“Yes, I rather believe you’re right, Bishop. Since I talked with you I’ve been thinking—Uh, if the Methodist Church should want to accept me, what would I have to do? Would there be much red tape?”
“It would be a very simple matter. As you’re already ordained, I could have the District Conference, which meets next month at Sparta, recommend you to the Annual Conference for membership. I am sure when the Annual Conference meets in spring of next year, a little less than a year from now, with your credits from Terwillinger and Mizpah I could get you accepted by the Conference and your orders recognized. Till then I can have you accepted as a preacher on trial. And I have a church right now, at Banjo Crossing, that is in need of just such leadership as you could furnish. Banjo has only nine hundred people, but you understand that it would be necessary for you to begin at the bottom. The brethren would very properly be jealous if I gave you a first-class appointment right at the first. But I am sure I could advance you rapidly. Yes, we must have you in the church. Great is the work for consecrated hands—and I’ll bet a cookie I live to see you a bishop yourself!”
V
He couldn’t, Elmer complained, back in the refuge of his hotel, sink to a crossroads of nine hundred people, with a salary of perhaps eleven hundred dollars; not after the big tent and Sharon’s throngs, not after suites and morning coats and being Dr. Gantry to brokers’ wives in ballrooms.
But also he couldn’t go on. He would never get to the top in the New Thought business. He admitted that he hadn’t quite the creative mind. He could never rise to such originality as, say, Mrs. Riddle’s humorous oracle: “Don’t be scared of upsetting folks ’coz most of ’em are topsy-turvy anyway, and you’ll only be putting ’em back on their feet.”
Fortunately, except in a few fashionable churches, it wasn’t necessary to say anything original to succeed among the Baptists or Methodists.
He would be happy in a regular pastorate. He was a professional. As an actor enjoyed greasepaint and call-boards and stacks of scenery, so Elmer had the affection of familiarity for the details of his profession—hymn books, communion service, training the choir, watching the Ladies’ Aid grow, the drama of coming from the mysteries backstage, so unknown and fascinating to the audience, to the limelight of the waiting congregation.
And his mother—He had not seen her for two years, but he retained the longing to solace her, and he knew that she was only bewildered over his New Thought harlequinade.
But—nine hundred population!
He held out for a fortnight; demanded a bigger church from Bishop Toomis; brought in all his little clippings about eloquence in company with Sharon.
Then the Zenith lectures closed, and he had ahead only the most speculative opportunities.
Bishop Toomis grieved, “I am disappointed, Brother, that you should think more of the size of the flock than of the great, grrrrrrrreat opportunities for good ahead of you!”
Elmer looked his most flushing, gallant, boyish self. “Oh, no, Bishop, you don’t get me, honest! I just wanted to be able to use my training where it might be of the most value. But I’m eager to be guided by you!”
Two months later Elmer was on the train to Banjo Crossing, as pastor of the Methodist Church in that amiable village under the sycamores.
Chapter XIX
I
A Thursday in June 1913.
The train wandered through orchard-land and cornfields—two seedy day-coaches and a baggage car. Hurry and efficiency had not yet been discovered on this branch line, and it took five hours to travel the hundred and twenty miles from Zenith to Banjo Crossing.
The Reverend Elmer Gantry was in a state of grace. Having resolved henceforth to be pure and humble and humanitarian, he was benevolent to all his traveling companions, he was mothering the world, whether the world liked it or not.
But he did not insist on any outward distinction as a parson, a Professional Good Man. He wore a quietly modest gray sack suit, a modestly rich maroon tie. Not just as a minister, but as a citizen, he told himself, it was his duty to make life breezier and brighter for his fellow wayfarers.
The aged conductor knew most of his passengers by their first names, and they hailed him as “Uncle Ben,” but he resented strangers on their home train. When Elmer shouted, “Lovely day, Brother!” Uncle Ben looked at him as if to say “Well, ’tain’t my fault!” But Elmer continued his philadelphian violences till the old man sent in the brakeman to collect the tickets the rest of the way.
At a traveling salesman who tried to borrow a match, Elmer roared, “I don’t smoke, Brother, and I don’t believe George Washington did either!” His benignancies were received with so little gratitude that he almost wearied of good works, but when he carried an old woman’s suitcase off the train, she fluttered at him with the admiration he deserved, and he was moved to pat children upon the head—to their terror—and to explain crop-rotation to an
