The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1906-08-02
"FoRGET 1T"

/ "FORGET IT,
Bill and Mary and eve" are go
ing to take vacation next week.
We are going to Okoboii to have good
time just as if we were some pump
kins. We are going for rest, just
to lie around and do nothing except
fish and row and swim and do more
work in day than section hand.
We expect to send back some elegant
fresh fish--storie to all paid up
subscribers. This will be the first
bona fide vacation, the first real pleas
ure exertion, we have taken since COM
ing to your midst in 1897. This is one
reason for our going, we have thought
that perhaps the midst" needed a
rest just as much as we did. We
have often thought that it would be
nice for newspaper readers. if editors
could exchange pulpits' just as the
preachers do. You will probably see
marked improvement IN next weeks
paper and if so you can lay it to our
absence. Some of our democratic
ofice-seeking friends have been most
kind and have intimated that if we
prolonged our vacation until Novem-
Der 18th there would be no harm done.
1--WE can but thank them for their I'M
selfish thoughtfulness. 1t is such
things that makes one know that he is
appreciated,
Yes, stree, we are going to okoboji
to hop.nob with the Gulicks, the
vosses, the MeHenry's. the Cornwells
the Bryces and the rest of the nabobs.
BY the way how we would like to be
preacher. Not only can they swap
pulpits whenever they don't feel like
writing a new sermon, but their con-
gregations gladly vote them vacations
every once in while. All they have
to do is to sit around and look benev-
client, take tea with the sisters and
eat free ice cream at church socials.
If preacher does do little work
just for exercise every passer by stops
to cape at the unusual sight and to
make some original humorous remark
about it. One of our clerical friends
told US in confidence that it was odd.
indeed, how many people could make
the same original humorous remarks
about a preacher and lawn mower in
the one afternoon. AND the preach
er looked tired when he said it, too.
We had just been making some orig
inal humorous remarks to the preacher
when he told us this, and we have
since wondered but then preacher
must be without guile. If preacher
needs the scriptures and takes no
thouhgt for the morrow he is said to
have no business sense, if he saves his
salary and consequently grows very
rich, people shake their heads and say
he is worldly. This we will admit is
one of the draw backs. There are a
few others. He must give sympa-
thetic attention. to all the tales of woe
of all of his congregation and then
some. Every young smart Aleck who
thinks he is an atheist springs his
wonderful theories on the preacher and
brushes Christianity with a single
epigram
There are three standards for moral
| ity in this world, one for men. one for
women and one for ministers. If a
clergyman says Gee Whiz, the average
man thinks to himself, Ibid you
hear that damn preacher swear" and
mentally puts his fingers to his ears
in holy horror. But as compensa-
ton for all this, just think of the
splendid isolation in which preach
er lives. He never gets next to
anybody. If he talks to women they
look at him with dreamy eyes, and a
prunes and prisms expression and say
soulful things. If he talks to men
they try to spit their tobacco out be-
fore he comes, and then devote their
attention to trying to forget at least
half of their usual vocabulary. They
may hint darkly and delicately at the
misdeeds of others. but it as thous-
and to one shot that they don't tell
the preacher about what whooping
old time they had when they went to
the last grand roundup of Amalga-
mated Duflickers of Abysinnia. Yes
the minister escapes all this. The
kind of conversation that is ladled out