Plain & Pertinent

"O God, our Father, let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen . . . Give us the courage . . . to stand for something, lest we fall for anything . . . Amen."

Rolling his rs, the Rev. Peter Marshall, Scottish-born chaplain of the U.S. Senate, thus prayed one day last winter over the bowed heads of his legislative flock. That day the Senate was hemming & hawing over the European Recovery Program; husky, sandy-haired Dr. Marshall liked to make his prayers timely.

"O, Lord, Keep Us Quiet." Arthur H. Vandenberg once remarked that "I never know whether Dr. Marshall is praying for me or at me." Senators, who have their moments of ringing and hollow oratory, came to find Peter Marshall's prayers plain and pertinent. Once he prayed: "When we do not know what to say, keep us quiet." Another time he said: "Save us from the sin of worrying, lest stomach ulcers be the badge of our lack of faith."

At 14, Peter Marshall was a skinny, knob-kneed boy, working as an office boy in a steel company in his native Coatbridge, Scotland. He came to the U.S. in 1927, dug ditches, wrestled iron castings in a New Jersey foundry. But Marshall really wanted to be a minister, finally studied three years at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Ga. In 1937 he became pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington. Ten years later he became Senate chaplain of the Republican 80th Congress, was re-elected in the Democratic 81st.

"I Can Hardly Wait." There was nothing stuffy about Peter Marshall, even when he thundered from the pulpit against liquor, sexy magazine pictures, and Hollywood divorces. He wore tweed jackets, polo shirts and bright ties, chain-smoked cigarettes and once surprised some elderly churchwomen by banging on a piano and singing Oh, You Beautiful Doll. A member of no party, he called himself "progressive and liberal." At times his philosophy was reflected in pointed prayers before the Senate. Marshall once implored: "Help us to care, as Thou dost care, for the little people who have no lobbyists, for the minority groups who sorely need justice."

In March 1946, he had a heart attack during a sermon, finished what he was saying, and then was helped from the pulpit. Though he recuperated, he never let up, frequently ended services by saying: "If I am still here, I'll be with you next week." Once he asked an audience: "Are you scarred of death? I'm not. I'm looking for-r-ward to it--I can hardly wait." Last week, at 46, death came swiftly to Peter Marshall. Two days later, the last prayer he had written for the Senate was read aloud. ". . . Where we cannot convince, let us be willing to persuade, for small deeds done are better than great deeds planned."

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