He walked back happily in the June darkness; he felt neighborly when an unknown muttered, “Evening, Reverend!” and all the way he saw Cleo, proud as Athena yet pliant as golden-skinned Aphrodite.
He had found his work, his mate, his future.
Virtue, he pointed out, certainly did pay.
Chapter XX
I
He had two days to prepare his first sermon and unpack his trunk, his bags, and the books which he had purchased in Zenith.
His possessions were not very consistent. He had a beautiful new morning coat, three excellent lounge suits, patent leather shoes, a noble derby, a flourishing top hat, but he had only two suits of underclothes, both ragged. His socks were of black silk, out at the toes. For breast-pocket display, he had silk handkerchiefs; but for use, only cotton rags torn at the hem. He owned perfume, hair-oil, talcum powder; his cuff links were of solid gold; but for dressing-gown he used his overcoat; his slippers were a frowsy pulp; and the watch which he carried on a gold and platinum chain was a one-dollar alarm clock.
He had laid in a fruitful theological library. He had bought the fifty volumes of the Expositors’ Bible—source of ready-made sermons—secondhand for $13.75. He had the sermons of Spurgeon, Jefferson, Brooks, and J. Wilbur Chapman. He was willing to be guided by these masters, and not insist on forcing his own ideas on the world. He had a very useful book by Bishop Aberman, The Very Appearance of Evil, advising young preachers to avoid sin. Elmer felt that this would be unusually useful in his new life.
He had a dictionary—he liked to look at the colored plates depicting jewels, flags, plants, and aquatic birds; he had a Bible dictionary, a concordance, a history of the Methodist Church, a history of Protestant missions, commentaries on the individual books of the Bible, an outline of theology, and Dr. Argyle’s The Pastor and His Flock, which told how to increase church collections, train choirs, take exercise, placate deacons, and make pasteboard models of Solomon’s Temple to lead the little ones to holiness in the Sunday School.
In fact he had had a sufficient library—“God’s artillery in black and white,” as Bishop Toomis wittily dubbed it—to inform himself of any detail in the practice of the Professional Good Man. He would be able to produce sermons which would be highly informative about the geography of Palestine, yet useful to such of his fold as might have a sneaking desire to read magazines on the Sabbath. Thus guided, he could increase the church membership; he could give advice to errant youth; he could raise missionary funds so that the heathen in Calcutta and Peking might have the opportunity to become like the Reverend Elmer Gantry.
II
Though Cleo took him for a drive through the country, most of the time before Sunday he dedicated to refurbishing a sermon which he had often and successfully used with Sharon. The text was from Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”
When he came up to the church on Sunday morning, tall and ample, grave and magnificent, his face fixed in a smile of friendliness, his morning coat bright in the sun, a Bible under his arm, Elmer was exhilarated by the crowd filtering into the church. The street was filled with country buggies and a Ford or two. As he went round to the back of the church, passing a knot at the door, they shouted cordially, “Good morning, Brother!” and “Fine day, Reverend!”
Cleo was waiting for him with the choir—Miss Kloof, the schoolteacher, Mrs. Diebel, wife of the implement dealer, Ed Perkins, deliveryman for Mr. Benham, and Ray Faucett, butter-maker at the creamery.
Cleo held his hand and rejoiced, “What a wonderful crowd there is this morning! I’m so glad!”
Together they peeped through the parlor door into the auditorium, and he almost put his arm about her firm waist. … It would have seemed natural, very pleasant and right and sweet.
When he marched out to the chancel, the church was full, a dozen standing. They all breathed with admiration. (He learned later that the last pastor had had trouble with his false teeth and a fondness for whining.)
He led the singing.
“Come on now!” he laughed. “You’ve got to welcome your new preacher! The best way is to put a lot of lung-power into it and sing like the dickens! You can all make some kind of noise. Make a lot!”
Himself he gave example, his deep voice rolling out in hymns of which he had always been fond: “I Love to Tell the Story” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.”
He prayed briefly—he was weary of prayers in which the priest ramblingly explained to God that God really was God. This was, he said, his first day with the new flock. Let the Lord give him ways of showing them his love and his desire to serve them.
Before his sermon he looked from brother to brother. He loved them all, that moment; they were his regiment, and he the colonel; his ship’s crew, and he the skipper; his patients, and he the loyal physician. He began slowly, his great voice swelling to triumphant certainty as he talked.
Voice, sureness, presence, training, power, he had them all. Never had he so well liked his role; never had he acted so well; never had he known such sincerity of histrionic instinct.
He had solid doctrine for the older stalwarts. With comforting positiveness he preached that the atonement was the one supreme fact in the world. It rendered the most sickly and threadbare the equals of kings and millionaires; it demanded of the successful that they make every act a recognition of the atonement. For the young people he had plenty of anecdotes, and he was not afraid to make them laugh.
While
