Chapter 6

"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.

"'How do you know that it is not one of your ancestors dug up in a back pasture,' I said.

"'It might be William the Conqueror,' Lizzie remarked.

"'I deny it,' said Delance, in perfect good nature. 'We have resigned from William's family. As a matter of fact, I never joined it.'

"I congratulated him.

"'It has always seemed like the merest poppycock to me--this genealogical craze of the ladies,' said Henry. 'When our London solicitor wrote that it would take another hundred pounds to establish the connection beyond a doubt, he gave away the whole scheme, and I resigned. It was too silly. In these days of titled chambermaids I think we shall worry along pretty well without William.'

"Then Betsey said: 'I was reading in the county history to-day that old Zebulon Delance, who was killed in a fight with Indians in 1750, was buried in a meadow back of his house.'

"'It may be the skull of old Zeb,' said Henry.

"'Now there's an ancestor worth having,' I suggested.

"'I wonder if it can belong to old Zeb,' Henry mused.

"At last we got to my plan. I pictured the condition of the community as I saw it, and the inefficiency of the church and the need of a new and active power in Pointview.

"I proposed that we buy the old skating-rink and remodel it, employ the best talent in America, and start a new center of power in the community--a power that should, first of all, keep us sane, and then as decent as possible. The mathematics of the enterprise were at my fingers' ends:

"Initial Expenses $15,000 "Annual Outlay for Instruction 8,000 "For Music 3,500 "For Maintenance 1,000 "For Management 3,500

"It was no small matter, but the initial expense and the first year's outlay were subscribed in ten minutes. Betsey set the ball rolling with an offer of ten thousand dollars, and then it was like shaking ripe apples off a tree.

"'Who is to be the manager?' Delance wanted to know. 'It's a big job.'

"'I propose that we try Harry,' I said; 'in my opinion it will interest him. I've had him in training for a year or so, and he's about ready for big work.'

"'I don't believe Harry can do it,' his father declared.

"'I should think it might not be to his taste,' said Bill Warburton.

"'But I have later and better information than the rest of you,' I said. 'If you will leave the matter in my hands you may hold me responsible for the results.'

"They gave me the white card. I could do as I liked. The fact is, I had just had a letter from Harry which filled me with new hope. I have it here."

The Honorable Socrates Potter took the letter from his pocket and said:

"You see, Harry has been discovering America. He is the Columbus of our heiristocracy. His mental map has been filled with great cities and splendid hotels, and thrifty towns and enormous areas of wheat and corn, and astonishing distances and sublime mountain scenes. Moreover, he has learned the joys of a simple life; he had to. Of course, he knew of these things, but feebly and without pride, as one knows the Tetons who has never seen them. Leaving in May, he stopped in all the big cities, and finished his journey from the railroad with a stage-ride of some ninety miles. Of the stage-ride and other matters, he writes thus:

"'On the front seat with the driver sat a lady smoking a cigar, who, now and then, offered us a drink from a bottle. At her side was a lady with a wooden leg, and a hen in her hand. You know every woman is a lady out here. The driver swore at the horses, the hen swore at the lady, and several of the passengers swore at each other, and it was all done in the most amiable spirit. Two rough-necks sat beside me who kept shooting with revolvers at sage-hens as they--the men, not the hens--irrigated the tires with tobacco-juice. At the next stop I got into a row with a one-eyed professor of elocution, because he said I carried too much for the size of my mule, an' didn't speak proper. He objected to my pronunciation, and I to his choice of words. In the argument his revolver took sides with him. I got one of my toes lopped with a bullet, and the lady who carried the cigar and the bottle took me to her home and nursed me like a mother, and the lady with the wooden leg brought me strawberries every day and sang to me and told me some good stories. I had thought it was a God-forsaken country, but, you see, I was wrong. There's more real practical Christianity among these people than I ever saw before, and it's hard work to be an ass here. The way of the ass is full of trouble, and I begin to understand why you wanted me to come out to Wyoming. The people are rough, but as kind as angels. Felt like turning back, but these women put new heart in me, especially the wooden-legged one.

"'"We don't like parlor talk out here," she said; "it ain't considered good ettikit. Folks don't mind a little, but if it goes too fur it's considered insultin' an' everybody begins to speak to ye like he was talkin' to a balky mule."

"'I went on as soon as I was able, and spent the whole summer on the back of a cayuse. Got lost in the mountains; went hungry and cold like the wolf, as Garland puts it, for three days; had to think my way back to camp. It was the best schooling in geography and logic and American humanity that I ever had. Every man at the ranch, and the women, had been out hunting for me. I offered them money, but they woudn't take a cent--the joy of seeing me was enough. They haven't a smitch of the revolting money-hunger of the average European. With all its faults I am proud of my country. I want you to find a good, big American job for me.

"'I have been reading the Bishop of St. Clare, who says: "There hath been more energy expended in swaggering about with full bellies and a burden of needless fat than would move the island to the main shore. If thy purse be used to buy immunity from work, it secureth immunity from manhood; and what is a man without manhood?"

"'There is the American idea for you.

"'Deacon Joe has got to change his mind about me. Marie has only written me one letter, and that was a frost. If you have any influence with the girl, don't let her get engaged to that parson.'

Socrates laughed as he put the letter away, and went on:

"Well, Harry came back, browned and brawny, with his cayuse, saddle, and sombrero, and a shooting-iron half as long as my arm.

"He came here for a talk with me the day after his arrival. The subject of a lifework was pressing on him.

"'Have you seen Zeb?' was his first query.

"'Zeb?' I asked. 'Who is Zeb?'

"'That dear old, irrepressible bishop,' said Harry. 'They have dug him up and named him Zeb, and put him on a top shelf in the library. They think he is one of our great-grandfathers.'

"'Oh, he has been promoted,' I remarked.

"Harry went on:

"'My dog is responsible for the reappearance of the bishop. I took him with me that night, and he knew where to find it. Father is sure that it's the head of old Zeb Delance.'

"'Let the Bishop rest where he is,' I suggested. 'Now that he has converted you, he will probably let up. At least, let us hope that he will not worry you. Of course he will remind you of past follies every time you look at him, but that will do you no harm.'

"'Oh, I couldn't forget him! Father has been reading up on Zeb, and he does nothing but talk about him. He has learned that the Indians buried the head and burned the body of a victim.'

"'He symbolizes the change in your taste. Zeb was a man of action--a worker. What do you propose to do now?'

"'Well, I have thought some of following Dan into agriculture.'

"'Don't,' was my answer. 'You're not the type for that kind of a job. Dan was brought up to work with his hands. I fear that you would be a Fifth Avenue farmer.'

"'Well, what would you say to a plant for the manufacture of aeroplanes? I stopped at Dayton and looked into the matter, and learned to fly. I have ordered a biplane, and it will be delivered in the spring.'

"I vetoed that plan, and asked where he proposed to settle.

"'Right here--if possible,' said Harry.

"'Good! There's one thing about your family tree that I like, and you ought to be proud of it. Your forebears, having been treated with shameless oppression, came to these inhospitable shores in 1630. They needn't have done it if they had been willing to knuckle down and say they liked crow when they didn't. They wouldn't do that, so they left the old sod and ventured forth in a little sailing-vessel on the mighty deep. It required some courage to do that. They landed safely, and for nearly three hundred years their descendants have lived and worked and suffered all manner of hardships in New England. It's a proper thing, Harry, that you should do your work where, mostly, they did their work--in dear old Connecticut.'

"'And besides, it's the home of Marie,' he said.

"'And let us consider what there is to be done in the home of Marie,' I went on. 'Here in the very town where so many of your fathers have lived and worked we find a singular parade of folly. The idle rich from a near city are closing in upon us. Many of the Yankees have acquired property and ceased to work. Back in the distant hills they toil not, but live from hand to mouth in a pitiful state of degeneration. The work of the hand is almost entirely that of Italians, Poles, Hungarians, and Greeks.

"'Our tradesmen have a low code of honor. They overcharge us for the necessities of life. Many of them have been caught cheating. Our wives and sons and daughters are living beyond their means, as if ignorant of the fact that it is the beginning of dishonesty. Our poverty is mostly that of the soul. The churches are dying, and the sabbath is dead. What we need is a return to the honor, sanity, and common sense of old New England, which gave of its fullness to the land we love. Let's start a school of old-fashioned decency and Americanism. Let's call it the Church of All Faiths and make it a center of power.'

"I laid the scheme before him in all its details, and then--

"'I'm with you,' he said, 'and I think I can see Knowles moving and Deacon Joe coming down off his high horse.'

"'Possibly we could use Knowles,' I suggested. 'There'll be a lot of detail.'

"'But only as a kind of clerk,' said Harry.

"As a kind of clerk, I agreed. 'We shall need a number of clerks. I intend that every family within ten miles shall be visited at least once a week. We shall not only let our light shine, but we shall make it shine into every human heart in this community. If they're too callous we'll punch a hole with our trusty blade and let the light in. The lantern and the rapier shall be our weapons.'

"Harry was full of enthusiasm. He had met Marie on the street, and she was glad to learn that he was going to work.

"'Incidentally, I hope to win your grandfather's consent,' he had said to her.

"And she had answered: 'If you could do that I should think you were an extremely able young man.'

"'And worthy of the best girl living?' Harry had urged.

"'That's too extravagant,' Marie had said as she left him.

"Harry went to work with me at once. He bought the rink and the ground beneath it and some more alongside. We spent days and nights with an architect making and remaking the plans, and by and by we knew that we were right. Soon the contractor began his work, and in three months we had finished the most notable meeting-house of modern times.

"The walls were tinted a rich cream color, the woodwork was painted white. There were new carpets in the aisles, and between them comfortable seats for nine hundred people. The fine old pulpit from which Jonathan Edwards had preached his first sermon was the center of a little garden of ferns and palms and vines and mosses, all growing in good ground, with a small fountain in their midst--a symbol of purity. A great sheet of plate glass behind the pulpit showed a thicket of evergreens. High above the pulpit was another big sheet of glass, through which one got a broad view of the sky, and it was framed in these words: 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.'

"The walls were adorned with handsome pictures loaned by my friends. On one wall were these modern commandments, most of which were gleaned from the masterly volume entitled _The Life and Writings of Robert Delance, Bishop of St. Clare_, which Harry had found in a London bookstore:

"1. 'Be grateful unto God, for He hath given thee life, time, and this beautiful world. Other things thou shalt find for thyself.'

"2. 'Be brave with thy life, for it is very long.'

"3. 'Waste no time, for thy time is very little.'

"4. 'See that this world is the better for thy work and kindness.'

"5. 'Doubt not the truth of that thy senses tell thee, for thy God is no deceiver.'

"6. 'Love the truth and live it, for no one is long deceived by lying.'

"7. 'Give not unto the beast and neglect thy brother.'

"8. 'Go find thy brothers in the world and see that these be many, for a man's strength and happiness are multiplied by the number of his brothers.'

"9. 'Beware lest thy wealth come between thee and them and tend to thine own poverty and theirs.'

"10. 'Suffer little children to come unto thee, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'

"The simple-hearted old Bishop had just the philosophy we needed. It seemed to have been carefully designed to meet the inventiveness of the modern sinner. He was turning out well and had already exerted a wholesome influence on the character of Harry. Would that all ancestors were as well chosen!

"We did not wish to hinder the other churches, and that spirit went into all our plans. First, then, we decided that our services should begin at twelve o'clock every Sunday, and close at one or before twenty minutes after one. That gave our parishioners a chance to go to the other churches if they wanted to. I traveled from Boston to St. Louis, and returned _via_ Washington, to engage talent for our pulpit. I wanted the best that this land afforded, and was prepared to pay its price. I engaged nine ministers, distinguished for eloquence and learning, three Governors, the Mayor of a Western city, two United States Senators, one Congressman, and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the land. They were all great-souled men, who had shown in word and action a touch of the spirit of Jesus Christ. Some of them had been throwing light into dark places and driving money-changers from the temple and casting out devils. They were all qualified to enlighten and lift up our souls.

"I asked that their lessons should be drawn from the lives of the modern prophets--Abraham Lincoln, Silas Wright, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Henry Clay, Noah Webster, George William Curtis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sidney Lanier, Horace Greeley, and others like them. What I sought most was an increase of the love of honor and the respect for industry in our young men and women. Holiness was a thing for later consideration, it seemed to me.

"I put a full-page advertisement in each local paper, which read about as follows:

"'The Church of All Faiths.

"'Built especially for sinners and for good people who wish to be better.

"'Will begin its work in this community Sunday, June 19th, at twelve o'clock, with a sermon by Socrates Potter, Esq., of Pointview, in which he will set forth his view of what a church should do, and an account of what this church proposes to do, for its parishioners. Other churches are cordially invited to worship, and to work with us for the good of Pointview.'

"The curiosity of all the people had been whetted to a keen edge. They had begged for information, but Betsey and I had said that they should know all about it in due time. I had given my plan to the contributors only, and they were to keep still about it.

"Sometimes silence is the best advertisement, and certain men who seem to be so modest that they are shocked by the least publicity are the greatest advertisers in the world. The man who hides his candle under a bushel is apt to be the one whose candle is best known. So it happened with us. Nine hundred and sixteen people filled the seats in our church that morning by twelve o'clock, and two hundred more were trying to get in.

"At the next service an honored minister whose soul is even greater than his fame preached for us, and that week a petition came to me, signed by six hundred citizens, complaining that the hour was inconvenient, and asking that it be changed to 10.30 A.M. I believe in the voice of the people, and obeyed it; but I knew what would happen, and it did. The other churches were deserted and silent. One by one their ministers came to see me--all save one old gentleman in whom the brimstone of wrath had begun to burn more fiercely. We needed and were glad to have the help of two of them. There were the sick and the poor to be visited; there were weddings and funerals and countless details in the organization of the new church to be attended to.

"I ought to tell you that a curious and unexpected thing had happened. Fisherfolk, street gamins, caddies, loafers on the docks and in the livery stables, millionaires and million-heiresses--people who had thought themselves either above or below religion--came to our meetings. Each resembled in numbers a political rally.