The Rev. “Billy” Williams at that particular moment occupied the center
of the stage in Boston, and there was no immediate prospect of anyone
else usurping that place inasmuch as his local engagement had six weeks
more to run. He was a sensational evangelist whose campaigns on behalf
of old-fashioned religion and of old-fashioned morals had stirred up the
profoundest depths of human feeling in dozens of communities in all
parts of the country and had brought tens of thousands of men and women
in all stations of life to an emotional crisis in which they pledged
themselves anew or for the first time to a faithful adherence to the
fundamental tenets of Christianity.
His methods were so bizarre and so baroque and he was such a past-master
of the art of publicity that he always afforded first-page “copy”
whenever he arrived in a city. His meetings were held in great specially
constructed tabernacles seating ten thousand or more persons and were
conducted with a splendid sense of dramatic values for he was a keen
psychologist and he knew the things best calculated to move and sway
great groups of people. The judicious and the ultra-dignified who came
to grieve or to sneer were usually carried away in a tumult of emotional
excitement and were literally swept off their feet by the cumulative
appeal of all his cunningly devised plans to “get to their innards,” as
“Billy” himself was wont to phrase it in his own inelegant, but
singularly effective style.
Not even Jimmy Martin himself had such a vocabulary of arresting and
original slang as “Billy” Williams. His sermons reeked with it when he
felt that the occasion warranted its use and even the most conservative
of clergymen who at first frowned at such language in the pulpit were
eventually obliged to admit that it had its place in a white-hot appeal
made to a vast miscellaneous audience seated in an auditorium as long as
a city block, an audience which would unquestionably remain unmoved if
preached to in the chaste and austere phrases of the conventional pulpit
orator. The downright sincerity of the man and the compelling force of
his powerful personality turned scoffers into ardent followers and made
him indeed a mighty power in any city which he honored with a visit.
Early on the Sunday evening following the events hitherto chronicled a
great crowd surged about the entrances to the huge wooden auditorium
which sprawled over a lot in the environs of the city. It was a
heterogeneous crowd not dissimilar in its composition to the other
crowds which flocked in the summer to the great white tents which the
circus pitched on this very spot. Most of those comprising it were quiet
and orderly—apparently a little self-conscious of the necessity for
decorum—but there were, here and there, a group of noisy and
irrepressible Spirits, all of them young, who seemed to regard the
occasion as one affording unequalled opportunities for a lark. The doors
had not yet been opened for the evening service and the throng grew to
enormous proportions with each passing minute.
An acute observer in an aeroplane circling over the particular group
which awaited entrance on the north side of the tabernacle would have
noticed a little cluster of femininity in the front ranks which stood
out vividly from the rather dull and neutral tone of the rest of the
crowd like some brilliant pattern woven into a field of grayish tinge.
There were rich purples, bright reds and gay greens in this little oasis
of color and from it there arose light laughter and frivolous chatter,
the echoes of which carried to the shocked ears of those more serious
minded persons who patiently waited on its edges for the onrush which
always followed the opening of the doors. Jimmy Martin stood in the
direct center of the oasis in his capacity as Personal Custodian of the
Big Idea and tried to soothe those turbulent spirits among the members
of the chorus of the “Keep Moving” company who were beginning to chafe
at the delay.
“Say, young fellow,” drawled a svelte creature whose tawny hair glowed
like an aureole as the last rays from the setting sun caught and kindled
it, “I haven’t stood as long as this since I quit cloak and suit
modeling to decorate the drama. Where do you get this stuff anyway? What
do you think we are—a troupe of trained seals?”
“That’s what I say,” broke in a young person with the soft eyes of a
Rubens’ seraph. “I called off a perfectly good dinner date with a dandy
little Harvard rah-rah just because Bartlett made a personal matter out
of this thing and here we are standing around with the other hicks
waiting for the side-show to begin and wasting perfectly good and
valuable time. Press agents always did get my goat.”
“Mine, too,” remarked a languid houri whose pallid face was set off by a
pair of enormous green earrings. “In New York I wouldn’t think of
standing in line for a chance to see the signing of the Declaration of
Independence with the original cast, and here I am getting corns on my
tootsies waiting to listen to a fellow that anyone can hear any time for
nothing at all. Really, girls, I don’t think any of us are in our right
minds.”
“I know it’s a nuisance, ladies,” said Jimmy urbanely, “but when you see
the smear that I think we’re goin’ to land in tomorrow’s papers you’ll
be thankful that you stuck along. I want you all to sit in a group by
yourselves and don’t any of you try to be too shrinking. I want the
newspaper bunch to find you’re there without my tellin’ ’em. Then it’ll
look as if your bein’ there is more on the level than otherwise. When it
comes to the singin’ I want all of you, please, to cut in for all it’s
worth just as if Bartlett was sittin’ down in front at a dress
rehearsal.”
“When the trail hittin’ begins just sit tight and register intense
interest in the proceedings. If any of you laugh it’ll spoil the whole
arrangement. I was at one of these meetin’s out in Denver a couple of
years ago and when those folks start comin’ down the aisles believe me
it ain’t anything to get funny about. If any of the newspaper crowd get
to you when it’s all over I want whoever does any talkin’ to say that
you’re all profoundly impressed with everything and all that, and that
you’re all comin’ again tomorrow afternoon and whenever else you get a
chance.”
Jimmy didn’t heed the sarcastic reception with which his final words of
instruction were greeted. His eyes were fixed admiringly for the moment
on Lolita Murphy who stood near him talking earnestly to one of the
“ponies.” To him she never looked prettier than she did in the simple
little tailor-made suit and the trim black velvet toque which she had
worn on the automobile ride they had taken together that afternoon, an
excursion which seemed to have wiped out all traces of the “Cedar Rapids
blues,” and which had left her smiling and happy again. She had
protested a little against participating in the staging of Jimmy’s Big
Idea, but had finally yielded to his persuasive arguments and here she
was now, shining and radiant in contrast with her more elaborately
attired and highly artificial sisters.
Just then a murmur swept through the crowd; attendants at the entrance
shouted “easy, please, everyone,” and Jimmy and his group of more or
less merry chorus maidens were caught in a whirling current of humanity
which shot them through the door, rumpled and almost panic-stricken, and
landed them at the head of a long aisle bisecting the huge empty
auditorium which yawned before them, ablaze with lights and festooned
with flags. The press agent was the first to collect his thoughts.
“Everybody make a dive for the front seats,” he shouted. “Follow me.”
The “Keep Moving” girls couldn’t do anything else. The surging crowd
pressed them forward and they took the aisle on the run to avoid being
knocked down. They all managed to get seats in the front rows where
hand-mirrors, powder puffs and lip sticks soon came into play to the
horror and stupefaction of many in the great choir of a thousand which
occupied places on the platform directly in front of them.
Jimmy, having successfully performed his function as counselor and
cicerone, was careful to seat himself a considerable distance away on
the other side of the aisle where he effaced himself as much as possible
by betraying an intense interest in a hymn book which was proffered him
by an usher. He knew that it wouldn’t do for him to be seen in close
proximity to his charges by any of the keen-eyed reporters who were even
now gathering at the press table underneath the reading desk in the
center of the platform.
One of these reporters, a curly-headed youngster with laughing eyes,
turned his chair around to get a comprehensive view of the thousands of
persons who were jostling each other in the center and side aisles as
the vast building rapidly filled up. He caught a glimpse of the numerous
facial toilettes in progress in the front rows, ran an appraising eye
over the entire group; smothered an unchurchly chuckle and nudged his
nearest companion. Presently the entire press table was abuzz with
whispered comment as the identity of the visitors was established.
While the crowd was still noisily filing into the rear rows “Billy”
Williams’ principal assistant put in an appearance on the platform and
was loudly applauded by scattered groups who were promptly quieted by
the ushers who moved quickly up and down the aisles, ready at a moment’s
notice, to insist upon the preservation of the dignities. The assistant
was a jovial looking man with an infectious smile. He held a cornet in
one hand and he raised the other to command the attention of the great
throng. A hush fell over the assemblage and presently the strains of
“Onward, Christian Soldiers” cut through the silence with penetrating
incisiveness. The effect was electric. When the cornetist had finished
he turned swiftly and at precisely the same instant the thousand singers
on the platform rose to their feet and burst into song. Another signal
and the audience stood up. In response to a pleading gesture from the
man with the smile a voice was raised here and there in unison with the
chorus. He pleaded pantomimically once more and, as if by the exercise
of sheer hypnotic control, he presently cajoled the great crowd into
singing.
From that moment he held the audience in the hollow of his hand and
played with it. Now he would have everyone on one side of the auditorium
singing. Then he would be challenging those on the other side to outdo
their competitors. Now it was the women who would be asked to sing
alone. Next it would be the men. The choir would be asked to sing a
verse. Then the entire audience would be called upon to follow them. By
the time he had finished with those preliminaries he had the throats of
everyone present in such thorough working order and the feeling of
self-consciousness had been so dissipated that when he eventually
demanded “a combined effort that will shake the gates of glory” the
result was inspiring to the last degree.
As the final words of the final chorus were shaken out by ten thousand
throats in one last concentrated burst of glad song the Rev. “Billy”
Williams stepped through a door on the side of the platform and quickly
crossed to the reading desk. No playwright, craftily scheming for a
“good entrance” for a stage star, could ever have contrived a situation
or a moment more pregnant with dramatic effectiveness or more tense with
emotion. The last word of the hymn had died down and the air seemed to
still throb with the dying echoes as the evangelist reached to the
center of the platform and held up his hand in a gesture which was an
invitation to prayer. Ten thousand heads were bowed in humble submission
to his implied command, and in a voice which breathed sincerity and fine
feeling he offered up a simple supplication beseeching the blessing of
Divine Providence upon all assembled and upon himself, an unworthy
instrument of a higher Power.
He was a stockily built man with a rugged and rather rough-hewn face.
Blue eyes were set in it below bushy brows that gave him, in moods of
intense earnestness, a somewhat ferocious aspect. They were eyes that
now glowed with tender warmth, that grew hard or relentlessly cold next
moment or that would ever and anon gleam and glint with merriment. They
were the most expressive of his features. They mirrored his moods with
uncanny accuracy. The movements of his squat and chunky frame were quick
and darting when he was in action and even when he was in repose—which
was seldom—he seemed to be literally seething with energy beneath the
surface. When he permitted himself the luxury of letting down the
inhibitive barriers which ordinarily held this energy in check he became
a dynamic force that was almost irresistible in its onslaught on the
emotions.
The prayer over, another hymn was sung under the magnetic leadership of
the assistant, while “Billy” Williams pulled his chair over the edge of
the platform and fraternized with the reporters as was his custom. Jimmy
Martin, who was watching the proceedings circumspectly over the shoulder
of a prim looking maiden lady who stood next him and whose hymn book he
was sharing in a pretense of devotional interest, noticed that the curly
headed newsgatherer was whispering to the evangelist and directing the
latter’s attention to his charges in the front rows.
He saw “Billy” Williams look interestedly at the young women and then
smile. It was such a healthy, wholesome, frank smile that it was
instantly returned by the “Keep Moving” girls and Jimmy found himself
taking note of the fact that even the most utterly blase members of the
group seemed to drop their affected air of supreme world-weariness for a
moment and become human once more. He noticed the evangelist turn away
from the press table as the final chorus of the hymn was sung by
everyone in the auditorium and look up towards the flag-bedecked rafters
for a half minute or so as if pondering on an idea that had occurred to
him. As the great audience seated itself he sprang to his feet with an
air of decision.
“My friends,” he announced in a voice which swept to the farthest
corners of the vast building, “I have an announcement to make that may
disappoint some of you. I regret this but my duty is as clear to me as
the unclouded noon-day sky. A Divine opportunity for service presents
itself to me tonight and I would be recreant to my ideals if I did not
embrace it. I had intended to preach to you on some of the lessons which
I draw from the disgusting exhibition of prize-fighting which was
tolerated in this city during the past week and I had announced that I
would tan the hides of some of the city officials responsible for its
sanction, and that I would nail those hides on the door of the house
wherein abideth decency and honor.
“I have changed my plan, my friends, not because of any fear of the
skulking swine whom I had intended to attack. Their turn on the griddle
will come tomorrow night. Instead of preaching on that theme I have
decided to devote this evening’s discourse to an attack upon the
pernicious evils of the modern theatre,—that hell-hole, that cesspool,
that slimy sink of iniquity and despair. Bear with me, my friends, for
tonight I may be the humble medium by means of which the truth may be
brought not only into your own lives, but into the lives and into the
hearts of those more directly connected with this unholy institution for
the degradation of mankind.”
He paused for a moment while a whispered buzz of comment spread through
the auditorium. Jimmy Martin, who had sat fascinated throughout these
introductory remarks and who could hardly credit the validity of his own
auditory sensations, darted an apprehensive glance at the chorus girls.
A few were registering haughty and contemptuous disdain and were
sniffing the circumambient air. The majority, however, seemed gifted
with a saving sense of humor and were smiling good-naturedly. Jimmy
sighed with relief. It was pleasant to think that the Rev. “Billy”
Williams was unconsciously playing into his hand so successfully that
the story which was now certain to develop would take on an added value
and would unquestionably be featured in the headlines.
There was another hymn and then the evangelist plunged into the body of
his discourse. It was a sermon that he had already delivered with
sensational success in no less than twenty-three states. It was a fine
example of unrestrained denunciatory oratory and it ranked with his
other internationally famous sermons such as “Dancing—the Devil’s Device
for Drugging Decency”; or, “Modern Women’s Attire—Satan’s Trap for the
Unwary Male.” He traced the history of the drama from the flourishing
days of its great popularity in ancient Greece down through twenty-five
centuries to the present day and on the way he stopped to excoriate a
long line of playwrights from Aristophanes to the writer of a salacious
bed-room farce then current in Boston. He denounced the comedies of
Terence at which ancient Rome laughed; the immoral plays which had their
day during the Restoration in England and the modern American musical
comedy with equal vehemence and with that complete absence of a sense of
proportion which always characterizes the propagandist and the special
pleader.
He admitted, and rather gloried in the admission, that he had not been
in a theatre in twenty-five years and declared that he would sooner be
struck dead than ever cross the threshold of one again. On top of this
assertion he declared with convincing sincerity, that “I know whereof I
speak when I say to you that never before in the history of the
civilized world has the theatre quite so flagrantly flaunted its
indecencies in the face of an outraged public as at the present time.”
He attacked the defenseless moving picture and consigned it and its
progenitors and abettors to the exterior darkness.
Then he grew sentimental and his voice, which had been pitched in a high
key, became touched with something soft and tender. He gave his idea of
what he felt to be the blasting and devastating effect of the world of
the theatre upon a girl who might had known the restraining influences
of a simple home in her childhood and he presented a picture of the
sordid contacts she would be forced to make in seeking a career upon the
stage. Jimmy winced at the unreality of this picture; its unfairness and
its gross exaggeration, but there was no doubting that the speaker
himself believed it to be gospel truth and that he presented it with
such convincing sincerity that the vast majority of those present were
all aquiver with moral indignation at the charges he made. He let his
voice drop to a lower tone, and there was the vibrant tremor of a
deeply-felt emotion in it as he spoke, crouching over the reading desk
and bending his head forward in an attitude of eager expectancy.
“Mayhap there is such a girl here tonight, drawn hither by the elusive
whisperings of a conscience which was developed at the knee of a saintly
mother and under the fond paternal care of a loving father. Perchance
she comes, like so many of these poor butterflies of the stage, from a
home in a small town untouched by the tinsel glitter and the tawdry
allurements of the pleasure-ridden metropolis. Perhaps she was caught
defenseless in a moment of passionate revolt against what she, poor
foolish thing, felt to be the cramping restrictions of her environment,
and perhaps she was swept off her feet into the current that leads swift
and ever swifter to destruction.
“Perhaps she said good-bye to the peaceful little town, to the
heart-broken mother and to the tender, patient father who was trying so
hard to stay the flood of tears surging in his kindly eyes; perhaps she
went to the big city and courted the muse of tragedy or of comedy and
found, for a time, a specious joy in the glare and brilliance of the
footlights. Perhaps there came to her a measure of success in the new
realm of pleasure and mayhap she was carried out of herself, out of her
real self, into a lotus land of dazzling splendor.”
His voice grew more tremulous now. He leaned forward and seemed to be
speaking directly to the little group of girls in the front rows. Jimmy
noticed that they were the focus point of observation on the part of the
reporters.
“If there are any such girls here tonight,” pleaded the evangelist, “let
me hold out to them the helping hand of service. Let me beg them, with
all the sincerity of my nature, to give heed to the warning I have
sounded. Let me ask them to picture the little home back yonder with the
empty chair that’s always waiting for the daughter who has gone out to
beat her fragile wings against the candle’s flame. Let them picture
again the little mother with the soft, grey eyes. They were so bright
and lively once, but now there is an anxious look in them. There is
sadness in her heart, too, a heavy sadness, but she tries to be brave
for the sake of him who sits so gloomily by the fire-place and aches for
the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is gone.
“Let me entreat you to bring the roses back to mother’s pale cheeks
again if there are any of you here. Let me plead with you, out of a full
heart, to bring the laughter back to father’s lips and the smile back to
his care-worn face. Let me urge you to fly from the stifling air of the
playhouse back to the clean, open spaces where the fair winds blow,
where love and tender solicitude await you and where life is real and
earnest and not an empty, foolish dream. We will pray for guidance and
when we have finished I will ask all those who wish to be consecrated
anew to come down the aisles and clasp my hand in a pledge of fealty to
the service of Him whom they have forgotten for a while in the fretful
rush of selfish living. Let us pray.”
Down on his knees went the Rev. “Billy” Williams and as thousands in the
great audience bowed their heads once more he prayed fervently that
everyone present who was unworthy at heart might see the light and
embrace again with the simple faith of childhood the eternal truths of
religion. The “Keep Moving” girls bowed their heads with the others, and
if Jimmy had been a little closer he might have noticed that here and
there a rouged face was stained with tears and that hard lines around
the mouths of one or two of the bolder spirits had been softened as if
by some subtle alchemy beyond the ken of mortal mind.
The prayer over, the evangelist sprang to his feet and raised his hand.
The great choir, in instant response to his signal, began to softly
sing, “Lead, Kindly Light.” At a perfectly timed moment toward the end
of this most exquisite of hymns his voice sounded above the pianissimo
phrasing of the massed singers and carried, with penetrating clarity, to
the far end of the hushed auditorium.
“Won’t someone make the break with the past,” he exhorted. “Won’t
someone be the first to lead the strayed sheep into the vineyard of the
Lord?”
A tall, thin man with scraggly white hair and a pale ascetic face stood
up about fifteen rows back from the platform and slid out into the
nearest aisle. He bent his head as if breasting a heavy wind and his
cheeks suddenly flamed at the consciousness of the thousands of eyes
which were turned on him as he slouched awkwardly down toward “Billy”
Williams, who had stepped from the platform and who was now standing at
the end of the aisle. The evangelist reached out his hand and the tall
man grasped it as he made a quick dive for a handkerchief and dabbed at
his face. He mumbled something under his breath.
“Don’t be ashamed to cry, brother,” said the evangelist, putting his arm
affectionately around the other’s shoulder. “Tears at a time like this
are drops of God’s dew that will wash your soul as clean as morning
roses.” And then he addressed the audience as the last notes of the hymn
were sung by the choir. “Who’ll join our brother at the mercy seat,” he
shouted. “Who’ll be the next to heed the glad tidings?”
There was a movement and a scraping of feet in every section of the
building and presently men and women of all ages and all conditions
began coming down the aisle to be greeted by “Billy” Williams and
shunted aside into the open space designed for the reception of
converts. There they stood, most of them with drooped heads and many of
them crying. There were a few who held their heads up and their
shoulders back and who stood four-square to all the curious glances
directed toward them. On their faces were brave smiles and there was
about them the air of spiritual elation that was inspiring to those who
noted it.
Jimmy Martin’s emotions had been subjected to a severe grilling during
the concluding portion of the preacher’s sentimental appeal and he had
lost a little of his self-reserve and customary complacency during the
prayer. When the first of the converts came struggling down the aisle
and had begun to weep a little, the press agent found himself, for the
first time in many years, struggling to hold back the tears that came
unbidden into his own eyes. When the others had followed the spell was
broken and he looked furtively about to see if anyone had noticed that
he had been trembling on the verge of weakness. He thought once more of
the mission which had brought him into this alien atmosphere and he
directed his attention to the benches occupied by the young women for
whom he was acting as a somewhat remote escort.
The converts were coming down the aisles now in little groups of three
and four and the evangelist was keeping things at fever heat with loudly
voiced exhortations. He leaned toward the “Keep Moving” girls and made a
personal plea to them.
“Isn’t there someone here in this group of girls who has seen the light
tonight,” he inquired. “Won’t someone among you step out here and take
my hand and get right with her soul again?”
“I’ll say I will,” Jimmy heard Natalie Nugent, the girl with the pallor
and the green earrings, say as she stood up and walked toward “Billy”
Williams who gripped her outstretched hand and directed her to a
position alongside him. The press agent looked at the other girls and
noticed that they were watching her with fascinated interest. Somehow he
couldn’t quite grasp what it all meant.
“God bless you, sister,” the evangelist shouted. “Won’t some of your
friends join you?” He plunged again into the vernacular, choosing, as
always, the effective moment. “It’s your cue, girls,” he pleaded. “The
curtain’s up and the call boy is knocking at the door of your hearts.
Don’t delay. You can’t tell what moment the Great Stage Manager will
ring down for the last time. It may be tonight. It may be tomorrow.
Don’t be caught unprepared. It’s a blessed opportunity, girls. Don’t
pass it up. For mother’s sake, girls, for mother’s sake.”
Three other girls got up now and came forward. Jimmy gave an audible
gasp of amazement. A fifth and a sixth moved into place beside the
others and then Lolita Murphy stood up, hesitated for just a moment,
caught “Billy” Williams’ warm human smile and stepped briskly forward. A
half dozen others followed. The remainder sat with bowed heads. Those
who had left their places stood in a little circle by themselves,
clustered directly about the beaming evangelist. He made a last plea for
converts to the vast audience and a stray dozen or more men and women,
whose moral courage had not been quite strong enough to force a decision
at the beginning, bobbed up here and there and moved toward the
platform. There was a momentary pause and then the preacher spoke again.
“My friends,” he said, “a most remarkable event has occurred here
tonight. Perhaps some of you here near the front have surmised what it
is, but I am sure that the great majority of you have not grasped its
significance. My efforts tonight have been blessed by an achievement of
which I am extremely proud. Thirteen members of a theatrical company now
appearing in this city—a company presenting a conglomeration bearing the
idiotic title of ‘Keep Moving’—thirteen lovely young women have been
rescued from the insidious temptations that lurk behind the blinding
glare of the footlights and have come out here in the open and made a
pledge to get back into the old, simple ways of living. It’s the most
wonderful thing that has happened since I began my campaign, and while
these brave and earnest souls are here with us let us all join in a
prayer that they may be steadfast in their new aim and that their
example may be a shining one to thousands of others in this great city.
Let us pray.”
When the great throng arose after the prayer to sing the final hymn
Jimmy Martin edged out of his seat and slipped unobtrusively up one of
the aisles and out into the chill evening air. He was dazed and
bewildered, but he had presence of mind enough to hail a taxicab and
direct the chauffeur to drive him to his hotel. He had an idea that
pictures of the fair converts would be in demand and he wanted to be on
hand when the bright young gentlemen of the press put in an appearance.
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