They Call Me Carpenter eBook

and consubstantiation and all the rest of it; you fools and blind!  Woe unto you, doctors of divity and Episcopalians, hypocrites! for you drop your checks into the collection-plate and you pay no heed to the really important things in the Bible, which are justice and mercy and faith in goodness.  You blind guides, who choke over a fly and swallow a flivver! (Laughter.) Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Anglicans, hypocrites! for you dress in immaculate clothing kept clean by the toil of frail women, but within you are full of extortion and excess.  You blind high churchmen, clean first your hearts, so that the clothes you wear may represent you.  Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Baptists, hypocrites! for you are like marble tombs which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.  Even so you appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.  (Applause.) Woe unto you doctors of divinity and Unitarians, hypocrites! because you erect statues to dead reformers, and put wreaths upon the tombs of old-time martyrs.  You say, if we had been alive in those days, we would not have helped to kill those good men.  That ought to show you how to treat us at present.

(Laughter.) But you are the children of those who killed the good men; so go ahead and kill us too!  You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?”

XL

When Carpenter stopped speaking, his face was dripping with sweat, and he was pale.  But the eager crowd would not let him go.  They began to ask him questions.  There were some who wanted to know what he meant by saying that he came from God, and some who wanted to know whether he believed in the Christian religion.  There were others who wanted to know what he thought about political action, and if he really believed that the capitalists would give up without using force.  There was a man who had been at the relief kitchen, and noted that he ate soup with meat in it, and asked if this was not using force against one’s fellow creatures.  The old gentleman who represented spiritualism was on hand, asking if the dead are still alive, and if so, where are they?

Then, before the meeting was over, there came a sick man to be healed; and others, pushing their way through the crowd, clamoring about the wagon, seeking even to touch the hem of Carpenter’s garments.  After a couple of hours of this he announced that he was worn out.  But it was a problem to get the wagon started; they could only move slowly, the driver calling to the people in front to make room.  So they went down the street, and I got into my car and followed at a distance.  I did not know where they were going, and there was nothing I could do but creep along—­a poor little rich boy with a big automobile and nobody to ride in it, or to pay any attention to him.