The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-05-17

Jersey, Rev. Charles y. Fowler. saws
Edith Sessions Upper, in the Chicago
Chronicle, has been giving some ster-
ling advice to candidates for the min
istry.
i hope, he said, you each have a
good wife. If You have not, get one
and don't marry her because she is
pious. Marry her because she has good
common sense. If had two women to
choose from, one having common sense
and the other only religion. I would
take the woman with common sense"
Hear. hear!
When the Methodist Church can
show up such a bishop as that I feel
there is hope for her even if she does
believe in a literal hell.
and when men get TO the place where
they will choose their wives not for
beauty, style, position, money or pie
", but for good common sense a long
step toward the millennium will have
been taken and the list of happy mar
riages win swell like yeast in dough.
We have all met the deeply religious
woman who had not one shred, one
grain of common sense. We have even
seen her in the parsonage or rectory
where she has contrived to make life
one endless discipline for the unhappy
divine who had espoused her. We have
seen her havoc in the choir and the
sewing society. We have witnessed the
evangelical scraps she has instigated
and have marked her trail in the sus-
pension and explosions of members. No
man on earth needs a wife with plain,
hard common sense more than the pas
tor.
Therefore the good bishops advice
TO let the religion slide in favor of the
homely common sense comes with sin
gular fitness and appropriateness.
The wife of a clergyman has 10
please not alone her husband but the
deacons and the Sunday-school super
intendent and their relations She is
a marked woman from the first day
her consort enters upon his duties in a
new charge. She must always look
pleasant even when her heart is aching
or she gets the reputation of having
a grumpy disposition. She must be well
often on miserly income. She must
smooth the emotions of the ruffied,
counsel the doubling, comfort the sor-
rowing and lead the weekly PRAYER
meeting. All these obligations require
tact and tact is only another name for
good common sense.
l think of 4 clergyman's wife now
who was long on religion, but short on
common sense. By the profane and
ungodly of TIVE parish she was known
as the ''old war horse" She was al
ways and eternally stirring up a muss
both in the church and out. In matters
spiritual she usurped her husbands
functions and laid down the law 10 the
parish as if she had been the Pope. No
body liked her. Everyone made a face
at her back. She could pray like a
house afire. But she had not one
atom of common sense.
l knew another clergyman's wife
quite the opposite of the war horse,
but who yet had no common sense. She
was one of these easy-going, lazy, silly,
pious women. The parsonage always
looked as if struck by lightning. The
lady herself always had the appear
ance of having passed through a cy-
clone or some other severe trials. Her
clothes were askew, her bonnet always
on one ear. One of the funniest re-
mem brances of my childhood is of this
good lady with her eternal snnirk and
drawing tones addressing a mothers
meeting on how TO bring up neat. sober
and God-faring children. Her own Were
littlee tatterdemalions who ran he'll
mother was lounging around drinking
tea and eating caraway cookies at the
houses of the parishioners.
Yes, the clergyman who has a wife
unblessed with common sense is in
deed to be commiserated. But what
about the doctors lawyers, bankers
and statesmen who are similarly sit
uated? Is there no pity for them?
The men are of course very much to
be blamed in this matter. Man has al
ways hankered after a pretty fool. AS
a rule, a man falls in love with face.
He sees a beautiful mask and thinks it
a woman. He does not stop 10 think
what there may be behind that mask
No. he sees only the peachy cheek, the
sparkling eyes, the crimson bps the
He does not ask: rs this woman
sympathetic" will she enjoy what
enjoy?" Has she good common
sense?" That is the very last con-
sideration in the affair As a matter
of fact her inanities he sets down as
innocence. Her prattle is music TO his
worldly ears.
Well, he marries this sweet thing and
after the honeymoon her empty drivel
appalls him. Is it possible he has got
to live his life with that? Then il is
that he wishes he had looked for a
little common sense in place OF so
much Greek profile and strawberry
cream skin.
But to bark back to the religious
wife. Now, do not set me down as be-
ing foe to religion-to that religion
which consists in visiting the afflicted
in distress and in keeping ones self
unspotted as far as possible. That
sort of religion is all right. But
there is a type of religious wife who
can make a husband wish he had never
been born.
This sort of woman has not the
slightest compassion for the frailities
and shortcomings of mankind She
expects her husband to be as religious
as herself and if he shows any rebel
lion she makes it very, very warm for
him.
/ think of a wife of this class who is
perhaps the most disagreeable woman
/ know. Her husband is a prosperous
business man and nice fellow. He
would like to enjoy life. But she won't
allow him to have any pleasure in his
own house.
1T shall never be said that game
of cards is played in my house." she
declares, rolling up her eyes till only
the whites are visible. / suppose she
fancies she looks likesa saint. "Or, If
you are determined to smoke, Edward,
you can go outdoors" she says.
She is always entertaining returned
missionaries. Now missionaries are
respectable class of people. but they