“I wish you would say for me to the folks at home that there is a great opportunity in this big common purpose of ours--an opportunity to drop all outworn and unessential differences of creed and get together. Let us inaugurate the Ismless Sunday and cut out the waste--the waste of rent and interest and coal and light and energy. Let us cut out the empty seats and the empty preachers and the quarrelsome brothers and sisters and get together in the biggest meeting-house in town on a basis of common sense--the common sense of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man with Christ as the great example. Let us not worry and quarrel as to whether Christ was God or man. He was the first and greatest Democrat and would have us work together in peace for Democracy. That is the important thing. “Tell those ladies who sit around the fireplace knitting sweaters and indulging in delicious chills of pessimism, to quit. There should be an asylum for the misery lovers who sit in snug security and dream of misfortunes--Zeppelin raids, submarine bombardments and the end of the world. They grab at every straw of pessimism. Nothing pleases them so much as to find fault with the Government, which is doing its best with a difficult problem, and mighty well at that. “Tell them to stop shooting at the pianist. He is the only one we have. All faces to the front! The spirit of Democracy is _confidence_ in the justice and the success of its cause. Let there be no discordant voices in our chorus. “That reminds me of the story of THE CUFFING OF ANN MARIA. “In the town of my birth there lived a hen-pecked farmer of the name of Amos Swope. He was a peaceful and contented soul without any good excuse for it. His wife, Ann Maria, was a scold and a fault finder. She had pecked upon Amos for years. When she got tired her sister came and helped her. My father used to say that they reminded him of Philo Scott's pet crane. Philo used to lead him around with a big cork stuck on the end of his bill. “'What is that cork on his bill for?' my father asked. “'So's 't he can't peck,' said Philo. “'Can he peck?' “'Tolerable severe, an' when he hits anything he calcallates to put a hole in it, an' he ain't often disapp'inted. One day my dog, Christmas, tackled him and the old crane fetched Christmas a peck on the forward an' I ain't seen that dog since. He's just naturally mean an' he ain't never learnt how to control himself.' “So it was with Ann Maria and her sister. But Amos used to sit as quiet and unconcerned as an old tree with a pair of wood-peckers knockin' away at it. He never pecked back but once.