“Oh, I’m not looking for appreciation. It’s just that if I can do anything in my power to strike a blow at the forces of evil,” said Elmer, “I shall be most delighted to help you.”
“Do you suppose you could address the Detroit Y.M.C.A. on October fourth?”
“Well, it’s my wife’s birthday, and we’ve always made rather a holiday of it—we’re proud of being an old-fashioned homey family—but I know that Cleo wouldn’t want that to stand in the way of my doing anything I can to further the Kingdom.”
XV
So Elmer came, though tardily, to the Great Idea which was to revolutionize his life and bring him eternal and splendid fame.
That shabby Corsican artillery lieutenant and author, Bonaparte, first conceiving that he might be the ruler of Europe—Darwin seeing dimly the scheme of evolution—Paolo realizing that all of life was nothing but an irradiation of Francesca—Newton pondering on the falling apple—Paul of Tarsus comprehending that a certain small Jewish sect might be the new religion of the doubting Greeks and Romans—Keats beginning to write “The Eve of St. Agnes”—none of these men, transformed by a Great Idea from mediocrity to genius, was more remarkable than Elmer Gantry of Paris, Kansas, when he beheld the purpose for which the heavenly powers had been training him.
He was walking the deck—but only in the body, for his soul was soaring among the stars—he was walking the deck alone, late at night, clenching his fists and wanting to shout as he saw it all clearly.
He would combine in one association all the moral organizations in America—perhaps, later, in the entire world. He would be the executive of that combination; he would be the super-president of the United States, and some day the dictator of the world.
Combine them all. The Anti-Saloon League, the W.C.T.U., and the other organizations fighting alcohol. The Napap and the other Vice Societies doing such magnificent work in censoring unmoral novels and paintings and motion pictures and plays. The Anti-Cigarette League. The associations lobbying for anti-evolution laws in the state legislatures. The associations making so brave a fight against Sunday baseball, Sunday movies, Sunday golfing, Sunday motoring, and the other abominations whereby the Sabbath was desecrated and the preachers’ congregations and collections were lessened. The fraternities opposing Romanism. The societies which gallantly wanted to make it a crime to take the name of the Lord in vain or to use the nine Saxon physiological monosyllables. And all the rest.
Combine the lot. They were pursuing the same purpose—to make life conform to the ideals agreed upon by the principal Christian Protestant denominations. Divided, they were comparatively feeble; united, they would represent thirty million Protestant churchgoers; they would have such a treasury and such a membership that they would no longer have to coax Congress and the state legislatures into passing moral legislation, but in a quiet way they would merely state to the representatives of the people what they wanted, and get it.
And the head of this united organization would be the Warwick of America, the man behind the throne, the man who would send for presidents, of whatever party, and give orders … and that man, perhaps the most powerful man since the beginning of history, was going to be Elmer Gantry. Not even Napoleon or Alexander had been able to dictate what a whole nation should wear and eat and say and think. That, Elmer Gantry was about to do.
“A bishop? Me? A Wes Toomis? Hell, don’t be silly! I’m going to be the emperor of America—maybe of the world. I’m glad I’ve got this idea so early, when I’m only forty-three. I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” Elmer exulted. “Now let’s see: The first step is to kid this J. E. North along, and do whatever he wants me to—until it comes time to kick him out—and get a church in New York, so they’ll know I’m A-1. … My God, and Jim Lefferts tried to keep me from becoming a preacher!”
XVI
“—and I stood,” Elmer was explaining, in the pulpit of Wellspring Church, “there on the Roo deluh Pay in Paris, filled almost to an intolerable historical appreciation of those aged and historical structures, when suddenly up to me comes a man obviously a Frenchman.
“Now to me, of course, any man who is a countryman of Joan of Arc and of Marshal Foch is a friend. So when this man said to me, ‘Brother, would you like to have a good time tonight?’ I answered—though truth to tell I did not like his looks entirely—I said, ‘Brother, that depends entirely on what you mean by a good time’—he spoke English.
“ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can take you places where you can meet many pretty girls and have fine liquor to drink.’
“Well, I had to laugh. I think I was more sorry for him than anything else. I laid my hand on his shoulder and I said, ‘Brother, I’m afraid I can’t go with you. I’m already dated up for a good time this evening.’
“ ‘How’s that?’ he said. ‘And what may you be going to do?’
“ ‘I’m going,’ I said, ‘back to my hotel to have dinner with my dear wife, and after that,’ I said, ‘I’m going to do something that you may not regard as interesting but which is my idea of a dandy time! I’m going to read a couple of chapters of the Bible aloud, and say my prayers, and go to bed! And now,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you exactly three seconds to get out of here, and if you’re in my sight after that—well, it’ll be over you that I’ll be saying the prayers!’
“I see that my time is nearly up, but before I close I want to say a word on behalf of the Napap—that great organization, the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press. I am pleased to say that its executive secretary, my dear friend Dr. J. E. North, will be
