I’m reading my kids the book _Cheaper by the Dozen_ by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It’s the story of their family, but really a memoir of their father, Frank Gilbreth.

And a fine book it is. (I haven’t seen the movie, nor the “remake” and its sequel, so I can’t comment on them.)

Tonight, however, as we were reading, I came across this quote from Frank Sr., regarding clergymen: “They give me the creeps,” he said. “Show me a man with a loud mouth, a roving eye, a fat rear, and an empty head, and I’ll show you a preacher.” (67) That’s amazing candor, given that the book was published in 1948, and the statement was made sometime before Gilbreth’s death in 1924–possibly before WWI. I don’t agree with him, of course, but it’s a data point if you think that the clergy has only recently come into disrepute as America has dechristianized.

Mr. Gilbreth goes on to explain his opinion as having been formed on a transatlantic voyage carrying a delegation to a minister’s conference. “They crawled out of every argument by citing the Lord God Jehovah as their authority. I was asked on an average of eight times a day, for eight miserable and consecutive days, to come to Jesus, whatever that is. And a stewardess told me that her behind had been pinched surreptitiously so many times between Hoboken and Liverpool that she had to eat off a mantelpiece.”

He used to drive Mother and us to Sunday school, and then sit outside in the car, reading The New York Times and ignoring the shocked glares of passing churchgoers.

“You might at least come in where it’s warm,” Mother told him. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

“No,” Dad replied. “When I go to meet my Maker, I want to be able to tell him that I did my praying on my own, halted by neither snow nor sleet nor icy stares, and without the aid of any black-frocked, collar-backwards cheerleader.”