Elmer Gantry (25 page)

Bess Needham, later to be Bess Shallard, was remarkably like a robin. She had the same cheerfulness, the same round
ruddiness, and the same conviction that early rising, chirping, philoprogenitiveness, and strict attention to food were the
aims of existence. She had met Frank at a church “social,” she had pitied what she regarded as his underfed pallor, she had
directed her father, an amiable and competent dentist, to invite Frank home, for “a real feed” and bright music on the
phonograph. She listened fondly to his talk—she had no notion what it was about, but she liked the sound of it.

He was stirred by her sleek neck, her comfortable bosom, by the dimpled fingers which stroked his hair before he knew
that he longed for it. He was warmed by her assertion that he “put it all over” the Rev. Dr. Seager, the older Baptist
parson in Eureka. So she was able to marry him without a struggle, and they had three children in the shortest possible
time.

She was an admirable wife and mother. She filled the hot water bottle for his bed, she cooked corn beef and cabbage
perfectly, she was polite to the most exasperating parishioners, she saved money, and when he sat with fellow clerics
companionably worrying about the sacraments, she listened to him, and him alone, with beaming motherliness.

He realized that with a wife and three children he could not consider leaving the church; and the moment he realized it
he began to feel trapped and to worry about his conscience all the more.

There was, in Eureka, with its steel mills, its briskness, its conflict between hard-fisted manufacturers and hard-headed
socialists, nothing of the contemplation of Catawba, where thoughts seemed far-off stars to gaze on through the mist. Here
was a violent rush of ideas, and from this rose the “Preachers’ Liberal Club,” toward which Frank was drawn before he had
been in Eureka a fortnight.

The ring-leader of these liberals was Hermann Kassebaum, the modernist rabbi—young, handsome, black of eye and blacker of
hair, full of laughter, regarded by the elect of the town as a shallow charlatan and a dangerous fellow, and actually the
most scholarly man Frank had ever encountered, except for Bruno Zechlin. With him consorted a placidly atheistic Unitarian
minister, a Presbyterian who was orthodox on Sunday and revolutionary on Monday, a wavering Congregationalist, and an
Anglo–Catholic Episcopalian, who was enthusiastic about the beauties of the ritual and the Mithraic origin of the same.

And Frank’s fretting wearily started all over again. He re-read Harnack’s “What Is Christianity?” Sunderland’s “Origin
and Nature of the Bible,” James’s “Varieties of Religious Experience,” Fraser’s “Golden Bough.”

He was in the pleasing situation where whatever he did was wrong. He could not content himself with the discussions of
the Liberal Club. “If you fellows believe that way, why don’t you get out of the church?” he kept demanding. Yet he could
not leave them; could not, therefore, greatly succeed among the Baptist brethren. His good wife, Bess, when he diffidently
hinted of his doubts, protested, “You can’t reach people just through their minds. Besides, they wouldn’t understand you if
you DID come right out and tell ’em the truth—as you see it. They aren’t ready for it.”

His worst doubt was the doubt of himself. And in this quite undignified wavering he remained, envying equally Rabbi
Kassebaum’s public scoffing at all religion and the thundering certainties of the cover-to-cover evangelicals. He who each
Sunday morning neatly pointed his congregation the way to Heaven was himself tossed in a Purgatory of self-despising doubt,
where his every domestic virtue was cowardice, his every mystic aspiration a superstitious mockery, and his every desire to
be honest a cruelty which he must spare Bess and his well-loved brood.

He was in this mood when the Reverend Elmer Gantry suddenly came, booming and confident, big and handsome and glossy,
into his study, and explained that if Frank could let him have a hundred dollars, Elmer, and presumably the Lord, would be
grateful and return the money within two weeks.

The sight of Elmer as a fellow pastor was too much for Frank. To get rid of him, he hastily gave Elmer the hundred he had
saved up toward payment of the last two obstetrical bills, and sat afterward at his desk, his head between his lax hands,
praying, “O Lord, guide me!”

He leapt up. “No! Elmer said the Lord had been guiding HIM! I’ll take a chance on guiding myself! I will—” Again, weakly,
“But how can I hurt Bess, hurt my dad, hurt Father Pengilly? Oh, I’ll go on!”

The Reverend Elmer Gantry was writing letters—he had no friends, and the letters were all to inquirers about his
Prosperity Classes— at a small oak-desk in the lobby of the O’-Hearn House in Zenith.

His Zenith classes here had gone not badly, not brilliantly. He had made enough to consider paying the hundred dollars
back to Frank Shallard, though certainly not enough to do so. He was tired of this slippery job; he was almost willing to
return to farm implements. But he looked anything but discouraged, in his morning coat, his wing collar, his dotted blue bow
tie.

Writing at the other half of the lobby desk was a little man with an enormous hooked nose, receding chin, and a Byzantine
bald head. He was in a brown business suit, with a lively green tie, and he wore horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Vice-president of a bank, but started as a school-teacher,” Elmer decided. He was conscious that the man was watching
him. A possible student? No. Too old.

Elmer leaned back, folded his hands, looked as pontifical as possible, cleared his throat with a learned sound, and
beamed.

The little man kept glancing up, rat-like, but did not speak.

“Beautiful morning,” said Elmer.

“Yes. Lovely. On mornings like this all Nature exemplifies the divine joy!”

“My God! No business for me here! He’s a preacher or an osteopath,” Elmer lamented within.

“Is this—this is Dr. Gantry, I believe.”

“Why, yes. I’m, uh, sorry, I—”

“I’m Bishop Toomis, of the Zenith area of the Methodist Church. I had the great pleasure of hearing one of your exordiums
the other evening, Dr. Gantry.”

Elmer was hysterically thrilled.

Bishop Wesley R. Toomis! For years he had heard of the bishop as one of the giants, one of the pulpit orators, one of the
profound thinkers, exalted speakers, and inspired executives of the Methodist Church, North. He had addressed ten thousand
at Ocean Grove; he had spoken in Yale chapel; he had been a success in London. Elmer rose and, with a handshake which must
have been most painful to the bishop, he glowed:

“Well, well, well, sir, this certainly is a mighty great pleasure, sir. It sure is! So you came and listened to me! Well,
wish I’d known that. I’d of asked you to come sit on the platform.”

Bishop Toomis had risen also; he waved Elmer back into his chair, himself perched like a keen little hawk, and
trilled:

“No, no, not at all, not at all. I came only as an humble listener. I dare say I have, by the chance and circumstance of
age, had more experience of Christian life and doctrine than you, and I can’t pretend I exactly in every way agreed with
you, you might say, but at the same time, that was a very impressive thought about the need of riches to carry on the work
of the busy workaday world, as we have it at present, and the value of concentration in the silence as well as in those
happy moments of more articulate prayer. Yes, yes. I firmly believe that we ought to add to our Methodist practise some of
the Great Truths about the, alas, too often occulted and obstructed Inner Divine Powers possessed in unconsciousness by each
of us, as New Thought has revealed them to us, and that we ought most certainly not to confine the Church to already
perceived dogmas but encourage it to grow. It stands to reason that really devout prayer and concentration should most
materially effect both bodily health and financial welfare. Yes, yes. I was interested in what you had to say about it
and—The fact is that I am going to address the Chamber of Commerce luncheon this noon, along much these same lines, and if
you happen to be free, I should be very glad if—”

They went, Elmer and Bishop Toomis, and Elmer added to the bishop’s observations a few thoughts, and the most caressing
compliments about bishops in general, Bishop Wesley R. Toomis in particular, pulpit oratory, and the beauties of prosperity.
Everybody had a radiant time, except possibly the members of the Chamber of Commerce, and after the luncheon Elmer and the
bishop walked off together.

“My, my, I feel flattered that you should know so much about me! I am, after all, a very humble servant of the Methodist
Church—of the Lord, that is—and I should not have imagined that any slight local reputation I might have would have
penetrated into the New Thought world,” breathed the bishop.

“Oh, I’m not a New Thoughter. I’m, uh, temporarily conducting these courses—as a sort of psychological experiment, you
might say. Fact is, I’m an ordained Baptist preacher, and of course in seminary your sermons were always held up to us as
models.”

“I’m afraid you flatter me, Doctor.”

“Not at all. In fact they attracted me so that—despite my great reverence for the Baptist Church, I felt, after reading
your sermons, that there was more breadth and vigor in the Methodist Church, and I’ve sometimes considered asking some
Methodist leader, like yourself, about my joining your ministry.”

“Is that a fact? Is that a fact? We could use you. Uh—I wonder if you couldn’t come out to the house tomorrow night for
supper— just take pot-luck with us?”

“I should be most honored, Bishop.”

Alone in his room, Elmer exulted, “That’s the stunt! I’m sick of playing this lone game. Get in with a real big machine
like the Methodists—maybe have to start low down, but climb fast—be a bishop myself in ten years—with all their spondulix
and big churches and big membership and everything to back me up. Me for it. O Lord, thou hast guided me. . . . No, honest,
I mean it. . . . No more hell-raising. Real religion from now on. Hurray! Oh, Bish, you watch me hand you the ole
flattery!”

The Episcopal Palace. Beyond the somber length of the drawing-room an alcove with groined arches and fan-tracery—-remains
of the Carthusian chapel. A dolorous crucifixion by a pupil of El Greco, the sky menacing and wind-driven behind the gaunt
figure of the dying god. Mullioned windows that still sparkled with the bearings of hard-riding bishops long since ignoble
dust. The refectory table, a stony expanse of ancient oak, set round with grudging monkish chairs. And the library—on either
side the lofty fireplace, austerely shining rows of calf-bound wisdom now dead as were the bishops.

The picture must be held in mind, because it is so beautifully opposite to the residence of the Reverend Dr. Wesley R.
Toomis, bishop of the Methodist area of Zenith.

Bishop Toomis’ abode was out in the section of Zenith called Devon Woods, near the junction of the Chaloosa and Appleseed
rivers, that development (quite new in 1913, when Elmer Gantry first saw it) much favored by the next-to-the-best surgeons,
lawyers, real estate dealers, and hardware wholesalers. It was a chubby modern house, mostly in tapestry brick with
varicolored imitation tiles, a good deal of imitation half-timbering in the gables, and a screened porch with
rocking-chairs, much favored on summer evenings by the episcopal but democratic person of Dr. Toomis.

The living-room had built-in book-shelves with leaded glass, built-in seats with thin brown cushions, and a huge
electrolier with shades of wrinkled glass in ruby, emerald, and watery blue. There were a great many chairs—club chairs,
Morris chairs, straight wooden chairs with burnt-work backs—and a great many tables, so that progress through the room was
apologetic. But the features of the room were the fireplace, the books, and the foreign curios.

The fireplace was an ingenious thing. Basically it was composed of rough-hewn blocks of a green stone. Set in between the
larger boulders were pebbles, pink and brown and earth-colored, which the good bishop had picked up all over the world. This
pebble, the bishop would chirp, guiding you about the room, was from the shore of the Jordan, this was a fragment from the
Great Wall of China, and this he had stolen from a garden in Florence. They were by no means all the attractions of the
fireplace. The mantel was of cedar of Lebanon, genuine, bound with brass strips from a ship wrecked in the Black Sea in
1902—the bishop himself had bought the brass in Russia in 1904. The andirons were made from plowshares as used by the bishop
himself when but an untutored farm lad, all unaware of coming glory, in the cornfields of Illinois. The poker was, he
assured you, a real whaling harpoon, picked up, surprisingly cheap, at Nantucket. Its rude shaft was decorated with a pink
bow. This was not the doing of the bishop but of his lady. Himself, he said, he preferred the frank, crude, heroic strength
of the bare woods, but Mrs. Toomis felt it needed a touch, a brightening—

Set in the rugged chimney of the fireplace was a plaque of smooth marble on which was carved in artistic and curly and
gilded letters: “The Virtue of the Home is Peace, the Glory of the Home is Reverence.”

The books were, as the bishop said, “worth browsing over.” There were, naturally, the Methodist Discipline and the
Methodist Hymnal, both handsomely bound Roycrofty in limp blue calfskin with leather ties; there was an impressive
collection of Bibles, including a very ancient one, dated 1740, and one extra-illustrated with all the Hoffmann pictures and
one hundred and sixty other Biblical scenes; and there were the necessary works of theological scholarship befitting a
bishop—Moody’s Sermons, Farrar’s “Life of Christ,” “Flowers and Beasties of the Holy Land,” and “In His Steps,” by Charles
Sheldon. The more workaday ministerial books were kept in the study.

But the bishop was a man of the world and his books fairly represented his tastes. He had a complete Dickens, a complete
Walter Scott, Tennyson in the red-line edition bound in polished tree calf with polished gilt edges, many of the better
works of Macaulay and Ruskin and, for lighter moments, novels by Mrs. Humphry Ward, Winston Churchill, and Elizabeth of the
German Garden. It was in travel and nature-study that he really triumphed. These were represented by not less than fifty
volumes with such titles as “How to Study the Birds,” “Through Madagascar with Camp and Camera,” “My Summer in the Rockies,”
“My Mission in Darkest Africa,” “Pansies for Thoughts,” and “London from a Bus.” Nor had the bishop neglected history and
economics: he possessed the Rev. Dr. Hockett’s “Complete History of the World: Illustrated,” in eleven handsome volumes, a
second-hand copy of Hartley’s “Economics,” and “The Solution of Capitalism vs. Labor—Brotherly Love.”

Yet not the fireplace, not the library, so much as the souvenirs of foreign travel gave to the bishop’s residence a flair
beyond that of most houses in Devon Woods. The bishop and his lady were fond of travel. They had made a six months’
inspection of missions in Japan, Korea, China, India, Borneo, Java, and the Philippines, which gave the bishop an
authoritative knowledge of all Oriental governments, religions, psychology, commerce, and hotels. But besides that, six
several summers they had gone to Europe, and usually on the more refined and exclusive tours. Once they had spent three
solid weeks seeing nothing but London—with side-trips to Oxford, Canterbury, and Stratford—once they had taken a four-day
walking trip in the Tyrol, and once on a channel steamer they had met a man who, a steward said, was a Lord.

The living-room reeked with these adventures. There weren’t exactly so many curios—the bishop said he didn’t believe in
getting a lot of foreign furniture and stuff when we made the best in the world right here at home—but as to pictures—The
Toomises were devotees of photography, and they had brought back the whole world in shadow.

Here was the Temple of Heaven at Peking, with the bishop standing in front of it. Here was the Great Pyramid, with Mrs.
Toomis in front of it. Here was the cathedral at Milan, with both of them in front of it—this had been snapped for them by
an Italian guide, an obliging gentleman who had assured the bishop that he believed in prohibition.

Into this room Elmer Gantry came with overpowering politeness. He bent, almost as though he were going to kiss it, over
the hand of Mrs. Toomis, who was a large lady with eyeglasses and modest sprightliness, and he murmured, “If you could only
know what a privilege this is!”

She blushed, and looked at the bishop as if to say, “This, my beloved, is a good egg.”

He shook hands reverently with the bishop and boomed, “How good it is of you to take in a homeless wanderer!”

“Nonsense, nonsense, Brother. It is a pleasure to make you at home! Before supper is served, perhaps you’d like to glance
at one or two books and pictures and things that Mother and I have picked up in the many wanderings to which we have been
driven in carrying on the Work. . . . Now this may interest you. This is a photograph of the House of Parliament, or
Westminster, as it is also called, in London, England, corresponding to our Capitol in Washington.”

“Well, well, is that a fact!”

“And here’s another photo that might have some slight interest. This is a scene very rarely photographed—in fact it was
so interesting that I sent it to the National Geographic Magazine, and while they were unable to use it, because of an
overload of material, one of the editors wrote to me—I have the letter some place—and he agreed with me that it was a very
unusual and interesting picture. It is taken right in front of the Sacra Cur, the famous church in Paris, up on the hill of
Moant-marter, and if you examine it closely you will see by the curious light that it was taken JUST BEFORE SUNRISE! And yet
you see how bully it came out! The lady to the right, there, is Mrs. Toomis. Yes, sir, a real breath right out of
Paris!”

“Well, say, that certainly is interesting! Paris, eh!”

“But, oh, Dr. Gantry, a sadly wicked city! I do not speak of the vices of the French themselves—that is for them to
settle with their own consciences, though I certainly do advocate the most active and widespread extension of our American
Protestant missions there, as in all other European countries which suffer under the blight and darkness of Catholicism. But
what saddens me is the thought—and I know whereof I speak, I myself have seen that regrettable spectacle—what would sadden
you, Dr. Gantry, is the sight of fine young Americans going over there and not profiting by the sermons in stones, the
history to be read in those historical structures, but letting themselves be drawn into a life of heedless and hectic gaiety
if not indeed of actual immorality. Oh, it gives one to think, Dr. Gantry.”

“Yes, it certainly must. By the way, Bishop, it isn’t Dr. Gantry— it’s Mr. Gantry—just plain Reverend.”

“But I thought your circulars—”

“Oh, that was a mistake on the part of the man who wrote them for me. I’ve talked to him good!”

“Well, well, I admire you for speaking about it! It is none too easy for us poor weak mortals to deny honors and titles
whether they are rightly or wrongly conferred upon us. Well, I’m sure that it is but a question of time when you WILL wear
the honor of a Doctor of Divinity degree, if I may without immodesty so refer to a handle which I myself happen to
possess—yes, indeed, a man who combines strength with eloquence, charm of presence, and a fine high-grade vocabulary as you
do, it is but a question of time when—”

“Wesley, dear, supper is served.”

“Oh, very well, my dear. The ladies, Dr. Gantry—Mr. Gantry—as you may already have observed, they seem to have the
strange notion that a household must be run on routine lines, and they don’t hesitate, bless ’em, to interrupt even an
abstract discussion to bid us come to the festal board when they feel that it’s time, and I for one make haste to obey
and—After supper there’s a couple of other photographs that might interest you, and I do want you to take a peep at my
books. I know a poor bishop has no right to yield to the lust for material possessions, but I plead guilty to one vice— my
inordinate love for owning fine items of literature. . . . Yes, dear, we’re coming at once. Toojoor la fam, Mr.
Gantry!—always the ladies! Are you, by the way, married?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Well, well, you must take care of that. I tell you in the ministry there is always a vast, though often of course
unfair, amount of criticism of the unmarried preacher, which seriously cramps him. Yes, my dear, we are coming.”

There were rolls hidden in the cornucopia-folded napkins, and supper began with a fruit cocktail of orange, apple, and
canned pineapple.

“Well,” said Elmer, with a courtly bow to Mrs. Toomis, “I see I’m in high society—beginning with a cocktail! I tell you I
just have to have my cocktail before the eats!”

It went over immensely. The bishop repeated it, choking.