Let me tell you, I love Jesus Christ more than just about anything on this miserable rock called Earth. Every morning, my nurse unstraps me so that I may get down on my knees and give my solemn and humble thanks in my private chapel.
In fact, the Good Lord has blessed me with His divine grace so much over the course of my long and distinguished life that I was inspired to pen a most holy and pious hymn to His eternal and glorious name.
Nurse! Can’t you see I’m bringing up the Farina you fed me! What’s in this wretched pablum anyhow? It’s turning my insides into wood pulp. Witch!
She’s trying to kill me, I just know it. She wants to get her hands on my Uruguayan zinc mines. I’d get my bodyguard to shatter her shins with an iron bar, but lately I’ve been suspecting him of secretly cashing my war bonds to buy fancy zoot suits.
Judases! Judases, all! Curse them!
So where was I? Ah, yes. The hymn idea came to me as I experienced a miraculous epiphany while passing a kidney stone the size of a file cabinet.
It’s called “God’s Soldiers of Heaven Do Decree in the Name of Christ”:
Onward, onward, the Angels did roam/Over hill and dale of Christendom’s home/And smartly they the sword of Piety drew/To smite the Infidel, Papist and Jew.
Pretty good, huh? There’s more.
The pious man knows he only his wife/And eschews the face of evil throughout his life/He toils all day long under the cruel sun/Curse that goddamned Seward and his lousy Alaska purchase.
My gums are almost completely transparent. It’s like having squids sliding around in your mouth. They’re too weak to hold dentures, that’s for sure. They’ll have to somehow screw my dentures to my sinuses, I guess.
Praise Jesus in all his glory! And be sure to vote Populist this November. That damn McKinley has had it too good. Him and his lousy promise of a “full dinner pail.” He’s no better than that railsplitter Harrison with his lousy Silver Act. Damn them all to hell!
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
