I was too good, too big, too smart, for the divine love of the Savior! Say! Any of you ever stop and think how much you're handing yourself when you figure you can get along without divine intercession? Say! I suppose prob'ly you're bigger than Moses, bigger than St. Paul, bigger than Pastewer, that great scientist — "
President Quarles was exulting, "It was a genuine conversion! But more than that! Here's a true discovery — my discovery! Elmer is a born preacher, once he lets himself go, and I can make him do it! O Lord, how mysterious are thy ways! Thou hast chosen to train our young brother not so much in prayer as in the mighty struggles of the Olympic field! I — thou, Lord, hast produced a born preacher. Some day he'll be one of our leading prophets!"
The audience clapped when Elmer hammered out his conclusion: " — and you Freshmen will save a lot of time that I wasted if you see right now that until you know God you know — just nothing!"
They clapped, they made their faces to shine upon him. Eddie Fislinger won him by sighing, "Old fellow, you got me beat at my own game like you have at your game!" There was much hand-shaking. None of it was more ardent than that of his recent enemy, the Latin professor, who breathed:
"Where did you get all those fine ideas and metaphors about the Divine Love, Gantry?"
"Oh," modestly, "I can't hardly call them mine, Professor. I guess I just got them by praying."
7
Judson Roberts, ex-football-star, state secretary of the Y.M.C.A., was on the train to Concordia, Kansas. In the vestibule he had three puffs of an illegal cigarette and crushed it out.
"No, really, it wasn't so bad for him, that Elmer what's-his-name, to get converted. Suppose there isn't anything to it. Won't hurt him to cut out some of his bad habits for a while, anyway. And how do we know? Maybe the Holy Ghost does come down. No more improbable than electricity. I do wish I could get over this doubting! I forget it when I've got 'em going in an evangelistic meeting, but when I watch a big butcher like him, with that damn' silly smirk on his jowls — I believe I'll go into the real estate business. I don't think I'm hurting these young fellows any, but I do wish I could be honest. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, I wish I had a good job selling real estate!"
8
Elmer walked home firmly. "Just what right has Mr. James B. Lefferts got to tell me I mustn't use my ability to get a crowd going? And I certainly had 'em going! Never knew I could spiel like that. Easy as feetball! And Prexy saying I was a born preacher! Huh!"
Firmly and resentfully he came into their room, and slammed down his hat.
It awoke Jim. "How'd it go over? Hand 'em out the gospel guff?"
"I did!" Elmer trumpeted. "It went over, as you put it, corking. Got any objections?"
He lighted the largest lamp and turned it up full, his back to Jim.
No answer. When he looked about, Jim seemed asleep.
At seven next morning he said forgivingly, rather patronizingly, "I'll be gone till ten — bring you back some breakfast?"
Jim answered, "No, thanks," and those were his only words that morning.
When Elmer came in at ten-thirty, Jim was gone, his possessions gone. (It was no great moving: three suitcases of clothes, an armful of books.) There was a note on the table:
I shall live at the College Inn the rest of this year. You can probably get Eddie Fislinger to live with you. You would enjoy it. It has been stimulating to watch you try to be an honest roughneck, but I think it would be almost too stimulating to watch you become a spiritual leader.
J. B. L.
All of Elmer's raging did not make the room seem less lonely.
CHAPTER IV
1
President Quarles urged him.
Elmer would, perhaps, affect the whole world if he became a minister. What glory for Old Terwillinger and all the shrines of Gritzmacher Springs!
Eddie Fislinger urged him.
"Jiminy! You'd go way beyond me! I can see you president of the Baptist convention!" Elmer still did not like Eddie, but he was making much now of ignoring Jim Lefferts (they met on the street and bowed ferociously), and he had to have some one to play valet to his virtues.
The ex-minister dean of the college urged him.
Where could Elmer find a profession with a better social position than the ministry — thousands listening to him — invited to banquets and everything. So much easier than — Well, not exactly easier; all ministers worked arduously — great sacrifices — constant demands on their sympathy — heroic struggle against vice — but same time, elegant and superior work, surrounded by books, high thoughts, and the finest ladies in the city or country as the case might be. And cheaper professional training than law. With scholarships and outside preaching, Elmer could get through the three years of Mizpah Theological Seminary on almost nothing a year. What other plans had he for a career? Nothing definite? Why, looked like divine intervention; certainly did; let's call it settled. Perhaps he could get Elmer a scholarship the very first year —
His mother urged him.
She wrote, daily, that she was longing, praying, sobbing —
Elmer urged himself.
He had no prospects except the chance of reading law in the dingy office of a cousin in Toluca, Kansas. The only things he had against the ministry, now that he was delivered from Jim, were the low salaries and the fact that if ministers were caught drinking or flirting, it was often very hard on them. The salaries weren't so bad — he'd go to the top, of course, and maybe make eight or ten thousand. But the diversions — He thought about it so much that he made a hasty trip to Cato, and came back temporarily cured forever of any desire for wickedness.
The greatest urge was his memory of holding his audience, playing on them. To move people — Golly! He wanted to be addressing somebody on something right now, and being applauded!
By this time he was so rehearsed in his rôle of candidate for righteousness that it didn't bother him (so long as no snickering Jim was present) to use the most embarrassing theological and moral terms in the presence of Eddie or the president; and without one grin he rolled out dramatic speeches about "the duty of every man to lead every other man to Christ," and "the historic position of the Baptists as the one true Scriptural Church, practising immersion, as taught by Christ himself."
He was persuaded. He saw himself as a white-browed and star-eyed young evangel, wearing a new frock coat, standing up in a pulpit and causing hundreds of beautiful women to weep with conviction and rush down to clasp his hand.
But there was one barrier, extremely serious. They all informed him that select though he was as sacred material, before he decided he must have a mystic experience known as a Call. God himself must appear and call him to service, and conscious though Elmer was now of his own powers and the excellence of the church, he saw no more
