TO FOLLY NEAR ALLIED

Churchmen are solemnly considering the removal of the "little joker" from the Episcopal marriage service. Wives need no longer promise to obey their husbands, if the proposed revision of the marriage ceremony recommended by Bishop Coadjutor Slattery of Massachusetts be adopted by the Episcopal Triennial General Convention which is to meet at New Orleans today.

The Right Reverend Doctor Slattery and his committee, all mere men, seem to have approached their task of revision with prayer and fasting. They seem to have sensed the truth of the old Italian proverb: "In buying a horse or taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to the Lord." In asking that the word obey be removed from the marriage service they explain that their purpose is to put the Church in touch with present day life, and then they naively add: "We are thus trying to make the service conform to the truth."

The zeal shown by these eminent gentlemen for conforming to the truth is very laudable, but the surprising thing of course is that this zeal has been so long in manifesting itself. Why was not the word removed from the marriage service long ago? It became obsolete when the caveman's cudgel went out of fashion. For that matter why was it ever put in at all? Of course it found its way in at the instigation of some blundering male. But what man had the temerity to believe that exacting a woman's promise to obey would give him the mastery!

Where is the man who his the power and skill

To stem the torrent of a woman's will? For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,

And if she won't, she wont, and that's the end on't.