{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73085/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73085","id":"gutenberg_73085","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73085","summary":null,"tags":["Asbury, Herbert, 1891-1963 -- Childhood and youth","Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Farmington (Mo.) -- Biography","Methodist Church -- Controversial literature","Methodists -- Missouri -- Farmington -- Biography"],"text":"ASBURY / UP FROM METHODISM\n\n\n\n\n  HERBERT ASBURY\n\n  UP FROM\n  METHODISM\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  ALFRED \u00b7 A \u00b7 KNOPF\n\n  _NEW YORK_\n\n  1926\n\n\n\n\n  _Copyright 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc._\n\n  _Manufactured in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\n  _TO_\n  _STANLEY WALKER_\n\n\n\n\n          _CHAPTER I_ [_Page_ 3]\n  HOME LIFE OF A BOY DESTINED FOR HEAVEN\n\n        _CHAPTER II_ [_Page_ 25]\n       THE MACHINERY OF SALVATION\n\n        _CHAPTER III_ [_Page_ 36]\n         TABOOS OF THE LORD\u2019S DAY\n\n        _CHAPTER IV_ [_Page_ 56]\n            AGENTS OF GOD\n\n        _CHAPTER V_ [_Page_ 98]\n        A BAD BOY COMES TO JESUS\n\n        _CHAPTER VI_ [_Page_ 115]\n       NOTES ON A SAINTED RELATIVE\n\n       _CHAPTER VII_ [_Page_ 129]\n    DIVERSIONS OF AN ABANDONED SINNER\n\n        _CHAPTER VIII_ [_Page_ 168]\n  CONCLUSIONS OF A MAN GONE TO THE DEVIL\n\n\n\n\nASBURY / UP FROM METHODISM\n\n\n\n\nHOME LIFE OF A BOY DESTINED FOR HEAVEN\n\n\n1\n\nOn my father\u2019s side, according to my family belief, I am related\nto Cotton Mather; on my mother\u2019s side to Roger Williams. My\ngreat-great-uncle was Francis Asbury, the first Bishop of the Methodist\nChurch to be ordained in America; his elder half-brother was my\ngreat-great-grandfather, Thomas Asbury, who, disowned by his father\nfor various sins, ran away from the family cottage in England and\nwent to sea. Later he kidnapped Susan Jennings and married her, and\nthen settled in Virginia and so escaped the fate of the Bishop, who\ndoubtless went to the Methodist Heaven.\n\nMy great-grandfather was the Rev. Daniel Asbury of Fairfax County, Va.,\nan early pillar of Methodism and one of the great organizers of the\nChurch in the South. When a young man he went to North Carolina, and\nin 1791 founded, in Lincoln County, the first Methodist church west of\nthe Catawba River. Later he was a Presiding Elder and labored valiantly\nfor the Wesleyan God. When but a boy he was captured by the Indians and\nkept a prisoner for several years, and is said to have converted the\nentire tribe to Christianity. Throughout his whole life Sunday was his\ngreat day--he was born on Sunday, converted on Sunday, captured by the\nIndians on Sunday, released on Sunday, reached home on Sunday, was\nordained as a minister on Sunday, and on a Sunday married Nancy Morris\nin Brunswick County, Va. His first child was born on Sunday and he died\non Sunday.\n\nMy grandfather was the Rev. William Asbury of North Carolina, a local\npreacher who, for some reason that I have never known, quit raising\nsouls to Heaven and moved over into Mississippi, where he had equally\npoor success raising coons and cotton. He married Susan Lester Marks,\nmember of an equally religious family. Several of his seven sons were\nMethodist preachers, and my father, too, would have assumed the cloth\nhad not the Civil War come along. He enlisted in the Confederate Army\nand became an officer of infantry, and infantrymen do not make good\npreachers. At the close of the War he studied Civil Engineering and\nthen moved to Missouri, and settled in Farmington, where I was born.\nHe was county Surveyor of my home county of St. Francois for more\nthan thirty years, and City Clerk of Farmington for twenty years. The\nexigencies of local politics compelled him to attend services and take\nan active part in church work, but I have no recollection of him as a\nreligious man, although he imposed religion upon his home and impressed\nupon his family the necessity of Christian salvation.\n\nI first suspected that he might not be as religious as reported when I\nwhacked him across the shins with a broomstick as he sat in the yard\none day nursing his rheumatism. He did not turn the other shin. This\nwas not long after we had moved from the cottage across the street\nfrom the Masonic and Catholic cemeteries to our new house on the other\nside of the town, near the mansions of our first families, the Webers\nand the Cayces. Curiously enough, these graveyards were side by side,\nalthough their occupants presumably went to different Heavens. There\nwas a high fence between them, and it was not easy to dispose of the\nborder-line burial plots; the Protestants felt that a few Catholic\ndemons might be able to crawl through or under the fence, and the\nCatholics did not wish to have their mortal remains so close to those\nof such benighted heathen as the Methodists and the Presbyterians.\n\nMy mother\u2019s people, the Prichards and the Blues, came originally from\nNorth Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, and were for the most part\ndevout Baptists, believing that in immersion alone was true salvation.\nThe strength of their religious convictions may be seen in the fact\nthat many of them never forgave my mother for marrying a Methodist\nand transferring her letter to my father\u2019s Church, forsaking the\nausterities of her family faith. They considered the Methodists too\nliberal! The true Baptist of those days was in a constant emotional\nupheaval; his religion was a canker that ate deeper and deeper, and he\nwas able to find no relief; the more religious he became, the more\nmiserable he was. On the other hand, the Methodist enjoyed terrific and\nperiodical emotional explosions, and thereafter was generally able to\nlive for a few days in comparative calm. But the Baptist was wrapped\nin gloom from the moment of his conversion until he was called home to\nJesus.\n\nWhen my mother\u2019s forbears came up from the South they settled within\na radius of twenty miles of Farmington, many of them in the vicinity\nof Hazel Run and French Village. They were farmers, with a sprinkling\nof small storekeepers, preachers and country doctors. My mother\u2019s\nfather, Joseph Prichard, was a farmer, but he was very religious and\nwas renowned throughout the countryside around French Village for his\nexploits as a faith healer; he could cure toothache, remove warts and\nstop the flow of blood. His method was merely to say: \u201cIt will be gone\nby the time you get home,\u201d and generally it was. He frequently removed\nwarts from my own hands; at least they vanished within a reasonable\ntime after he had looked at them and pronounced his incantations, and I\nregarded him with awe.\n\nThere was a tradition in our family that my grandfather boasted Indian\nblood in his veins, and although I do not think it was true, at the\ntime it gave me great pride and satisfaction; it invested me with\nauthority at such times as we played Indian and Wild West games. He\nmade a two-year trip overland to California during the 1849 gold rush,\nwithout conspicuous success, and brought back with him the musket with\nwhich we were given to understand he had slain innumerable Indians. Two\nor three times a year his children and his grandchildren, a vast horde\nall told, held family reunions at his French Village farm, and the big\nmoment of the day came in the afternoon when all of the grandchildren\ntrooped into the woods behind the barn to watch Grandpa kill a\nsquirrel. We stood in a half-circle, almost overcome by awe, while my\ngrandfather loaded his gun with great care, pouring the correct amount\nof powder from his powder horn and dumping the bullets from his pouch\ninto the palm of his hand, where he counted them carefully. And then he\nkilled the squirrel, while we stood behind him and marveled. He never\nfailed; he was an excellent rifle shot; in his ninety-first year, three\nyears before he died, he knocked a squirrel from a tree as easily as\nDavy Crockett could have done it.\n\nAs a young man in Georgia and later in Missouri my grandfather Prichard\nwas famous as a leader of Baptist sing-songs. His favorite hymn was\n\u201cThe Prodigal Son,\u201d which he was wont to bellow with fanatical fervor\nas he sat bolt upright in an uncomfortable, straight-backed chair and\ndirected the singing with a stick. He sang from an old hymn book which\nhad been in his family for many years, a curious volume with the music\nprinted in square notes. Many of the hymns expressed sentiments that\nto-day, even in religious circles, would be considered obscene. I\nrecall one that said: \u201cOh, sinners! My bowels do move with desire!\u201d\n\nI was constantly under the influence of my mother\u2019s people, who did\nwhat they could to overcome the pernicious influence of the Methodists;\nthey prevailed upon me to visit them and attend their revivals and\nother religious meetings, and otherwise attempted to oversee and assure\nmy eventual salvation. Some of my father\u2019s people, too, had come up\nfrom the South, from Virginia and North Carolina and Mississippi, and\nhad settled around Farmington. Many of them were excessively pious,\nalthough it is my recollection that they did not carry their love of\nGod and man into the conduct of their temporal affairs; religion was\nnot permitted to interfere with business. Between them and my mother\u2019s\npeople there was a constant, although not open, fight for my soul, and\nthe souls of my sister and brothers. The bout appears to have been a\ndraw.\n\n\n2\n\nWe were a musical family. My elder brother and I played the harmonica,\nor French harp, as we called it then, and my sister performed capably\nupon the organ, the guitar and the mandolin. She was particularly\nadept upon the guitar, and enjoyed an enviable reputation for the way\nshe whanged out the fandango pieces and the tune descriptive of the\nBattle of Sebastopol, which requires much banging and thumping and\ndifficult fingering. My father was a fiddler. He did not know one note\nfrom another, but he could tuck his fiddle under his chin, tap the\nfloor with his foot and play with great spirit such tunes as \u201cFisher\u2019s\nHornpipe,\u201d \u201cBilly in the Low Ground,\u201d \u201cTurkey in the Straw\u201d and \u201cThe\nArkansas Traveler.\u201d But his muse was dumb if he could not pat his foot.\nI could also beat a snare drum passably, and later I learned to play\nthe violin, the cornet and the alto horn, so that we had quite a family\norchestra, and our house was frequently filled with music. Anyhow we\nplayed these instruments.\n\nBut not on Sunday. Our Preacher assured us that music on Sunday, except\nin church, was sinful and an affront to the Heavenly Father, and on\nSaturday night, after a final orgy of melody, my mother gathered up\nthe guitars and mandolins, the fiddles, the drums and the harmonicas\nand all of the other musical instruments, even the jew\u2019s-harp, and\nput them under lock and key until Monday morning. We could not even\nplay a comb on Sunday, although on rare occasions, usually when the\nPreacher was there and gave permission and absolution from sinful\nconsequences, I was permitted to bring out my big harmonica, from\nwhich I could produce the sonorous tones of an organ, and play church\nhymns such as \u201cRock of Ages\u201d and \u201cNearer, My God, to Thee.\u201d But I was\nforbidden to play \u201cTurkey in the Straw\u201d or \u201cThe Mocking Bird\u201d with\nvariations. The latter was my favorite tune, because by jiggling my\nhand over the harmonica I could produce a very effective trill which I\nfondly believed was as beautiful as the singing of a canary, but if I\nlaunched into such a tune on Sunday I had debauched the Sabbath, and my\nharmonica was taken from me. And frequently I myself was taken into the\nwoodshed and taught a proper respect for the Lord\u2019s Day.\n\nUnder no circumstances could we play the fiddle in our house on\nSunday, because of all music, that which came from the fiddle was the\nmost sinful. It was the Devil\u2019s instrument. No fiddling on Sunday had\nbeen a cardinal rule of my father\u2019s family since Colonial days in\nVirginia, and later in Mississippi and in North Carolina my grandmother\nhad compelled her Negro slaves to put up their musical instruments\nfrom Saturday night to Monday morning. Eventually I took lessons\nfrom the music teacher in Farmington and learned to call the fiddle\na violin, and as I grew older I played when I pleased, although not\nvery successfully. But so long as the instrument remained a fiddle it\nwas played in our house on Sunday on only one occasion. And then the\nperformance was a neighborhood scandal, and only the fact that the\ninstrument had been played by a Preacher saved us from getting into\ntrouble with God and His representatives in Farmington.\n\nThis tweaking of the heavenly nose occurred during a District\nConference, when the visiting preachers were parceled out among the\nfaithful of the local Methodist church. Two came to us, one a young\nman filled with good works and a constant, fretful worry over the\nlow estate of the human race, and the other an old man who had been\na wicked sinner in his time and who had never been able to resist an\noccasional temptation to have a good time. He was a Virginian and an\naccomplished fiddler, but he could play nothing but dance music, which\nthe darkies had taught him. The first Sunday they were at our house my\nfather admitted that we had a fiddle, and the old Preacher demanded\nthat it be brought out for him to perform upon. My father and mother\nwere in terror all afternoon for fear that the neighbors would hear\nthe wailing of the fiddle, although they prevailed upon the old man to\nuse a mute and the music could hardly be heard outside the room. We\nwere particularly afraid that a devout Sister, who lived next door to\nus and whose principal occupation was going to church, might hear it;\nif she had it would have been nothing short of a catastrophe, for the\ntale would have been all over town before nightfall. So we closed the\nwindows and the doors, muted the fiddle and put the old Preacher in\nthe parlor, where he fiddled until he had sinned enough. But even then\nseveral people passing along the street heard it, and I do not think\nthat we ever quite lived it down. We could convince no one that the\nfiddle had been played by a Man of God. Everyone knew better; Men of\nGod did not do such things.\n\n\n3\n\nEvery Wednesday night we attended prayer meeting, and on Sundays we\nwent to Sunday school and twice to church. And on Sunday afternoon,\nand on week days, there were the sessions of the various church\norganizations. We had grace before meat in our home, and when the\nPreacher came to dinner he delivered long-winded prayers on the\nuniversal theme of \u201cgimme.\u201d We did not have that emotional orgy called\nfamily prayer, but I did not escape it; I encountered it in many\nFarmington homes and in the houses of almost all of my relatives.\n\nIt was particularly oppressive in the home of an oppressively devout\nkinsman whom I called uncle. He was not actually my uncle; he was\nrelated to my father by marriage, and I do not believe there was any\nblood kinship, but I thought of him as uncle, and he had a certain\nmeasure of authority over me, so that to a considerable extent I\nwas under his control and subject to his influence until I became\nintelligent enough to have an occasional thought of my own.\n\nMy uncle was an extraordinarily pious man, an official of our church\nand of our Sunday school, and a leader in every movement designed\nto entice the sinner from his wicked ways and lead him to the true\nreligion of the Wesleyans. He was intent upon salvation for everyone,\nand let no opportunity pass to serve the Lord. He frowned upon\nlaughter, and although he had a very charming family, there was little\njoy in his home; a laugh seemed to make him uncomfortable and start a\ntrain of dismal religious thought, and I gathered the impression that\nall mirth was a direct and studied affront to God.\n\nEvery night after dinner, or supper, as we called it then, his living\nroom was given over to family prayer. I frequently spent the night with\nhis youngest son, my chum for many years, and was compelled to attend\nwith the others and absorb my nightly dose of religion, and listen to\na solemn account of the fearful things that God would do to us if we\nstrayed from the path of righteousness. There was no laughter, and\nthere were no jokes; the whole atmosphere of the house turned gray\nand gloomily oppressive when my uncle rose from his seat, glanced\nsorrowfully at his family, and announced:\n\n\u201cWe will now have prayers.\u201d\n\nHe turned and with bowed head passed into the living room. We sat at\nthe supper table for a moment in silence, myself seeing goblins and\nfearsome avenging creatures of God leering at me from every shaded\ncorner of the room, and my mind racing madly over the day\u2019s activities\nto discover what I had done that required an alibi. In a few moments\nmy aunt arose and went slowly into the other room, and then one by one\nthe others. We marched solemnly, with downcast eyes; we might have\nbeen going to a funeral. Indeed, it seems to me now that we must in\ntruth have been going to a funeral; here was a fine house built for the\nwarmth of human happiness, turned into a forbidding mausoleum by the\nmere mention of God.\n\nIn the living room Uncle awaited us, standing beside the small table\non which, always, there was nothing but the Family Bible. He waited\nin silence until we had taken our places, and then he laid reverent\nhands upon the Book and began fumbling with the pages, glancing sharply\nover his spectacles to make sure that everyone was undergoing some\nsort of emotional upheaval, and looking particularly for some sign of\nrevolt from his son and myself. I doubt if he ever knew it, but when I\nattended family prayer in his house I did not think of revolt. I was in\nan agony of fright; I felt as if something was crushing me, and that\nsomething was my uncle\u2019s God, an avenging monster ready to devour me\nfor my sins. God was in the house and I was afraid.\n\nThe most uncomfortable chairs in the house were used for family prayer,\nand we perched upon their edges, afraid to sink back and relax, because\nwe had been told many times that discomfort and righteousness were\nwell-nigh synonymous. God would have been scandalized and indignant\nhad we made ourselves comfortable to listen to His Word. And then my\nuncle read from the Bible. He read without joy; he held in his hand\nthe Book which in his eyes was the sole hope of humanity, the Book\nthat contained the glad news that for all mankind there was salvation,\nbut he read it as if it were a sentence of death, slowly and solemnly,\ndwelling with horrible clarity upon those phrases that promised\npunishment. The Bible seemed to have no effect upon him but to make him\ngloomy and miserable.\n\nAt the conclusion of his reading, he slowly closed the Bible and placed\nit upon the table. He then stood for a moment in profound thought,\nhis chin resting upon his breast. I assumed that he was overcome by\ncontemplation of the sins of a wicked world. Those of us who were young\nbegan about this time to itch with that devilish itch which invariably\nafflicts a youngster when there is a penalty for scratching. We itched\nand itched, but we were afraid to scratch because God was in the room,\nand we knew as well as we knew anything that He would punish us if we\nmoved. And finally my uncle stared at the ceiling and said:\n\n\u201cLet us pray.\u201d\n\nWith almost the precision of automata we knelt by our chairs, our knees\ngrinding into the hard carpet, while my uncle\u2019s voice soared in a\nsonorous appeal to the Lord to give us some of this and some of that,\nto bless us and make us prosperous, and, in effect, to hell with such\ninfidels as Jews, Catholics and Presbyterians. And then he rose slowly\nto his feet and passed from the room, without speaking. We followed,\nand scattered about our various affairs, but it was a long time before\nwe could shake off the effects of the religious debauch and play with\nany zest. And nearly always I awoke some hours later in the throes of\na nightmare, pursued by fiends and demons shrieking that I was to be\nboiled and fried and cooked in the fires of Hell.\n\nEvery night year after year this sort of thing went on in houses all\nover Farmington, and for that matter all over the United States. It\nwould be interesting to know how many hours were wasted in the course\nof a year by such senseless appeals to the Heavenly Father, by this\nconstant reiteration of \u201cgimme, gimme, gimme.\u201d\n\n\n4\n\nMany of my relatives on my mother\u2019s side attended Colony Church,\nabout three miles from Farmington. This was a hard-shell Baptist\ncongregation, the members of which took their religion with the utmost\nseriousness and were constantly on the lookout for sin to rear its\nreptile head. If it did they assailed it with glad cries. There was\nno organ in this church; indeed, for many years none of the Baptist\nchurches in and about Farmington would permit any sort of music at\ntheir services, holding that music was an invention of the Devil\ndesigned to entice Christians from respectful contemplation of the\nmercies and graces of the Lord, and that no devout Christian could hear\nmusic and still keep his mind on God and his heart true to the faith.\nTheir attitude toward the organ was exactly that of the good Sister of\nwhom Will Carleton sang in his Farm ballads:\n\n  I\u2019ve been a Sister good and true\n    For five and thirty year;\n  I\u2019ve done what seemed my part to do,\n    And prayed my duty clear.\n  But death will stop my voice, I know,\n    For he is on my track;\n  And some day I to church will go,\n    And nevermore come back.\n  And when the folks get up to sing,\n    Whene\u2019er that time shall be--\n  I do not want no patent thing,\n    A-squealin\u2019 over me.\n\nIn later years, of course, the Baptists became almost civilized and\nmost of their churches bought organs; in some there were even pianos.\nBut in few of the churches of the Farmington countryside, in my\nearly youth, was there more fervent religion on tap than at Colony\nChurch. There were frequent revivals, and many basket dinners, when\nthe farm women brought huge quantities of food to the church early\nin the morning, and all day long the congregation gave itself up to\nan orgy of eating and saving souls. At most of these revivals there\nwere foot-washings; they were usually announced at the morning service\nfor the afternoon, and then there was a great scurrying home or to\nthe nearest creek, or crick, as it was generally called, where the\nfeet were washed vigorously with soap and made presentable for public\nexposure in the aisles and around the pulpit of the church.\n\nOne of the most famous of the Colony Church foot-washings, one that\nis still talked about when the good Brothers and Sisters get together\nin that neighborhood, ended the enmity of a widow, Sister Letts, and\na lawyer whose name I do not recall. For years there had been great\nbitterness between them, and although the congregation had prayed for\nthem and had exhorted them to forgive, the Lord had not entered their\nhearts, and so they continued to treasure their hate. But at length, on\na Sunday morning during a revival, the preacher announced that there\nwould be a foot-washing that afternoon, and the Brother rose and spoke:\n\n\u201cI have opened my heart to God,\u201d he said, \u201cand He has instructed me to\nforgive Sister Letts. This afternoon I shall wash her feet.\u201d\n\nThere was a murmur of enthusiasm all over the church, and one\nleather-lunged Brother popped to his feet and shouted: \u201cAmen, Brother!\nGlory to God!\u201d And then Sister Letts bounced to her feet and cried that\nshe, too, praised the Lord and would wash the feet of the Brother.\n\nThat afternoon the church was crowded. Almost every family of the\ncountryside was on hand to see God end this bitter quarrel which had\ncome so near to disrupting the congregation. The service proceeded as\nusual, opening with some such catchy hymn as \u201cBringing in the Sheaves,\u201d\nand then through the sermon to the slow, solemn songs like \u201cHow Firm a\nFoundation\u201d and \u201cNearer, My God, to Thee.\u201d Then came the foot-washing,\nwhen the Brothers and Sisters proved their humility and showed that\nwhen it came right down to brass tacks they were no better than Jesus\nChrist. It was felt that the legal Brother and Sister Letts should\nhave the honor thus to show off first before God, and so for a little\nwhile no one moved when the Preacher announced that the time had come,\nand that basins of water and towels would be provided.\n\nBut at length the Brother got to his feet and marched stiffly down the\naisle to the pulpit, where he procured a pan and a towel. With these\nin hand he paraded back up the aisle toward the last row, where Sister\nLetts rocked back and forth and murmured in ecstasy:\n\n\u201cPraise the Lord, Brother! Praise the Lord!\u201d\n\nMoving slowly to a chorus of amens and unintelligible mumblings of\npiety, the Brother was some distance up the aisle when Sister Letts\nstarted to meet him. Halfway between the back door and the pulpit they\nstopped, facing each other. And then a new difficulty arose. They had\nby now thoroughly given themselves to God and were suffused with a\nwonderful glow of self-appreciation at this proof of their humility,\nbut each wanted to prove it first. Each appeared to feel that the one\nwho first washed a foot would receive the greater amount of kudos from\nthe Lord.\n\nSo they began to argue, and the heat of the discussion spread all over\nthe congregation, and here and there Brothers and Sisters became so\nupset by the spirit that they jumped to their feet and began shouting\nloudly, bouncing up and down and flinging their arms about. My sister,\na small child, was practically overcome by curiosity, and added to the\nexcitement by leaning too far from her seat and falling into the aisle,\nso eager was she to see the ceremony. She was promptly spanked and put\nback in place by my Aunt Ophelia, and several devout persons near her\nintimated strongly that she was a sinful, blasphemous little wretch.\n\nIt seemed for a time that there would be a deadlock, as neither Sister\nLetts nor the Brother was willing to give in. So the congregation sang\na hymn while they stood staring at each other, and then the Preacher\nprayed to the Lord to make a decision as to who should wash whose feet\nfirst. And apparently God said Eeney Meeney Miney Mo and picked Sister\nLetts to be It, for the Brother suddenly surrendered and sat in a\nchair which had been pushed into the aisle for him. He bared his foot,\nand Sister Letts dropped to her knees and poked it into the basin of\nwater. I do not know if the Brother wriggled his toes. Having laved\nhim, Sister Letts plied her towel vigorously to a groaning chorus of\n\u201cAmen!\u201d that arose from all parts of the church, and then she sat in\nthe chair and removed her shoe and stocking and the Brother performed\nthe ceremony. The congregation, everyone filled to the bursting point\nwith emotion, then stood and sang quaveringly \u201cHow Firm a Foundation.\u201d\nSister Letts and the Brother returned to their seats. It was generally\nagreed that by washing each other\u2019s feet they had practically assured\nthemselves choice seats in Heaven.\n\n\n5\n\nI was fallow ground for all these seeds of piety, for I was a highly\nemotional and excitable boy. I wept when I heard slow music, I shivered\nwith fear over the ghost stories and the frightful tales of Hell that\nwere told to me with such regularity, and it was usually I who saw the\nspooks when we played or hunted for bumblebees among the tombs of the\nMasonic cemetery. There is no telling what I might have seen had I ever\nbeen able to summon sufficient courage to enter the Catholic cemetery\nat night. I did go as far as just inside the gate once, and immediately\nthere arose in front of me an apparition that to my mind could be\nnothing less than the Devil himself. And this was not surprising, for I\nwell knew that the Catholics were worshipers of a false God, and it was\nquite likely that their graveyard was the abode of evil spirits.\n\nBecause of my temperament, which impelled me to believe everything\nI was told, and because from time to time I had shown indications\nof being a bad boy if restraint were not exercised, I received more\nreligious instruction than my sister or my brothers. Again, there was\nthe matter of ancestry. Our family connections, especially my father\u2019s\npeople, were very proud of our relationship to the Bishop and our\ndirect descent from the Rev. Daniel Asbury, and they settled on me to\ncarry on the family tradition. There was much talk of sending me to a\ntheological school, and I appeared to be destined for the Church, so\nthat I was always waiting for the call to preach, though conscious of a\nvague hope that it would be delayed.\n\nBut I had no idea that I should escape such a fate, for I accepted as a\nbasic fact of life that in every generation at least one Asbury should\nbe a Methodist preacher. Wherever I went I encountered the assumption\nthat I was to succeed the Bishop and the Presiding Elder, and become a\nMethodist Messiah howling in the wilderness of sin and shoving souls\ninto the heavenly hoppers with both hands. Everyone seemed to take it\nfor granted, and when I talked to a stranger he invariably said:\n\n\u201cWell, well! So your name is Asbury?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cKin to the Bishop?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, well! I suppose you will be a preacher, too?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir. I guess so.\u201d\n\nIf the person to whom I talked was himself a Preacher, or a Brother, he\nwould smile gently, pat my head with a moist palm and say: \u201cGod bless\nyou, my boy,\u201d and pad on down the street. I can recall but one person\nwho did not make some such senseless remark. He was a hardware drummer\nfrom St. Louis, a fat, waggish person in flashy raiment, doubtless a\nsinner, who stopped me as I marched proudly past Doss\u2019s barber shop\ncarrying a string of fish, one of which was as large a bass as was\never taken out of the St. Francis River. He tried to buy the big fish,\nand when I refused to sell he asked me my name and the inevitable\nconversation followed. But when I said to him: \u201cYes, sir, I guess so,\u201d\nhe wrinkled his nose and said: \u201cDon\u2019t be a damned fool, kid.\u201d\n\nI felt a sudden rush of affection for this outspoken person, although I\nshuddered at the thought of what would happen to him if a Preacher or\na Brother heard him using profanity and told God about it. I proffered\nhim one of my string, a fine crappie, which he accepted gratefully\nand on which he feasted later at the St. Francis Hotel. Later in the\nevening I met him as he swung blithely through the doors of Perringer\u2019s\nSaloon, and he jovially invited me in to have a glass of beer. I\nthought he must be crazy; I would no more have entered a saloon then\nthan I would have committed mayhem upon the Preacher. In later life, of\ncourse, I did enter saloons, but have never been able to bring myself\nto bite a preacher, although at times I have been sorely tempted. But\nit was a long time before I understood what the drummer meant when he\nsaid, as we parted:\n\n\u201cWell, look out, kid, and don\u2019t let them put that Bishop stuff over on\nyou.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE MACHINERY OF SALVATION\n\n\nFarmington was about eight or ten miles from the lead-mining district\nof Southeast Missouri, where a great number of low foreigners were\nemployed, but God did not permit any ore to be found near us and so\nkept our town holy and undefiled by their presence. We did not greatly\nconcern ourselves with their evil ways, because we knew that foreigners\nwere little if any better than the beasts of the field, and that\nGod had put them on earth for some inscrutable purpose of His own,\nwith which we were not to meddle. Even the Preachers and the amateur\ndevil-chasers in such towns as Flat River and Bonne Terre devoted their\nactivities principally to spreading the Gospel among the home-bred and\nlet the Hunkies carry on whatever nefarious practices pleased them\nbest. We didn\u2019t want them in our Heaven, anyhow.\n\nOur town nestled in the foothills of the Ozarks, some eighty-six miles\nfrom St. Louis and two miles from the De Lassus station on the Belmont\nbranch of the Iron Mountain Railroad. But the civilizing influences of\nthe city seldom touched any of us except a few wealthy families who\ncould afford the railroad fare for frequent trips. We had then some\n2,500 inhabitants, the vast majority of whom were devout workers for\nthe Protestant God, especially on Sunday. During the week many of them\nput sand in the sugar and weighed their thumbs with the sausage, and\notherwise engaged in legitimate and profitable business enterprise, but\non Sunday they praised the Lord.\n\nThere were but two or three Jewish families in town then, and I do not\nrecall that they ever attempted to practice their religion; certainly\nnot in public. Doubtless our God would have destroyed them if they had\nthus flaunted their sin in our faces, and mocked us with their heathen\nrites. It is my recollection that they attended the Presbyterian\nchurch, but if so it was for business or social reasons. The Catholics\nhad a church, but they were not numerically strong, and did not\namount to a great deal in the town\u2019s scheme of things, although they\noccasionally captured a city office or did a bit of proselyting among\nthe backsliders of the Protestant congregations. They labored earnestly\none whole summer trying to ensnare my sister after her allegiance to\nthe Methodist Father had wavered, but they were unsuccessful. She could\nnot swallow the Pope, or the holy images and the like. Nor could she\nlearn to cross herself properly, although I became much interested\nand helped her; we used to go behind the barn and practice in all\nseriousness, but we invariably found ourselves giggling at the rite.\nAnd few things can destroy religion quicker than a hearty giggle.\n\nThe Protestants of Farmington made little if any effort to induce the\nCatholics to abandon their debaucheries and embrace the true religion;\ngenerally we considered them benighted heathens and crazy people and\nlet it go at that, confident that in due time God would blast them with\nHis wrath, destroy their churches and perhaps send their young women to\nHeaven to be virgin angels in a Protestant paradise. I was very eager\nto see this wholesale destruction, and waited patiently for many years,\nhoping that God would furnish advance information to His intimate,\nour Methodist pastor, so we would be able to view the performance. I\nstrongly favored an earthquake and a bolt of lightning, as being more\nspectacular. But I am sorry to say that nothing ever happened, although\none night lightning struck the steeple of the Catholic church and there\nwas some talk about town that God was limbering up His muscles and\ngetting ready to show what He could really do.\n\nSome of our most advanced thinkers conceded that perhaps the Catholics\nand the few nondescripts who professed religion for the sake of\nbusiness but who would not attend church, had their own God, quite\ndifferent from ours and unquestionably a very inferior Deity. But\npeople who held this view were considered entirely too charitable; it\nwas all right to admit that God might, in the fullness of time, and\nout of that loving mercy which keeps half the world constantly at the\nthroats of the other half, relent and permit a few Catholics to enter\nHeaven as low menials, but to say that they might have a Heaven of\ntheir own was going a bit too far. Both socially and spiritually they\nwere on the other side of the railroad tracks. They were simply not\nin our set, and when any of them attended our parties, as sometimes\nhappened despite every precaution, it was a matter of very great\nconcern. Things may be different now, but when I was a boy cringing\nbefore the threatening lash of the Methodist God, there was grave doubt\nthat anyone who lived south of the Post Office would ever amount to\nanything spiritually.\n\nAll of the reigning sects of the Protestants had churches in our\ntown. There was also a Lutheran Church somewhere down by Schramm\u2019s\nIce Plant, but its congregation was made up of Germans and what not,\nwho ranked scarcely higher than the Catholics and the Jews. For some\ntime during my final year in high school I was devotedly attached to a\nyoung Lutheran girl, and this attachment was the cause of considerable\nconcern among some of my relatives. It was, then, my intention to marry\nher, although I quickly abandoned it after I had tentatively broached\nthe matter to one of my aunts.\n\n\u201cShe is not a Christian girl,\u201d my aunt protested.\n\n\u201cShe is a Lutheran,\u201d I said. \u201cThey are Protestants.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut some of their services are in German! How can they be Christians?\u201d\n\nShe was perfectly sincere. She believed firmly that God understood\nno language but English, and that, having no knowledge of German, He\ncould not look with favor upon a Lutheran. But it developed that this\nparticular Lutheran could not look with favor upon a Methodist, which\nwas probably an insult to our Methodist God. It was a great many years\nbefore I overcame my surprise that God did not do something about it,\nyet He seems to have done nothing but make her happy and her husband\nprosperous.\n\nMost of the churches in our town were on Columbia Street, the\nprincipal thoroughfare, and they and their subsidiary schools were\nso numerous that we proudly called Farmington \u201cThe City of Schools\nand Churches,\u201d and enjoyed great renown throughout Southeast Missouri\nfor municipal piety and Christian education. On this street worshiped\nthe Presbyterians, the Southern Methodists--this was the church of\nthe Asburys and enjoyed special favors from the Lord--the Northern\nMethodists, and the Christians or Campbellites. The Baptists had a\nchurch in another part of town, in Doss\u2019s Addition. Each of these\nchurches had a great many interlocking organizations, including Home\nMissionary Societies, Foreign Missionary Societies, Ladies\u2019 Aid\nSocieties and other holy groups.\n\nThe Ladies\u2019 Aid Societies of the Middle West have become famous, and\nthey deserve their renown. When I was a boy they were in truth most\nnoble organizations. They rotated their meetings at the homes of the\nmembers, performing at each house about once every two weeks, according\nto the number of women who belonged. Their sessions were excessively\nsanctimonious; they opened and closed with prayer, and frequently some\ngood Sister would at other times feel the spirit of the Lord working\nwithin her, and she would pop up from the quilting frame or the shirt\non which she was sewing for the heathen and yelp an appeal to God to\ngive her something or damn somebody. There were also Bible-readings\nat these meetings; in fact every time a member of our church called\non another member, a verse from the Bible was read and a prayer was\noffered. And curiously enough these devout Christian Sisters displayed\na greater liking for the books of the Old Testament than for those of\nthe New.\n\nIn all of our congregations there were many special societies for young\npeople, to which the children of the godly had to belong and whose\nmeetings they had to attend. Their number was great, and the majority\nof their titles escape me, but I recall such outfits as the Christian\nEndeavor, the Loyal Temperance Legion, the Epworth League, the Baptist\nYoung People\u2019s Union, and the Sunshine Brigade. The Legion was a union\norganization of juvenile foes of rum, and we used to meet on Sunday\nafternoons in the Presbyterian or Southern Methodist church and hear\nlectures on the evils of drink, after which we would stand, raise our\nright hands and shout in unison:\n\n                We hate Rum!\n                We hate Rum!\n                We hate Rum!\n  Our bodies will never be ravaged by drink!\n\nThe Sunshine Brigade was another union organization, in which all of\nthe churches combined, and was composed of boys from eight to twelve\nor thirteen years of age. We met two or three times a week, in the\nevening after supper, generally on the spacious lawn of Merrifield\nHuff, the lawyer, and first we heard a Bible-reading and a prayer. Then\nwe drilled, in military fashion, under the command of older boys who\nhad been away to military schools. Then there were more verses from the\nBible, another prayer, and we were sent home with unctuous commands to\nbe good boys and think often of the mercy of the Lord. They called us\n\u201cLittle Soldiers of the Lord,\u201d and \u201cOur Group of Manly Little Fellows.\u201d\nThere was nothing we could do about it.\n\nThe activities of the Epworth League and the Baptist Young People\u2019s\nUnion are too well known to require comment; they persist to this\nday, and there seems to be no likelihood that the present generation\nwill make an intellectual advance sufficient to laugh them out of\nexistence. Fortunately Farmington was spared the Young Men\u2019s Christian\nAssociation, and I had no contacts with that remarkable agency of\nsalvation until I went to France with the American Army. Of my many\nencounters with the Y. M. C. A. abroad, two stand out in my memory.\nOne occurred when I wanted a toothbrush, while in command of a platoon\nof infantry in the support line on the Vesle river front, between\nFismes and Bazoches. I walked the eight miles or so back to division\nheadquarters with a five-franc note in my pocket, all the money I had\nin the world.\n\nThe Y. M. C. A. canteen was open there, and after the secretary in\ncharge had greeted me sweetly as Brother and inquired after the\ncondition of my immortal soul, he produced a toothbrush, for which he\nwanted two francs, then about forty cents. I said I would buy it, there\nbeing no Red Cross hut near where I could have got one for nothing, and\nlaid down my five-franc note. But the Y. M. C. A. man could not change\nit, nor could we find anybody else around headquarters who could do so.\nThe Y man said that he could not let me have the toothbrush without\npayment and put it back in the case, and I walked the eight miles back\nto my command without it, rejecting his offer of a free pocket Bible\nwith the observation that the line was one hell of a place for a Bible.\n\nThe second encounter with the Y. M. C. A. occurred a week or so\nlater, at La Pres Farm, on the same front and on the road between\nMont St. Martin and Chery Chartreuve. I had about two hundred sick\nand flat-footed infantrymen there, waiting for gas masks and other\nequipment so they could be moved to the front, and they had nothing to\nsmoke. Neither did they have any money, because they had not been paid\nfor months. To the farm came a Y. M. C. A. man laden with boxes, and\nwhen I asked him what they were, he said cigars. He showed them to my\nplatoon sergeant and myself; they were fine, fat, handsome smokes.\n\nI suggested that he lay out his stock, and that I would have the\nsergeant march the troops past in columns of twos, so that each man\ncould have a cigar.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d said the Y man, \u201cthey\u2019re fifteen-cent cigars, but the\nboys can have them for ten cents.\u201d\n\nI told him that to my knowledge there was not ten cents in the whole\noutfit, and suggested that he give the cigars to the soldiers and look\nto Heaven for payment. But he would not; he said that he had brought\nthe cigars to the line to sell and that he had to have the money for\nthem. So I did the thing that seemed best under the circumstances. I\ntook his cigars away from him, the sergeant headed him for Division\nHeadquarters, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the pants. The\nlast I saw of him, he was stumbling down the hill toward the crossroad\nvowing vengeance. But I paid little attention to him; I was busy\nhanding out free cigars, and a few minutes later everybody at the farm\nwas puffing happily.\n\nWe had also in Farmington three denominational schools, Elmwood\nSeminary, a girl\u2019s college with primary and grammar departments for\nboth sexes, operated by the Presbyterians across the street from their\nchurch; Carleton College in the lower end of the town, a Northern\nMethodist institution, and Baptist College, near the Baptist church.\nCarleton and Baptist were coeducational. I was educated--God save the\nmark!--at Elmwood and Carleton, and at both there was much emphasis\non religious teaching. Carleton, of course, since it was run by the\nNorthern Methodists, was frankly a mill for grinding out workers for\nthe Lord, and they poured out of the hopper in large numbers for\nmany years. Gawky country boys came from the farms around Bull Run,\nHazel Run and French Village, and down-state toward Libertyville and\nFredericktown, and entered Carleton College, to emerge a few years\nlater rip-snorting evangelists hot on the trail of the Devil. Those\nwho did not become professional Satan-chasers developed, in the course\nof time, into pussyfooting Brothers with keen ears for scandal, gimlet\neyes for boring searchingly and suspiciously into all amusement and\npleasure, and wagging tongues for scattering seeds of holiness. And\nGod made their teeth very sharp, for backbiting.\n\nCuriously enough, the Presbyterians in Farmington comprised the liberal\nelement, in so far as we had a liberal element. This was because our\nwealthy families, or at least our social leaders, were apparently\nEpiscopalians at heart and perhaps belonged to the Presbyterian\ncongregation only because we had no Episcopal church. They were able to\ngo to St. Louis frequently, and did, and consequently acquired a bit of\nmetropolitan polish, and rubbed off some of our small-town intolerance\nand roughness. From time to time rumors were afloat that some of these\npeople had been seen entering Episcopal churches in St. Louis, but I\nhave never heard that they were verified.\n\nBut for many years this element had a virtual monopoly of such sinful\npractices as playing cards, dancing and buggy-riding on the Sabbath.\nI have heard several Brothers and Sisters, and more than one doleful\nand sorrowing Preacher, speak regretfully of the unholy spectacle of a\nyoung man of one of these families driving a spanking pair through the\nheart of the town on Sunday afternoon, with an abandoned young woman\nbeside him and neither apparently caring one single damn about the fate\nof religion. It was prophesied that they could come to no good end. But\nthe germ they planted multiplied enormously.\n\n\n\n\nTABOOS OF THE LORD\u2019S DAY\n\n\n1\n\nSunday should be a day of gladness, and of light and beauty, for it\nis then that the forthright religionist is closest to his God, and\nwhen he is, if ever, in communion with the Holy Spirit and presumably\nreceives instruction with which to confound the wicked during the\nensuing week. But in small communities which suffer from the blight of\nreligion it never is, and when I was a boy in Farmington Sunday was a\nday of dreadful gloom; over everything hung an atmosphere of morbid\nfear and dejection. In the morning the whole town donned its Sunday\nsuit, almost always black and funereal and depressing, and therefore\nbecoming to religious practice, and trudged sorrowfully and solemnly\nto Sunday School and to church, there to wail doleful hymns and hear\nan unlearned man \u201cmeasure with words the immeasurable and sink the\nstring of thought into the fathomless;\u201d and beseech the Lord upon\nthe universal prayer theme of \u201cgimme.\u201d Then the village marched, in\nmournful cadence, back home for Sunday dinner. But before the meal was\neaten the juvenile members of the religious household were commanded\nto remove their sabbath raiment, and were not again permitted to\nassume the habiliments of the godly until after supper, when the family\nclutched its Bibles and wandered forth despairingly to evening service.\n\nThese excursions, with attendance upon the various meetings of\nthe young people\u2019s societies and other church organizations,\ncomprised almost the sum total of the Sunday activity of our town\u2019s\ninhabitants. In recent years the young folks there appear to have gone\nwholeheartedly to the Devil, and are gallivanting about the country in\nautomobiles, listening to radios, dancing, attending baseball games on\nthe Sabbath and otherwise disporting themselves in a sinful manner, but\nin my youth we had to observe a very definite list of Sunday taboos, in\naddition to the special don\u2019ts laid down by the more devout families,\naccording to their fear of God and the fervor of their belief.\n\nWe could not play card games on Sunday. Regulation playing cards\nof course, were taboo at all times in the best and most religious\nfamilies, for God, we were told, had informed the Preacher that cards\nwere an invention of the Devil, designed to lure true believers into\nsin; but on Sunday we could not even play such games as Lotto, Old\nMaid and Authors. On week days these were considered very amusing and\ninstructive pastimes, although in some quarters it was felt that they\ncaused too much laughter, but if anyone so much as thought of them on\nSunday he was headed for Hell.\n\nThe taboo against drinking was in effect every day in the week for\nthe godly and their children, not on account of the possible harmful\nphysical effects of liquor, but because God objected. And even the\nTown Sot hesitated to take a drink on Sunday, for he knew that every\nPreacher and every Brother and Sister would be howling to God to damn\nhis immortal soul and make a horrible example out of him. And how they\ndid love horrible examples!\n\nNo indoor games were permitted. This taboo was in force against\n\u201cDrop-the-Handkerchief,\u201d \u201cPuss-in-the-Corner,\u201d \u201cRing-Around the Rosy,\u201d\nand \u201cLondon Bridge is Falling Down;\u201d in fact, it included everything\nthe Preacher could think of except games founded on the Bible. That\nis, we could play games in which questions of Biblical history were\nasked and answered, but they had to be conducted in a very solemn and\ndecorous manner. At the first laugh, or at the first question based\non the more ribald portions of the Scriptures, such as Numbers and\nDeuteronomy, the game was stopped and everyone went home in disgrace.\nOne of my young friends who once asked what happened to Laban\u2019s\nhousehold idol was soundly thrashed, as was another who requested a\nyoung lady to enumerate the ingredients of Ezekiel\u2019s bread. The curious\nmay learn what the Holy Prophet ate by consulting Ezekiel 4:15.\n\nWe could have no outdoor games; in many families, indeed, it was\nconsidered irreligious to go out of doors at all except to church.\nRestless boys were sometimes permitted to walk around the block, and\nonce in a great while to play, if they did so quietly and remained in\nthe back yard, where, presumably, the Lord could not see them. Anyhow,\nthe neighbors couldn\u2019t.\n\nParties and teas were forbidden, and we could not visit on Sunday, as\na general rule, except among relatives. And such visits were usually\nturned into holy sing-songs, but since most of the hymns were either\npornographic or slightly Sadistic, there were thrills galore in this\nsort of thing.\n\nWalking along the main street of the town on Sunday was a sin of the\nfirst magnitude. Occasionally a group would obtain permission to stroll\nsedately down to Old Maid\u2019s Springs and take kodak pictures in a\nrefined and genteel manner, but a young man and a girl caught ambling\nalong Columbia street were the objects of much unfavorable comment. It\nwas generally agreed that they were no better than they should be, and\noften a Preacher, or a Brother or Sister, would stop them and order\nthem to cease desecrating the Lord\u2019s Day by such frivolous conduct.\n\n\u201cGo home,\u201d they would be told, \u201cand pray to God to forgive you.\u201d\n\nWe could not go buggy-riding on Sunday until we were old enough to\ntake our hope of the hereafter in our hands and tacitly admit our\nallegiance to Satan. Girls who did so and thus flaunted their sin were\nostracised by many of our best families, and were regarded as abandoned\nhussies, if not scarlet women. A man had to hold a good many promissory\nnotes for his daughter to get away with a thing like that.\n\nThe Lord did not approve of Sunday-night suppers, and so we could not\nhave them. In the homes of the godly there was only a cold snack for\nthe evening meal. It was considered sinful to light a fire in the\ncook-stove after twelve o\u2019clock noon. One woman who moved to Farmington\nfrom St. Louis had the brazen audacity to give formal Sunday-night\ndinners, but she scandalized the town and nobody would attend but a few\nEpiscopalians disguised as Presbyterians. And even they could not bring\nthemselves to wear evening clothes. But God soon punished her; she was\nso severely criticised that she finally went back to the city.\n\nDancing on Sunday, of course, or for that matter on any other day, was\nthe Sin of Sins. I was told, and until I was almost grown believed it,\nthat whoever danced on the Sabbath would immediately be engulfed in a\nwave of Heavenly wrath, and his soul plunged into the Fires of Hell to\nfrizzle and fry throughout eternity.\n\nSunday newspapers were not considered religious, although my father\nwent to the Devil to the extent of buying them each Sunday and\npermitting my brothers and myself to read the comic sections. Usually\nwe went to Pelty\u2019s Book Store for them after church, bringing home the\nSt. Louis _Globe-Democrat_, the _Republic_ and the _Post-Dispatch_,\ntogether with a horde of small boys whose parents would not permit them\nto read anything on Sunday but the Bible, and who therefore came to\nour house and sprawled all over the place reading the comics and the\nmagazine sections. My father was severely criticized for buying the\nSunday newspapers, but he persisted in his wickedness. My prayerful\nuncle would not permit them in his house; indeed, all of his books but\nthe Bibles remained in a locked case from Saturday night to Monday\nmorning. But when my brothers and myself passed his home with the\nSunday papers under our arms he always stopped us, and kept us waiting\non the sidewalk for half an hour or more while he glanced at them and\neagerly devoured the news. But he would not let us come in while we had\nthe papers; he would meet us on the walk, and we were not old enough to\nobject.\n\nMy father finally became very tired of this practice, and himself went\nafter the papers. The first day he did this, my uncle was on his front\nporch, waiting for us to come by, and he stopped my father and reached\nfor one of the papers. But my father would not let him have any of\nthem.\n\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do not believe in Sunday papers.\u201d\n\nAnd thereafter my uncle did not read our Sunday papers, although he\noccasionally visited us in the afternoon and looked at them, after\nexpressing his sorrow at finding them in our house. Once he found his\nson sprawled in our yard guffawing over the antics of the Yellow Kid\nwhen he should have been at a meeting of the Loyal Temperance Legion,\nlifting his childish voice against the Rum Demon. My uncle chased the\nlad home with threats of punishment, and then himself took up the funny\nsection.\n\nBaseball games were played by the ungodly on the outskirts of the town\non Sunday, but the game was frowned upon by the Preachers and the\nBrothers and Sisters, who denounced it as a lure of Satan and predicted\ndire spiritual tortures for the players. Small boys who attended the\ngames were soundly whipped, but occasionally we became so feverish\nwith the desire to witness a contest that we slipped away from home\nand watched the game, pretending that we were going to visit relatives\nand listen to hymns played on an organ. But there were always spies of\nthe Lord at the game to tell on us. It was this opposition to Sunday\nbaseball that drove my younger brother out of the Methodist Sunday\nschool, only a little while after I myself had abandoned the church. He\nwas in the class taught by Brother Benjamin Marbury, a lawyer and an\nexceedingly loud and bitter antagonist of baseball. He denounced the\ngame before his class one day, and my brother said that he could not\nsee anything wrong with it. Brother Marbury stared at him sternly.\n\n\u201cWould Jesus Christ attend a baseball game on Sunday if He were here?\u201d\nhe demanded.\n\nMy brother said he did not know, but thought He would, and Brother\nMarbury immediately knelt and asked God to forgive the blasphemy.\nMy brother was infuriated and never went back to Sunday school. His\ncomment was: \u201cWhat did he have to bring Jesus Christ into it for?\u201d\n\n\n2\n\nWe arose at the usual hour on Sunday morning, perhaps a little later,\nand immediately after breakfast began to get ready for Sunday school.\nThere was hair to comb, shoes to polish in the kitchen, cravats to\ntie around necks that had become enlarged and reddened by various\nactivities on the playing fields, and there were nickels to secrete\nfor the collection boxes. Worse, there were Sunday-school lessons and\nGolden Texts to learn, and the catechism to memorize. Dressed in our\nSunday suits, our hair slicked moistly to our heads and Sunday-school\npamphlets in our hands, my two brothers and I went solemnly down to\nNewman\u2019s corner, turned into the unnamed street that ran past Elmwood\nSeminary and then into Columbia Street and so to the Southern Methodist\nchurch.\n\nOrdinarily a trip downtown was a great deal of fun; we tripped each\nother, poked each other in the ribs or had two or three fights _en\nroute_, varying with the warmth of our friendship for other boys we\nmet upon the way. But on Sunday we went solemnly and fearfully, first\nEmmett, then myself and then Fred, according to age and stature. We\nmet other similar groups, arrayed as we were in their Sunday suits\nand clutching their lesson pamphlets, and our greetings were subdued\nand formal. We converged upon the church, and all over town the bells\ntolled and the faithful marched to hear God\u2019s intimates explain His\nwritten word, and tell us calmly and definitely what He meant by the\nmost obscure passages in His Book.\n\nWe sat in church for an hour and a half listening to various versions\nof the Hebraic fairy tales. In our church the Sunday-school room was\nset apart from the main auditorium, but occasionally the attendance\nwas so large that it overflowed into the church proper. To most of\nus Sunday school was torture, and I have no doubt that it is still\ntorture to most children. It may be that I did not learn a great deal\nabout the Bible in Sunday school, but I do know that it was in Sunday\nschool that I first began to doubt the Book. I was naturally curious\nand inquisitive, and even then, young as I was, I could not swallow the\nmiracles of Jonah and the whale, and the idea of the virgin birth of\nJesus I considered absurd, because in common with most small-town boys\nI had a very definite knowledge of the procedure employed in bringing\nbabies into the world. Up to the age of seven or eight I thought the\ndoctor brought them in his suitcase, or that they grew on bushes in the\nback yard and were plucked when ripe, but after I began to loaf around\nthe livery stable and the Post Office building I acquired more correct\ninformation. Nor could I believe that Noah\u2019s Ark would have held two of\nevery living thing then upon the earth. But the Preachers and Brothers\nand Sisters insisted that these things were literally true; they\ndenounced anyone who doubted and sought for symbolical meaning as an\nunbeliever and a blasphemous son of Satan.\n\nMy sister, at the age of ten, was the object of special prayers and\nsolemn conferences because, for no other reason than that she wanted\nto be contrary, she expressed a doubt of the Virgin Birth. She was in\nMrs. Judge Carter\u2019s Sunday-school class at the time, but she did not\nlike Mrs. Carter and disagreed with her when she thought she could\ndo so without subsequent punishment. Mrs. Carter frequently told her\npupils, all little girls about eight or ten years old, of the marvelous\nmanner in which Christ came into the world, but she told it so vaguely\nthat none of them had any real understanding of it. One Sunday morning,\nafter Mrs. Carter had read something about the Virgin Birth, my sister\nsaid flatly that she did not believe it.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t believe what?\u201d asked Mrs. Carter.\n\n\u201cVirgin birth,\u201d said my sister. \u201cI think it\u2019s foolish.\u201d\n\nUnfortunately, she made this observation at a time when the whole\nSunday school was quiet save for the mumbling of the catechism in\nvarious classes, and her thin little voice reached every corner of\nthe room. And instantly there was a horrified silence, broken after a\nmoment by someone who said: \u201cIt\u2019s that blasphemous little Asbury girl.\u201d\nMrs. Carter was stunned; the effect upon her was the same as if God had\nwalked in the door and announced that Buddha, or Zoroaster, and not\nJesus Christ, was His son. She stared for a moment at this brash child\nwho had defied religion and, in effect, denounced the Holy Book.\n\n\u201cMary!\u201d she said terribly. \u201cDo you realize what you have done?\u201d\n\nMy sister\u2019s conception of virgin birth, or of any sort of birth, was\ndecidedly hazy. She thought Virgin Birth meant that Christ had been\nborn in a stable, and she knew perfectly well that no nice child would\nbe born in such a place. Anyhow, she had heard so much about it that\nshe had become quite bored by it, and she felt it incumbent upon her\nto deny it. But from Mrs. Carter\u2019s attitude she knew that she had said\na terrible thing; at first she thought of recanting, but she looked\nabout and felt of herself, and when she did not see any avenging angels\nentering and could find no sign that she had been stricken, she stuck\nto her guns.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d she said, \u201cI just don\u2019t believe it.\u201d\n\n\u201cMary!\u201d said Mrs. Carter. \u201cGo home and pray!\u201d\n\nSo my sister went home, but I do not think that she prayed. Mrs. Carter\nand the Preacher called that afternoon and told my father and mother\nwhat had been said and done that day in God\u2019s house, and there was a\nconsiderable to-do about it, both Mrs. Carter and the Preacher dropping\nto their knees and praying, and insisting, that my sister pray also for\nforgiveness. But my father and mother took the attitude that since my\nsister did not know what she was talking about, she probably had not\nsinned to any great extent. But it was a good many years before she\nagain had courage to express a doubt as to the Virgin Birth. And if she\ngoes to Heaven she will probably find that Mrs. Carter and the Preacher\nhave instructed St. Peter to catechize her about it, and not to admit\nher until she has atoned fully for her heinous offense at the age of\nten.\n\n\n3\n\nSome of our families in which there was an unfortunate excess of girls\npermitted them to have callers on Sunday afternoon, but such affairs\nwere conducted in a prim and prissy manner. Holiness was the motif. The\nboy, if he had been a good lad all week and had done nothing to affront\nGod or the Preacher, was dressed in his Sunday suit, and the young\nlady wore the frock that was kept in reserve for weddings, funerals\nand baptizings, and those cannibalistic exercises called the Lord\u2019s\nSupper. And it was definitely understood that if a boy called on a girl\non a Sunday, he was courting her, and intended to propose marriage.\nThey could not talk; they must converse, and their conversation must\nbe on subjects both inspiring and uplifting. These bons mots that are\nnow known as wise cracks were frowned upon, and a repetition of them\nresulted in the young gentleman being shown the door.\n\nThe piano and the phonograph, in those houses which possessed such\nwonders, were under lock and key and covered over with draperies to\nhide them, for it was God\u2019s day and God wanted no foolishness. The\ngirl\u2019s father sat in various strategic places about the house, moving\nfrom one to another as his suspicions of the boy\u2019s intentions arose and\nsubsided, and her mother moved solemnly to and fro in her best crinkly\nsilk dress. There was nothing of joy in the hearts of a boy and girl\nwho underwent the torture of the Sunday-afternoon call; to paraphrase\nthe immortal song of Casey, God had struck them out.\n\nThe first, and almost the last, young lady upon whom I called on a\nSunday afternoon lived near the waterworks, and her father and mother,\nrocking solemnly upon the front porch and doubtless reflecting gloomily\nupon the wickedness of the race, presented such a forbidding spectacle\nthat I walked four times around the block before venturing in. But at\nlength I did, and the then idol of my heart greeted me at the front\ndoor. Ordinarily she would have seen me coming, and she would have\npoked her head out of the window and yelled: \u201cHey! I\u2019ll be out in a\nminute.\u201d Then we would have piled side by side into the lawn swing and\nbegun swapping trade-lasts, and the air would have been thick with\nappreciative squeals and \u201che saids\u201d and \u201cshe saids.\u201d But this was\nSunday, a day given over to the glory that is religion, and so she met\nme at the door with a prim and pretty curtsy. Her father gave me a\ngentle but suspicious greeting, because to the religious parent every\nboy thinks of a girl only in terms of seduction, and her mother stopped\nher rocking chair long enough to inquire:\n\n\u201cDid you go to Sunday school to-day, Herbie?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was the Golden Text?\u201d she demanded, suspiciously.\n\nI told her and she asked:\n\n\u201cDid you stay to church?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\n\u201cBrother Jenkins preached such a beautiful sermon.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\nAnd then she smiled a gentle smile, sighed a dolefully religious sigh\nand told her daughter that she could take me into the parlor, that holy\nof holies which was darkened and unused during the week, but opened on\nSundays for callers and on other special occasions such as funerals and\nweddings. The room was extraordinarily gloomy, because the curtains\nwere never raised enough to let in a great deal of light, and it\nsmelled musty from being closed all week. And invariably the gloom was\nadded to by a crayon portrait of the head of the house, a goggle-eyed\nenlargement of a very ordinary photograph by Trappe, which stood on an\neasel in a corner.\n\nI had considered this call an occasion, and with the aid of my elder\nsister who was visiting us from Memphis, I had made an elaborate toilet\nand had been permitted to wear my Sunday suit. But I did not have a\ngood time; I had known this girl a long time and admired her intensely,\nbut she seemed suddenly to have changed. She sat stiffly on one side\nof the room near a window, hands folded demurely in her lap, and I sat\nas stiffly on the other. We inquired coldly concerning each other\u2019s\nhealth, and I had prepared in my mind a suitable and, indeed, quite\nholy comment on certain aspects of our school life and was about to\ndeliver it when her mother called gently from the porch:\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t play the piano, dear: it\u2019s Sunday.\u201d\n\nMy observation went unuttered, and we sat for some little time in an\nembarrassed silence broken only by the crunch of her mother\u2019s rocking\nchair and the crooning melody of a hymn, each wishing to Heaven\nthat the other was elsewhere. I yearned to hear the piano, but this\ninstrument, with its delightful tinkle and its capacity for producing\nragtime, was generally regarded as a hellish contraption; in fact, any\nsort of fast music was considered more or less sinful. If there had\nbeen an organ in the house, the young lady would have been permitted\nto play it, and we could have sung from the family hymn book, provided\nwe did so in proper humility. But there was only a piano, and it was\ntaboo. Presently the mother spoke again:\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t play the phonograph, dear; it\u2019s Sunday.\u201d\n\nThis admonition was modified later by permission to play an organ\nrecord of the hymn, \u201cFace to Face,\u201d and we played it over five times\nbefore the mother got tired of hearing it. She said, \u201cYou\u2019d better stop\nnow, dear; it\u2019s Sunday.\u201d Then she suggested that we turn to other\nmeans of entertainment.\n\n\u201cPerhaps Herbie would like to look at the album, dear. Would you,\nHerbie?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d I said.\n\nSo we looked at the album, stiffly and in silence, the sacred book held\non our knees, but we were very careful that our knees did not touch.\nWe dared not giggle at the sight of the bushy-whiskered members of the\nyoung lady\u2019s family, and made no comment on their raiment, which we\nrightly considered outlandish. We turned the pages and stared, and the\ngirl explained.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s Uncle Martin.\u201d\n\n\u201cTaken when he went to Niagara Falls on his honeymoon, dear,\u201d said her\nmother. \u201cUncle Martin was a great traveler.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d I said, feeling that comment was expected.\n\n\u201cWouldn\u2019t you like to travel, Herbie?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, be a good boy and read your Bible and maybe some day God will\nmake you a great traveler.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut don\u2019t travel on Sunday, Herbie.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\nAnd crunch went the rocker and we turned another page, to find Aunt\nElla smiling gently at us through a mass of glorious flounces and\ntrains and switches. We learned from the mother that Aunt Ella had been\nconverted, at an extraordinarily early age, during a revival near Hazel\nRun, and had lived a singularly devout and godly life. Then we looked\nthrough the stereopticon at various places of interest, murmuring our\nawe when the mother swished gently into the room and pointed out, in a\nview of Niagara Falls, the exact spot where Uncle Martin had stood. It\nwas, she explained, one of God\u2019s rocks.\n\nTo my knowledge this family had some very comical stereopticon views,\nscenes depicting the life of an unfortunate tramp who was kicked\nheartily and effectively at every place he applied for nourishment,\nbut we did not see them on Sunday afternoon. They were Saturday-night\nstuff. Saturday night was nigger night in Farmington, and the whole\ntown let down the bars somewhat. That was the night when those who\ndrank got tight, and when those who bathed got wet, and when those who\nhad amorous intentions did their best to carry them out. Had I called\non Saturday night I should have been permitted to enjoy the adventures\nof the unfortunate tramp, but not on Sunday. They had been put away,\nunder lock and key in the writing desk, and would not be brought out\nuntil Monday. They were not calculated to promulgate a proper respect\nfor the Lord\u2019s Day; they were considered downright wicked one day a\nweek and funny the other six.\n\nEven in my infatuated condition an hour or so of this was quite enough.\nOrdinarily this girl and I had much in common; at that time I ranked\nher high among the beautiful flowers of God, and had I stopped at her\nhouse on a week day we would have had gleeful and uproarious converse,\nalthough even then we would have been liable to religious instruction\nand catechism from every snooping Brother and Sister who saw us. But\nthe taboos that this Christian family had raised on its holy day stood\nbetween us and could not be broken down; we were horribly uncomfortable\nin each other\u2019s presence, and we never got over it. She was never\nafterward the same girl. And when I took myself and my Sunday suit into\nthe sunlight of the porch her mother stopped rocking and crooning hymns\nlong enough to demand.\n\n\u201cAre you going to church to-night, Herbie?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d I replied. \u201cI got to.\u201d\n\nAnd so I went out of the gate and away from there.\n\nThis sort of thing in the homes of Farmington drove all of the boys\nto more or less open revolt as rapidly as they reached an age at\nwhich they felt able to defy parental and churchly authority. By the\ntime I left the town the Sunday-afternoon callers, except those who\nmade unavoidable duty calls, were to be found only in the homes of\nthe ungodly, where there was music and pleasure and gayety, where\nthe parlor was wide open seven days a week and the phonograph blared\nand the piano tinkled whenever anyone wanted to hear them. To these\nhouses also went the girls from the devout families for clandestine\nmeetings with their sweethearts; they could not entertain anyone in the\ndismal mausoleums into which their fathers and mothers had transformed\ntheir homes. Many a small-town romance has been blighted by the\nSunday-afternoon call.\n\n\n\n\nAGENTS OF GOD\n\n\n1\n\nIn Farmington we had not only those Preachers who had been ordained to\nthe ministry and so licensed to preach by both God and man, but the\ntown was overrun with volunteers, Brothers and Sisters who shouted\nthe word of God whenever they could find an audience, who gave the\ntestimony at the camp meetings, the protracted meetings, and at those\norgies conducted by the professional evangelist who chased the Devil\nfrom any town that would guarantee him a fat fee. These Preachers and\ntheir allies controlled Farmington to a very large extent, and when\nthey were defeated, at elections or otherwise, they raised their voices\nin howls of denunciation and called upon God to punish the guilty. It\nwas many years before I learned that a candidate endorsed by a Preacher\nwas not necessarily called by God to assume the office.\n\nIt was essential for any man who wanted to hold public office to\nprofess religion and be seen at church, and usually the more noise he\nmade in religious gatherings, the greater his chances of success at the\npolls. If any candidate dared to hold views contrary to those of the\ngodly, a vile whispering campaign was started against him, and his\npersonal life was raked over and bared with many gloating references to\nthe Christian duty of the people to punish this upstart. Occasionally\nthe ungodly or anti-religious element elected a mayor or what not, but\ngenerally religion triumphed and thanks were offered to God, and then\nthroughout his term the office-holder was harassed by pious hypocrites\nseeking favors and special privilege. My father, as county surveyor and\ncity clerk, was constantly being checked up to determine if he remained\nsteadfast in the faith.\n\nI do not think that my father was regarded as a first-class Christian\nin Farmington; I am sure that in many quarters it was felt that he\nwas more or less disgracing his ancestry because he did not bound to\nhis feet at camp meetings and similar gatherings and make a holy show\nof himself with hypocritical testimony. He went to church, and until\nI was old enough to do pretty much as I pleased, he saw to it that I\nwent also, and to Sunday school and Epworth League and other places\nwhere the Methodist God could take a peek at my soul. But he was\nonly passively religious; he showed no tremendous enthusiasm for the\nWesleyan Deity, and he never made a particularly active effort to keep\nme in the path that, according to some, leads to spiritual glory.\n\nIn a religious sense I was annoyed much less by my father and my\nmother than I was by the busybodies who seemed to be appointed by the\nLord to take care of everybody\u2019s business but their own. Most of the\nreligious instruction that I received came from volunteers, either\nrelatives of my parents, or Brothers and Sisters whom I encountered\nduring my pathetic efforts to have a good time. And, of course, from\nthe Preacher. To many of these I put questions; I asked them to explain\ncertain things in the Bible and in the church service that I did not\nunderstand, and which seemed to conflict with the little definite\nknowledge that I had of life and human beings. Invariably I was told\nthat the Bible needed no explaining; I was merely to believe it and\nhave faith.\n\nI was afraid of the Preachers in Farmington, and of the Brothers and\nSisters, desperately afraid of them, because they filled my mind with\nhorrible pictures of Hell and the roaring fires of old Nick; their\nobject in talking religion to small boys seemed to be to frighten them\ninto being good. And I think that most of the other boys were afraid of\nthem, too, except such brave souls as my cousin, Barney Blue, who was a\n\u201cbad boy\u201d and afraid of neither God nor Devil. One of my great moments\nwas when I heard Barney tell a prying old Brother to go to hell. And\ncuriously enough, and incomprehensibly to many of the good old people\nof Farmington, Barney is to-day exceedingly prosperous and well thought\nof in his community.\n\nBut there were very few like Barney; most of us trembled in our boots,\neven the red-topped ones we were so proud of, when a Preacher or a\nBrother or Sister came snooping about, head bowed under its burden of\nreligious horror, and demanded information as to our conduct and the\ncondition of our souls. In the cities the cry of the youngsters was\n\u201cCheese it, the cop,\u201d but in Farmington it was \u201cLook out, there\u2019s a\nPreacher!\u201d We could not start a game of marbles anywhere in town but\none of them, or else a Brother or Sister, did not pounce upon us and\ndemand to know if we were playing \u201cfor keeps.\u201d And since we invariably\nwere, and did not know enough to tell the Preacher what was politely\ncalled a fib, the game stopped then and there while we absorbed a\nlittle religion and learned that God abhorred little boys who played\nfor keeps.\n\nWe were told that God had His eye on us when we did such things, and\nthat our Guardian Angels put black marks in their little books every\ntime we shot a marble.\n\n\u201cYou must give your heart to Jesus,\u201d we were told. \u201cHe will not let you\ndwell in the Heavenly Mansions if you persist in this sinful practice.\u201d\n\nWe used to play marbles in a vacant lot behind the Christian church,\nand it was a very fine playground, with a level stretch on which the\nmarbles rolled beautifully. But we had to give it up, because the lot\nwas near the home of a Sister, who spent most of her waking hours in\nfront of her window, staring out through the curtains in a constant\nsearch for sin and scandal. We had no more than drawn the ring and\nlegged for first shot than she came out on her porch and shouted:\n\n\u201cAre you boys playing for keeps?\u201d\n\nAnd we answered in unison, politely, as we had been taught:\n\n\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d\n\nShe stopped the game, swooping down upon us with the glint of the\nHeaven-born fanatic in her eye. She told us that we were wicked\nand sinful and blasphemous and Heaven knows what else besides to\nplay for keeps in the very shadow of a House of God. She invariably\nthreatened us with punishment ranging from spanking to everlasting\ntorment in Hell, and if we dared to say anything to her other than\nthe conventional \u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d she said we were saucy and threatened\nto telephone our mothers. Occasionally she did so, and a marble\ngame behind the Christian church was then followed by the wails of\nlittle boys being led into the woodshed. She performed her war dance\nmany times, and finally we went to play near the livery stable. The\natmosphere there was not so uplifting, but at least we were in peace,\nfor the hostlers had no interest at all in our immortal souls, although\nthey were very much interested in who won the marbles.\n\n\n2\n\nThe livery stables in Farmington were a sort of symbol of the heretical\nelement of the town. The big Mayberry & Byington barn, down the block\nfrom Braun\u2019s Hotel and Saloon, was a particularly delightful place to\nloaf; it was infested by sinners, abandoned wretches who swore horrible\noaths, smoked cigarettes, and drank whisky and gin out of big bottles.\nThe politicians loafed there at such times as they felt they would not\nbe seen by the more godly part of our citizenry.\n\nTwo of our most celebrated darkies, Uncle Louis Burks and Uncle\nMose Bridges, spent most of their time at the Mayberry barn, and we\nconsidered them quite fascinating, especially Uncle Louis. He regaled\nus with tales of the days when, in the South before the Civil War, he\nhad no duties except be the father of as many children as possible;\nthat was his job. He estimated the number of his progeny anywhere\nfrom fifty to five hundred, according to the amount of liquor he had\nconsumed before counting, and we generally gave him the benefit of the\ndoubt and called it five hundred. We ranked him with the great fathers\nof the Bible, and I recall that it seemed to me somewhat strange that\nthe preachers did not offer Uncle Louis\u2019s achievements as proof of the\ntruth of certain portions of the Book.\n\nUncle Mose\u2019s principal claim to our attention was his dog, a sad-eyed\nlittle mongrel that trotted at the end of a string everywhere Uncle\nMose went. We were permitted to play with the dog occasionally, much to\nthe disgust of our parents, as we invariably went home scratching. Both\nUncle Louis and Uncle Mose were regarded as sinners, partly on account\nof their color. It was not believed that a black man could enter the\nKingdom of Heaven, although the deluded creatures had churches and\nprayed to God. And then their domestic arrangements were somewhat\nhaphazard, and Uncle Louis frequently boasted that he did not marry\nall the mothers of his children before the War. Both he and Uncle Mose\nwere familiar figures around Farmington for many years; they did odd\njobs at the homes of the godly, and for their pay received part cash\nand part religious lectures and prayers. They thrived on the cash, and\napparently the prayers did not hurt them.\n\nIt was at the livery stable, also, that the drummers from St. Louis,\nwaiting for rigs to take them to the towns of the lead-mining district\naround Bonne Terre, Flat River and Elvins, left their stocks of\nstories. The coming of a drummer was an event with us; it meant that we\nshould hear things that were not meant for our little ears, and that\nfor a little while at least we could revel in the sight of a man given\nover to sin and seemingly enjoying it. He used to assure us solemnly\nthat playing marbles for keeps was not a sin anywhere in the world\nbut in Farmington, and tell stories, which we regarded as fanciful\nuntruths, of towns in which little boys did not have to go to Sunday\nschool.\n\nThe drummer came in on the herdic from De Lassus before the interurban\nrailroad was built, and he was generally a gorgeous spectacle. He was\nnot welcomed in our best homes, and even his presence in church was not\nconsidered a good omen for the forces of righteousness, so he could\nusually be found loafing in front of the livery stable or dozing in a\nchair tilted against the wall of the St. Francis Hotel. He brought with\nhim not only the latest stories, but the most advanced raiment; the\nfirst peg-top trousers ever seen in Farmington adorned the legs of a\nshoe drummer traveling out of St. Louis, and they created a furor and\nestablished a style. Soon our most stylish dressers had them.\n\nBesides being the abode of wickedness and the lair of Satan, and\ntherefore an extraordinarily fascinating place, the livery stable was\nalso the principal loafing place of a darky who had fits. He was one of\nour town characters, and was regarded by myself and the other boys as a\nperson of remarkable accomplishments. We felt that to be able to have\nfits set him above us; we gloated enormously when he suddenly shrieked,\nfell to the ground and began foaming at the mouth. Our attitude toward\nhim was respectful, and he appreciated it. He was, it seemed to me,\nproud of his fits. I have known him to rise, finally, brush himself off\nand ask, simply:\n\n\u201cWas it a good one?\u201d\n\nGenerally we thought it was. This darky became such an attraction\nfor us that for a long time, when a group of us could find nothing\ninteresting to do, and when there was for the moment no one in sight to\nremind us of our duty to God and the church, it was the custom for one\nof us to say:\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s go over to the livery stable and see Tod have a fit.\u201d\n\nWe thereupon trooped solemnly to the big barn and gathered in a circle\nabout the darky, who was generally sitting against the side of the\nbuilding whittling on a stick. We watched him silently for a while, and\nthen someone mustered up courage enough to say:\n\n\u201cGoing to have a fit to-day, Tod?\u201d\n\nWith the instinct of the true artist, Tod ignored us for a time, intent\nupon his whittling. Finally he gave us brief attention.\n\n\u201cMaybe,\u201d he said, and returned to his task.\n\nAnd then suddenly he uttered a blood-curdling shriek and tumbled\nheadlong from his chair. We watched, fascinated, uttering little\nmurmurs of \u201cah!\u201d as he writhed and moaned, and when it was all over we\nsettled back with a little sigh of satisfaction. We felt that we had\nseen a first-rate performance, and when the darky had a fit in front\nof the Post Office, or in the yard of the courthouse, his audience was\nincreased by as many boys and men as were downtown, shopkeepers leaving\ntheir wares to run across and watch.\n\nThere was nothing of callousness in our attitude toward the darky. My\nown feeling in the matter was that Tod was having fits for our benefit,\nand because he enjoyed it, but at length I came to learn that he could\nnot help it, that the poor fellow was ill. Then I was sorry for him,\nand one day I asked one of our most prominent Brothers why Tod had\nfits. He immediately seized upon the question to give me some religious\ninstruction.\n\n\u201cHe has sinned,\u201d said the Brother, \u201cand God is punishing him.\u201d\n\nHe elaborated his statement, explaining that Tod had probably neglected\nto attend Sunday school, or had not read his Bible, and that he had\nthus become a blasphemous sinner and was being properly dealt with.\nHe pointed out that I, too, might grow up and have fits if I was not\na good boy. Now, I did not want to have fits, and neither did I want\nto be a good boy. I wanted to have some fun; I wanted to run about,\nand play marbles, and go swimming, and put tick-tacks against people\u2019s\nwindow on Halloween night. I wanted to do all sorts of things that\ngood boys did not do, yet I most certainly did not want to have fits.\n\n\u201cBut, Uncle Si,\u201d I said, \u201chow do you know that God is making him have\nfits? And why does God do it?\u201d\n\n\u201cHerbie!\u201d He was shocked. \u201cYou are blasphemous! You must not question\nthe wisdom of the Almighty. I have faith, and I believe in God and the\nholiness of His acts. I know that this man must have sinned, or God\nwould not punish him so.\u201d\n\nI was not prepared to confound this faulty logic; it was not then\nthe business of small boys to question anything their elders told\nthem, but to accept without comment the pearls of wisdom that fell\nfrom bewhiskered lips. But it seemed to me small business for God to\nbe engaged upon. Yet it did not cause me great surprise, for I had\nlong known that the God who pressed so heavily upon Farmington was a\nconception of unutterable cruelty, an omnipotent Being whose greatest\njoy lay in singling out the weak and lowly and inflicting horrible\ntortures upon them, to the vast and gloating satisfaction of the\nBrothers and their kind.\n\nSome time afterward, because I was worried over this torturing and\npunishment of the darky whose writhings had now become less an amusing\nexhibit than a terrible manifestation of the Almighty, I asked another\nBrother how he knew that God had a hand in it. But neither he nor Uncle\nSi ever told me. None of them were ever able to tell me how they knew\nso well what God wanted and what God did not want; they merely left\nwith me the impression that on occasion they walked with God and that\nGod spoke to them and asked their advice on the conduct of the human\nrace. But the source of their information I could not determine.\n\nI have never found anyone who could satisfy my curiosity on this\npoint; I never then, or later, found a religious enthusiast who would\nadmit that he was offering merely his personal interpretation of the\nutterances that other men had credited to the Almighty. But there\nwas nothing that entered the mind of God that the Preachers and the\nBrothers and Sisters of Farmington did not know and that they could\nnot explain and apply to local affairs. They knew precisely what was a\nsin and what was not, and it was curious that the sins were invariably\nthings from which they received no pleasure. Nor was anything which\npaid a profit a sin. They knew very well that God considered it a sin\nto play cards or dance, but that He thought it only good business\npractice to raise the price of beans or swindle a fellow citizen in the\nmatter of town lots, or refuse credit to the poor and suffering.\n\n\n3\n\nAs I grew older, and began to be skeptical of what I was told, I\nbecame increasingly annoyed not only by the mental mannerisms of these\npeople, but by their physical mannerisms as well. Not only did they\nwalk as if their soles were greased, sliding and slipping about, but\nthey talked as if their tongues were greased also. Their language was\noily; they poured out their words unctuously, with much roundabout\nphrasing and unnecessary language. If they wanted to tell about a man\ngoing across the street from the Court House to the Post Office they\nwould take him up the hill past the Masonic cemetery, with side trips\nto Jerusalem and other Jewish centers. If I went downtown and met a man\nlike Sheriff Rariden, who will always have a place in my affections\nbecause he permitted his son Linn and myself to roam the jail yard and\nstare through the bars at the nigger prisoners, he would say:\n\n\u201cHow\u2019re you, Herbie? How\u2019re your folks?\u201d\n\nBut if I met a Preacher the greeting was this:\n\n\u201cGood afternoon, Herbert. And how are your dear father and mother?\u201d\n\nAnd then he patted me on the head, pinched my arm, and padded away,\nsliding greasily along the pavement, his eagle eye alert for little\nboys playing marbles or for other signs of sin. He might have been\nskinny and pitifully in need of food, but nevertheless I thought of\nhim as greasy. He had about him an unwholesome atmosphere; I could not\nbe comfortable in his presence. I felt that he had to be watched,\nand when I became old enough to understand some of the looks that he\nbestowed upon the young and feminine members of his flock I realized\nthat he should have been.\n\nI had not lived very many years before I learned to look upon\nPreachers, and their familiars, the Brothers and Sisters, as useless\nincumbrances upon an otherwise fair enough earth. But while I hated\nall of them, with a few natural exceptions, the one I always hated\nmost was the current pastor of our Southern Methodist church. He was\nmy spiritual father, the guardian of my soul and the director of my\nlife in the hereafter, and he tried to see to it that I went into the\nhereafter with proper respect for him and a proper respect for his God.\nI had to call him Brother and be very meek and gentle in his presence,\nand stand without moving while he patted me on the head, asked me fool\nquestions, and told me how much God loved little boys and girls. He\ncalled me a \u201cmanly little fellow,\u201d which annoyed me exceedingly, and I\nhave the word of my young nephew that small boys are still annoyed by\nit.\n\nBut he made it quite clear, out of his profound knowledge of the wishes\nof the Almighty, that God did not want little boys and girls to have\na good time. Quite the contrary. God wanted them to do exactly what\nthe Preacher told them to do; He wanted them to accept the Preacher as\ntheir guide and their philosopher and to believe everything they were\ntold, without fretting him with unanswerable and therefore blasphemous\nquestions. He wanted the little boys and girls to spend most of their\ntime praying to Him to \u201cgimme this and gimme that,\u201d and the rest of it\nbeing little gentlemen and little ladies, solemn and subdued, speaking\nonly when spoken to and answering promptly when called. God told the\nPreacher, who relayed the message on to me very impressively, that it\nwas a sin to play marbles on Sunday, or to play for keeps at any time;\nthat it was a sin to roll hoops on the sidewalk in front of the church\nor rattle a stick against the picket fence in front of the parsonage.\nEverything that I wanted to do, everything that seemed to hold any\npromise of fun or excitement, was a sin.\n\nBut it was not a sin to saw wood for the Preacher, or to carry huge\narmfuls of sticks and fill his kitchen bin, and it was not a sin to\nmow his lawn or rake the trash in his back yard. The children of the\ngodly were permitted to do these things because of the profound love\nwhich the Preacher bore for them; his motto was \u201cSuffer little children\nto come unto me, and I will put them to work.\u201d And since by his own\nadmission the Preacher was a Man of God, we were permitted to perform\nthese labors for nothing. A boy was paid twenty-five to fifty cents,\nenormous and gratifying sums in those days, if he mowed the lawn or\nraked the trash for a family given over to sin, but if he did the job\nfor a Preacher or a devout Brother, he received nothing but a pat on\nthe back and a prayer, or he could listen to a verse from the Bible\nand a lecture on his duty to serve the Lord and, incidentally, the\nself-appointed ambassadors of the Lord.\n\nOnce when I was about twelve years old our pastor telephoned my mother\nand asked that I be sent to his house to help him perform certain\ntasks which should have been done by the darky men of all work about\ntown. But our family did not wish to offend the Preacher, so I did\nthe work. And it was hard work. I toiled all morning cleaning out the\nPreacher\u2019s woodshed and stacking split stove wood in neat piles, and\nthen I carried in enough to fill two big wooden boxes in the kitchen.\nDuring this time the Preacher sat in his study, holding communion with\nGod, and I presume, reading the Scriptures. Occasionally he came out\nto the woodshed to superintend my work, ordering me to do this and do\nthat and scolding me because I did not work faster, but he did none of\nthe work himself. And when I was through he told me to come into his\nstudy and receive payment. I hurried after him, very weary, but with\npleasant visions of a quarter floating before my eyes. I believed that\nwas the least I should receive, and to me it was a great deal of money;\nproperly expended at McKinney\u2019s or Otto Rottger\u2019s, it would keep me in\njawbreakers for more than a week, and there might be enough left to buy\na bag of peewees or an agate.\n\nBut I did not receive the twenty-five cents. The Preacher closed the\ndoor when we got into his study, and then he commanded me to kneel. He\nput a hand on my shoulder, and he said:\n\n\u201cMy dear boy, I am going to pray for you. I am going to ask the Lord\nJesus to enter your heart and make you a good boy.\u201d\n\nAnd then he knelt and prayed somewhat in this fashion: \u201cO Lord Jesus,\nbless this little boy who has this day performed labor in Thy behalf,\u201d\netc.\n\nIt was all very confusing. I went home somewhat in doubt as to whether\nthe Preacher or God owned the woodshed.\n\nBut labor of little boys was not all that the Preachers got for\nnothing. They were inveterate beggars, and all of them had fine, highly\ndeveloped noses for chickens and other dainties; it was seldom that\na family could have a chicken or turkey dinner without the Preacher\ndropping in. It is true that their salaries were not large, but they\nhad free use of the parsonage, and they were not in dire circumstances\nat all. Yet they always had their hands out, grasping; they were\necclesiastical tramps begging for a donation. In our town we used to\ngive showers for them; many families made periodical donations to the\nPastor, and sometimes there were surprise parties, when the Preacher\nand his wife were led into a room and shown piles of old clothing,\nfood and discarded furniture, all of which was sent next day to the\nparsonage. The Preacher was always pathetically grateful for these\nthings; he would kneel in the midst of them and offer a prayer for the\nsouls of the good people who had thus given him the clutterings of\ntheir cellars and attics, which they had no further use for. He seldom\nhad enough self-respect to refuse them.\n\n\n4\n\nThe notion was prevalent in Farmington, among the Brothers and Sisters,\nthat the Preachers were their servants and should peddle God to them\n365 days a year. It was felt also that their wives should be constantly\nat the Lord\u2019s work; that they should be at home at all times, available\nfor consultation and prayer meetings, and that when they went abroad\nthey should dress soberly and walk with due humility. The wife of\nBrother Court, one of our Methodist pastors, was severely criticized\nfor her departure from this formula of conduct. Apparently the Courts\nhad means other than the salary paid them by the church, and they kept\na maid, which in itself was enough to arouse suspicion that Mrs. Court\nwas not a true servant of the Lord.\n\nBut the straw that broke the religious back of the Courts and hastened\nthe end of Brother Court\u2019s ministry was the fact that Mrs. Court took a\nnap each afternoon. This was considered nothing less than scandalous,\nand for a long time our Brothers and Sisters refused to believe that\nthe wife of a man of God should so far forget herself as to lie abed\nwhen she might be praying or sitting at her front window looking\nthrough the curtains for a sin to happen. But the story persisted, and\nwas broadcast by a discharged servant who swore that with her own eyes\nshe had seen Mrs. Court sound asleep at three o\u2019clock in the afternoon.\nFinally two Sisters appointed themselves a committee of investigation.\nThey rang the bell at the parsonage one afternoon, and told the maid\nthat they had called to join Mrs. Court in afternoon prayer, and,\nalthough they did not say it, backbiting gossip.\n\n\u201cMrs. Court,\u201d said the maid, \u201cis asleep and cannot be disturbed. Can\nyou call later?\u201d\n\nThey could not. They had barely strength enough to get home, but after\nprayer they revived sufficiently to sally forth and carry the awful\nnews throughout the town. There could no longer be any doubt. The\nwife of the Pastor of the Southern Methodist church took a nap in the\nafternoon. The Sisters had called, and had been so informed by the\nmaid, and while a few chronic doubters remained, the vast majority\nrealized that in a matter involving such serious consequences to Mrs.\nCourt\u2019s spiritual welfare, a matter that directly affected and almost\ndestroyed her chances of going to Heaven, the Sisters could not tell a\nlie.\n\nSo Brother Court soon resigned and accepted a call to a town where\nmembers of his family could sleep when they felt like it, and could\neven snore without jeopardizing their immortal souls. Nor did his\nsuccessor last very long. He was an Englishman, and spoke in a high\nnasal voice, pronouncing his words very distinctly, syllable by\nsyllable. He was criticized for several reasons. One was that his\nfavorite phrase was \u201cand an-gels can do no more,\u201d and it was felt that\nit was somewhat blasphemous to mention angels so often before mixed\ncompany. And then he spoke from notes, whereas it was a custom of our\nPastors to preach solely out of divine inspiration at the moment of\ndelivery.\n\nThere was much talk about the new Preacher\u2019s notes, and it was felt\nthat, somehow, he was lacking in devotion to God; many Brothers and\nSisters argued that if he were really a Man of God he would not have\nto use notes, but would be inspired and filled with words as he rose\nin the pulpit. His finish came the Sunday morning that the wind blew\nthrough an opened window and scattered his notes, so that he had to\nleave the pulpit and chase the scraps up and down the aisle before he\ncould proceed with his discourse. This was regarded as direct evidence\nthat God had deserted him, and he left town soon afterward.\n\n\n5\n\nThe personalities of the preachers of my home town, impressed as they\nwere upon my growing, plastic mind, probably will remain with me\nalways, but I am thankful that for the most part their names elude me.\nI remember clearly, however, Brother Jenkins and Brother Fontaine,\nof our Southern Methodist church; Brother Nations, of the so-called\nChristian church; Brother Hickok, of the Presbyterian church, and,\nclearest of all, Brother Lincoln McConnell, the professional itinerant\nevangelist who \u201cconverted\u201d me with the aid of half a dozen strong-armed\nand strong-lunged Brothers and Sisters who dragged and pushed me down\nthe aisle of the church to the mourners\u2019 bench, where I was surrounded\nand overwhelmed by \u201cworkers for the Lord.\u201d\n\nBrother Jenkins I recall as a meek, thin little man with a sad smile\nand a classical appetite for fried chicken. At the time I was very\nmuch in awe of him, and listened to his every utterance with the\nmost profound respect. I thought him saintly, and concluded that he\nand God were the closest sort of friends, and that the Deity would\nnot dare launch upon a plan for a new universe or start a new war\nwithout consulting Brother Jenkins. But in truth he was probably only\nunder-nourished. Brother Jenkins was a demon quoter of platitudes and\nBiblical passages; nothing happened that it did not remind him of a\nquotation from the Bible.\n\nBrother Fontaine was a plump man who would have been jovial and\npossibly likable--that is giving him the benefit of a great doubt--if\nhe had not been so burdened by the troubles of God and if he had not\nbeen so frightfully aware of the responsibilities of his position\nas a recipient and promulgator of Heavenly wisdom and commands. He\nofficiated at the wedding of my sister, principally because our family\nbelonged to his church and the presence of another preacher at the\nwedding would have deprived Brother Fontaine of a goodly fee and made\nan enemy of him for life. Christian charity does not function well when\nit hits the pocketbook. I think my sister would have preferred Brother\nHickok, but she yielded to public opinion and Brother Fontaine got the\njob. He arrived at the house chewing tobacco, a habit of his which he\ndisliked intensely in other men, but for which he found justification\nfor himself in the belief that he walked with the Lord and that it was\ntacitly understood he was to have a little leeway.\n\nHe was excessively sanctimonious; and so was his wife. We have never\nforgiven her for her attitude at the wedding. I recall that she looked\nsuspiciously from time to time at the groom, and watched the whole\nproceeding with an air that said there must of a necessity be something\nwrong somewhere; for one thing, there was quite a deal of laughter in\nour house that day, and that in itself was a sign that the Lord was\nnot hovering over the housetop. Immediately after the ceremony Sister\nFontaine paraded up front and began waving her hands back and forth\nbefore my sister\u2019s face, shouting at the top of her lungs: \u201cPraise the\nLord, Sister! Praise the Lord!\u201d We gathered that she thought my sister\nshould immediately fall upon her knees and thank God that she had at\nlast acquired a husband, even though Sister Fontaine did not seem to\nthink much of him. But we were greatly offended; we considered it a\nreflection on our family and wholly uncalled for, because my sister\nwas, in fact, neither old nor homely, and she had had and rejected a\ngreat many first-class matrimonial opportunities.\n\nI had an intense dislike for Brother Fontaine and his ways, and time\nhas not softened my impression of him. He dearly loved to be the only\nman in a feminine gathering, where he could make heavy inroads upon\nthe cake and ice cream and lay down the law to the adoring Sisters. I\nhave seldom known a Preacher who was not afflicted with this mania, but\nin Brother Fontaine it had developed into a highly acute disease. I\nremember that he was always present at our house when the members of\nthe Ladies\u2019 Aid Society came once each week for their bit of sewing for\nthe heathen and to enjoy their pleasant afternoon of scandal. He had no\nbusiness there; he did not sew and he did not contribute much to the\nsymposium, but he listened avidly and ate heartily.\n\nIt was \u201cDon\u2019t you think so, Brother Fontaine?\u201d and \u201cI fear I must take\nissue with you, Sister. The Lord provideth answers for all problems\naffecting human conduct.\u201d Fool talk like that.\n\nIt was the practice of our Southern Methodist preachers to stand at the\ndoor of the church after every performance and shake hands with the\ncustomers, making such remarks as \u201cPraise the Lord, Sister! Get right\nwith Jesus, Brother!\u201d I always dreaded this part of the service, and\nseveral young girls told me that they did also. All of the preachers\nwho did this, and almost all of them did, shook hands with a clammy\npressure that put me in mind of an oyster, and it always seemed to\nme that when a lady customer passed through the door the Man of God\ninvariably found it necessary to sigh.\n\nBut although I cannot rate Brother Fontaine very highly among the\nservants of the Lord, my younger brother consigned him to even lower\ndepths. They went fishing together once, at Brother Fontaine\u2019s request,\nand Fred appeared at the parsonage with lunch, fishing tackle and\ncar fare. Brother Fontaine knelt and asked divine guidance for the\nexpedition, and then they boarded a trolley car and went to De Lassus,\nto fish the St. Francis River around Blumeyer\u2019s Ford. Fred paid his\nfare.\n\n\u201cYou must pay my fare, too, Fred,\u201d said Brother Fontaine. \u201cI am the\nminister.\u201d\n\nSo Fred paid. There was nothing else that he could do; he was afraid\nthat if he did not Brother Fontaine would whistle to God to call down\nan avenging angel armed with thunderbolts and lightning. Then it\ndeveloped that Brother Fontaine had brought neither lunch nor fishing\ntackle; he had brought only himself, and being a Man of God that was\nsufficient. Perhaps he felt that since his influence with the Almighty\nwas undoubtedly great enough to make the trip successful, Fred had\nno right to expect him to bear any of the expenses or furnish any\nequipment. So he used Fred\u2019s tackle and ate Fred\u2019s lunch, and when that\nwas not enough for him he sent Fred a mile and a half to a farmhouse to\nbuy a bottle of milk, for which Fred paid and which the reverend one\nguzzled without offering to share it.\n\nThroughout the whole day Brother Fontaine alternately prayed and\nfished, but there must have been something wrong with his connecting\nline to Heaven, for he caught no fish. He finally turned the tackle\nover to Fred, with the remark that Fred had not brought the right\nsort of worms, and with the further explanation that worms being God\u2019s\ncreatures as well as fish, God probably did not want the fish to eat\nthem. Fred fished earnestly; he was ordinarily a good and successful\nfisherman, and it was a matter of pride with him not to go home\nwithout a string. But neither did Fred catch any fish, and he became\nincreasingly annoyed at Brother Fontaine.\n\nThe preacher apparently labored under the delusion that Fred required\nreligious instruction. He told, several times, the story of the loaves\nand the fishes, and many other Biblical fairy tales as well. Once, when\nFred was anxiously watching his cork and felt certain that a perch was\nnibbling at his hook, Brother Fontaine stopped him to read the Sermon\non the Mount from a Bible which he drew from his pocket. Everything he\nsaw reminded him of something in the Scriptures. So passed the day, and\nwhen Fred came home that night, with no fish, he ate heavily of supper\nand then dared parental wrath by saying:\n\n\u201cNo more of these damned preachers for me.\u201d\n\nBrother Nations is probably Farmington\u2019s most illustrious gift to\nreligion. It is true that he eventually resigned from the ministry and\nbecame Probate Judge and Principal of the High School, but he remained\na steadfast adherent of the Protestant God and a singularly devout and\ngodly man. I presume he still is, as he is the same Gilbert O. Nations\nwho in 1924 ran for President as the candidate of what he called the\nAmerican party, asking for the votes of the electorate on a pro-Ku Klux\nKlan and anti-everything else platform. I am told that he is now the\neditor of a magazine devoted to baiting the Catholics.\n\nOnce when Brother Nations was principal of the Farmington High School\nhe whaled me because Barney Blue and I had thrown snowballs at Jake\nSchaeffer, the town truckman. I felt that the licking was coming to me\nand I bore no malice; only the week before I had thrown lumps of coal\nat Pete Anderson\u2019s house across the street and had been warned that the\nhurling of anything at all would result in punishment. But after the\nthrashing was over, Brother Nations told me that throwing snowballs\nat Jake Schaeffer was a sin against God: that Christ had reference to\nit when he said: \u201cLet him who is without sin cast the first stone.\u201d I\ncould not plead that I was without sin, because it had been impressed\non me by every Brother and Sister and Preacher that I met that I was\npractically broken out with it. But young and gullible as I was,\nBrother Nations\u2019 statement sounded silly.\n\nI could understand that from Jake Schaeffer\u2019s viewpoint I had sinned,\nand grievously, because Jake was stooping over when the snowball\nstruck and I had put a stone in the center of it to make the snow pack\ntighter; I was willing to admit that and repent. But what did God care\nif two boys smacked snowballs against a soft part of Jake\u2019s person? It\nseemed to me that if God had been really interested in the matter He\nwould have advised Jake Schaeffer not to stoop over when two boys were\nabroad with snowballs. Thus He might have prevented a sin. Further, if\nGod was as intelligent as I had been led to believe, He must have known\nthat boys cannot resist the temptation to throw snowballs, and since\nHe made both the boys and the snowballs He was responsible for the sin\ncommitted against Himself. But Brother Nations appeared to believe that\nGod had permitted me to sin in order that I might taste the joys of\ncastigatory rebuke. And I did.\n\nBrother Hickok was the only Preacher of those days to whom I gave the\nslightest measure of respect. I had a genuine admiration for him, but\nit was not because he was a Preacher or because he pretended to any\ninside knowledge of the customs of Heaven or the thoughts and wishes of\nGod. On the contrary, I have heard him admit that there were things in\nthe Bible he did not understand, and I have heard him admit that there\nwere passages in it that he did not particularly care for. But I liked\nhim simply because he chewed tobacco without any effort at concealment,\nand played lawn tennis on the courts near our home, and because I\nsuspected, every time I saw him wallop a tennis ball or bite a chunk\nfrom a slab of plug-cut, that he was Wild Bill Hickok in disguise.\n\nAbout the time Brother Hickok came to Farmington I acquired a book\ndevoted to the adventures of Wild Bill, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill and\nother heroes of the Western plains, and of them all I liked Wild Bill\nbest. He seemed to me to be everything that a man ought to be. He had\nmore notches on his gun than any of the others, and it appeared that\nhe could not so much as sneeze without a redskin biting the dust. I\nput the question of identity to Brother Hickok rather bluntly, and\ntold him I would respect his confidence, but he denied it, although I\ngathered the impression that he was a relative of Wild Bill and, of\ncourse, mighty proud of him. But I was not satisfied, and for a long\ntime I shadowed him in the manner set forth by Old and Young King Brady\nin that sterling nickel novel, \u201cSecret Service,\u201d hoping to learn his\nsecret. However, I never did solve the question to my own satisfaction.\n\nBut principally I admired Brother Hickok because he was the only\nPreacher I knew who did not proclaim incessantly that he was a Man of\nGod and therefore entitled to the largest piece of pie, and because he\nwas the only one who did not seem to be impressed by my relationship\nwith Bishop Asbury. He didn\u2019t seem to give a damn about the Bishop; his\nonly ambition, so far as I was concerned, was to beat me at tennis,\nwhich he did. But from the others, and from the Brothers and Sisters,\nI got the impression that the right reverend deceased, seated at God\u2019s\nright hand between Jesus Christ and St. Peter, perhaps crowding the\nlatter a bit, had nothing to do but receive messages from the Almighty\ntouching on my conduct, and relay them to me by whatever Preacher I\nhappened to meet. For many years I thought that God and the Bishop had\na consultation on my case every night.\n\nI do not think that I shall ever forget Brother Lincoln McConnell,\nalthough I probably should not recognize him if I saw him to-day.\nI hope not. But for some eighteen long years I have cherished a\ncompelling desire to stand him in a corner, minus his band and singers\nand his other aids to emotion, and then bind and gag him. After that\nI want to talk to him for hours and hours, embellishing my remarks\nwith such florid words as I have acquired in various military and\njournalistic enterprises, and possibly inventing new ones for the\noccasion. He was responsible for the most miserable period of my life.\nBut it was he, too, who definitely kept me from being a Preacher, or\neven a Brother, and so, perhaps, I should thank him. If he had let me\nalone I might at this moment be calling some other preacher Brother;\nI might be an intimate of God, and a walking Baedeker of Heaven; I\nmight even be gloating over the glories of a Heaven paved with gold and\npopulated by angels, all female, all beautiful, all amiable. Certainly\nI should not be given over to a life of sin; that is to say, I should\nnot be having a pretty good time with this business of living.\n\nBrother McConnell, as I write, is a pastor of a Baptist church in\nOklahoma City, Okla., with occasional forays onto the Chautauqua\nplatform, and is a potent force in the life of that abode of\nrighteousness. But if reports are to be believed, there are even there\nthose who consider him a blight. He has been the central figure in\nseveral rows that have undoubtedly redounded to the greater glory of\nGod; he tried to prevent the citizens of his town from seeing one of\nthe best American plays of recent years because it dealt a bit too\ntruthfully with certain aspects of religious fanaticism, and he erected\na radio broadcasting station which blanketed the city and forced the\npopulation to listen, willy-nilly, to his sermons and his ponderous\npronouncements against sin.\n\nI once wrote a magazine article in which I discussed a few of the\nactivities of Brother McConnell, and he put me in my place in an\ninterview which, it seems to me, shows that he has not changed a great\ndeal since the time that I first shook hands with him as he leaned over\nthe mourner\u2019s bench and beseeched me to give my heart to his God. I\ngive it here. It appeared in the Oklahoma City _News_, on January 27,\n1925.\n\n  \u201cHe is a very small potato.\u201d That was the reply of the Rev. Lincoln\n  McConnell, First Baptist Church pastor.... \u201cI have some doubt,\u201d said\n  the Rev. McConnell, \u201cas to whether I should feel honored or otherwise\n  by the repeated mention of my name in this article by Herbert Asbury\n  without realizing that this writer cannot possibly have inherited\n  anything more from his illustrious ancestry than his name.\n\n  \u201cI confess that it is rather surprising to me that editors of a\n  magazine could attach enough importance to such cheap drivel as this\n  as to give it the position and the space they do.\n\n  \u201cThe natural assumption is that they believe about religion, the\n  religion of Christ, what this poor fellow does, and therefore,\n  actually believe that this \u2018weak stuff\u2019 is a contribution to their\n  cause.\n\n  \u201cI remember Farmington, Mo., very well, having been there about\n  twenty-five years ago. I do not remember Herbert Asbury at all.\n\n  \u201cI am not surprised that I do not, as he must have been then somewhat\n  as he evidently is now--a very small potato--and while I would feel\n  naturally as interested in his conversion as in anyone else, at the\n  same time I am forced to admit that it would not be possible for a\n  man of training and experience to list a man of his evident mentality\n  very highly, even though he were a professed convert in his meeting.\n\n  \u201cI am very sorry that he was not really converted. If the Editor of\n  the _American Mercury_ cares for things of a really constructive\n  nature, I can give him the life story of thousands of men and women\n  whom because of the genuineness of their conversion to Christ in my\n  own meetings, have given to the world characters of such beauty and\n  worth as have reflected credit upon themselves and their church and\n  have proved a blessing to society at large.\n\n  \u201cI have never asked people to stand up if they want to go to Heaven.\n  I think that very ridiculous.\u201d\n\n\n6\n\nIt was these people who taught me of God, and who had dominion over\nmy spiritual welfare! And not only did they instruct me to worship\ntheir conception of Him; they threatened me with eternal damnation\nif I didn\u2019t, and with even more horrible punishment if I ventured to\ncast doubt upon the truth and holiness of the Bible. Eternal damnation\nmeant that I should, in the life to come, hang throughout eternity on\na revolving spit over a great fire in the deepest pit of Hell, while\nlittle red devils jabbed white-hot pokers into my quivering flesh and\nSatan stood by and curled his lip in glee. I received the impression\nthat Satan was the only one actively concerned with religion who was\never permitted to laugh. God was not, nor His disciples, and that Satan\ncould and apparently did was sufficient proof that laughter was wicked.\n\nAnd they described God to me, and told me in minute detail of the\narchitectural design of Heaven and the furnishings of the Mansions\nin the Sky. I do not know where they obtained their information. I\ngathered that God was an old man who wore a long white nightgown and\nboasted a luxuriant growth of whiskers, with a disposition compounded\nof the snarls of a wounded wildcat and the pleasant conceits of a\n_must_ elephant. He chewed tobacco--perhaps that impression was due\nto the fact that so many of our preachers were addicted to the vile\nweed--and He had an enormous head which contained an eye for every\nperson on earth, and this eye was constantly upon its object. And it\nwas a vindictive and jaundiced eye, peering into the innermost depths\nof the soul and the mind and the heart for some thought or feeling that\nmight call for punishment.\n\nThe descriptions of Heaven and the physical appearance of the angels\nvaried somewhat, according to whether the tale was told by a preacher\nor a Brother, or a Sister. But all of them talked with gusto of streets\npaved with gold and of clouds lined with silver, of magnificent\nbuildings constructed of precious stones, and of angels sitting on\nthe clouds with no worthier purpose in life than strumming a golden\nharp, protected from the weather by no more substantial raiment than\na white nightgown, a halo and a pair of sandals. And whoever told the\ntale, there was always that underlying idea of sybaritic magnificence;\nHeaven bore no resemblance to the lowly stable in which the founder\nof their religion was born, and it was not a somber retreat for the\nfurther development of the soul and the cultivation of those virtues\nthat are lost sight of upon the earth. As it was described to me in my\nyouth, and as it is still described on those rare occasions when I can\nbring myself to hold converse with a Preacher, Heaven was a celestial\nreproduction of the palace of a Babylonian monarch. Nobody worked, and\nGod\u2019s House abounded with gold and silver and rubies and diamonds,\nand on every cloud that rolled down the street was a beautiful woman,\neternally young and amiable. The Heaven that I was taught to aspire to\nwas a motion picture set on an even grander scale than the creations of\nCecil De Mille.\n\nBut even more emphasis was placed, in these tales, on feminine\nvirginity. It seemed that Heaven was filled with virgins; I have never\nheard a Preacher describe an angel without mentioning the fact that the\nangel was a virgin, and I have never heard a Preacher describe Mary\nsimply as the mother of Jesus. She is always the Virgin Mother, and\nhe pronounces it all in capitals. Even as a boy I was impressed with\nthe frequency with which the word \u201cvirgin\u201d appeared in the discourses\nof our Pastor and in the lectures so freely bestowed upon me by the\nBrothers. It seemed to me that the word fascinated them; although I\nmight be trembling with fear that God would strike me dead because I\nhad not learned my Sunday-school lesson or had forgotten the Golden\nText, I was so impressed that I found time to wonder at the enthusiasm\nwith which they mouthed it.\n\nIt seemed impossible for Preachers or devout Brothers to say \u201cvirgin\u201d\nas casually as they did other words; they gloated over it, toyed with\nit, rolled it about their tongues and tasted the full flavor of it\nbefore it slid drippingly from their lips with an amazing clarity of\npronunciation. Usually they accompanied it with a doleful sigh. I\nthought then that the sigh was from excess of piety, and I thought that\ntheir eyes shone and their breath came a little faster from the same\ncause, that these things were possibly manifestations of God, and I was\ngreatly impressed. But I am older now and I know better.\n\nWhen I became old enough to understand what was meant by virginity,\nand to understand that it was something more than a badge of the\nangels, I understood also many other things that had hitherto been\nmysteries. I knew then what was in the mind of one of the Brothers, an\nextraordinarily devout man with an astounding knowledge of the wishes\nof God and the manners and customs of Heaven, when he stopped me on the\nstreet one day and asked me what, if anything, had happened on a recent\nhay ride to Blumeyer\u2019s Ford and back by members of our social set.\n\n\u201cDid the boys and girls sit close together?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cYes, sir. We had to. We were on a hay wagon.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you boys sit right up against them?\u201d\n\nI told him we did, and in my youthful innocence I remarked that I had\nbeen compelled to sit so close to one girl that we could hardly tell\nour legs apart. The old man drew a sharp breath, sighed and his eyes\nglistened. He repeated the word \u201clegs\u201d with gusto, he gloated over it,\nand then he said:\n\n\u201cYou sat so close to her that your legs touched? Your leg touched hers?\nYour leg was right up against her?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir. I had to.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe leg of a young virgin!\u201d mused the old devil. \u201cThat was wicked. It\nis wicked to think of the legs of a virgin. God will punish you.\u201d\n\nHe went away muttering to himself. I was disgusted, not at his ideas,\nbecause I had practically the same thought about virgins that he did,\nand so did most of the other boys of the town, but at his manner. Here\nwas an old man who had set himself up as a mundane representative of\nthe Lord, who told me whom to worship and how to worship Him, who held\ndaily communion with God and received messages from Him touching on\nmy conduct, gloating and trembling because a boy had sat with his leg\nagainst the leg of a girl in the forced confinement of a hay ride. God\nknows what is happening to him if he is alive in these days of short\nskirts and silk stockings.\n\nAnother of our Brothers, a very prominent member of one of our\nProtestant churches, kept a store in the business district not far from\nthe Court House. He was waiting on a customer the day that the first\nwoman to ride astride in our town cantered down Columbia Street, and\nhis performance was a town scandal for many years. He caught a glimpse\nof the girl through the window, and he abandoned his customer and\nrushed to the street, in company with half the county officials who\nhad been dozing with their feet on their desks, and all of the town\nloafers. The Brother followed her for several blocks, missing no detail\nof her costume, which was rather bizarre and daring for those days, and\nthen he went back to his store and his customer.\n\nHe stood for a while wrapped in contemplation.\n\n\u201cShe was riding like a man!\u201d he said. \u201cHer legs--her legs----\u201d\n\nMy experiences in these matters, of course, were principally with\nPreachers and Brothers, but I had occasional contacts with the Sisters.\nThey, too, described God and Heaven, but they did not conceive God as\nbeing quite so old and feeble as the Being worshipped by the Brothers,\nand for the most part they populated Heaven with handsome, stalwart\nyoung men, presumably virgins. I recall one exceedingly devout Sister\nwho expressed the belief that there were no female angels in Heaven,\nand I have heard her praying with extraordinary fervor to God, in\neffect, to make an exception in her case. Whether she was justified in\nthis optimistic opinion of herself I never knew, but I assume that she\nand the other Sisters, in their discussion of the virginity of angels,\nexperienced the same sort of vicarious pleasure that seemed to mean so\nmuch to the Preachers and the Brothers.\n\n\n7\n\nI did not go to many camp meetings; ours was not a camp-meeting\ncountry. We went in more for protracted meetings, and for the stirring\nrevivals of professional evangelists, held in comfortable church\nbuildings. Usually I went to camp meeting only because some girl in\nwhom I was interested had to go. But they were very popular with a\ncertain type of young man about Farmington, who knew that religious\nemotion is very akin to secular emotion; the line of demarcation is\nvery thin, and most men who have been around religious women very\nmuch know that one emotion can quickly be transformed into the other.\nYoung girls are much easier prey after they have been overwhelmed by\nreligion, their nerves upset and their brains whirling with emotion,\nand they are then easily persuaded that the Lord will forgive, even\nthough His earthly agents will not. Of course such a statement could\nnot be proven, but it is quite likely that more seductions have\noccurred at camp meetings, and _en route_ to and from them, than on\nall the front porches and lawn swings that were ever manufactured,\nalthough in Farmington for many years a lawn swing was regarded as a\nlure of Hell. Even while the service was in progress the buggies around\nthe meeting tent were filled with men and women petting, or, as we\ncalled it then, spooning.\n\nStrange things happened at these camp meetings, and at the other\ngatherings as well, when a forthright religionist saw the light. At one\nsuch holy conclave an old woman, for many years a thorn in the flesh of\nthe godly, suddenly bounced to her feet and shouted:\n\n\u201cPraise the Lord! My corn hurts! Praise the Lord!\u201d\n\nAnd this, because it embodied physical suffering and a great deal of\nmental torture as well, was accepted as an infallible sign that God had\nat last entered her soul. She had been converted, and all the rest of\nher life she was a prying, sanctimonious old pest. She used to stop me\non the street and inquire as to the condition of my soul, and ask me\nwhether I said my prayers at night, and whether I read the Bible, and\nshe would grab me by the arm and pinch me and demand the Golden Text\nof the last Sunday-school lesson. And if by any chance I had forgotten\nor did not know, she scolded me and predicted dire things for me in\nthe life to come. Incidentally, she knew all about the life to come;\nit seems that God had appeared to her in a vision, and had described\nHeaven to her.\n\nAt all of these meetings extraordinary efforts were made to ensnare the\nchildren and convert them to Christianity; the workers for the Lord\nwere not at all concerned with the fact that the children did not know\nwhat it was all about, that they had no opportunity to choose their own\nreligion, and with the further and obvious fact that they succumbed to\nnothing but fright and a great surge of emotion. That method persists.\nThe Church still obtains its converts by noise and appeals to primitive\nemotion, and by threats, rather than by intelligently implanting a true\nand deep-seated conception of God and the heavenly wonders. But to the\nreligionists a convert is a convert, no matter how obtained; I have\nknown boys to be thrashed because they would not profess religion.\n\nAs with the Catholic Church, the unspoken and always denied slogan of\nthe Methodists and of the other Protestant sects is \u201cCatch \u2019em while\nthey\u2019re young,\u201d but unlike the Catholics the Protestants cannot hold\nthem. For one thing, they do not put on a good enough show; they do not\nunderstand lighting, and they have no uniforms and no Latin chanters. A\nCatholic priest covered by a surplice or what not, and his voice rising\nand falling sonorously in the chanting of a bit of Latin, is a very\nimpressive spectacle, and his appearance lends dignity to his words.\nThe gentle stare that most of them wear is also effective. As soon as\nan embryo Methodist becomes intelligent enough to visualize the sort\nof Heaven that the Brothers are preparing for him, he shudders and\nforthwith goes to the Devil, while the Catholics fill their converts\nwith such fear of God and the Pope, or the Pope and God, to put them\nin the order of their importance, that very few get away. A renegade\nCatholic is almost as rare as a Methodist Preacher who does not think\nhe is sprouting wings, and that his voice is truly the Voice of God.\n\n\n\n\nA BAD BOY COMES TO JESUS\n\n\n1\n\nIt is clear, then, that not only was my ancestral background religious,\nbut that I lived in an atmosphere heavy with religious feeling.\nReligion and the Church dominated the whole of my early life. Among all\nof my relatives I do not recall one whose home was not oppressed, and\nwhose life was not made miserable and fretful, by the terrible fear of\na relentless God whose principal occupation seemed to be snooping about\nsearching for someone to punish. Religion was poured down my throat\nin doses that strangled me and made me sick of soul. There was simply\ntoo much of it. God was fed to me morning, noon and night, and He did\nnot taste good; I was hounded from pillar to post by a pack of baying,\nsanctimonious hypocrites beseeching me to get right with Jesus, and to\nread and believe that collection of Hebrew fairy tales called the Bible.\n\nI came finally to think of God as I did of castor oil, and the flavor\nthat He left in my mouth was just as frightful. He and His religion\nwere personified by the dour-faced men and women who went sliding\nabout the town; rubbing their hands together, scraping the skin from\ntheir souls but not from their palms. They were irritatingly gentle,\nand they sighed soulfully and mouthed platitudes with enormous gusto;\nthey called each other Brother and Sister and poked their messy,\nprying fingers into every bit of fun that anybody tried to have;\nthey fed their little shriveled souls with scandal and smeared dirt\nover everything that was amusing. They regarded all young men as\nprofessional seducers, and for the greater glory of God ruined the\nreputations of young girls who went buggy-riding and seemed to enjoy\nit--and nothing can be so completely and irrevocably ruined as the\nreputation of a young girl in a small town.\n\nBut despite the feelings of disgust and revolt which the labors of\nthese servants of the Lord evoked in me, I did not definitely align\nmyself on the side of the non-believers and the sinners until after I\nhad been \u201cconverted.\u201d I began on that night to hate the Church and its\nreligion, and all of its prying, messy hypocrisy and sanctimony. And\nespecially I hated the preachers and the Brothers and Sisters. I still\ndo; they give me a pain in the neck. I felt that I had been betrayed; I\nknew that the spirit of God was not working in me, but I was told that\nit was and dared to deny it. I was told that I must \u201cget right with\nthe Lord,\u201d whatever that may be. I felt that the Brothers and Sisters\nand the evangelist had taken an unfair advantage of my emotions; there\nwas a band at the revival, and under the influence of music I will do\nanything. It compelled me to do something that I did not want to do; it\nhumiliated me in my own eyes, and nothing that has ever happened to me\nsince has made me so miserable and ashamed.\n\nI had reached the ripe old age of fourteen or fifteen when the hand of\nthe Lord, operating through the agency of Brother McConnell and a horde\nof wailing Brothers and Sisters with religious fervor breaking out upon\nthem like boils, reached out and plucked me from the burning. But it\nwas not their fault that I had not been converted earlier; they had\ntried often enough. One of my earliest recollections is of a Preacher\nasking me why I did not profess religion and join the Church, and why\nI had not given my heart to God, as he called it. I was occasionally\nsingled out at protracted meetings and at revivals and made the object\nof special prayers, but until Brother McConnell came with his improved\ntechnique and circus methods I had always held out.\n\n\n2\n\nMy own church, of course, was the Southern Methodist, but the revival\nmeeting at which I was converted was a union gathering in the Northern\nMethodist edifice, which was about a block from Braun\u2019s saloon and\nan even shorter distance from the county jail. We called it the Rock\nchurch because it was constructed largely of granite blocks. Its\nmembers were considered good enough people in their way, but they were\nhardly among the socially elect, for many of them lived south of the\nPost Office among the Catholics and the Lutherans, and in some circles\nit was suspected that they held, at times, intercourse with the Devil.\nNevertheless, they were Methodists and Christians and first-class\npoliticians, and by this time they have probably assumed control of the\ntown.\n\nAll of the Protestant congregations of Farmington chipped in to pay\nthe $600 demanded by Brother McConnell for his week\u2019s work for the\nLord. This was a goodly fee, but it was not considered exorbitant,\nas Brother McConnell was a professional devil-chaser with a national\nreputation, and it was felt that he, if anyone, could put Farmington on\nthe right side of the heavenly ledger. There was considerable rivalry\namong our good people as to who should entertain the evangelist and pay\nfor his fried chicken and other delicacies, and I do not recall who\nfinally drew the plum. But the family whose bed and board he graced\nwas considered very fortunate; it had practically assured itself of\nultimate salvation, since the emissaries of the Devil would not dare to\ninvade such a sanctuary of God.\n\nBrother McConnell was an extraordinarily agile man. Throughout his\nservice, and particularly after the collection had been taken up and\nfound to be good, he bounded back and forth about the pulpit, chasing\nthe Devil hither and yon, shaking his hair from his eyes, sweating at\nevery pore and roaring charges about dens of evil that I, for one, was\nnever able to find in Farmington, although I headed several exploring\nparties. He dealt largely in that sort of goods; to him, and to most of\nthe other preachers that I recall, morality and goodness were nothing\nbut chastity, and they never let an opportunity pass to insinuate that\nthe finest men in our town whiled away their idle hours with scarlet\nwomen. Their insinuations, of course, had no basis in fact; to my\nknowledge there was but one professional scarlet woman in town, and\nthere simply was not time. However, there were, to be sure, amateurs.\n\nThe church was crowded on the night I was told that Jesus had taken\npossession of my soul. I sat about the middle of the center section\nwith my elder brother, a phlegmatic boy who was also converted but\nwho would never talk much about it, while across the aisle were my\nsister and my younger brother. Every few moments the evangelist would\nstop shouting and sink back into his chair, gasping, wiping his brow\nand breaking into sobs as he bowed his head in a prayer that came in\na throaty mumble from his lips. Here and there throughout the house\nwas an echoing gasp and a strangled sob, utterances of tortured and\nfrightened souls about to be swirled into a great wave of religious\nfrenzy. And standing in the aisle and about the pulpit were Brothers\nand Sisters, experienced revival workers, eager retrievers for the\nLord, their faces flushed with emotion and their eagle eyes roving the\ncongregation in quest of just such persons.\n\nThe instant the evangelist sat down, his band leader popped up like\na trained seal, and from the band and the augmented choir poured the\nlilting measures of a hymn.\n\n  Oh, that will be\n  Glory for me!\n  Glory for me,\n  Yes, glory for me!\n    When by His grace\n    I shall look on His face,\n  That will be glory,\n  Yes, glory for me!\n\nThe first hymn was usually something of this sort, a tune with a swing\nto it, to get the congregation swaying in rhythm, and to attract the\nuncertain sinners lounging about the door and looking in, unable to\ndecide whether or not to enter. Usually they came in after hearing\n\u201cGlory\u201d and a song or two like \u201cBringing in the Sheaves\u201d and \u201cJesus,\nLover of My Soul.\u201d Later the choir swung into the doleful songs like\n\u201cRock of Ages\u201d and \u201cNearer, My God, to Thee.\u201d The emotional appeal\nwas terrific; after the first hymn or two the audience joined,\nbellowing the words with fanatical fervor. Murmurs began to arise as\nthe evangelist alternately talked and prayed, and then suddenly the\nmusic stopped, the preacher shut off his talk and for an instant there\nwas a silence. It was theatrical hokum, but effective as always. Then\nBrother McConnell leaped and lunged to the front of the pulpit, his\neyes glaring and his hair streaming down before his eyes. He flung his\narms wide.\n\n\u201cCome to Jesus!\u201d he shouted. \u201cBrothers! Sisters! Come to Jesus!\u201d\n\nHe stood there trembling, imploring the sinners to abandon their\nhellish lives, and the choir boomed into song:\n\n  Lives there a friend like the lowly Jesus?\n  No, not one!\n  No, not one!\n\nAll over the church now there were cries of ecstatic agony as the\nvictims writhed in emotional torture, and after a little while people\nbegan jumping to their feet and shouting:\n\n\u201cGlory! Glory to God! Hallelujah!\u201d\n\nThe noise was deafening. People were shouting in every part of the\naudience, they were weeping and moaning. One old woman jumped to her\nfeet, climbed onto her seat and began to yell:\n\n\u201cI see Jesus! I see Jesus! I see Jesus!\u201d\n\nShe repeated it over and over again, \u201cI see Jesus!\u201d and finally she\ncollapsed into her seat, mumbling and weeping. The evangelist took up\nthe cry. He roared back and forth across the pulpit, shaking his hands\nabove his head, calling on God to damn the sinners. His whole body\nquivered and he screamed at the top of his voice:\n\n\u201cJesus is in this house! Come to Jesus! Give your heart to God!\u201d\n\nAnd above the roar of his voice and the rumble of the seething\ncongregation rose the music. It ebbed and flowed, it beat against the\nrafters and rebounded from the floor, always that regular beat of a\nhymn, like tom-toms in the jungles of Hayti. Many of the choir members\nsang hysterically, their voices rising on the high notes into veritable\nshrieks, but there was no change in the steady thunder of the organ or\nthe wail of the violin, and there was no escaping the emotional effect\nof the song:\n\n  \u201cBringing in the sheaves,\n  Bringing in the sheaves,\n  We shall come rejoicing,\n  Bringing in the sheaves.\u201d\n\nThen there was testimony. Old skinflints who had devoted their lives\nto cheating their neighbors, old women whose gossiping and backbiting\nwere the talk of the town, hopped into the aisles and told how, at\nsome previous meeting, God had entered their hearts and made them pure\nand holy. Their voices rose to shrieks; they grew red in the face from\nthe fervor of their shouts, and one old man who had only that day\ncheated half a dozen men in a real-estate deal stood in the aisle with\nhis hands raised toward Heaven and wept bitterly over the sins of the\nworld. Tears streamed down their faces, and many who had only a few\nhours before dumped sand in the sugar groaned loudly in sympathetic\ntorment, and shouted \u201cAmen, Brother! Amen!\u201d\n\nBy this time Brother McConnell\u2019s collar hung limp about his neck, but\nhis passion for the Lord was unchecked. He stopped the testimony when\nit appeared that everybody in the church wanted to say something; there\nwas another hymn and he began calling for converts. He shouted that we\nwere all wicked sinners and must come to Jesus.\n\n\u201cAll who want to go to Heaven stand up!\u201d\n\nNaturally, everybody stood up. He told them to sit down; they obeyed,\nfor he held them in the hollow of his hand.\n\n\u201cAll Christians stand up!\u201d\n\nEverybody stood up except my sister, and as I think things over after\nthe lapse of years I know that was what first caused me to suspect that\nshe was, and is, a remarkably intelligent woman. She said afterward\nthat she resented Brother McConnell\u2019s holier-than-thou attitude, and\nthought he was an old windbag. She could not swallow his repeated\nassertion that he was a representative of God, and that the Lord\nhad sent him to gather Farmington into the fold. She had, better\nthan anyone else there, control over her emotions; she could not be\nstampeded. But for several years thereafter she was the target of a\ngreat deal of missionary zeal; even the Catholics tried their hands\nwith her after it had become obvious that she would not subscribe to\nthe beliefs of the Methodists, but all of it was unsuccessful. They\ncould not feaze her even when they pointed her out as \u201cthat Asbury girl\nwho wouldn\u2019t say she was a Christian.\u201d\n\nHalf the men and women in the church were sobbing while the band\nplayed, the choir sang its dismal tunes and Brother McConnell swayed\nback and forth in the pulpit and pleaded with them to get right with\nGod and confess their sins.\n\n\u201cOh, Brothers, come to Jesus!\u201d he cried. \u201cLet God enter your heart this\nnight! Give your heart to Jesus!\u201d\n\nAt the beginning of the moaning and groaning the Brothers and Sisters\nwho were to act as procurers for the Lord scattered over the church,\nand as the services went on they picked out the ones who seemed to be\nmost upset emotionally and therefore ripest for glory. They hung over\nthese poor creatures, sniveling down their necks, exulting in their\nmisery, exhorting them to march down the aisle and see God. These\nBrothers and Sisters, of course, had been converted many years before\nand were O.K. with the Lord.\n\n\u201cOh, Brother!\u201d they pleaded. \u201cCome to glory! Give your heart to Jesus!\nJesus died that you might be saved! He died on the cross for you!\nBrother, come to Jesus!\u201d\n\nAnd so on _ad nauseam_, with their continual repetition of Jesus and\nglory, glory and Jesus. There was no attempt at sensible argument, no\neffort to show the prospective converts that the Christian religion was\nbetter than the Mohammedan religion or the religion of Zoroaster; there\nwas nothing but a continual hammering at emotional weaknesses. And\nfinally the bewildered brains of the victims sagged under the strain\nand they stumbled into the aisles and were hauled and shoved and pushed\ndown to the mourners\u2019 bench, and presumably into the presence of God as\nembodied in His earthly representative, Brother Lincoln McConnell.\n\n\n3\n\nI was fair game for them. There was hardly anybody in the church who\ndid not know how emotional and how excitable I was, and how music\naffected me. Why, I used to be thrilled over the way I myself played\nthe violin, and have been known to hang entranced over a tune of my\nown composition! Even before the services began I saw that many of the\nBrothers and Sisters had spotted me and were only waiting the proper\nmoment to pounce upon me, and when the call for converts came as many\nof them as could get near me pleaded and begged and cajoled; they\nscrambled and almost fought in their eagerness to ensnare such a prime\nmorsel for the Lord. They could have worked no more furiously if God\nhad been keeping the score. They screeched at me that now was the time\nto see Jesus, that God was waiting impatiently for me to be converted.\n\nSome of them even threatened. They painted horrible pictures of Hell;\nthey told me that unless I went down the aisle and confessed my\nsins and asked God to forgive me I would sizzle and burn and scorch\nforevermore. One old woman, her face working with fanatical fury,\nscreamed at me that I was holding up the salvation of my whole family;\nthat my father and my mother and my sisters and brothers would not\ngo to Heaven unless I professed religion; she shouted that Satan was\nwaiting outside the church to lead me into the depths of Hell and light\na fire under my immortal soul. The whole crew pushed and tugged and\nhauled at me; one Brother got hold of my arm and tried to drag me into\nthe aisle, yelling \u201cCome to Jesus! Jesus is calling for you!\u201d\n\nAnd up on the platform Brother McConnell was rampaging to and fro,\nworking himself into a frenzy, shouting that \u201cJesus wants you!\u201d and\nabove the roar of the Christian workers and the moans of the victims\nrose the wailing whine of a violin played off key, the thunder of the\norgan and the emotion-filled voices of the choir.\n\n  \u201cRock of Ages, cleft for me,\n  Let me hide myself in thee!\u201d\n\nBy this time I was crying; I did not want to go to Hell, and I was\nhorribly afraid of the Devil, and I was not old enough to realize what\nwas being done to me. Yet something kept telling me that I should not\ndo this thing; that it was all a mockery and a fraud. I know now, and\nI knew soon after that night, that the music was what was the matter\nwith me, not religion. I did not see Jesus, and I never have. It was\nthat slow music; that doleful, wailing chant of the hymns. I couldn\u2019t\nwithstand it. I never could. In the army I used to go to all of the\nfunerals because I got such a terrific kick out of the funeral march\nand the sliding tramp of troops marching at half-step.\n\nBut I was doomed. It was in the cards that my self-respect was to be\nstripped from me and that I was to be emotionally butchered to make a\nreligious holiday. They dragged and hauled at me until I was in the\naisle, and then they got behind me and urged me forward. One old\nwoman leaped ahead of us and performed a war dance that would have\ndone credit to a frenzied worshiper of Voodoo. And as she pranced and\ncavorted she screamed:\n\n\u201cA bad boy is coming to Jesus!\u201d\n\nOthers were going down too, shepherded by the hard-working Brothers\nand Sisters, and as they reached the bench Brother McConnell reached\nforward and grabbed their hands. For each one he shouted \u201cPraise the\nLord! Another sinner come to Jesus!\u201d and then he gave the sinner\nan expert shove that catapulted him into the hands of a waiting\nBrother who immediately knelt with him and prayed. The team work was\nmagnificent. I tried to hang back, but the band began playing again.\nThe thunderous cadences of \u201cNearer, My God, to Thee,\u201d pealed from the\norgan, and I couldn\u2019t stand it. I was being torn to pieces emotionally,\nand I staggered and stumbled down the aisle, sobbing, hardly able to\nstand. They thought it was religion, and the Brothers and Sisters who\nwere pushing and shoving me shouted ecstatically that God had me;\nit was obvious that I was suffering, and suffering has always been\naccepted as a true sign of holiness.\n\nBut it was not God and it was not religion. It was the music. Behind\nme came my brother, sedately, as he always did things. He went calmly\nto join the godly; for him there was no pushing and no pulling; when\nhe saw me being dragged into the aisle he simply got to his feet\nand followed. I have always suspected that he went along merely to\ntake care of me; frequently he did that. He was continually fighting\nmy battles, and if he did not like the nicknames that the other\nboys fastened onto me, he protested so fiercely that the name was\ntransferred to his shoulders. They tried to call me \u201cCat\u201d for some\nobscure reason when I was a boy, and my brother did not like it; and to\nthis day he is \u201cCat\u201d Asbury in Farmington.\n\nBrother McConnell grabbed my hand and shook it clammily when I reached\nthe mourners\u2019 bench, and I was shoved into a seat. Immediately a\nBrother plopped down beside me, an old man whom I had known all\nmy life, and who I knew perfectly well was an old skinflint and a\nhypocrite, a Sunday Christian. He put his arm around my shoulders and\nbegan to pray, crying down my neck and shouting that another soul\nhad been saved, calling on the Lord to witness the good work that he\nwas doing. I half expected him to say: \u201cGive me credit, God; give me\ncredit!\u201d And all the time I was wishing to God that the band would stop\nplaying; my nerves were being shattered by the constant and steady beat\nof the hymns, and the penetrating wail of the violin and the thunder of\nthe organ.\n\nAnd at last it did stop. There was silence in the church, except that\nhere and there someone was writhing and moaning. But the shouting had\nceased. Brother McConnell had his benches full, all of his workers had\neach a convert to work upon, and he decided to call it a day and save\nwhatever sinners remained in the congregation for another night. So\nprinted cards were passed around, which we were to sign, indicating the\nchurch we would join. Then the evangelist said for all of us who had\nbeen baptized to sit down. My brother and I sat down.\n\nWith no music to upset me I began to think, and the more I thought, the\nangrier I got. I was ashamed; I boiled with fury and I wanted to smash\nthe Brothers and Sisters in their smug faces. But I was just a boy and\nI was afraid. It was at this point that my younger brother came down\nthe aisle and tapped me on the shoulder.\n\n\u201cHey!\u201d he said. \u201cMary said to stand up; you haven\u2019t been baptized!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou tell her,\u201d I said, \u201cto go to hell!\u201d\n\nLuckily none of the Brothers and Sisters heard me, so I escaped special\nprayers. I signed my card, agreeing to become a member of the Southern\nMethodist church, and soon afterward I was released. My sister and my\ntwo brothers went home, but I sneaked away and went down to the Post\nOffice, where I found another boy whose influence with a bartender was\nsufficient to get us a drink. I went with him to a saloon not far from\nthe old Grand Leader building, and there I had my first drink, a gin\nrickey, and when the bartender would not sell me another I gave a Negro\ncart-driver a half-dollar and he bought me a bottle of squirrel whisky\nwhich I consumed in the vacant lot behind the Odd Fellows\u2019 Hall. I got\ngloriously drunk, and about three o\u2019clock in the morning I staggered\nhome and up the stairs to the room which I shared with my brother. I\nawakened him, trying to undress, and he asked:\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you?\u201d\n\n\u201cHell\u2019s fire, Emmett!\u201d I replied. \u201cI\u2019ve got religion.\u201d\n\nI went to the preacher\u2019s house the next day so Brother Jenkins could\nsprinkle holy water upon my head and mumble a prayer, and later, having\nthus been baptized, I joined the church, but I joined with my tongue\nin my cheek and a sneer in my heart. I have never seen anything in any\nchurch since that would impel me to remove either my tongue or the\nsneer. And when I admitted publicly that I had been converted and was\nnow a good and faithful servant of the Methodist God, I said to myself:\n\u201cOver the left.\u201d That was our way of saying: \u201cI am like hell!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON A SAINTED RELATIVE\n\n\n1\n\nI went downtown the next morning after I had become a certified one\nhundred per cent. convert, and was met by swarms of Brothers and\nSisters who overwhelmed me with congratulations, and regaled me\nwith tales of their own experiences when they saw God, and of the\ntemptations that the Devil would now prepare for me. It seemed that I\nwas not yet safe; I had, so far as they knew, accepted God and was one\nof His chosen children, although not a Jew, but He would still permit\nSatan to have his way with me upon occasion. I was instructed to walk\nhumbly and with downcast eyes, not daring to look up lest I be led into\nsin. The Brothers, gloating the while, seemed especially anxious that\nthe handsome young virgins of the town should not induce me to tread\nthe scarlet paths of wickedness; the Sisters were more concerned with\nthe Drink Demon, and the evils of playing cards and dancing. One Sister\nstopped me in front of Morris Brothers\u2019 store and, beating time with\nher hand, lifted her voice in song:\n\n  \u201cYield not to temptation,\n  For yielding is sin.\u201d\n\nAnd so on.\n\nNearly all of them seemed to be obsessed by the conviction that at last\nI had done something to justify my ancestry; that Bishop Asbury had\nlooked down from the Heavenly Mansions upon Brother McConnell\u2019s revival\nmeeting and had approved the manner in which my conversion had been\nbrought about.\n\n\u201cThe Bishop is proud of you to-day, Herbie,\u201d said one devout Brother\nwho sold shoddy clothing at high prices. \u201cLast night was a great night\nfor God and the Bishop.\u201d\n\nI did not ask him how he knew that Bishop Asbury was proud of me, nor\ndid I inquire into the source of his information that the conversion,\nby force, of a fourteen-year-old boy was a great thing for God. I\nmerely said: \u201cYes, sir,\u201d and went my way. But it went on day after day;\neverybody in town, it seemed, had a word to say about the pride that\nnow swelled the heart of the Bishop as he went about among the virgins\nof Heaven and lolled on a cloud strumming his golden harp and producing\nplatinum and diamond music. I got very tired of it, and finally, to one\nold Sister who had apparently thought of nothing else for a week, I\nsaid:\n\n\u201cOh, to hell with the Bishop!\u201d\n\nWhat blasphemy! She gasped and hurried away, and long before I reached\nhome she had telephoned and told my mother that I had blasphemed and\ncried out against God. Naturally, my mother was worried; she thought\nfrom the tale told to her that I had gone up and down the streets of\nthe town shouting defiance of God and yelling open praise of the Devil\nand all his works. But I told her the whole story, and she listened\nwithout comment, and when I had finished all she said was this:\n\n\u201cWell, don\u2019t say \u2018hell\u2019 to them.\u201d\n\nI think that was the last I ever heard from my mother about religion,\nand from my father I heard even less. Once my mother asked me to\nread the Bible, and although of course I had already done so, I read\nit again. I read it twice, from the first absurdity of Genesis to\nthe final fairy tale of Revelation. But I found nothing in it that\ncaused me to believe that it was an inspired work, and nothing that\nproved, to me, the correctness of the pretensions so freely made by\nthe Sisters and Brothers and the Preachers that they, and they alone,\nwere the representatives and accredited agents of Jesus Christ on\nearth. And the sermons that I heard thereafter--the Preachers selected\nsingle verses from the Bible and constructed elaborate harangues\naround them--struck me more forcibly than ever as the trashiest sort\nof poppycock and balderdash. I was no longer afraid of the Hell that\nthey pictured with such avidity, and I no longer thrilled to their\ntales of the magnificence of Heaven, although of course to a growing\nboy the presence of so many virgin angels, all apparently willing and\navailable, was interesting. But none of them preached the religion of\nChrist; they preached hatred and revenge. They held out slight hope\nof reward; instead they were prophets of torture, promising eternal\npunishment for petty crimes.\n\n\n2\n\nIt was about this time, also, that I began to investigate the glories\nof Bishop Asbury, and to make such inquiries as I could into his\nsaintly virtues. We had in our library the Bishop\u2019s Journals in three\nvolumes, and we had also two or three volumes of biography, all of\nwhich I read. In later years I have read many others. Probably twenty\nor thirty books, in one form or another, have been written about Bishop\nAsbury, and I think that I have gone pretty thoroughly into most of\nthem. But most of them are senseless if not downright idiotic; they\nwere written by preachers and published by the Methodist Church, and\nthe whole slant is religious. They are based on the assumption that a\nPreacher and a Bishop must of necessity be a holy man, and that all the\nlittle idiosyncrasies and faults that give a clue to the real character\nof the man, are but manifestations of the fight between God and Satan.\n\nFrom an ecclesiastical point of view there can be no question of Bishop\nAsbury\u2019s greatness, for there have been few men who have left a more\ndefinite imprint on American religious culture. There were fewer than\n500 Methodists in America when he came here in 1771; when he died there\nwere 214,000, with good churches and great influence. He had completed\nthe church organization according to his own ideas, ignoring to a\nlarge extent the plans of John Wesley as set forth by Thomas Rankin\nand Thomas Coke, and he had assumed as much power as a Pope of Rome.\nAs a religious organizer he has had few equals, and it is a great pity\nthat he did so much unnecessary organizing, and that his amazing genius\nshould have flowered in such a futile and preposterous creation as\nthe present-day Methodist Church; a great pity that he could not have\ndeveloped a more flexible creed, one that would have grown as the world\ngrew, instead of standing stock-still and viewing the universe with\nintolerant suspicion, with constant bickerings about the wishes of God\nand yelping appeals to the Almighty to damn somebody.\n\nBut statistically Bishop Asbury is even greater. He preached his first\nsermon in America at Philadelphia on the day he set foot on this\ncontinent, in October, 1771, and delivered his final pronouncement\nagainst sin on his deathbed, when, propped upon his pillows, he\nexpounded the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. In these forty-five\nyears he preached some 17,000 sermons, and probably 20,000 in his whole\nlife, for he began preaching when he was about fifteen or sixteen, some\nthree years after his conversion. The number of words that he uttered\nfor the Lord is simply incalculable; there is no telling how far they\nwould reach if they could be laid end to end.\n\nIn their methods of preaching and in their intolerance the preachers\nof my boyhood, of other sects as well as Methodists, were devout and\nfaithful followers of Bishop Asbury. The bellowing evangelist of the\nBilly Sunday and Lincoln McConnell type is his lineal ecclesiastical\ndescendant. He preached always at the top of his voice, for he had\ngreat faith in exhortation, and to him the good sermon was the noisy\nsermon; even to-day the Preacher who rants and raves is the one who is\nregarded by his flock as nearest to God. When Bishop Asbury was not\npreaching he was praying; he rose every morning at four o\u2019clock and\nprayed and read the Bible until six, when he breakfasted and set forth\non his travels. He would not sleep more than six hours a night because\nWesley had decided that six hours was enough. One day a week he fasted,\nand part of another day, punishing his flesh for the greater glory of\nthe Lord.\n\nThis love of self-inflicted punishment affected his whole life. As\na boy he was moody and sensitive; he appears to have been of the\ntype that complains constantly that he is being \u201cpicked on.\u201d He was\nintrospective, finding his greatest joy in self-pity, and he was never\nhappy, as we used to say in Missouri, unless he was miserable. His\nplaymates in the little English school near Birmingham called him\n\u201cparson\u201d because of his pious lugubriousness, and when the teacher beat\nhim or something happened to cross him he sought solace in prayer.\n\nReferences to his numerous physical ailments begin to appear in Bishop\nAsbury\u2019s Journals about 1772, when he was in his late twenties. He\nhad never been strong physically, and never after he came to America\nwas he in good health. He was apparently a hypochondriac, with all\nthe hypochondriac\u2019s morbid delight in recounting his symptoms; many\npages of his Journals are filled with them. He took enormous doses of\nmedicine, performed slight surgical operations upon himself, and raised\ngreat blisters on the slightest provocation, frequently blistering his\nwhole body from throat to abdomen. Once he preached a whole afternoon\nwith so many blisters that he was not able either to stand or sit,\nfor he had blistered not only the soles of his feet but less refined\nportions of his anatomy also; he had to be propped up in the pulpit,\nwhere he raved and ranted for hour after hour, saving many sinners. He\ntook no care of himself whatever, riding horseback through snowstorms\nand rainstorms with biting pains in his chest, and with his stomach and\nthroat filled with ulcers, feverish from pain and religion.\n\nAll of these things he notes in his Journals with great gusto, and\ngives long lists of the medicines he took and the measures he employed\nto combat his sickness. Tartar emetic was his favorite remedy, and\nof this he swallowed enormous quantities. For an ulcerated throat he\nused a gargle of \u201csage tea, honey, vinegar and mustard, and after\nthat another gargle of sage, tea, alum, rose leaves and loaf sugar to\nstrengthen the parts.\u201d Another favorite remedy was a diet, as he called\nit, made from this remarkable formula: \u201cone quart of hard cider, one\nhundred nails, a handful of snake root, a handful of pennell seed, a\nhandful of wormwood.\u201d He boiled this concoction from a quart to a pint,\nand drank a wineglass of it each morning before breakfast for ten days,\nmeanwhile using no butter, milk or meat. He notes in his Journal that\n\u201cit will make the stomach very sick.\u201d It will. I brewed the drink once,\nand I had as soon drink dynamite; bootleg gin is nectar by comparison.\n\nThere can be little doubt that Bishop Asbury\u2019s physical condition had\na great deal to do with his extraordinary piety, for it is true that\nmost of the religious leaders have had many things wrong with their\nbodies, and that the sicker a man is, the more religious he is likely\nto be. A man who is healthy and normal mentally and physically seldom\nbecomes fanatically religious. True, healthy men sometimes become monks\nand preachers, but except in rare instances such men are comparatively\nmoderate in their views. And generally they do themselves very well in\na material way, especially if they become monks.\n\nIt was once my journalistic duty to make a daily visit to a Franciscan\nmonastery in Quincy, Illinois, and the good brothers remain a high\nlight in a somewhat drab period. Jovial and pot-bellied, they were\nveritable Friar Tucks in brown bathrobes, extraordinarily hearty\neaters and drinkers, and not even at pre-Volstead banquets have I ever\nreceived as much free food and drink as from the good Franciscans. It\nwas easy to see why such men as these went in for religion, but it is\nnot so easy to understand the motive of the Protestant minister. The\nearthly rewards are nothing to speak of, and what with evolution and\none thing and another, he can no longer be certain that there is a\nHeaven to go to.\n\nThe Franciscans were fascinating spectacles as they padded on their\nsandaled feet through the gardens of the monastery and along the\ngraveled paths that led to the church next door. I became particularly\nfond of Brother John--I think they called him Brother John, anyhow I\ndid--who might have stepped from the pages of Boccaccio. He was the\npress representative of the monastery; he always answered my ring,\nand through the bars of the door I could see him, waddling genially\ndown the corridor, puffing and rattling his keys. It always seemed\nto me that Brother John was miscast; doubtless he lived a happy and\ncarefree life, though perhaps overly cluttered with prayer, but I\nthought it a great pity that he could not have been an alderman. And\nwhat a bartender he would have made! His paunch would have elected him\na City Father, and his fund of stories would have got him a job in any\nfirst-class barroom. But possibly he has reformed and is now leading\nsome such useful life.\n\nBrother John made but one effort to convert me and induce me to join\nthe Catholic Church, and when I said \u201cBunk!\u201d he stopped immediately and\nsaid that inasmuch as I would undoubtedly go to Hell he would still\ntake advantage of my reportorial capacity to get a little publicity\nfor the Church before that unfortunate event occurred. But there was\nno tolerance in the attitude of my reverend relative, the Bishop. His\noutstanding characteristic was intolerance; it shows in a hundred\ndifferent acts of his career; he was arbitrary and domineering. Anyone\nwho was well dressed or who bore any outward signs of prosperity\nwas offensive in his sight; he preached the gospel of poverty and\nself-denial, and believed that all pleasure was wicked and that\nself-inflicted suffering was heavenly bliss. He was imperious and\nscornful of restraint and opposition; what he said was true he thought\nwas true, and that was all there was to it. When men differed with him\nthey were wrong, and he had no disposition to reopen any question which\nhe had once settled in his mind. He believed that he was appointed by\nGod to rule the Methodists in America, and that he was a legitimate\nsuccessor of the Apostles. In 1801 he wrote:\n\n\u201cI will tell the world what I rest my authority on; first, divine\nauthority; second, seniority in America; third, the election of the\nGeneral Conference; fourth, my ordination by Thomas Coke, Philip\nWilliam Otterbein, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey; fifth, because\nthe signs of an Apostle have been seen in me.\u201d\n\nDivine authority and the signs of an Apostle!\n\nYet his steadfast belief that he was so appointed was one of the\nsecrets of his power and influence, which were greater than that of any\nother churchman of his time. We are even yet feeling their effects,\nand we shall continue to feel them. There seems to be no hope, what\nwith Boards of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals and similar\nintolerant activities, that the Methodist Church will ever become more\nworthy of respect than it was in his day. Indeed, it grows worse and\nworse.\n\nAnother prime factor in Bishop Asbury\u2019s extraordinary piety, as can be\nseen by the entries in his Journals and by a study of the biographies\nwritten by other clergymen, was his terrific mental turmoil. Throughout\nhis whole life his mind whirled like a pinwheel; he was constantly\nin what, back in Missouri, we used to call a \u201cterrible state.\u201d About\nthe time he began to be ill he started referring to himself as \u201cPoor\nFrancis,\u201d and thereafter that was the dominant note of his life. He\npitied himself because of his physical ills, and then dosed himself\nwith horrid medicines, and with bleedings and blisterings, making\nhis ailments more painful and himself an object of greater pity. He\ntortured himself thus physically, and flogged his mind with constant\nthoughts of his unworthiness; he was continually groveling before God,\nbeseeching the Almighty to put temptation in his path. These extracts\ntaken at random from his Journals show the trend of his thought:\n\n\u201cI do not sufficiently love God nor live by faith.\n\n\u201cI must lament that I am not perfectly crucified with God.\n\n\u201cI feel some conviction for sleeping too long.\n\n\u201cMy heart is grieved and groaneth for want of more holiness.\n\n\u201cUnguarded and trivial conversation has brought a degree of spiritual\ndeadness.\n\n\u201cMy conscience reproves me for the appearance of levity.\n\n\u201cA cloud rested on my mind, which was occasioned by talking and\njesting. I also feel at times tempted to impatience and pride of heart.\n\n\u201cMy heart is still depressed for want of more religion.\n\n\u201cWere I to stand on my own merit, where should I go but to hell?\n\n\u201cHere I received a bitter pill from one of my greatest friends\n[referring to his last letter from John Wesley]. Praise the Lord for my\ntrials also! May they be sanctified.\u201d\n\nBishop Asbury preached the same doctrine of personal conversion and\nsanctification that is preached by present-day Methodist ministers, and\nhe sought this blissful state for himself with frenzied zealousness.\nAt times he thought he had entered into what he called the full\nfruition of a life with God; at other times he fancied himself given\nup to Satan. The older he grew, the gloomier and more introspective\nhe became, and like most of the other great religionists he had a\npronounced streak of melancholia. He had alternating periods of\nexaltation and depression; he was either soaring the heights of\nreligious ecstasy or floundering in the depths of sin and despair. He\ndid not seem able to find any middle ground in which he could obtain a\nmeasure of peace and contentment; occasionally in his Journals he noted\nthat he was happy in God and at peace, but the next entry showed him\ngroaning in great vexation of spirit, crying out a doubt of the value\nof his religious life. He yearned for a constant religious thrill, and\nmourned because he could not satisfy his yearning.\n\n\n\n\nDIVERSIONS OF AN ABANDONED SINNER\n\n\n1\n\nAlmost immediately after my conversion, or at least as soon as it\nhad become noised about that I had consigned my holy relative to\nwhat some of our more finicky Sisters, unable to bring themselves to\nsay \u201cHell,\u201d referred to coyly as \u201cthe bad place,\u201d I abandoned myself\nto a life of sin and became a total spiritual loss in the eyes of\nall Farmington except members of my immediate family and certain of\nmy intimate friends who collaborated with me in various wicked but\npleasant enterprises. That is to say, I cast aside the taboos and the\ninhibitions that religion had thrown about me, and became for the\nfirst time in my life a normal boy. I existed simply to play and raise\nhell generally, and for some curious reason the activity which gave me\nthe most pleasure was throwing rocks at the church or in some manner\ninterrupting the service.\n\nIt was not long before even the most hopeful had ceased their talk\nof sending me to a theological school and fitting me to carry on\nthe family labors, for I began to smoke cigarettes, play cards,\nswear, drink when I could find a bartender willing to ignore the law\nforbidding the sale of liquor to a minor, and to cock an appreciative\nand appraising eye at the girls. It was then agreed that it was too\nlate to do anything with me or for me, and on the Sunday morning that\nI mounted my new bicycle and rode brazenly past the Southern Methodist\nchurch as the Brothers and Sisters filed with bowed heads into the\nedifice for worship, I was consigned body and soul to the sizzling pits\nof Hell.\n\nI suffered a great deal of physical agony before I learned to smoke\ncigarettes, and it was some time before I learned to blow smoke through\nmy nose with the nonchalant ease affected by the group of older boys\nand young men who loafed in Doss\u2019s barber shop and around the Post\nOffice Building and McKinney\u2019s peanut and popcorn machine. My older\nbrother had learned a year or so before, and he frequently made himself\nvery offensive to me by boasting that he could smoke a whole package of\nSweet Caporals or Drums without becoming ill. I yearned to try, but he\nwould not give me a cigarette, and neither would any of the other boys,\nand my finances were in such shape that I could not purchase any. And,\nof course, such wicked things could not be purchased and charged to my\nfather; I could have charged a plug of chewing tobacco to him, but not\ncigarettes.\n\nBut one day I was loafing hopefully in McKinney\u2019s when my brother came\nin and produced a dime that he had amassed by laborious work chopping\nwood at home, and bought a package of Sweet Caporal Little Cigars.\nThese were really nothing but cigarettes wrapped with tobacco instead\nof paper, but they resembled a cigar and were thought to be infinitely\nmore stylish and manly than the ordinary cigarette. I asked him for\none, and he said he would not give one to John the Baptist himself. But\nI persisted, and followed him home, aghast at his determination to hide\nbehind the barn and smoke the whole package one after the other.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll light one from the end of the other,\u201d he boasted.\n\nFinally as we came opposite Brother Nixon\u2019s house just south of Elmwood\nSeminary, he relented and very carefully opened the box and handed me\na Little Cigar. It was a great moment. The yard of Elmwood Seminary\nfairly swarmed with girl students, including the young lady who at the\ntime represented everything that was desirable in the female sex, and\nI visioned their cries of startled admiration as I passed, puffing\nnonchalantly, blowing smoke from my nose and perhaps from my ears.\n\nI had no doubt of my ability to handle the innocent-looking Little\nCigar; indeed, at that time I considered no problem insurmountable.\nMy brother instructed me to fill my mouth with smoke and then take a\nlong, deep breath, and after that blow the smoke out gently and slowly,\nholding the Little Cigar between the first and second finger and\ncrooking the little finger as we did when we drank tea or coffee, that\nbeing a mark of gentility and refinement. As we came in front of the\nold Clardy homestead less than half a block from the Seminary I struck\na match and applied it to the end of the Little Cigar, while my brother\nwatched anxiously and from time to time gave me advice. I puffed as he\ndirected.\n\n\u201cGot a mouthful?\u201d he asked.\n\nUnable to speak, my cheeks bulging, I nodded.\n\n\u201cNow take a long breath.\u201d\n\nBut, alas, I did not breathe; I swallowed, and while the smoke\npenetrated me and spread throughout my interior, it did not take the\ncorrect route. I began to strangle, and my brother got excited.\n\n\u201cBlow it out, you damn fool!\u201d he cried. \u201cYou\u2019ll choke!\u201d\n\nI did choke. I did even worse; I became very ill, and the spectacle\nwhich so intrigued the young ladies of the Seminary that day was not\nthat of a young gentleman going nonchalantly to Hell by the cigarette\nroute. Instead, they saw a very sick boy rolling on the sidewalk trying\ndesperately to stem a distressing internal upheaval.\n\nIt was several days later before I had enough courage to try again,\nand I debated within myself whether or not God had caused me to be so\nill in order to show me that smoking was a sin. But I had definitely\ncommitted myself to the Devil, so a few days later I begged a dime\nfrom my father and bought a package of Drums and another of Sweet\nCaporals, the two most popular brands of cigarettes. With these, and\na supply of matches, I went behind the barn. I made a neat pile of\nsawdust to lie upon, and there I remained the whole afternoon, smoking\none cigarette after another. I was terribly ill at first, but gradually\nimproved until the last three or four gave me no trouble. I did not\nhave much appetite for dinner that night, but I had conquered the\ncigarette and I felt a glow of pride at the fact that I had got a very\ngood start in the direction of the bad place.\n\nThe basis of my overwhelming desire to smoke cigarettes was the fact\nthat cigarette-smoking when I was a boy in Farmington was one of the\nmajor sins. It ranked with adultery and just a little ahead of murder\nand theft. The Preachers called them coffin nails and delivered violent\nsermons against them, and every once in a while an evangelist would\ncome to town with medical charts showing the effect of tobacco upon\nthe interior human organs. But the fact that it was bad physically for\ngrowing boys was seldom stressed at all; we were impressed instead with\nthe fact that God thought it a sin to smoke cigarettes, although it did\nnot appear that it was a sin for the tobacconist to sell them. That was\nbusiness.\n\nMany efforts were made to reform me after I had begun to smoke. My\nmother said she had hoped I wouldn\u2019t, but that was all she said, and my\nfather said he did not give a hoot whether I smoked or not, but that he\nhoped I would not be a fool and overdo it. He himself had learned the\nart of chewing tobacco when he was a boy of seven in Mississippi, and\nso far as I have ever been able to learn, God had never called him to\naccount. He died at the age of seventy-nine, suddenly, and a slab of\nplug-cut was in his pocket. It is impossible for me to believe that God\nrefused him entrance into whatever Heaven there may be on account of\nhis habit, which he thoroughly enjoyed.\n\nBut the Preachers and the Brothers and Sisters did not agree with my\nparents, nor would they admit that it was none of their business. On\nthe contrary, they said that it was the Lord\u2019s business, and since they\nwere the duly accredited agents of the Lord, appointed by Him to lead\nFarmington into the paths of righteousness, it was their business also.\nWhen Brother Fontaine was our Methodist pastor he did not look with\ndisfavor upon chewing, because he himself was seldom without a chew and\npresumably had an indulgence from God, but he looked upon the cigarette\nas an invention of the Devil. In this view he was upheld by the\nLadies\u2019 Aid Society and the Farmington branch of the Women\u2019s Christian\nTemperance Union. And the W. C. T. U., with the possible exception of\nthe Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals, was\nand is the world\u2019s best example of an organization maintained for the\nsole purpose of minding other people\u2019s business.\n\nThe hullabaloo over my smoking only made me more determined to smoke\nuntil my insides turned black and I was called home by Satan and\ntransformed into a tobacco demon. For that reason I probably smoked too\nmuch. As a matter of principle I always lighted a cigarette just in\nfront of the Southern Methodist church, and in front of the home of my\nuncle, who was an enemy of anything that provided physical pleasure and\ncontentment. I always smoked another as I passed the Northern Methodist\nchurch, the scene of the McConnell revival orgy, and still another in\nfront of the Christian church, in memory of Brother Nations. That was\nfour in half a mile, and of course was too many, but sometimes I was\nnot permitted to finish all of them. Frequently a Brother or a Sister,\nseeing me thus flaunting my sin on the public highway, snatched the\nnasty thing from my mouth and gave me a lecture that dripped religion\nand was principally concerned with the fate of boys who defied God and\nJesus Christ by smoking cigarettes. One Sister asked me:\n\n\u201cWhere did you get the vile things?\u201d\n\nI told her that I had bought them at her husband\u2019s store, and she\nshrieked:\n\n\u201cYou saucy, blasphemous boy!\u201d\n\nBut on that particular occasion I was not lectured, although she\ntelephoned my mother that I had been impudent to her. My mother told\nher it was too bad.\n\n\n2\n\nI learned to play pinochle when I was about fifteen, only a few\nmonths after I had become an accomplished cigarette fiend and was\ngenerally considered a fine prospect for Satan, and thereafter was a\nregular participant in the game that went on every night in the back\nroom of Karl Schliesser\u2019s cigar factory. This was a notable den of\nevil, and while religion had me in its clutches I thought black magic\nwas practiced there, and that its habitu\u00e9s had communion with the\nDevil; among us it was believed that God had doubtless never heard\nof the place or He would have destroyed it with a withering blast of\nlightning. It was frequented by Germans and other low forms of life,\nand they were principally Catholics and Lutherans, with a sprinkling\nof renegade Protestants like myself. The Brothers and Sisters held the\nopinion that if this crowd had a God at all he must have been a very\nqueer being, for bursts of ribald laughter came from Schliesser\u2019s back\nroom, and there was card-playing, and I do not doubt that occasionally\nsomeone gambled.\n\nSchliesser was the Town Socialist, and was looked upon with grave\nsuspicion by the better element, as in those days it was generally\nrecognized that a Socialist was an emissary of the Devil. But the\nBrothers and Sisters and the Preachers looked with even more suspicion\nupon Victor Quesnel. In this attitude they had the support of the\nCatholics. Victor Quesnel was born in France, but he had lived in\nFarmington for many years. He frequently quoted Voltaire, and appeared\nto believe that a man\u2019s religion and his belief or disbelief in God was\na matter of his own personal taste, and he was therefore regarded as an\natheist. As a matter of fact he was probably more truly religious than\nmost of the pious Brothers and Sisters; the principal difference was\nthat he did not try to compel everyone he met to embrace his creed.\n\nFrequently, and without particular regard as to who heard him,\nQuesnel discussed the advantages of sleeping naked, or, as we say\nin present-day journalism, undraped. That was his hobby. He said he\nthought it was a healthful practice, that he slept better without\nclothing, and that come what might he was going to continue to sleep\nthat way. This was considered heathenish doctrine; some of our finest\nchurch members owned stores in which they sold nightgowns and pajamas,\nand it was felt that Quesnel\u2019s attitude was not only a direct affront\nto God but was also injurious to business. Moreover, the Brothers and\nSisters did not consider such a practice modest; there were scores,\nperhaps hundreds of people in Farmington who had never in their lives\nremoved all of their clothing. Once at a meeting of the Ladies\u2019 Aid\nSociety I heard an old Sister say that she had reached the age of sixty\nand had never been entirely undressed; and that when she bathed she\nkept her eyes closed as she applied the sponge to her body. A great\ndeal of juicy conversation could be overheard at these Ladies\u2019 Aid\nmeetings by a bright young lad who knew where the best keyholes were\nlocated.\n\n\n3\n\nSunday was much more enjoyable after I had become a sinner and had\nleft Sunday school and the Church to whatever fate the Lord had in\nstore for them. I arose a little later, had a leisurely breakfast and\na refreshing quarrel or fight with my brothers and sister, and then\nwent leisurely to my room and as leisurely put on my Sunday suit, with\nno intention of removing it until I retired for the night. Curiously\nenough, as soon as I quit going regularly to church and Sunday school I\nbegan to wear my Sunday suit all day, and the little voice that I had\nin the selection of this garment I raised in hopeful pleas for loud\nchecks and glaring colors. No longer did I wish to clothe myself in\nthe sombre blacks suitable for church wear and religious activity; I\ndesired to blossom and bloom in the more violent and pleasant colors of\nHell.\n\nOnce arrayed in my Sunday suit, I left the house, a cigarette dangling\nfrom my lower lip, and my hat, carefully telescoped in the prevailing\nmode, sitting just so on the side of my head. I tried to time my march\ndowntown so that I would reach Elmwood Seminary just as the young lady\nstudents resident there marched across the street, after Sunday school,\nfrom the Presbyterian church; they were not permitted to remain at\nthe church during the fifteen or twenty-minute interval because they\nattracted such hordes of feverish boys intent upon everything but\nreligion. Usually I reached the scene in time, and leaned nonchalantly\nagainst the Seminary fence, puffing vigorously and ostentatiously on a\ncigarette and winking at various and sundry of the girls as they passed\nin their caps and gowns.\n\nFor these smart-aleck activities I was presently placed upon the\nschool\u2019s black list and was not permitted to call upon the one night\neach month allotted to such social intercourse, but as I soon learned\nto climb a rope ladder this did not annoy me greatly. Anyhow, calling\nnight at Elmwood Seminary was not very exciting. The procedure was to\nplace a dozen or so chairs about a big room, in pairs but with at least\ntwelve inches between them, in which sat the girls and their callers.\nIn the center sat a gimlet-eyed teacher, constantly ready with\nBiblical and other uplifting quotations and seeing to it that nothing\nscandalous occurred. From eight to ten the caller was permitted to\nengage his lady love in conversation, but it was a rule that everything\nthat was said must be audible to the teacher on guard. Whisperings and\ngigglings were taboo, and resulted in the young man being placed on\nthe black list, and forbidden thereafter to darken the doors of the\ninstitution. But occasionally the teacher relaxed her vigilance for a\nmoment, providing an opportunity to arrange a clandestine meeting. That\nwas the principal reason that the boys of Farmington went to Elmwood on\ncalling nights.\n\nThe regular Sunday incident of the Seminary girls having been brought\nto a satisfactory and successful conclusion, I went on downtown. I was\nvery young then, and I considered myself, in my Sunday suit, a very\nstriking and elegant figure. I thought of myself as a parade, and felt\nmorally certain that the eyes of every girl were upon me, and that\ntheir hearts were fluttering with amatory admiration. The Methodist\nchurch was only two blocks south of the Presbyterian edifice, and I\ngenerally reached it as the Sunday-school pupils trooped out with their\narms full of lesson pamphlets and their souls full of salvation, Golden\nTexts and catechisms. I regarded them pityingly, puffed vaingloriously\nat my symbol of sin, and went on past the Christian church and the\nNorthern Methodist church and so to McKinney\u2019s, the Post Office\nBuilding and the fascinating popcorn and peanut machine.\n\nIn the winter time Doss\u2019s barber shop was generally open until noon so\nBilly Priester could shine the shoes of the young bucks who proposed to\ndefile the Sabbath by gallivanting around with young hussies. It was a\nfavorite loafing place for all abandoned wretches who did not care for\nthe glory that was free in all churches. But in summer we generally sat\nin front of McKinney\u2019s and the Post Office Building and, when finances\npermitted, ate popcorn and peanuts, envying Riley Hough as he hurried\nout now and then to attend to the machine and stuff his mouth with\npopcorn before hastening back into the store.\n\nAll of the young sinners of the town loafed there during the church\nservices, and at twelve o\u2019clock noon we rose in a body and walked\ndown the street to Pelty\u2019s Book Store, where the Sunday papers were\ndistributed. The afternoons were devoted to baseball games and amatory\npursuits, and occasionally we went fishing. But this was considered\na Cardinal Sin, and was frowned upon by even our liberal element;\nit was felt that it was a desecration of God\u2019s Day to drag one of\nHis creatures from the river with a cruel fishhook. On week days, of\ncourse, fishing was all right, although a waste of time, but on Sunday\nan expedition to Blumeyer\u2019s Ford, or to Gruner\u2019s Hole, was followed\nthe next morning by buzzing comment all over town, and only a grown man\ncould hope to indulge in such sinful adventures and escape subsequent\npunishment.\n\n\n4\n\nIt was the custom of our pastors and pious brethren, and of the\nprofessional sorcerers who were imported from time to time to cast\ntheir spells and shoo the demons away from our housetops, to proclaim\nloudly and incessantly that our collective morals were compounded of\na slice of Sodom and a cut of Gomorrah, with an extract of Babylon\nto flavor the sorry stew. They worried constantly and fretfully over\nour amorous activities; in their more feverish discourses appeared\nsignificant references to the great difficulty of remaining pure,\nand in effect they advised our young women to go armed to the teeth,\nprepared to do battle in defense of their virginity.\n\nIn Farmington and other small towns of the Middle West this sort of\nthing was the principal stock in trade of those who would lead their\nbrethren to the worship of the current god; the evangelist assured\nhis hearers that their town was overrun by harlots, and that brothels\nabounded in which prominent men abandoned themselves to shameful\norgies, while church attendance dwindled, and collections became\nsmaller and smaller, and chicken appeared less and less frequently upon\nthe ministerial table. His tirades were generally in this fashion:\n\n\u201cShall we permit these painted daughters of Jezebel, these bedizened\nhussies, to stalk the streets of this fair city and flaunt their sin\nin the face of the Lord? Shall we permit them to lure our sons and\nbrothers into their vile haunts and ply their nefarious trade in the\nvery shadow of the House of God? No! I say NO! Jesus Christ must live\nin this town!\u201d\n\nImmediately everyone shouted \u201cAmen, Brother!\u201d and \u201cPraise the Lord!\u201d\nBut it was sometimes difficult to determine whether the congregation\npraised the Lord for inspiring the evangelist so courageously to defy\nthe harlots, or for permitting him to discover them. If the Man of God\ncould find them, why not the damned, too? Certainly there were always\nmany who wondered if the brother had acquired any good addresses or\ntelephone numbers since coming to town. Not infrequently, indeed, he\nwas stealthily shadowed home by young men eager to settle this question.\n\nThese charges and denunciations were repeated, with trimmings, at the\nmeetings for men only which were always a most interesting feature of\nthe revivals. At similar gatherings for women, or ladies, as we called\nthem in small-town journalism, his wife or a devout Sister discussed\nthe question from the feminine viewpoint. What went on at these latter\nconclaves I do not know, though I can guess, for I have often seen\nyoung girls coming out of them giggling and blushing. The meetings for\nmen were juicy, indeed. The evangelist discussed all angles of the\nsubject, and in a very free manner. His own amorous exploits before\nhe was converted were recited in considerable detail, and he painted\nvivid word pictures of the brothels he had visited, both as a paying\nclient and in the course of his holy work. Almost invariably they were\nsubterranean palaces hung with silks and satins, with soft rugs upon\nthe floor, and filled with a vast multitude of handsome young women,\nall as loose as ashes. Having thus intimated, with some smirking, that\nfor many years he was almost the sole support of harlotry, he became\nconfidential. He leaned forward and said:\n\n\u201cThere are such Dens of the Devil right here in your town!\u201d\n\nThis was first-hand information, and immediately there was a stir in\nthe audience, many of his hearers betraying an eagerness to be gone.\nBut before they could get away the evangelist thundered:\n\n\u201cShall we permit them to continue their wicked practices?\u201d\n\nI always hoped to be present some day when the audience forgot itself\nand answered that question with the thought that was so plainly in its\nmind, namely, \u201cYes!\u201d But, alas, I never heard it, although there was\nmuch shouting of \u201cAmen!\u201d and \u201cGlory to God!\u201d These meetings for men\nonly were generally held in the afternoon, and their net result was\nthat the business of the drug store increased immediately, and when\nnight fell bands of young good-for-nothings scurried hither and yon\nabout the town, searching feverishly for the Dens of the Devil. They\nsearched without fear, confident that modern science would save them\nfrom any untoward consequences, and knowing that no matter what they\ndid they would go to Heaven if they permitted a preacher to intercede\nfor them in the end, or a priest to sprinkle them with holy water.\n\nBut the Dens of the Devil were not found, neither in Farmington nor in\nany other small town in that region, for the very good reason that they\ndid not exist. The evangelist did not know what he was talking about;\nhe was simply using stock blather which he had found by experience\nwould excite the weak-minded to both sexual and religious emotions.\nHe knew that when they were thus upset they would be less likely to\nquestion his ravings--that they would be more pliable in his hands and\neasier to convert.\n\nOur small towns were not overrun by harlots simply because harlotry\ncould not flourish in a small town. It was economically impossible;\nthere were not enough cash customers to make the scarlet career\nprofitable. Also, the poor girls had to meet too much competition from\nemotional ladies who had the professional spirit but retained their\namateur standing by various technicalities. And harlots, like the rest\nof us, had to live; they required the same sort of raiment and food\nthat sufficed their virtuous sisters; it was not until they died that\nthey wore nothing but the smoke of Hell and were able to subsist on a\ndiet of brimstone and sulphur.\n\nMany men who in larger communities would have patronized the\nprofessionals could not do so in a small town. They could not afford\nto; it was too dangerous. The moment a woman was suspected of being\na harlot she was eagerly watched by everyone from the mayor down to\nthe preachers, and the name of every man seen talking to her, or even\nlooking at her, went winging swiftly from mouth to mouth, and was\nfinally posted on the heavenly bulletin board as that of an immoral\nwretch. A house in which harlotry was practiced was picketed day and\nnight by small boys eager to learn the forbidden mysteries, and by\nBrethren and Sisters hopefully sniffing for sin. It was not possible\nfor a harlot to keep her client\u00e8le secret, for the sexual life of a\nsmall town is an open book, and news of amorous doings could not travel\nfaster if each had a tabloid newspaper.\n\nExact statistics, of course, are not available, but it is probably true\nthat no small American town has ever harbored a harlot whose income\nfrom professional services was sufficient to feed and clothe her. Few\nif any such towns have ever been the abode of more than one harlot at\na time. When I was a boy every one had its town harlot, just as it had\nits town sot (this, of course, was before drunkards became extinct) and\nits town idiot. But she was generally a poor creature who was employed\nby day as a domestic servant and practiced her ancient art only in her\nhours of leisure. She turned to it partly for economic reasons, but\nchiefly because of a great yearning for human companionship, which\nshe could obtain in no other way. She remained in it because she was\nalmost instantly branded a Daughter of Satan, and shunned by good and\nbad alike. She seldom, if ever, realized that she was doing wrong;\nher moral standards were those of a bedbug. She thought of harlotry\nin terms of new ribbons and an occasional pair of shoes, and in terms\nof social intercourse; she was unmoral rather than immoral, and the\nproceeds of her profession, to her, were just so much extra spending\nmoney.\n\nSmall-town men who occasionally visited the larger cities, and there\nthought nothing of spending from ten to fifty dollars in metropolitan\nbrothels, were very stingy in dealing with the town harlot. They\nconsidered a dollar an enormous price for her, and frequently they\nrefused to give her anything. Many small communities were not able to\nsupport even a part-time harlot; consequently some members of the craft\nwent from town to town, taking secular jobs and practicing harlotry\nas a side line until driven out by the godly, or until the inevitable\nbusiness depression occurred. I recall one who made several towns along\nthe O. K. Railroad in Northeastern Missouri as regularly as the shoe\ndrummers. Her studio was always an empty box car on the town siding,\nand she had a mania for inscribing in such cars the exact dates and\nhours of her adventures, and her honoraria. It was not unusual to find\nin a car some such inscription as this:\n\n  \u201cTen P.M., July 8. Fifty cents.\u201d\n\nThese writings, scrawled in lead pencil or with a bit of chalk, were\nsigned \u201cBox Car Molly.\u201d Once, in a car from which I had unloaded many\nheavy bags of cement, I came across what seemed to be a pathetic bit of\nvery early, and apparently authentic, Box-Car-Molliana. On the wall was\nthis:\n\n  \u201cI was ruined in this car May 10.\n\n                                     \u201cBOX CAR MOLLY.\u201d\n\nOur town harlot in Farmington was a scrawny creature called variously\nFanny Fewclothes and Hatrack, but usually the latter in deference\nto her figure. When she stood with her arms outstretched she bore a\nremarkable resemblance to the tall hatracks then in general use in\nour homes, and since she was always most amiable and obliging, she\nwas frequently asked to pose thus for the benefit of drummers and\nother infidels. In time, she came to take a considerable pride in this\naccomplishment; she referred to herself as a model, and talked vaguely\nof abandoning her wicked life and going to St. Louis, where she was\nsure she could make a living posing for artists.\n\nSix days a week Hatrack was a competent and more or less virtuous\ndrudge employed by one of our best families, but Sunday was her day\noff, and she then, in turn, offered her soul to the Lord and went\nto the Devil. For the latter purpose she utilized both the Masonic\nand Catholic cemeteries. Hatrack\u2019s regular Sunday-night parade, her\ndescent from righteousness into sin, was one of the most fascinating\nevents of the week, and promptly after supper those of us who did not\nhave engagements to take young ladies to church (which was practically\nequivalent to publishing the banns) went downtown to the loafing place\nin front of the Post Office and waited impatiently.\n\nOn week days Hatrack turned a deaf ear to the blandishments of our\nrou\u00e9s, but on Sunday night she was more gracious. This, however, was\nnot until she had gone to church and had been given to understand,\ntacitly but none the less clearly, that there was no room for her in\nthe Kingdom of Heaven. Our Sunday-night services usually began about\neight o\u2019clock, following the meetings of the various young people\u2019s\nsocieties. At seven-thirty, regardless of the weather, the angular\nfigure of Hatrack could be discerned coming down the hill from the\ndirection of the cemeteries. She lived somewhere in that section and\nworked out by the day. She was always dressed in her best, and in her\neyes was the light of a great resolve. She was going to church, and\nthere was that in her walk and manner which said that thereafter she\nwas going to lead a better life.\n\nThere was always a group of men waiting for her around the Post Office.\nBut although several muttered \u201cHere she comes!\u201d it was not good form\nto speak to her then, and she walked past them as if she had not seen\nthem. But they, with their wide knowledge of the vagaries of the Agents\nof God, grinned hopefully and settled down to wait. They knew she would\nbe back. She went on up the street past the Court House and turned\ninto the Northern Methodist church, where she took a seat in the last\nrow. All about her were empty seats; if they were not empty when she\ngot there they were soon emptied. No one spoke to her. No one asked\nher to come to Jesus. No one held out a welcoming hand. No one prayed\nfor her. No one offered her a hymn book. At the protracted meetings\nand revivals, which she invariably attended, none of the Brothers and\nSisters tried to convert her; she was a Scarlet Woman and belonged to\nthe Devil. There was no place for her in a respectable congregation.\nThey could not afford to be seen talking to her, even in church, where\nGod\u2019s love, by their theory, made brothers and sisters of us all.\n\nIt was pitiful to watch her; she listened to the Word with such rapt\nattention; she sang the hymns with such fanatical fervor, and she so\nyearned for the comforts of that barbaric religion and the blessings\nof easy intercourse with decent people. But she never got them. From\nthe Christians and their God she got nothing but scorn. Of all the\nsinners in our town Hatrack would have been easiest to convert; she\nwas so pathetically eager for salvation. If a Preacher, or a Brother,\nor a Sister, had so much as spoken a kind word to her she would have\ndropped to her knees and given up her soul to the Methodist God. And\nher conversion, in all likelihood, would have been permanent, for\nshe was not mentally equipped for a struggle against the grandiose\nimprobabilities of revealed religion. If someone had told her, as I was\ntold, that God was an old man with long whiskers, she would not have\ncalled Him \u201cDaddy,\u201d as some of her more flippant city sisters might\nhave done; she would have accepted Him and gloried in Him.\n\nBut she was not plucked from the burning, for the workers for the\nLord would have nothing to do with her, and by the end of the service\nher eyes had grown sullen and her lip had curled upward in a sneer.\nBefore the final hymn was sung and the benediction pronounced upon the\ncongregation, she got to her feet and left the church. None tried to\nstop her; she was not wanted in the House of God. I have seen her sit\nalone and miserably unhappy while the Preacher bellowed a sermon about\nforgiveness, with the whole church rocking to a chorus of sobbing,\nmoaning amens as he told the stories of various Biblical harlots, and\nhow God had forgiven them.\n\nBut for Hatrack there was no forgiveness. Mary Magdalene was a saint\nin Heaven, but Hatrack remained a harlot in Farmington. Every Sunday\nnight for years she went through the same procedure. She was hopeful\nalways that someone would speak to her and make a place for her, that\nthe Brothers and Sisters who talked so volubly about the grace and the\nmercy of God would offer her some of the religion that they dripped\nso freely over everyone else in town. But they did not, and so she\nwent back down the street to the Post Office, swishing her skirts and\nbrazenly offering herself to all who desired her. The men who had been\nwaiting for her, and who had known that she would come, leered at her\nand hailed her with obscene speech and gesture. And she gave them back\nleer for leer, meeting their sallies with giggles, and motioning with\nher head toward the cemeteries.\n\nAnd so she went up the hill. A little while later a man left the group,\nremarking that he must go home. He followed her. And a moment after\nthat another left, and then another, until behind Hatrack was a line of\nmen, about one to a block, who would not look at one another, and who\nlooked sheepishly at the ground when they met anyone coming the other\nway. As each man accosted her in turn Hatrack inquired whether he was\na Protestant or a Catholic. If he was a Protestant she took him into\nthe Catholic cemetery; if he was a Catholic they went into the Masonic\ncemetery.\n\n\n5\n\nI fell a willing victim to the wiles of the Rum Demon on the night of\nmy conversion, and thereafter, in common with other boys of the town\nwho were aflame with revolt against the religious taboos which had so\noppressed us, I drank whenever I could obtain the liquor. This was not\noften, because I seldom had any money and it was difficult to find a\nbartender who would sell a drink to a minor. The eagle eye of the W. C.\nT. U. was constantly upon him. But occasionally the darkies would buy\nfor us in return for one swig at the bottle, and as often as possible\nwe purchased by this means a pint or quart of whisky or gin. I did not\ndrink because I liked the taste of liquor, for I didn\u2019t, and I do not\nnow, but I thought it was smart and manly to get drunk.\n\nAnd there was another, and a deeper reason. It seemed to me that in\nthe eyes of the Preachers and the Brothers and Sisters a man could\ncommit no more heinous sin than to get tight; it was even worse than\nsmoking. Such being the case, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to\nachieve that condition, and thereby show them that I had no use for\nthem and the things for which they stood. And that was also the reason\nwe sang vulgar songs, and roared with gusto the parodies on hymns\nthat we learned from time to time. It was our custom to get as drunk\nas possible and then group ourselves about the pump in the courthouse\nyard, where we bellowed ditties and parodies until the town marshal or\nsome outraged Brother or Sister stopped us.\n\nThere were few such songs that we did not sing; it was at the pump,\non a summer night, that I first heard the \u201cSong of Jack Hall.\u201d It\nwas taught to us by a shoe drummer from St. Louis, who sang it with\nappropriate gestures, and for a long time it was our favorite song. The\nversion that we sang was this--it should be rendered with great gusto\nand feeling, and the final line of each verse should be dragged from\ndeep down in the chest:\n\n  Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall, \u2019tis Jack Hall,\n  Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall, \u2019tis Jack Hall;\n  Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall,\n  And I\u2019ll tell youse one and all,\n  The story of me fall,\n    God damn your eyes.\n\n  Oh, I killed a man \u2019tis said, so \u2019tis said,\n  Oh, I killed a man \u2019tis said, so \u2019tis said;\n  Oh, I killed a man \u2019tis said,\n  And I kicked his bloody head,\n  And I left him lyin\u2019 dead,\n    God damn his eyes.\n\n  So they chucked me here in quod, here in quod,\n  So they chucked me here in quod, here in quod;\n  So they chucked me here in quod,\n  With a ball and chain and rod,\n  They did, so help me God,\n    God damn their eyes.\n\n  Well, the parson he did come, he did come,\n  Well, the parson he did come, he did come;\n  Well, the parson he did come,\n  And he looked so God-damned glum,\n  As he talked of Kingdom Come,\n    God damn his eyes.\n\n  And the sheriff he came, too, he came, too,\n  And the sheriff he came, too, he came, too;\n  And the sheriff he came, too,\n  With his little boys in blue,\n  He said: \u201cJack, we\u2019ll see you through,\n    God damn your eyes.\u201d\n\n  So it\u2019s up the rope I go, up I go,\n  So it\u2019s up the rope I go, up I go;\n  So it\u2019s up the rope I go,\n  And those devils down below,\n  They\u2019ll say: \u201cJack, we told you so!\u201d\n    God damn their eyes.\n\nThe parodies on hymns that we sang were almost innumerable, and were\nundoubtedly sung all over the country by other boys who, in the eyes\nof their elders, were only being smart-alecky, but who, like us,\nhad a deeper reason for the eagerness with which they paraded their\ndisrespect for the Church and for religion. It was one of the few ways\nwe knew to flaunt our sin, and nothing pleased us more than to break up\na church service, or at least interrupt it, by bellowing at the top of\nour voices some disreputable and unholy parody that had reached us in\none way or another.\n\nOne of our most enjoyable Sunday-night escapades was to gather in a\ngroup outside a church window, and sing a parody immediately after\nthe choir and the congregation inside had sung the hymn itself. We\npersisted in this until finally the pastor of the Northern Methodist\nchurch had Wint Jackson, the Night Marshal, chase us away. We went\nwithout comment or objection when Jackson ordered us to disperse,\nbecause he had just killed a desperado named Yates, and we considered\nhim something of a hero; we thought that he went about with his finger\nconstantly in the trigger of his revolver, and that the finger itched.\n\nOn this particular night the parody which made the Methodist minister\nso angry, and swept from his mind all thought of his Christian duty to\nturn the other cheek for us to swat, was on \u201cOh, that will be glory for\nme.\u201d Our version went like this:\n\n  Oh, there will be no chicken for me,\n  No chicken for me, no chicken for me;\n  When all the preachers have gulped their share,\n  There\u2019ll be no chicken, no chicken for me.\n\nTo give the proper swing to the tune, \u201cgulped\u201d must be pronounced\n\u201cgulluped.\u201d\n\nPerhaps the most celebrated of all the parodies, at that time, was on\nthe favorite old hymn, \u201cAt the Bar.\u201d We sang it thus:\n\n  At the bar, at the bar,\n  Where I smoked my first cigar,\n    And the nickels and the dimes rolled away;\n  It was there, by chance,\n  That I ripped my Sunday pants,\n    And now I can wear them every day.\n\nAnother parodied \u201cNearer, My God, to Thee,\u201d thus:\n\n  Nero, my dog, has fleas,\n  Nero has fleas;\n    Although I wash him clean,\n  Nero, my dog, has fleas.\n\nAnd thus, to the tune of \u201cHallelujah, Thine the Glory\u201d:\n\n  Hellilujah, I\u2019m a hobo,\n  Hellilujah, I\u2019m a bum;\n  Hellilujah, give us a handout,\n  Revive us again.\n\nThere was also in circulation at that time a great number of parodies\non hymns in which mention was made of Beecham\u2019s Pills, the merits\nof which were emblazoned on every barn and fence throughout the\ncountryside. I have heard that these parodies were circulated by\nthe Beecham Pill people themselves in response to a plea of English\nchurches for hymn books, but I do not know if the story is true. One of\nour favorites of this collection was the parody on \u201cHark, the herald\nangels sing.\u201d It went:\n\n  Hark, the herald Angels sing,\n  Beecham\u2019s Pills are just the thing;\n  Peace on earth and mercy mild,\n  Two for man and one for child.\n\n\n6\n\nTo my long list of unhallowed but frequently pleasant accomplishments\nI added, in my sixteenth summer, journalism and dancing; I went to\nwork on the Farmington _Times_ and learned to waltz and two-step, and\non occasion danced the Virginia Reel and the quadrille with spirit\nand abandon if not with elegant grace. The practice of journalism was\nnot then, in all quarters, considered a sin of the first magnitude;\nnor is it so considered to-day except when various Preachers and\nother goody-bodies find their names mentioned infrequently and their\ndaily denunciations ignored. It is then the fashion to denounce the\nnewspapers, and to deplore the low plane to which the fourth estate has\nfallen. But in Farmington in my youth the feeling against the Sunday\nnewspaper was so great that it was felt generally that all journalism\nwas at least slightly tainted, and so I list it as a sin. So far as the\nfinancial rewards go, it is even now nothing less than a crime.\n\nThere was no question about the sinfulness of dancing, especially the\nround dances, as we used to call the waltz and two-step. In some parts\nof the country exception was made for the square dances, but everywhere\nin my section of Missouri the waltz and two-step were considered Steps\ntoward Hell. I frequently heard Preachers and Brothers and Sisters\npronounce solemn judgment against young girls who indulged in such\nheinous practices, and brand them before God and man as abandoned\nscarlet women glorying in the unsanctified embraces of wicked men. That\nwas the way the Preachers usually talked, too. One man in our town was\neven criticized for waltzing with his wife.\n\nNot only was the wicked waltz and the devilish two-step, no matter\nhow decorously performed, a Sunday taboo in our town, but in our most\nreligious families it was taboo at all times, and several persons were\ndismissed from church for participating in such orgies. We had one\nPreacher who informed us that both Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed\nby God because their inhabitants danced and for no other reason, and\nthe prediction was freely made that Farmington was destined for the\nsame dreadful end, and he intimated that we would not even reap the\nresultant benefits of great fame and publicity. His tirades were\nstrikingly similar to the ones that are being made every day now by the\nMethodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals against\nNew York City and other centers of sin.\n\nAs I have said, for many years the Presbyterians, city slickers at\nheart, had a virtual monopoly of dancing in Farmington. It was they\nwho introduced the waltz and the two-step, to the great horror of\nall of our old women, both male and female, and it is they who must\nbe held responsible when God sends His avenging angels to blast and\ndestroy. Occasionally a Baptist or a Methodist backslid sufficiently to\ntrip the light fantastic toe, as I delighted to call it as a juvenile\nreporter on the _Times_, but not often; generally the Presbyterians\nalone thus flaunted their wickedness. But when God failed to perform\nas expected, others became bold and abandoned all caution, and when I\nleft Farmington, dancing was general and the town was obviously headed\nstraight for Hell. But even then there was very little dancing done on\nSunday night.\n\nWe had two newspapers in Farmington, the _Times_ and the _News_, the\nformer owned by Mr. Theodore Fisher and the latter by the Denman\nbrothers, extraordinarily devout members of the Northern Methodist\nchurch and leaders in most of the town\u2019s religious activities. Mr.\nFisher was a Presbyterian, a liberal at heart, but for business\nreasons he was unable to do or say anything to stem the tide of\nprying Puritanism. Both papers were controlled by the churches of the\ntown, and published everything that the Preachers and the Brothers\nand Sisters asked them to; as I grew older, Mr. Fisher became more\nconfidential and frequently expressed his disgust at many things that\nwent on in Farmington, but he was powerless. If he had said a word in\nfavor of a more liberal attitude his paper would have had an even more\ndifficult time getting along, and Heaven knows it was hard enough as\nit was; Mr. Fisher frequently had to spend all of Saturday morning\ncollecting advertising accounts so he could pay wages in the afternoon.\nBut the _News_ was always very prosperous.\n\nWhen I went into the newspaper business, or game, as it is called in\nthe motion pictures and the schools of Journalism, I went in with the\nenthusiastic thoroughness with which I had abandoned myself to a life\nof sin. Mr. Fisher hired me at $2 a week, during the summer vacation,\nto be the office devil, and for that princely wage I built the fires\neach morning, swept the office, carried copy, set type, distributed pi,\nkicked the job press, cranked the gasoline engine on Thursdays, fed the\nbig roller press, folded the papers, wrote names on them and carried\nthem to the Post Office in sacks. And I had many other duties besides.\n\nThese multitudinous activities sufficed me for a few weeks, because\nin doing them, and in so being engaged in journalistic practice, I\nhad the same feeling that so encouraged me when I danced or drank or\nsmoked cigarettes; I was confident that I was doing something of which\nthe righteous did not wholly approve. But later I became ambitious. I\nwanted to be an editor. Only God knows why, but I did. So I became an\neditor; indeed, I became many editors. Using the small job press and\nMr. Fisher\u2019s stock of vari-colored inks, I printed cards informing the\nworld that I was sporting editor, society editor, fire editor, crime\neditor, baseball editor, football editor, financial editor, religious\neditor, and barber-shop editor, this last because I purposed to\ninterview the customers in Doss\u2019s barber shop.\n\nThus equipped, I felt able to handle any journalistic problem that\nmight confront me, and I spent my spare time interviewing people\nand gathering items which, because of the extreme godliness of our\ncitizens, usually consisted of nothing more exciting than announcements\nthat so-and-so was on the sick list, or had been on the sick list and\nwas now improving. When I asked a banker if he knew any news I gravely\npresented him with my financial-editor card; and when it became my\nproud duty to interview my youthful idol and our most famous citizen,\nMr. Barney Pelty, the major-league baseball pitcher, he learned by\nocular proof that I was both sporting editor and baseball editor,\nand as such fully competent to transmit to type and to posterity his\ndeathless utterances. As I recall them, these were generally that he\nwould be in town to visit his relatives or because some member of his\nfamily was on the sick list, and would then return to St. Louis to\ntake up again the onerous duties of his profession. Once he predicted\nthat the Browns would win the pennant, and I wrote this exclusive\ninformation with all the large and handsome words at my command, but he\nwas mistaken.\n\nAs time went on I became almost everything that it was possible\nto be on the _Times_; I was printer, pressman, reporter, mechanic,\neditor of this and that, and what not. But I was never permitted to\nwrite editorials or chronicle the doings of our best people. The\n_Times_ was passionately addicted to the Democrats, and each week our\neditorial page trumpeted the widely known and indisputable fact that\nthe Republicans were a lot of skunks. These blasts were written, and\nwell written, by Mr. Fisher himself, and my own share in the good work\nwas merely to put them into type, and occasionally correct Mr. Fisher\u2019s\nphraseology when I did not think that he had expressed himself clearly.\nAnd since these corrections were made at the case after the proof had\nbeen corrected, they nearly always got printed, sometimes with dire\nresults. Once Mr. Fisher wrote, in jovial vein, about the gaudy house\nin which a certain political candidate resided, and I corrected it\nto read \u201cbawdy house,\u201d holding that the latter was more definitely\ndescriptive.\n\nAnother member of Mr. Fisher\u2019s family, who had previously spoken to me\npleasantly when she met me on the street but who regarded me as nothing\nbut hired help after I had accepted employment, wrote about the social\nactivities of our first families on Columbia Street and the second and\nthird families in Doss\u2019s Addition. I was occasionally permitted to\ndescribe the pitiful doings of the Catholics, the Lutherans and other\ncurious humans down near the ice plant, and the weekly dances given\nby the abandoned young people at our chief source of civic pride, the\ninsane asylum. But the functions of Society were obviously beyond\nthe descriptive powers of a mere printer\u2019s devil. It was bad enough\nthat such a person had to set the type. Nevertheless I attended these\nfunctions, and gained great comfort by inserting my name in the list\nof those present, and by adding the important and vital information\nthat dainty and delicious refreshments had been served and a good time\nhad by all. If it was a birthday party the host was wished many happy\nreturns of the day. It was my belief at that time that it was against\nthe law to publish an account of a social event without so stating. It\nwas not always true; frequently the refreshments were not delicious\nand no one had a good time, but in those days I did not have that high\nregard for the truth that I have since acquired through labors on the\ngreat metropolitan journals; indeed, a night seldom passes now that I\ndo not ask myself: \u201cHave I written the truth to-day?\u201d The answer, has,\nso far, eluded me. But Mr. Fisher, and to an even greater extent the\nBrothers Denman, sole owners of the _News_, frankly tried to please the\nadvertisers and the subscribers; there was not then that fine spirit of\nindependence which is such an essential part of modern journalism.\n\nI advanced rapidly on the _Times_, and eventually was receiving $7\na week and had appointed myself to so many editorships that my cards\nfilled two pockets. I was satisfied, and probably would have remained\nso for some years, but the end of my allotted time in Farmington was\ndrawing near. I went to Northeast Missouri to visit relatives, and Mr.\nFisher discharged me for over-staying my leave. This was a terrific\nblow; it seemed to me that my journalistic career had been cut off in\nthe flower of its youth. I went to work in a lumber yard, and kept the\njob until the first carload of cement came in. But after I had pulled\nand tugged at the ninety-eight-pound sacks for ten hours I concluded\nthat the lumber business held out no glowing promise for a young man\nwho wished to retain his health and have leisure for a reasonable\namount of traffic with Satan.\n\nSo I resigned and went to Quincy, Ill., where after considerable\nnegotiations I obtained a job as reporter on the Quincy _Journal_ and\nembarked on a career in daily journalism. So far this has kept me in\nthe cities, where the opportunities for sin are vastly more numerous\nthan in the small towns, but where there is less sin in proportion\nto the number of inhabitants. This is true despite the horde of\nwailing prophets and professional devil-chasers and snoopers whose\nprincipal occupation is violent and false denunciation of every city\nlarge enough to have an electric-light plant. And in a city one can,\nby diligent search, find a few people who will admit that a man\u2019s\nreligion, or his lack of religion, is his own affair.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS OF A MAN GONE TO THE DEVIL\n\n\nIf there is anything in religious inheritance, or in the influence\nof a religious environment, I should be, if not an actual Pastor of\na flock, at least one of the most devout of the faithful, a snooping\nBrother concerned only with good works. But instead of carrying on the\nwork of my forefathers I find myself full of contempt for the Church,\nand disgust for the forms of religion. To me such things are silly; I\ncannot understand how grown people can believe in them, or how they can\nrepress their giggles as they listen to the ministerial platitudes and\nperform such mummeries as are the rule in all churches.\n\nNever since the night of my \u201cconversion\u201d have I gone into a church to\nworship. I have frequently entered such dens of righteousness, but my\nvisits, except for a few that I made soon after Brother McConnell\u2019s\nrevival meeting to please my father and mother, have been on newspaper\nassignment or out of curiosity. I have inquired into the doctrine of\nalmost every sect that has adherents in America, but in none of them\nhave I been able to find any sign of a true and beneficent God. I can\nsee only groups of sanctimonious, self-seeking Little Jack Horners\nchasing about poking their fingers into someone else\u2019s pie, and then\nshouting gleefully: \u201cLook at me, God! Look what I found! Ooooh! Ain\u2019t\nit nice and smutty?\u201d They cannot practice their religion without\nprancing and cavorting before the public eye; they are constantly\nshowing off. They are not so much concerned with the glory of God as\nwith the glory of the front page. And what time they are not whirling\ngiddily in such imbecilities, they are engaged in disgusting squabbles\namong themselves as to who shall have the local agency for purveying\nreligion; they want to copyright salvation in the name of their\nparticular sect.\n\nOn all sides we hear that religion is the greatest thing in the world\nand that mankind\u2019s chief need is more of it. But it is my conviction\nthat mankind would be infinitely better off with less of it, and\nprobably best off with none of it. Nothing has ever caused more\ntrouble. The whole history of religion is a record of war, murder,\ntorture, rape, massacre, distrust, hypocrisy, anguish, persecution and\ncontinual and unseemly bickering; it is a rare church that has not\nbeen the scene of disorderly brawls. It has divided towns and nations\ninto bitter factions; it has turned brother against sister and father\nagainst son; it has blighted romances; it is a prime cause of insanity;\nthere is hardly anything harmful to the human race that it has not\ndone as it pursued its meddlesome, intolerant way down the ages. Its\nfollowers proclaim loudly that their particular belief is synonymous\nwith love, and bawl threats and epithets against anyone who denies\nit; but in truth religion comes more nearly to being synonymous with\nhatred and revenge, with each sect praying to God to grant it special\nprivileges and to damn the others.\n\nI have never at any time regretted my complete withdrawal from all\nforms of religion and churchly ceremony. During many years of my\nchildhood, while mental and physical habits were forming, these things\nkept me in constant terror; I was horrified by the thought of the awful\nthings that God was preparing to do to me; I was fearful and miserable\nlest I give birth to an idea that was not perfectly righteous and in\nkeeping with His commands as laid down by His agents. The Bible, which\nI necessarily interpreted in the light of what I had been taught,\ncaused me more nightmares than any other book I have ever read, and I\nwas vastly more alarmed by the tales of the fires of Hell related to\nme by the Preachers and the Brothers and Sisters than I was in later\nlife by the thunder of German artillery or the crackle of machine-gun\nbullets.\n\nSince I left Farmington I have been near death many times, both as a\nsoldier in France and from the natural illnesses incident to civil\nlife. At least three times I have been told that I had but a few hours\nto live. Yet even then I did not feel the need of religion, nor for a\npreacher or a priest to pray over me to a God that neither of us knew,\nand perform ceremonies founded on pagan rites. How can an intelligent\nGod pay any attention to a last-minute deathbed repentance that it\nis so obviously the result of fear and nothing else? The religionist\nexpects God to wash all his sins off the slate merely because, when he\nis about to die, he says he is sorry. If there be a God, cannot He look\ninto such a shrunken little soul and see that there is nothing in it\nbut a fear of death and a horror of the unknown?\n\nI am not an atheist, because for all I know to the contrary there may\nbe a God, or any number of Gods, but to me the God worshiped by my\nforefathers and by the religionists of to-day is a cruel, preposterous\ncreation conceived by a people who felt the need of chastisement.\nHe is a celestial traffic cop, hounded by whimpering weaklings who\nbeseech Him to tell them they are on the right road, and yet keep\ntrying to show Him which way the traffic should go. In the Christian\nand Jewish conceptions of the Heavenly Father I can see nothing that\nis fit for a civilized man to worship; indeed, the nearer a man\napproaches civilization and intelligence, the less need there is for\nhim to worship anything. Conversely it is the stupid, illiterate man,\nknowing neither how to read nor how to think, who is most often the\nreligious fanatic. He understands nothing and is afraid of everything;\nhe goes through life as a small boy goes past a graveyard at night,\nwhistling to keep up his courage. He requires religion and its twin,\nsuperstition, to give him strength to contemplate the wonders of the\nsunset and the falling rain.\n\nFor my part, I simply refuse to worry about God. If there is a God, I\nhope that I may in time find favor in His sight and obtain my share\nof the spiritual loot; there is nothing that I can do about it. And\nif there is no God, there is nothing I can do about that, either. I\nprofess neither knowledge nor theory about the Supreme Being and the\nheavenly wonders; knowing nothing, I believe nothing, and believing\nnothing, I am prepared to believe anything, asking only reasonably\ncorrect information and authentic signs. These I fail to find in\nselfish prayers, constant squabbling over the wishes of the Lord and\nthe building of magnificent temples within sight and hearing of the\nramshackle tenements of the poor. I do not believe that I shall ever\nfind them, for\n\n  \u201cWherefore and whence we are ye cannot know,\n  Nor where life springs, nor whither life doth go.\u201d\n\nWithout religion I thoroughly enjoy the business of living. I am\noppressed by no dreadful taboos, and I am without fear; I set myself no\nstandards save those of ordinary self-respect, decent consideration of\nthe rights and privileges of others, and the observance of the laws of\nthe land except Prohibition. To my own satisfaction, at least, I have\nproved that religion and the Church are not at all necessary to a full\nand happy life. And if I am thus a sinner and my chance of ultimate\nsalvation forfeit, then the fault lies at the door of those fanatics\nwhose method of teaching religion to a child was, and is, to hammer it\ninto his head by constant threats of terrible punishment, by drawing\ntorturing word pictures of Hell, by describing God as a vicious,\nvindictive old man, by scolding and tormenting and laying down taboos\nuntil the poor child\u2019s brain whirls in an agony of fright and misery.\nI know of no better way to salute them than to refer them to certain\nwords of their own Savior, to be found in the thirty-fourth verse of\nthe twenty-third chapter of the Book of St. Luke.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf I ever have a son, which now seems unlikely, his boyhood will be\nquite different from my own. For him Sunday shall be a day of rest and\npleasure; there shall be no taboos, and no attendance upon church and\nSunday school unless their performances are more interesting than other\navailable entertainment. They now rank just below the moving pictures,\nand are therefore last. I shall bring my son in contact with the sacred\nbooks of the Christians, the Jews, the Buddhists and of all the other\nreligions as rapidly as he is able to comprehend them, and he shall be\npermitted to choose his own religion if he decides that a religion is\nnecessary to his happiness and peace of mind. But if he shows any signs\nof becoming a preacher, priest or rabbi, or even a Brother, I shall\nwhale hell out of him. I am that intolerant.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nA NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET\n\n\n_This book is composed on the Linotype in Bodoni, so-called after its\ndesigner, Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813) a celebrated Italian scholar\nand printer. Bodoni planned his type especially for use on the more\nsmoothly finished papers that came into vogue late in the eighteenth\ncentury and drew his letters with a mechanical regularity that is\nreadily apparent on comparison with the less formal old style. Other\ncharacteristics that will be noted are the square serifs without fillet\nand the marked contrast between the light and heavy strokes._\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED\n   BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.,\n    BINGHAMTON, N. Y. \u00b7 ESPARTO\n   PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND,\n       AND FURNISHED BY W.\n    F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW\n       YORK \u00b7 BOUND BY H.\n         WOLFF ESTATE,\n           NEW YORK.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.\n\n  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.\n\n  On page 39, based upon context, \u201cWe could have no indoor games\u201d in the\n    original should be \u201cWe could have no outdoor games\u201d; this eBook\n    reflects this change.","title":"Up from Methodism","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40727}