II
Nothing gave Babbitt more purification and publicity than
his labors for the Sunday School.
His church, the Chatham Road Presbyterian, was one of
the largest and richest, one of the most oaken and velvety,
in Zenith. The pastor was the Reverend John Jennison Drew,
M.A., D.D., LL.D. (The M.A. and the D.D. were from Elbert
University, Nebraska, the LL.D. from Waterbury College,
Oklahoma.) He was eloquent, efficient, and versatile. He
presided at meetings for the denunciation of unions or the
elevation of domestic service, and confided to the audiences
that as a poor boy he had carried newspapers. For the Saturday
edition of the Evening Advocate he wrote editorials on
"The Manly Man's Religion'' and "The Dollars and Sense
Value of Christianity,'' which were printed in bold type surrounded
by a wiggly border. He often said that he was "proud
to be known as primarily a business man'' and that he certainly
was not going to "permit the old Satan to monopolize all the
pep and punch.'' He was a thin, rustic-faced young man with
gold spectacles and a bang of dull brown hair, but when he
hurled himself into oratory he glowed with power. He admitted
that he was too much the scholar and poet to imitate
the evangelist, Mike Monday, yet he had once awakened his
fold to new life, and to larger collections, by the challenge,
"My brethren, the real cheap skate is the man who won't lend
to the Lord!''
He had made his church a true community center. It contained
everything but a bar. It had a nursery, a Thursday
evening supper with a short bright missionary lecture afterward,
a gymnasium, a fortnightly motion-picture show, a
library of technical books for young workmen—though, unfortunately,
no young workman ever entered the church except
to wash the windows or repair the furnace—and a sewing-circle
which made short little pants for the children of the
poor while Mrs. Drew read aloud from earnest novels.
Though Dr. Drew's theology was Presbyterian, his church-building
was gracefully Episcopalian. As he said, it had the
"most perdurable features of those noble ecclesiastical
monuments of grand Old England which stand as symbols of the
eternity of faith, religious and civil.'' It was built of cheery
iron-spot brick in an improved Gothic style, and the main
auditorium had indirect lighting from electric globes in lavish
alabaster bowls.
On a December morning when the Babbitts went to church,
Dr. John Jennison Drew was unusually eloquent. The crowd
was immense. Ten brisk young ushers, in morning coats with
white roses, were bringing folding chairs up from the basement.
There was an impressive musical program, conducted by Sheldon
Smeeth, educational director of the Y.M.C.A., who also
sang the offertory. Babbitt cared less for this, because some
misguided person had taught young Mr. Smeeth to smile,
smile, smile while he was singing, but with all the appreciation
of a fellow-orator he admired Dr. Drew's sermon. It had the
intellectual quality which distinguished the Chatham Road
congregation from the grubby chapels on Smith Street.
"At this abundant harvest-time of all the year,'' Dr. Drew
chanted, "when, though stormy the sky and laborious the path
to the drudging wayfarer, yet the hovering and bodiless spirit
swoops back o'er all the labors and desires of the past twelve
months, oh, then it seems to me there sounds behind all our
apparent failures the golden chorus of greeting from those
passed happily on; and lo! on the dim horizon we see behind
dolorous clouds the mighty mass of mountains—mountains
of melody, mountains of mirth, mountains of might!''
"I certainly do like a sermon with culture and thought in
it,'' meditated Babbitt.
At the end of the service he was delighted when the pastor,
actively shaking hands at the door, twittered, "Oh, Brother
Babbitt, can you wait a jiffy? Want your advice.''
"Sure, doctor! You bet!''
"Drop into my office. I think you'll like the cigars there.''
Babbitt did like the cigars. He also liked the office, which
was distinguished from other offices only by the spirited
change of the familiar wall-placard to "This is the Lord's Busy
Day.'' Chum Frink came in, then William W. Eathorne.
Mr. Eathorne was the seventy-year-old president of the First
State Bank of Zenith. He still wore the delicate patches of
side-whiskers which had been the uniform of bankers in 1870.
If Babbitt was envious of the Smart Set of the McKelveys,
before William Washington Eathorne he was reverent. Mr.
Eathorne had nothing to do with the Smart Set. He was
above it. He was the great-grandson of one of the five men
who founded Zenith, in 1792, and he was of the third generation
of bankers. He could examine credits, make loans, promote
or injure a man's business. In his presence Babbitt
breathed quickly and felt young.
The Reverend Dr. Drew bounced into the room and flowered
into speech:
"I've asked you gentlemen to stay so I can put a proposition
before you. The Sunday School needs bucking up. It's the
fourth largest in Zenith, but there's no reason why we should
take anybody's dust. We ought to be first. I want to request
you, if you will, to form a committee of advice and publicity
for the Sunday School; look it over and make any suggestions
for its betterment, and then, perhaps, see that the press gives
us some attention—give the public some really helpful and
constructive news instead of all these murders and divorces.''
"Excellent,'' said the banker.
Babbitt and Frink were enchanted to join him.
