February 11.
I spoke myself at to-night’s meeting—simple words, but I think their message was not lost. We must wage forever the good fight. We must rout the army of sin from its fortresses....
VIII.—LITANIES FOR THE OVERLOOKED
VIII.—Litanies for the Overlooked
I.—For Americanos
From scented hotel soap, and from the Boy Scouts; from home cooking, and from pianos with mandolin attachments; from prohibition, and from Odd Fellows’ funerals; from Key West cigars, and from cold dinner plates; from transcendentalism, and from the New Freedom; from fat women in straight-front corsets, and from Philadelphia cream cheese; from The Star-Spangled Banner, and from the International Sunday-school Lessons; from rubber heels, and from the college spirit; from sulphate of quinine, and from Boston baked beans; from chivalry, and from laparotomy; from the dithyrambs of Herbert Kaufman, and from sport in all its hideous forms; from women with pointed fingernails, and from men with messianic delusions; from the retailers of smutty anecdotes about the Jews, and from the Lake Mohonk Conference; from Congressmen, vice crusaders, and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from jokes in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and from the Revised Statutes of the United States; from Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that they take cold shower-baths every morning; from the Drama League, and from malicious animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the Weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one, and from the theory that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake; from campaigns against profanity, and from the Pentateuch; from anti-vivisection, and from women who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and from Methodists; from Armageddon, and from the belief that a bloodhound never makes a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures, and from virtuous chorus girls; from bungalows, and from cornets in B flat; from canned soups, and from women who leave everything to one’s honor; from detachable cuffs, and from Lohengrin; from unwilling motherhood, and from canary birds—good Lord, deliver us!
II.—For Hypochondriacs
From adenoids, and from chronic desquamative nephritis; from Shiga’s bacillus, and from hysterotrachelorrhaphy; from mitral insufficiency, and from Cheyne-Stokes breathing; from the streptococcus pyogenes, and from splanchnoptosis; from warts, wens, and the spirochæte pallida; from exophthalmic goitre, and from septicopyemia; from poisoning by sewer-gas, and from the bacillus coli communis; from anthrax, and from von Recklinghausen’s disease; from recurrent paralysis of the laryngeal nerve, and from pityriasis versicolor; from mania-à-potu, and from nephrorrhaphy; from the leptothrix, and from colds in the head; from tape-worms, from jiggers and from scurvy; from endocarditis, and from Romberg’s masticatory spasm; from hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus, and from fits; from the bacillus botulinus, and from salaam convulsions; from cerebral monoplegia, and from morphinism; from anaphylaxis, and from neuralgia in the eyeball; from dropsy, and from dum-dum fever; from autumnal catarrh, from coryza vasomotoria, from idiosyncratic coryza, from pollen catarrh, from rhinitis sympathetica, from rose cold, from catarrhus æstivus, from periodic hyperesthetic rhinitis, from heuasthma, from catarrhe d’ été and from hay-fever—good Lord, deliver us!