“We could use old Styles, and you could get some fine publicity by attacking Shallard’s attempt to steal Jesus and even Hell away from us,” said Elmer’s confidant, Mr. T. J. Rigg, when he was consulted.
“Say, that’s great. How liberalism leads to theism. Fine! Wait till Mr. Frank Shallard opens his mouth and puts his foot in it again!” said the Reverend Elmer Gantry. “Say, I wonder how we could get a report of his sermons? The poor fish isn’t important enough so’s they very often report his junk in the papers.”
“I’ll take care of that. I’ve got a girl in my office, good fast worker, that I’ll have go and take down all his sermons. They’ll just think she’s practising stenography.”
“Well, by golly, that’s one good use for sermons. Ha, ha, ha!” said Elmer.
“Yes, sir, by golly, found at last. Ha, ha, ha!” said Mr. T. J. Rigg.
II
In less than a month Frank maddened the citizens of Zenith by asserting, in the pulpit, that though he was in favor of temperance, he was not for Prohibition; that the methods of the Anti-Saloon League were those of a lumber lobby.
Elmer had his chance.
He advertised that he would speak on “Fake Preachers—and Who They Are.”
In his sermon he said that Frank Shallard (by name) was a liar, a fool, an ingrate whom he had tried to help in seminary, a thief who was trying to steal Christ from an ailing world.
Elmer saw to it—T. J. Rigg arranged a foursome—that he played golf with William Dollinger Styles that week.
“I was awfully sorry, Mr. Styles,” he said, “to feel it my duty to jump on your pastor, Mr. Shallard, last Sunday, but when a fellow stands up and makes fun of Jesus Christ—well, it’s time to forget mercy!”
“I thought you were kind of hard on him. I didn’t hear his sermon myself—I’m a church-member, but it does seem like things pile up so at the office that I have to spend almost every Sunday morning there. But from what they’ve told me, he wasn’t so wild.”
“Then you don’t think Shallard is practically an atheist?”
“Why, no! Nice decent fellow—”
“Mr. Styles, do you realize that all over town people are wondering how a man like you can give his support to a man like Shallard? Do you realize that not only the ministers but also laymen are saying that Shallard is secretly both an agnostic and a socialist, though he’s afraid to come out and admit it? I hear it everywhere. People are afraid to tell you. Jiminy, I’m kind of scared of you myself! Feel I’ve got a lot of nerve!”
“Well, I ain’t so fierce,” said Mr. Styles, very pleased.
“Anyway, I’d hate to have you think I was sneaking around damning Shallard behind his back. Why don’t you do this? You and some of the other Dorchester deacons have Shallard for lunch or dinner, and have me there, and let me put a few questions to him. I’ll talk to the fellow straight! Do you feel you can afford to be known as tolerating an infidel in your church? Oughtn’t you to make him come out from under cover and admit what he thinks? If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize to you and to him, and you can call me all the kinds of nosey, meddling, cranky, interfering fool you want to!”
“Well—He seems kind of a nice fellow.” Mr. Styles was uncomfortable. “But if you’re right about him being really an infidel, don’t know’s I could stand that.”
“How’d it be if you and some of your deacons and Shallard came and had dinner with me in a private room at the Athletic Club next Friday evening?”
“Well, all right—”
III
Frank was so simple as to lose his temper when Elmer had bullied him, roared at him, bulked at him, long enough, with Frank’s own deacons accepting Elmer as an authority. He was irritated out of all caution, and he screamed back at Elmer that he did not accept Jesus Christ as divine; that he was not sure of a future life; that he wasn’t even certain of a personal God.
Mr. William Dollinger Styles snapped, “Then just why, Mr. Shallard, don’t you get out of the ministry before you’re kicked out?”
“Because I’m not yet sure—Though I do think our present churches are as absurd as a belief in witchcraft, yet I believe there could be a church free of superstition, helpful to the needy, and giving people that mystic something stronger than reason, that sense of being uplifted in common worship of an unknowable power for good. Myself, I’d be lonely with nothing but bleak debating-societies. I think—at least I still think—that for many souls there is this need of worship, even of beautiful ceremonial—”
“ ‘Mystic need of worship!’ ‘Unknowable power for good!’ Words, words, words! Milk and water! That, when you have the glorious and certain figure of Christ Jesus to worship and follow!” bellowed Elmer. “Pardon me, gentlemen, for intruding, but it makes me, not as a preacher but just as a humble and devout Christian, sick to my stomach to hear a fellow feel that he knows so blame’ much he’s able to throw out of the window the Christ that the whole civilized world has believed in for countless centuries! And try to replace him with a lot of gassy phrases! Excuse me, Mr. Styles, but after all, religion is a serious business, and if we’re going to call ourselves Christians at all, we have to bear testimony to the proven fact of God. Forgive me.”
“It’s quite all right, Dr. Gantry. I know just how you feel,” said Styles. “And while I’m no authority on religion, I feel the same way you do, and I guess these other gentlemen do, too. … Now, Shallard, you’re entitled to your own views, but not in our pulpit! Why don’t you just resign before we kick
