At the end of the service he was delighted when the
pastor, actively shaking hands at the door, twittered,
“Oh, Brother Babbitt, can you wait a jiffy?
Want your advice.”
“Sure, doctor! You bet!”
“Drop into my office. I think you’ll
like the cigars there.” Babbitt did like
the cigars. He also liked the office, which was
distinguished from other offices only by the spirited
change of the familiar wall-placard to “This
is the Lord’s Busy Day.” Chum Frink
came in, then William W. Eathorne.
Mr. Eathorne was the seventy-year-old president of
the First State Bank of Zenith. He still wore
the delicate patches of side-whiskers which had been
the uniform of bankers in 1870. If Babbitt was
envious of the Smart Set of the McKelveys, before
William Washington Eathorne he was reverent.
Mr. Eathorne had nothing to do with the Smart Set.
He was above it. He was the great-grandson of
one of the five men who founded Zenith, in 1792, and
he was of the third generation of bankers. He
could examine credits, make loans, promote or injure
a man’s business. In his presence Babbitt
breathed quickly and felt young.
The Reverend Dr. Drew bounced into the room and flowered
into speech:
“I’ve asked you gentlemen to stay so I
can put a proposition before you. The Sunday
School needs bucking up. It’s the fourth
largest in Zenith, but there’s no reason why
we should take anybody’s dust. We ought
to be first. I want to request you, if you will,
to form a committee of advice and publicity for the
Sunday School; look it over and make any suggestions
for its betterment, and then, perhaps, see that the
press gives us some attention—give the
public some really helpful and constructive news instead
of all these murders and divorces.”
“Excellent,” said the banker.
Babbitt and Frink were enchanted to join him.
If you had asked Babbitt what his religion was, he
would have answered in sonorous Boosters’-Club
rhetoric, “My religion is to serve my fellow
men, to honor my brother as myself, and to do my bit
to make life happier for one and all.”
If you had pressed him for more detail, he would have
announced, “I’m a member of the Presbyterian
Church, and naturally, I accept its doctrines.”
If you had been so brutal as to go on, he would have
protested, “There’s no use discussing and
arguing about religion; it just stirs up bad feeling.”
Actually, the content of his theology was that there
was a supreme being who had tried to make us perfect,
but presumably had failed; that if one was a Good
Man he would go to a place called Heaven (Babbitt
unconsciously pictured it as rather like an excellent
hotel with a private garden), but if one was a Bad
Man, that is, if he murdered or committed burglary
or used cocaine or had mistresses or sold non-existent
real estate, he would be punished. Babbitt was
uncertain, however, about what he called “this
business of Hell.” He explained to Ted,
“Of course I’m pretty liberal; I don’t
exactly believe in a fire-and-brimstone Hell.
Stands to reason, though, that a fellow can’t
get away with all sorts of Vice and not get nicked
for it, see how I mean?”
