sinner--the bank-check. It is so easy to draw a check--and, then,
somehow, it's only a piece of paper. You let it go without a pang
while you would be very thoughtful if you were counting out the money
and parting with it.
"The check is another way of saying 'Charge it.'
"That evening I went to see Harry."
XII
IN WHICH HARRY IS FORCED TO ABANDON SWAMP FICTION AND LIKE FOLLIES AND
TO STUDY THE GEOGRAPHY AND NATIVES OF A LAND UNKNOWN TO OUR
HEIRISTOCRACY
"I found Harry smoking with Cub Sayles in his den above stairs in the
big country-house of Henry Delance. As I entered Harry said to his
young friend:
"'I have to talk over some things with Mr. Potter--would you mind
going down to the library?'
"Cub withdrew, and Harry sat down with me.
"'I suppose you've seen him?' he asked, nervously.
"'Whom?'
"'Why, you know a mysterious stranger has been looking for me and--by
Jove!--I'm scared stiff. He's an Englishman.'
"'What of that?'
"'Let me show you,' said Harry.
"He took a key from his pocket, unlocked a door, and fetched the
familiar skull of the Bishop of St. Clare and put it on the table
before me.
"'It's that damn Bishop's head,' he whispered. 'It has come
back--would you believe it?--picked up by a fisherman on the Irish
coast and returned to the express office in London. All the old
directions were quite legible on the box. "To Harry Delance, SS.
_Lusitania_. If not found, forward to Pointview, Conn., U.S.A.,
charges collect!" So it came on. I received a notice and went down and
got it out of bond and paid three pounds, and here it is.'
"'It looks as if the Bishop was out for revenge,' I said, with a
laugh.
"'He's got on my nerves and my conscience,' said Harry. 'By Jove! he
haunts me. When I heard of this mysterious Englishman to-day I got a
chill.'
"'You go buy yourself a small shovel and a pocket light to-morrow,' I
suggested, and at night go back in the hills with the Bishop's head
and bury it.'
"'And if I get into trouble I want you to take care of me.'
"I made no answer. It didn't seem necessary, but I said: 'There's
another matter of which I have come to talk with you. Our friend Roger
is in trouble.'
"I told him the story of Roger's downfall. It got under his vest, and
I added: 'Now, Harry, it's up to you to indulge in some more
philanthropy. You ought to help him.'
"'What--what can I do?' he asked in amazement.
"'Lend him the money--twenty thousand dollars. It isn't all that the
public will charge against you on Roger's account, but it will do.'
"'Harry sank in his chair and threw up his hands as if grasping for a
straw.
"'It's my whole allowance for the year,' he said, 'and I couldn't
appeal to the Governor.'
"'Nevertheless you ought to do it, for Roger told me that it was your
pace that brought him where he is.'
"'What an ass!' Harry exclaimed, and the old Bishop seemed to indorse
his view. 'By the blue beard of the Caliph, what am I to do?'
"'Pay it,' I insisted.
"'Pay it and die,' he groaned. 'I shall have to do it somehow, but
this kind of thing is grinding me.'
"'You can go to my ranch in Wyoming and live on nothing for six
months,' I said. 'When you get back I'll lend you enough to tide you
over!
"'I'll do it,' he said, as if it were the very straw he had been
reaching for.
"Then he began to tell me of other troubles. Marie had been decidedly
cool to Harry at the servants' ball. Then he had met her on the
street, and she had barely noticed him and hurried away, with the
young Reverend Robert Knowles at her side. Harry was, fortunately,
going slow, but he had received internal injuries and was suffering
from shock.
"'The old man is at the bottom of it,' I explained. 'You gave him a
dose from the wrong bottle. It p'isoned him.'
"'By Jove! What a prude he is!' said Harry. 'Upon my word that is one
of the noblest books I ever read--contains a great lesson, don't you
know? It takes you straight to the heights.'
"'Too straight,' I said. 'It turns out for nothing. It crosses a
morass to avoid going around. When you reach the high ground you are
covered with mud and slime. You need to be washed and disinfected, and
perhaps you've caught a fever that will last as long as you live.
Many a boy and girl have got mired in this swamp fiction that you
enjoy so much. There are many of us who prefer to go around the swamp
and keep on a decent footing even if it takes longer.'
"'We want to know all sides of life,' said Harry.
"'And would you care to see the girl you loved studying life in a
brothel?'
"'Well, really, you know, that's different,' Harry stammered.
"'But the fact is, her feet might as well be in a brothel as her
brain,' I insisted. 'She might shake the dust from her _feet_. Harry,
there's one side of life that you ought to study at once--the American
side. You've neglected the Western hemisphere in your studies. When
can you start for the ranch?'
"'Day after to-morrow--if you like. This place is a dreadful bore.'
"'Good! I'll attend to the tickets to-day, The cart, drag, and horses
will be all the better for a vacation, and the eyes of the people are
in need of rest.'
"'The whole outfit is going to be sold," said Harry. 'Idiots and the
hoi polloi have quite ruined the sport here. The Governor is always
poking fun at it, you know, and it has made me so weary! One can't
stand that kind of thing forever--can he? I got after his helmet,
battle-ax, and family tree, by Jove! Our crested chambermaids and
bootblacks have been a great help to me. What a noble band of
philanthropists! Father and I have made an agreement. He is going to
chuck the battle-ax and saw the royal branches off our family tree and
I am going to sell the drag, cart, and horses.'
"'That's a great treaty,' I said. 'The settlement of the Alaskan
frontier is not more important than fixing the boundaries of our
social life. Let us surrender the tools of idiocy; especially, let us
abandon all claim to the helmet and battle-ax. They're all right in
their place, but they aren't ours. The plowshare and the pruning-hook
are our symbols.'
"'By Jove! you know, the old Bishop of St. Clare agrees with you
exactly,' said Harry. 'I've been reading his life and writings, which
I picked up in London, and he's about converted me to your way of
thinking. He hated "the glittering idleness" of the rich and put
industry above elegance.'
"'And he doesn't intend that your education shall be neglected--he's
looking after you.'
"'He's as industrious as Destiny,' said the young man. 'Did you know
that Cub Sayles is engaged?'
"'To whom?'
"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers.'
"'God rest his soul!' I exclaimed.
"'It's just the thing for Cub,' said Harry. 'He's poor but presentable,
and has many extravagant tastes. She's quite a bit older than he, of
course, but that isn't unusual.'
"'I warned him long ago, knowing that his folly would undo him. Now he
will be a captain of New Thought, King of the Flub Dubs, advertising
manager of the Psychological Hair Factory, and inspector of pimples.'
"'But don't you know that he will have everything that he desires?'
"'Except happiness.'
"'Oh, I think that she is very fond of him!' said Harry. 'She told me
to-day that he is the only man she ever loved, and the dear old girl
thinks that she won him by concentration.'
"With this remark, made on the 20th of May, Harry dropped out of the
history of Pointview until December."
XIII
IN WHICH THE MINISTER GETS INTO LOVE AND TROUBLE
"Cub resigned his place in my office next day, and confessed his
purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper
way to save him. It wouldn't work.
"The lines of panic had left the face of Cub. The two-pound expression
had departed from it. The faintness of chaperons would no longer
imperil his comfort.
"'A hundred and four pounds of candy and twenty suppers, and all for
nothing!' I exclaimed. 'You ruin a girl's digestion and chuck her
over. It isn't fair.'
"'But, sir, I found that I didn't love her,' said Cub.
"'What a waste of violets, confectionery, and crab-meat!'
"'Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in
society,' Cub declared.
"What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine.
"'The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a
notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain
circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted
at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the
Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked.
It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule
time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a
small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the
point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to
hang on for his own sake.
"'But there ain't much to hang on to,' said the Deacon.
"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the
Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it.
"'I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they're
behind in their interest, but I'm not going to push them,' she said to
me.
"So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and
was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its
means and had entered the 'charge it' van, and was trying to serve two
masters.
"Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire.
"Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks
of the parish. They were a good-looking couple.
"This minister of the First Congregational Church of Pointview now
aspired to be the prime minister of its first heiress. Their
acquaintance, which had begun in the arrangements for the servants'
ball, had grown in warmth and intimacy as soon as Harry had gone.
Robert began to take after Marie, with muffler open and all the gas
on. He was a swell of a parson--utterly damned with good-fortune. Had
an income from the estate of his father, a call from on high, a crest
from Charlemagne, diplomas from college and the seminary, a fine
figure, red cheeks, and 'heavenly eyes.' As to his fatal gift of
beauty, the young ladies were of one mind. They agreed, also, about
the cut of his garments, that were changed several times a day.
"A dashing, masculine, head-punching spirit might have saved him with
all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good
fellow to everybody--a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow,
but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first
hand--especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made
thinker. His doctrines came out of the books, but his conduct was
mildly modern. He danced and smoked a little, and played bridge and
golf, and made his visits in a handsome motor-car.
"Marie liked the young man, and she and her mother rode and tramped
about with him almost every day of that summer. Deacon Joe showed
signs of faintness when he spoke of him.
"One day I went up to the Benson homestead and found the old man
sitting on his piazza alone.
"'Where's Marie?' I asked.
"'Off knocking around with the minister,' said Deacon Joe, in a voice
frail with contempt.
"'She might be in worse company,' I suggested.
"'Maybe,' he snapped.
"'What's the matter with the minister?'
"'Nothing,' said the old man, with a chuckle. 'He's a complete
gentleman, complete! So plaguy beautiful that he's a kind of a girl's
plaything. He couldn't milk a cow or dig a hill o' potatoes. Acts kind
o' faint an' sickly to me.'
"The Deacon thoughtfully stirred the roots of his beard with the
fingers of his right hand, and went on with a squint and a feeble tone
which he seemed to think best suited to his subject.
"'Talks so low you can hardly hear him. I have to set with my hand to
my ear every Sunday to make out what he's sayin', an' he prays as if
he had the lung fever. Talks o' hell as though it was a quart o' cold
molasses. That's one reason we ain't no respect for it in this
community. Ay--'es! That's the reason.'
"He squinted his face thoughtfully and resumed with more energy.
"'I like to hear a man get up on his hind legs and holler as they used
to--by gravy! Ye can't scare anybody by whispers. Damn it, sir, what
we need is an old-fashioned revival.'
"The Deacon halted to take a chew of tobacco, and went on, with a
sorrowful calmness:
"'Now this young feller don't want to give no credit to God--not a
bit--no, sir! Science has done everything. I've noticed it time an'
ag'in. T'other Sunday he said that an angel spoke to Moses, an' the
Bible says, as plain as A B C, that God spoke to him. How can he
expect that God is going to bless his ministry, an' he never givin'
Him any credit?'
"'It's rather bad politics, anyhow,' I said.
"'An' the church is goin' from bad to worse,' he complained. 'The
average attendance is about forty-seven, an' it used to be between
five an' six hundred, an' we are all taxed to death to keep it goin'.
I have to pay three hundred a year for the privilege o' gittin' mad
every Sunday. Two or three of us have got after him an' made him
promise to do better. Some awful free-minded folks have crept into the
church, an' the fact is, we need their money,' Deacon Joe went on.
'What the minister ought to do is stick to the old doctrines that are
safe an' sound. 'St'id o' that he's tryin' to sail 'twixt rock an'
reef.'
"'Between Scylla and Charybdis,' I suggested.
"'Between Silly an' what?' the old man asked, as if in doubt of my
meaning.
"We were interrupted by the arrival of the Reverend Robert with Marie
and her mother, in his handsome landaulet. Marie asked me to go with
her to gather wild flowers in a bit of woodland not far away. I went,
and soon saw her purpose. She had had the 'jolliest, cutest letter
from Harry' that she had ever read, and seemed to be in doubt as to
whether she ought to let him write to her.
"'Has your grandfather forbidden it?' I asked.
"'No.'
"'Then it's up to you,' I said.
"'Do you think he cares for me?'
"'I should think him a fool if he didn't,' I said, looking down into
her lovely dark eyes.
"'But do you really and truly think that he cares for me?' she
insisted.
"'I suspect that he does.'
"'Why?'
"'A lawyer must not betray a confidence.'
"'Do you like him?'
"'Wait until his uneducation is completed, and I'll tell you. I am
beginning to have hope for Harry.'
"'I'm sorry grandpapa is so hateful!' she exclaimed, with a sigh.
"I stood up for the old man and asked:
"'Do you like the Reverend Robert?'
"'Very much! He's so good-looking, and has such beautiful thoughts!
Have you heard him preach?'
"'No.'
"'We think his sermons are fine. Everybody likes them but grandpapa.
He wants noise, you know--lung power and old theology. I hate it!'
"'He doesn't take to Robert?'
"'No; he calls him a calf. Nobody is good enough for me, you know.
He'd like me to marry some man with a hoe, who would take me to church
and Sunday school every sabbath morning, and for a walk to the
cemetery in the afternoon, and down to the prayer-meeting every
Wednesday night, and on a journey from Genesis to Revelations once a
year. It's too much to expect of a human being. Then the hoes are in
the hands of Poles, Slavs, and Italians. So what am I to do?'
"'Well, you are young--you can afford to wait a while,' I said.
"'But not until I am old and all withered up. I am going to marry the
man I love within a year or so, if he has the good sense to ask me.
Don't you ever go to church?'
"'No,' I said.
"'Why not?'
"I tried to think. There were the ministers--two boys and three old
men--dried beef and veal! Not to my knowledge had a single one of them
ever expressed an idea. They were seen, but not felt. The Church! Why,
certainly, it was founded on the sweetness, strength, and sanity of a
great soul. I had almost forgotten that. It had grown feeble. It had
got its fortunes entangled in psychological hair. It should have been
correcting the follies of the people--their selfishness, their sinful
pride, their extravagance, their loss of honor and humanity. Had I not
seen, in the case of Harry and his followers, how the Church had
failed in its work? Ought it not to have sought and saved them long
ago--saved them from needless disaster? It should have been appealing
to their consciences. If appeals had failed it should have stung them
with ridicule or raised a voice like that of Christ against the
Pharisees. The Church! Why, it was living, not in the present, but in
the past. Here in Pointview the Church itself had become one of the
greatest follies of the time.
"'I want you to go next Sunday and hear Mr. Knowles, as a favor to
me--won't you?' Marie asked.
"'Yes,' I said. 'In the next five Sundays I shall go to every
Protestant church in Pointview. I want to know what they're doing. I
shall put aside my scruples and go.'"
XIV
IN WHICH SOCRATES DISCOVERS A NEW FOLLY
"Well, I went and saw the Reverend Robert Knowles sail between 'Silly
and Charybdis.' He bumped on both sides, but did it rather gracefully.
He reviewed the career of Samuel, who lived and died some thousands of
years ago. The miraculous touch of Carlyle or Macaulay might easily
have failed in the task of reviving a man so thoroughly dead. But the
Reverend Robert entered this unequal contest with no evidence of
alarm. The dead man prevailed. The power of his long sleep fell upon
us. My head grew heavy. I felt my weight bearing down upon the
cushions. A stiffness came into my bones.
"On our way to church Betsey had placed the young minister in my
thoughts. The trustees had reckoned that he would revive the interest
of the young people in Sunday worship; and he did, but it was the
worship of youth and beauty.
"Well, the other churches were emptier than ever, and so the spiritual
life of the community was in no way improved. In fact, I guess it had
been a little embittered by the new conditions. As soon as it became
known that Marie had won the prize of his favor the other girls had
returned to their native altars, having discovered that the new
minister was vain, worldly, and conceited.
"Lettie Davis, who had made a dead set at him, had been strongly
convinced of that as soon as he began to show a preference for Marie,
and the Davis family had left the church and gone over to the
Methodists. The young man had been filled with alarm. He feared it
would wreck the church. That old ship of the faith was leaky and
iron-sick, and down by the head and heel, as they say at sea. She
rolled if one got off or on her.
"Such was the condition of things when we entered the church of my
fathers. We sat down in the Potter pew a few minutes before the
service began. There were, by actual count, forty-nine people gathered
around the altar of the old church, and behind us a great emptiness
and the ghosts of the dead. In my boyhood I had sat in its dim light,
with six hundred people filling every seat to the doors and a man of
power and learning in the pulpit.
"Faces long forgotten were there in those pews--old faces, young
faces. How many thousands had left its altar to find distant homes or
to go on their last journey to that nearer one in the churchyard! My
heart was full and ready for strong meat, but none came to me. The
moment of silence had been something rare--like an old Grecian vase
wonderfully wrought. Then, suddenly, the singing fell upon us and
broke the silence into ruins. It was in the nature of a breach of the
peace. There are two kinds of people who ought to be gently but firmly
restrained: the person that talks too much and the person that sings
too much.
"This young minister undoubtedly meant well. He's about the kind of a
chap that I've seen in law-offices working for fifteen dollars a
week--industrious, zealous, and able up to a point, and all right
under supervision. He can be trusted to handle a small case with
intelligence and judgment. But I wouldn't go to him for instruction in
philosophy; and if I wished to relay the foundation of my life I
should, naturally, consult some other person. As one might expect, he
had searched the cellars of theology for canned goods, and with
extraordinary success.
"The young man had so lately arrived in this world he couldn't be
expected to know much about its affairs, and especially about those
of Samuel. It was graceful and decorous elocution. The Deacon
expressed his opinion of it in snores, and I longed to follow suit.
"The sermon ended with a dramatic recitation, and on our way out the
minister met us at the door.
"'You must manage to keep these people awake,' I suggested to him.
"'How am I to do it?' he asked.
"'Well, you might have a corps of pin-stickers carefully distributed
in the pews, or you could put the pins in your sermon. I recommend the
latter.'
"We went away with a sense of injury.
"'Let's keep trying,' said Betsey, 'until you find some one you would
care to hear. I would feel at home in any of our churches. These days
there's no essential difference between Congregationalists, Baptists,
Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. I've talked with all of
them, and their differences are dead and gone. They stand in the
printed creeds, but are no longer in the hearts of the people.'
"'Then why all these empty churches?' I asked. 'Why don't the people
get together in one great church?'
"'Don't talk about the millennium,' said Betsey. 'We must try to make
the best of what we have.'
"Well, in the next four Sundays we went from church to church to get
strength for our souls, and found only weakness and disappointment.
Immune from ridicule and satire, the sacred inefficiency of our pulpit
had waxed and grown and taken possession of the churches. And one
thought came to me as I listened. There should be a number of exits to
every Christian church, plainly marked: 'To be used in case of fire.'
Ancient history, dead philosophy, sophomoric periods, bad music, empty
pews, weary groups of the faithful longing for home, were, in brief,
the things that we saw and heard. It was pathetic.
"I began to think about it. Here were five church organizations, all
weak, infirm, begging, struggling for life. The automobile and the
golf and yacht clubs had nearly finished the work of destruction which
incompetence had so ably begun. There was not much left of them; yet
their combined property was worth about one hundred thousand dollars.
They spent in the aggregate fifty-six hundred dollars for ministers'
salaries, and their total average attendance was only four hundred and
forty-nine. I could see no more extravagant waste of time, work, and
capital in any other branch of human effort. Some would call it
wicked, but, though we speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not charity, we had better have kept still.
"The Reverend Mr. Knowles came to me within a day or two and
apologized for his sermon. He complained that he couldn't be
himself--that he didn't dare speak his thoughts.
"'Whose thoughts do you speak?' I asked.
"'Well, I trail along in the wake of the fathers.'
"'Then you are feeding your flock on corned and kippered thoughts--on
the dried and dug-up convictions of the dead. It isn't fair. It isn't
even honest. The church here is dying of anemia for want of fresh
food. The new world must have new thought to fit new conditions. Its
outlook has been utterly changed. If a man who had never seen a
locomotive or a motor-car or a tandem or a telephone or an electric
light or the sons and daughters of a new millionaire or the home and
crest of the same or a bill of a modern merchant were to come down out
of the backwoods and try to tell us how to run the world, we should
think him an ass, and wisely. Consider how these things have changed
the spirit of man and surrounded it with new perils.'
"'But think of the old fellows--the mossbacks--who hate your new
philosophy,' said the minister.
"'And think of the young fellows who are so easily tossed about. The
moss of senility is covering the bloom of youth and the honor of
youth.'"
XV
IN WHICH HARRY RETURNS TO POINTVIEW AND GOES TO WORK
"Betsey and I were giving a dinner-party at our house. Mr. and Mrs.
Henry Delance and the Warburtons and Dan and Lizzie had come over to
discuss a plan for the correction of the greatest folly and
extravagance in the village--namely, the waste of its spiritual
energy.
"At first we had to discuss a fact related to another folly, for the
Delances told how Harry's pet collie had come up to the back door that
day with a human skull in his mouth. Of course I knew that Harry's
Bishop had returned, but held my peace about it. To them it had
suggested murder, and they had consulted the chief of police.
[Illustration: "HARRY'S PET COLLIE HAD COME UP TO THE BACK DOOR WITH A
HUMAN SKULL IN HIS MOUTH"]