world or military leaders in the world, have been associated with him in the discharge of the enormous world responsibilities both of their own people and of the world. We sympathise with humanity as a whole that, in such an hour for the world as this, such a striking loss should befall them. Our sympathy goes out to a very wide circle of people who need and deserve sympathy in this great loss.
When we pass from sympathy, we think of mourning. In the circumstances of to-day and in view of what we have seen of the President's achievements, we must feel that the manifestation of prowess in his person and in his actions is so striking that we cannot associate mourning with his memory. A few years ago, a very distracted people looked round the world to see where they could get help, guidance and assistance in the shocking tragedies befalling the world. They looked for hope to a great nation, which was an amalgam of the various peoples of the world, where, in a spirit of liberty, a spirit of appreciation of the dignity of the human person, men had learned to work together towards their ideals. That nation, to which the world looked at that particular time for hope, threw up its man to be the very personification of their strength, their ideal, their patience and their humanity.
Though we may regard his work to-day as unfinished, when we look back to-morrow we will realise that President Roosevelt's work was a complete achievement. He was destined to lead his country in the third great national crisis that his people had—the first being the war of Independence and the second the Civil War. Now his nation has met a third great crisis, which has brought it into the full stream of world affairs, world thought and leadership. We thank God to-day for the manifestation of His Providence, which has given us and given the world such a man and in such circumstances. President Roosevelt has embodied in his person the patience, the courage, the endurance, the smiling humanity that we learn now can grow where there is love of liberty and appreciation of the dignity of the human personality. In the days immediately in front of us his loss will be great, but the nation that, in its strength and in its ideals, threw up a man to lead and guide itself and to assist the world in the difficulties that we have been going through and that are passing, will, from the same strength, from the same patience and the same ideals, throw up the necessary men to deal with its own problems to-morrow and be of assistance and guidance to us all.
In this country, we have a very fundamental unity of thought and feeling with the liberty-loving and democratic-spirited people of the United States. We have particularly to benefit by the example we have had in the spirit of the United States in recent years. Yesterday, President Roosevelt belonged to his own nation. To-day, he belongs to all of us and, particularly, to those people who believe in human destiny and have a deep sense of religion and a deep love of liberty. He belongs to all those individual men and women who wish to work out their destiny according to the gifts and personality bestowed on them by Providence, so that they may do their own duty here in this world and help one another.
We sympathise with the people of the United States and with all humanity to-day, with all those who look for help and guidance, for courage and assistance; but I think that we here, instead of mourning, praise God that, through the personality of President Roosevelt, He has manifested to us what men can be and what men can do, who love liberty, who appreciate the dignity of humanity and who are prepared to do their work for themselves, for their country and for the world, inspired by a deep spirit of religion.
