Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1911-12-13
SOME OBSERVATIONS
DO Not go to Church
These Days.
(By H. l.. Rann).

why men don't go to church. 1t
says the trouble is golf and the Sun
day newspaper, but it is binder than
a closefisted elder during the mis-
sionary collection. When a preach
er undertakes to convince a man
whose brain cells have not fallen
into a ripe state of decay that Jonah
occupied a furnished fiat in the inter-
ior of whale for forty days without
being supplied with a night key, he
has taken a contract that will keep
him buster than the mother of thir-
teen children at the baptismal font.
When the pulpit founders, the pew
mods. After man has been fed for
years on canned sermonettes and
scrambled homilies that were hoary
with age six thousand years before
Martin Luther ordered eggs straight
up at the diet of worms, he will go
to church with the hopeless look of
an old maid at a leap year dance.
What the pulpit of this country needs
is enough ginger to keep man
whose mind is full of overdrafts and
eight per cent interest from falling
into a noisy and pervasive snore and
making the tenor solo sound like a
duet between a bull fiddle and a pic
colo.
This reminds us that a church in
Chicago canned preacher recently
because he advertised a sermon on
Hell" and used an amateur brass
band to enforce his argument. The
minister's sermon was undoubtedly
a series of personal experiences IN
the attempt to collect his salary.
Some churches seem to think that
the preacher ought to live on rari-
fed ozone and the proceeds of a col
lection box that is lighter than the
mind of bell hop. 1t is a peculiar
fact that the brother with red side
burns and adjustable teeth who ex-
horts in prayer meeting until every
body but the night watch is dead to
the world is harder to collect a dime
from on the pastors salary than
bomb proof section hand. A church
that will allow a preachers family
to luxuriate on summer sausage and
rain water and stand off every mer-
chant in the village from Christmas
to conference has about as much re-
ligion as porch climber.
In letter from an anxious house
wife who desires to observe the So
cial conventions We are asked if it
is considered de riguer to serve
breakfast in four courses when Ell
pertaining the harvest hands. We
should say not. The average har-
vest mechanic is all stock and no
style. He will never bunch the
Apollo Belvidere off his pedestal
with his fatal gift of beauty, but he
can go through platter of prickly
oatmeal like an epidemic of the chic
kenpox through a kindergarten All
| u
vest hand to a ten quart tureen of
corned beef and cabbage. pronounce
the blessing with as few preiimin-
aries as possible, and he will do the
rest. The thresherman is a simple
and unlettered soul, with large hands
and protruding feet, but he is too
/ wis 70 70 of - 81
frumpery that keeps a man waiting
four hours for apple pie and a nut
cracker.
This raises the subject of proper
menu for the free lunch at an auc-
ton. The accepted bill of fare con-
sists of soda crackers which have
long passed the heyday Of youth and
ring of bologna sausage that would
stall the appetite of an ensilage cut
ter. After prospective bidder has
taken up the slack in his intercostal
muscles with half portion of these
dainties, he will be in no frame of
mind to loosen up for anything ex-
| Ctpt q ScCOuu MANU- lOOulDStOue. lie
man who passes around venerable
cracker and an inch piece of bologna
as curtain raiser to a public auc-
ton will never have to specify that
all goods must be left on the prem
Uses until paid for, because the bid
ding will be about as spirited IS a
roam gelding with the distemper. If
you give a man a meal that will
make his eyes water like an unpre-
meditated intake of hot soup, you
can sell him grindstone with
crack in 1t as big as an irrigation
ditch. 1t is scientific fact that
gnawing stomach will make a man
so deaf that he can not hear the
auctioneer cry. make it half" A
tight landlord makes tight sale.
1t is a peculiar fact that nearly
always the man who does the most
cussing about the tariff couldn't tell
an ad valorem duty from the rear