A WARNING TO SELF-RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE  

BY JOSEPH BERT SMILEY.

St. Peter stood guard at the golden gate

With a solemn mien and an air sedate, 

When up to 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 hope 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 upon 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 woman spoke.

"O, thou who guardest the gate," said she,

"We two come hither, beseeching thee

 To let us enter the heavenly land

And play our harps with 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 bay

When they'd repent of their evil way,

I've told my neighbors--I've told 'em 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 to talked and talked to 'm loud and long,

For my lungs are good, and my voice is strang:

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 in 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 or not.

"But oh, St. Peter, I love him so!

To the pleasures 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 a way

Of coaxing, or fooling, or bribing you

So that their relations can amble through.

And say, Sat. Peter, it seems to me

This gate isn't kept as it ought to be:

'You ought to stand right by the opening there,

And never sit down in that easy-chair.

"And say, St. Peter, my sight is dimmed,

But I don't like the way your whiskers are trimmed:

They're cut too wide, and outward toss,

They'd look better narrow, cut straight across.

Well, we must be going, our crowns to win,

So, open, St. Peter, and we'll pass in!

St . Peter sat quiet, stroked his staff,

But spite of his office he had to laugh;

Then he said, with a fiery gleam in his eye,

"Who's tending tis gateway, you or I?'

And then he rose, in his stature tall,

And pressed a button upon the wall,

And said to the imp who answered the bell,

"Escort this lady around to--Hades!""

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 would certainly 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?

Ho! Angel Gabriel! Give him a harp!

A jeweled harp with a golden string!

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 rest!

"See that on finest Ambrosia he feeds,

He's had about all the hades he needs;

It isn't hardly the thin to do

To roast him on earth and the future too.

They gave him a harp with golden strings,

A glittering robe, and a pair of wings,

'And he said, as he enter'd the Realm of Day,

"Well, this beats cucumbers, any way!"

And so the scripture had some to pass

That "The last shall be first and the first shall be last."