Brother Gantry was shaking hands all around. His sanctifying ordination, or it might have been his summer of bouncing from pulpit to pulpit, had so elevated him that he could greet them as impressively and fraternally as a sewing-machine agent. He shook hands with a good grip, he looked at all the more aged sisters as though he were moved to give them a holy kiss, he said the right things about the weather, and by luck or inspiration it was to the most acidly devout man in Boone County that he quoted a homicidal text from Malachi.

As he paraded down the aisle, leading his flock, he panted:

"Got 'em already! I can do something to wake these hickes up, where gas-bags like Frank or Carp would just chew the rag. How could I of felt so down in the mouth and so--uh--so carnal last week? Lemme at that pulpit!"

They faced him in hard straight pews, rugged heads seen against the brown wall and the pine double doors grained to mimic oak; they gratifyingly crowded the building, and at the back stood shuffling young men with unshaven chins and pale blue neckties.

He felt power over them while he trolled out the chorus of "The Church in the Wildwood."

His text was from Proverbs: "Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins."

...He explained that hatred was low.

--Sinclair Lewis

Elmer Gantry

Next week, Page 99 from another novel.