*******FOR MEN ONLY*******

 (If you do read this, ladies, we want you to know that this was
     taught to a young man of about 12 in 1915--by a woman!)

            ST. PETER AT THE GATE
     (as remembered by George E. Morris)

St. Peter stood guard at the Golden Gate 
With a solemn mien and air sedate. 

While up at the top of the Golden Stair 
A man and woman ascending there --applied for admission 

The woman was tall and lank and thin 
With a scraggily beard upon her chin. 

The man was short and thick and stout 
And his stomach was built so it rounded out. 

The choirs in the distance the echoes woke 
And the man kept still while the woman spoke. 

"Oh thou who guardest the gate," said she, 
"We two come hither beseeching thee. 

To let us enter the Promised Land 
And play our harps with the angel band. 

Of me St. Peter there is no doubt 
There is nothing in Heaven to keep me out. 

I've been to meeting three times a week
And almost always I'd rise to speak.

I've told them one and I`ve told them all
About Adam and Eve and the Primal Fall.

I've talked to them loud and I`ve talked to them long,
My voice is good and my lungs are strong.

So good St. Peter you clearly see
The gates of Heaven are open to me.

But my old man I regret to say
Hasn't walked in exactly the Narrow Way.

He curses and swears and great faults he's got
And I don't know whether he'll pass or not.

I often left him in sorrow there
While I with my purity united in prayer.

If cucumbers for supper was all he got,
It's doubtful if he merited that or not.

But I've done enough, a saint I've been
Won't that atone, can't you let him in?


And, oh, St. Peter, I love him so
To the pleasures of Heaven please let him go!

Now, we must be going our crowns to win
So open St. Peter and we'll pass in."

St. Peter sat silent and stroked his staff.
In spite of his office, he had to laugh.

Then he rose in his stature tall
And pressed a button upon the wall.

And told the imp who answered the bell,
"Escort the lady down to Hell."

The man stood still as a piece of stone
Stood silently, gloomily there alone.

A lifelong idea he had
That his wife was good and he was bad.

So 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.

And calling him back he said,
"Friend, how long have you been wed?"

"Thirty years," with a weary sigh,
Then he thoughfully added, "Why?"

"Thirty years with that woman there
No wonder you haven't any hair.

Thirty years with that tongue so sharp,
Angel Gabriel give him a harp.

Give him a harp with jeweled strings
A glittering robe and a pair of wings.

See that upon the finest ambrosia he feeds
He's had about all the Hades he needs!"

So they gave him a harp with jeweled strings,
A glittering robe and a pair of wings,

And he said as he entered the Realms of Day,
"Well, this beats cucumbers anyway!"

So the Scriptures have come to pass
The last shall be first and the first shall be last!

(After a few chuckles and hmm, hmms, let's face it, friends.
This story is a little bit corny and certainly is NOT 
BIBLICAL-- no one gets second chance after death.
Hebrews 9:27 states "And as it is appointed unto men once 
to die, but after this the judgment:"

This story has a merit, though, in that it might teach a bit of 
humility to those self righteous, not-submissive wives who think
that they stand above their husbands by painting their husbands bad.

If it ever comforted those hen-pecked men who, like the husband in the 
story, never learned to be the spiritual head of his house, it did a great 
disservice to him because he,then, will never awake to realize that he has 
to be born above by the Spirit of God in order to enter into the presence 
of the eternally holy and loving God.

Bible says in John 3:3 "Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God.)