Once Enough

1910

"I am not an inquisitive man," said the minister, "but there is one thing I would like to know. Why do people who marry more than once never get the minister who tied the first knot to tie the second or third or fourth?

"I have married enough couples to earn for me the title of marrying parson. Many of those people were prominent enough socially to get their doings recorded in the newspapers and I learn through that medium that a fairly large percentage of them marry again. But they never ask me to officiate.

"Why don't they? Didn't I bring them good luck the first time? Has their experience prejudiced them against me personally, or is there a superstition that prevents a man being married twice by the same minister?

"Even members of my own congregation who marry again seek a strange minister. Why?"