XXXIX
I sat through the sermon, and the offertory, and the recessional.
After that my uncle tried to detain me, to warn and scold me; but he
no longer used physical force, and nothing but that would have held
me. At the door I asked one of the ushers what had become of the
prophet, thinking he might be in jail. But the answer was that the
gang had gone off, carrying their wounded; so I ran round the corner
to where my car was parked, and within ten minutes I was on Western
City Street, where Carpenter had announced that he would speak.
There had been nothing said about the proposed meeting in the
papers, and no one knew about it save those who had been present at
Grant Hall. But it looked as if they had told everyone they knew,
and everyone they had told had come. The wide street was packed
solid for a block, and in the midst of this throng stood Carpenter,
upon a wagon, making a speech.
There was no chance to get near, so I bethought me of an alley which
ran parallel to the street. There was an obscure hotel on the
street, and I entered it through the rear entrance, and had no
trouble in persuading the clerk to let me join some of the guests of
the hotel who were watching the scene from the second story windows.
The first thing which caught my attention was the figure of Everett,
seated on the floor of the wagon from which the speech was being
made. I saw that his face was covered with blood; I learned later
that he had three teeth knocked out, and his nose broken.
Nevertheless, there he was with his stenographer's notebook, taking
down the prophet's words. He told me afterwards that he had taken
even what Carpenter said in the church. "I've an idea he won't last
very long," was the way he put it; "and if they should get rid of
him, every word he's said will be precious. Anyhow, I'm going to get
what I can."
Also I saw Korwsky, lying on the floor of the wagon, evidently
knocked out; and two other men whom I did not know, nursing battered
and bloody faces. Having taken all that in at a glance, I gave my
attention to what Carpenter was saying.
He was discussing churches and those who attend them. Later on, my
attention was called to the curious fact that his discourse was
merely a translation into modern American of portions of the
twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew; a free adaptation of those
ancient words to present day practices and conditions. But I had no
idea of this while I listened; I was shocked by what seemed to me a
furious tirade, and the guests of the hotel were even more
shocked--I think they would have taken to throwing things out of the
windows at the orator, had it not been for their fear of the crowd.
Said Carpenter:
"The theologians and scholars and the pious laymen fill the leisure
class churches, and it would be all right if you were to listen to
what they preach, and do that; but don't follow their actions, for
they never practice what they preach. They load the backs of the
working-classes with crushing burdens, but they themselves never
move a finger to carry a burden, and everything they do is for show.
They wear frock-coats and silk hats on Sundays, and they sit at the
speakers' tables at the banquets of the Civic Federation, and they
occupy the best pews in the churches, and their doings are reported
in all the papers; they are called leading citizens and pillars of
the church. But don't you be called leading citizens, for the only
useful man is the man who produces. (Applause.) And whoever exalts
himself shall be abased, and whoever humbles himself shall be
exalted.
"Woe unto you, doctors of divinity and Catholics, hypocrites! for
you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; you don't go in
yourself and you don't let others go in. Woe unto you, doctors of
divinity and Presbyterians, hypocrites! for you foreclose mortgages
on widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers. For
this you will receive the greater damnation! Woe unto you, doctors
of divinity and Methodists, hypocrites! for you send missionaries to
Africa to make one convert, and when you have made him, is twice as
much a child of hell as yourselves. (Applause.) Woe unto you, blind
guides, with your subtleties of doctrine, your transubstantiation
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?"
