0001 PETER AT THE GATE,

By Jos. Bert Smiley.

St. Peter stood guard at the Golden Gate, With a solemn mein and an air sedate, When up the top of the golden stair A man and a woman ascending there Applied for admission. They came and stood Before St. Peter, so great and good, In hopes the City of Peace to win, And asked St. Peter to let them in.

The woman was tall, and lank, and thin, With a scraggy beardlet under her chin. The man was short, and thick, and stout, His stomach was built so it rounded out, His face was pleasant and all the while He wore a kindly and genial smile. The choirs in the distance the echoes woke, And the man kept still, while the women spoke.

“Oh, thou who guards the gate,” said she, “We two come hither beseeching thee To let us enter the heavenly land, And play our harps with the angel band. Of me, St. Peter, there is no doubt, There's nothing from heaven to bar ME out. I've been to meeting three times a week, And almost always I'd rise and speak.

“I've told the sinners about the day When they'd repent of their evil way; I've told my neighbors-I've told them all— 'Bout Adam and Eve, and the primal fall; I've shown them what they'd have to do If they'd pass in with the chosen few; I've marked their path of duty clear— Laid out the plan for their whole career.

“I've talked and talked to 'em hard and long, For my lungs are good, and my voice is strong. So, good St. Peter, you'll clearly see The gate of Heaven is open for ME. But my old man, I regret to say, Hasn't walked in exactly the narrow way. He smokes and he swears, and grave faults he's got. And I don't know whether he'll pass or not.

“He never would pray with an earnest vim, Or go to revival, or join a hymn, So I had to leave him in sorrow there, While, I with the chosen, united in prayer. He ate what the pantry chanced to afford, While I, in my purity, sang to the Lord, And if cucumbers were all he got, It's a chance if he merited them of not.

“But, oh, St. Peter, I love him so, To the pleasure of Heaven please let him go, I've done enough-a saint I've been— Won't that atone? Can't you let him in? By my grim gospel I know `tis so, That the unrepentant must fry below, But isn't there some way you can see That he may enter who's dear to me?

“It's a narrow gospel by which I pray, But the chosen expect to find some way Of coaxing, or fooling, or bribing you, So that their relations can amble through,

And, say, St. Peter, it seems to me This gate isn't kept as it ought to be. You ought to stand right by that opening there and never sit down in that easy chair.

“And, say, St. Peter, my sight is But I don't like the way your They are cut too wide, and outward They'd look better narrow, cut straight Well, we must be going our cross to win, So open, St. Peter, and we'll pass in.

St. Peter sat quiet and stroked his staff, But in spite of his office he had to laugh. Then said with a fiery gleam in his eyes, “Who's tending this gateway-you or I?” Then he arose in his stature tall, And pressed a button on the wall, And said to an imp, who came all aglow, “Escort this woman to the regions below.”

The man stood still as a piece of stone— Stood sadly, gloomily, there alone. A lifelong settled idea he had That his wife was good and he was bad. He thought if the woman went down below That he surely would have to go— That if she went to the regions dim There wasn't a ghost of a show for him.

Slowly he turned, by habit bent, To follow wherever the woman went. St. Peter standing on duty there, Observed that the top of his head was bare. He called the gentleman back, and said, “Friend how long have you been wed?” “Thirty years” (with a weary sigh). And then he thoughtfully added, “Why?”

St. Peter was silent. With head bent down He raised his hand and scratched his crown, Then, seeming a different thought to take, Slowly, half to himself he spake, “Thirty years with that woman there! No wonder the man hasn't any hair. Swearing is wicked, smoke's not good; He smoked and swore-I should think he would.

“Thirty years with that tongue so sharp? Oh, Angel Gabriel, give him a harp— A jeweled harp, with a golden string. Good sir, pass in where the angels sing. Gabriel, give him a seat alone— One with a cushion, up near the throne. Call up some angels to play their best; Let him enjoy the music and the rest; See that on the finest ambrosia he feeds; He's had about all the hell he needs. It isn't just hardly the thing to do, To roast him on earth and in the future too.” They gave him a harp with golden strings, A glittering robe and a pair of wings, And he said as he entered the Realm of Day, “Well, this beats cucumbers, anyway.” And so the Scriptures had come to pass, “The last shall be first, and first shall be last.”

JOS. BERT SMILEY

Phil. Pa. 1905