forgery. But it's more that I just like to make the wheels go round."
Mr. Rigg was saying, an hour later, to Mr. William Dollinger Styles, "If you came and joined us, I know you'd like it—you've seen what a fine, upstanding, two-fisted, one-hundred-percent he-man Dr. Gantry is. Absolutely sound about business. And it would be a swell rebuke to your church for not accepting your advice. But we hate to invite you to come over to us—in fact Dr. Gantry absolutely forbade me to see you—for fear you'll think it was just because you're rich."
For three days Styles shied, then he was led, trembling, up to the harness.
Afterward, Dr. G. Prosper Edwards of Pilgrim Congregational said to his spouse, "Why on earth didn't we think of going right after Styles and inviting him to join us? It was so simple we never even thought of it. I really do feel quite cross. Why didn't you think of it?"
The second church meeting was postponed. It looked to Elmer as though Frank would be able to stay on at Dorchester Congregational and thus defy Elmer as the spiritual and moral leader of the city.
Elmer acted fearlessly.
In sermon after sermon he spoke of "that bunch of atheists out there at Dorchester." Frank's parishioners were alarmed. They were forced to explain (only they were never quite sure what they were explaining) to customers, to neighbors, to fellow lodge-members. They felt disgraced, and so it was that a second meeting was called.
Now Frank had fancied a spectacular resignation. He heard himself, standing before a startled audience, proclaiming, "I have decided that no one in this room, including your pastor, believes in the Christian religion. Not one of us would turn the other cheek. Not one of us would sell all that he has and give to the poor. Not one of us would give his coat to some man who took his overcoat. Every one of us lays up all the treasure he can. We don't practise the Christian religion. We don't intend to practise it. Therefore, we don't believe in it. Therefore I resign, and I advise you to quit lying and disband."
