books – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Are You Too Busy?

The front cover of Christopher Morley, Two Classic Novels in One Volume: Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop (Dover Publications, 2018). (From amazon.com)

In a sermon on January 4, 1920, at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, Lloyd Douglas shared with his congregation a passage from Christopher Morley’s 1919 book, The Haunted Bookshop. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, Douglas had trouble coming up with a title for this sermon because the passage he quoted was about washing dishes. In the book, Morley’s character Mifflin talks about how he used to hate washing dishes until he realized that it slowed him down and gave him a chance to relax from his daily labors. As Mifflin says,

“Do not laugh when I tell you that I have evolved a whole kitchen philosophy of my own. I find the kitchen the shrine of our civilization, the focus of all that is comely in life. The ruddy shine of the stove is as beautiful as any sunset. A well-polished jug or spoon is as fair, as complete and beautiful, as any sonnet. The dishmop, properly rinsed and wrung and hung outside the back door to dry, is a whole sermon in itself. The stars never look so bright as they do from the kitchen door after the icebox pan is emptied, and the whole place is ‘redd up,’ as the Scotch say.”

Douglas comments on this passage:

“Now, all of this has set me thinking on the subject of our drudgeries, and to wondering if the search for contentment in life is not, after all, mostly a transfiguration of these petty drudgeries into desirable employments. I am fully aware that my original premise is not extremely popular. That one should seek contentment nowadays is almost equivalent to a confession of selfishness and moral lassitude. The way to behave, modernly, is to strive.

“Be busy. Be doing things. Be perpetually going through a multitude of motions. Don’t sit down. People might think you lazy. Don’t slow down. People might think you were losing your punch. It is best to lope about, watch in hand, with an expression of fatigue and anxiety on your face; then people will recognize you as a person of consequence. You really can’t be a man of affairs unless you are out of breath.

“It is also wise to talk a great deal about the pressure that is put on you from every direction. This is the easiest part of the performance, of course; and once you get going, it will come quite natural to you to speak of your congested program — almost to the exclusion of any other topic.

“This is the way we have been living in recent years, until the quest of contentment has come to be considered a very unworthy ambition.

“Now, I cannot believe that this sort of panicky living makes for permanent gains in the development of modern civilization. I don’t see how work that is done under such obvious pressure, and necessarily in such a great hurry, can contribute much to the lasting values of our time. There’s too much DO and not nearly enough BE in it.

“We have been chattering volubly about dynamics (one of the words that ought to collect double wages of this generation, for overtime). This, we say, is a dynamic age; and we are living in a dynamic country; and we are a dynamic people. If you want to say something pleasant about some active man, don’t forget to mention that he is dynamic.

“Now, strictly speaking, a dynamic is like the lights on a popular, democratic motorcar. So long as the car is in motion, the lights are on. When the car stops, the lights go out. A dynamic is under obligation to some other agency for its energy; and when that other agency takes a day off, so does the dynamic.

“I think it were about time we began speaking of the desirability of a static power — owing its energy to sources external to itself, to be sure; but not quite so slavishly dependent upon them. They can shut down for repairs if they wish, but the reservoir in which the static power has been stored is good for such period as it has provided for in the hours of its receipt of energy.

“To the storing of this static power in our lives, we need to give considerably more attention than we have been giving it, to a fine, well-balanced spiritual content.

“Whenever I get to the point, in high dynamics, that I must confess I have hardly time to eat my meals; am a stranger to my own household; haven’t read a book, other than that appertaining to my craft, for weeks, months, maybe; I may also seriously ask myself whether, in my abnormal life, lived under conditions artificial, unhealthy, and distinctly antisocial, my contribution to my age is likely to have very much in it of permanent value to mankind.

“I confidently expect to see, long before I die, a decided swing of sentiment away from this popular stampede toward a program of life embracing a little of dignified leisure for thought and a renewal of the well-nigh lost art of contentment.”

The rest of his sermon was about practical ways to find contentment. I’ll tell more about that in my next post.

Ralph Adams Cram on the Cycles of History

by Ronald R Johnson

On November 30, 1919, at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, Lloyd Douglas reviewed a book by architect Ralph Adams Cram entitled, Walled Towns. That was also the title of Douglas’s sermon, but it wasn’t actually a sermon; just a book review. In fact, Douglas didn’t even give his own opinions about the book; he just read large portions of it. He had already sent out a brochure about the sermon in advance, however, and had made clear in that circular that he thought Cram’s book was important and deserving of everyone’s attention.

Looking back on this sermon a century later, I don’t see anything of importance in Cram’s book. Perhaps I’m missing something. He said that history moves in distinct 500-year waves, in which one civilization rises and falls, then another takes its place, with the intervening years being periods in which monasticism flourishes within “walled towns.” I’m not convinced that that’s true, but I’m especially not impressed by Cram’s prediction that the present world order would come crashing down by the year 2000, or that monastic conclaves would make survival possible.

For our purposes, though, the question is what this book meant to Lloyd Douglas; and that, too, is a mystery. Douglas was a modernist; Cram was a medievalist. Douglas saw history as progress; Cram believed in recurring cycles. Douglas believed in the power of individuals to change the world; Cram was (apparently) deterministic.

But there was something about Cram’s book that excited Douglas’s imagination — and it had to do with Cram’s dividing of history into 500-year epochs.

From promotional brochure for sermon entitled, “Walled Towns.” In LCD 1918 Scrapbook, Box 5, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

In this diagram, Cram represented history as an ebb-and-flow in which civilizations rose and fell (A), with monasticism playing an important role during each crisis moment (B). What seems to have interested Douglas was Cram’s predictions about the next two decades (the 1920s and 30s), and especially his prediction of the fall of the present civilization by the year 2000. We know that this book stimulated Douglas’s thinking because he mentioned it again in an article he published in the YMCA’s monthly newsletter. Also, a book reviewer some years later would recall hearing Douglas speaking about this rise-and-fall diagram during a lecture in Chicago around this same time.

Why is this important? Because it strongly influenced Douglas’s novel Green Light, which was published fifteen years later. In the following passage, we can see Douglas’s more mature reflections on Cram’s thesis. This is from Chapter 13, pages 214-217 in the original printing. At a dinner party, Dean Harcourt of Trinity Cathedral has been asked to share his views on the cycles of history:

“‘It all goes back at last,’ [the Dean says], ‘to the engaging story of the Long Parade. We must break our bad habit of talking about human progress as if it were a gradual upward journey from the jungle to Utopia. It isn’t quite that simple. We’ll have to think of that upward course in terms of planes, as if mankind proceeded on a series of steps up –‘

“‘Like climbing a terrace?’ [someone asks].

“‘Exactly! The half-dozen generations comprising a certain era will move along rather uneventfully, at times almost apathetically, on an approximately level plane. The upheavals, revolutions, and excitements of climbing up out of the era immediately preceding will already have become legendary. In this particular economic and political set-up that we are considering, customs crystallize rapidly into laws, the laws take on dignity and resolve themselves into codes, constitutions, charters. Manners beget morals. Traditions become established. After a while, there is a well-defined group of reliances: the State, the Church, hero worship, ceremonials; norms — the norms of beauty in art, norms of gallantry in conflict, norms of social conduct, norms of intellectual fitness… Very well. Then — when everything has become neatly integrated and the Parade has had its relatively serene period of recuperation from the now almost forgotten struggle of the climb to the level on which it is traveling, it wants to look out! — for the time has come for the taking of another steep grade!

“‘Customarily, these sharp ascents have been made within the space of a single generation. Sometimes it has taken a little longer — but not often. The people who are called upon to make the climb up to the next level unquestionably get a more comprehensive view of the Great Plan for humanity’s eventual destiny than is possible for the people who live midway of an era when things are, as we would say, normal. In the course of this rough scrambling up to the next plane of living, practically all of the old reliances are under heavy stress. Long-respected statues are found to be obsolete and obstructive. Emergency measures of an economic nature inevitably upset the morals which had prevailed — for the ethical imperatives of a given time are, in most cases, the product of economic conditions. Cherished dogmas, vital and useful yesterday but now defunct, are skinned and stuffed for museums. Art — supposedly long, in relation to the fleetingness of Time — yields to the clamor for reappraisal, along with everything else.'”

A little later he adds that “the people who happen to be in the line of march when Destiny determines that a grade is to be taken may be no better, no stronger than their fathers; no fitter than their sons. They just happen to be in and of the long Parade when it arrives at the foot of the ascending hill…’

“‘Hard on the old folks,’ grinned Mr. Sinclair.

“‘Quite!… Whatever sympathy may be felt for bewildered Youth on these occasions, the people in the Parade who find the climb most difficult and painful are the mature. For they have learned all they know about living under the more or less stable and predictable regimentation of the long plateau over which they have come. It does strange things to them as individuals. The same degree of heat required to refine gold will utterly consume a pine forest — and that doesn’t mean that a pine forest is of no value. In such periods of transition many individuals who, in a normal time, might have been very useful, crumple into defeat. Many others who, under normal circumstances, might have lived mediocre lives, endure the unusual with high distinction.'”

Someone remarks that this new age “gives the youngsters a chance”:

“‘Who are too immature,’ said the Dean, ‘for such a responsibility. So — they all go scrambling up the hill, everybody talking at once, rather shrilly. And at length, they reach the top and come out upon a broad plateau; write off their losses, tie up their bruises, mend their tattered boots, and the Long Parade trudges on. New customs settle into laws. New codes are framed. New constitutions written. New moral standards are agreed upon…. And then –‘

“‘Another half-dozen generations of that,’ assisted Norwood.

“‘Yes — and when everything has become nicely articulated again in that era, so that the people know practically what to expect of their institutions, their schools, their banks, their parliaments, their methods of transportation, communication, propaganda, social welfare; then you need to look out! It’s about time to take another grade!’

“‘Why — we’re taking one now!‘ exclaimed Elise, wide-eyed. ‘Aren’t we?'”

Yes, says the Dean, “‘…we are taking one of these grades now. It isn’t asked of us whether or not we would like to be members of the Long Parade during this brief period of hard climbing. We are members of it. And the only option extended to us as individuals is our privilege to determine whether we prefer to be dragged up — in which case we are an obstacle and a liability — or to proceed under our own power…'”

When Houghton Mifflin published this book in 1935, Douglas drew an illustration for his editor, showing him the general idea. His editor, Rich Kent, liked the drawing so well, he used it as the “end-papers” for the book (the inside cover). Here are those pages as they appeared in the original printing:

The end-papers (inside cover) of Douglas’s novel Green Light (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935).

Douglas didn’t want readers to think that he believed life was “a bed of roses.” He wanted them to know that there was some hard climbing ahead. And there was… for they were in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Second World War was already on the horizon.

In the Aftermath of the Great War

by Ronald R Johnson

Front cover of a promotional brochure for sermon entitled, “Walled Towns.” In LCD 1918 Scrapbook, Box 5, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

As the 1919 Christmas season was about to begin, Lloyd C. Douglas announced an unusual sermon offering “The Way Out” of the intricate problems left over from the Great War (which we now call World War I). There was nothing Christmasy about this sermon. It was a review of the book, Walled Towns, by Ralph Adams Cram, a professor of architecture at MIT.

In a brochure announcing the upcoming sermon, Douglas wrote that Walled Towns “urges and predicts a return, in all things, to ‘the unit of human scale,’ believing ‘the Free City’ — ‘the Walled Town’ — to be the only solution of our problem which, [Cram] declares, involves the destruction of Imperialism, Materialism, and ‘the quantitative standard’ — the ‘three errors of modernism.’

“‘The life of society,’ writes Cram, ‘is conditioned by a rhythmical wave motion; curves rising and descending… the falling curve meeting at some point the rising curve of a future coming into being, the crossing points forming the nodes of history, and spacing themselves at five-century intervals either side of the birth of Christ, or the year 1, A.D.

“By the use of the drawing which appears below (special permission having been secured from Professor Cram to reproduce it here), the author calls attention to ‘the correspondence, in time, between certain periodic manifestations of spiritual force, identical in nature, though somewhat varied in fashion, and these nodal points: that is to say, the monastic idea as this showed itself in the first, sixth, eleventh and sixteenth centuries. This synchronism may be graphically explained thus, the thin line indicating the approximate curve of social development, the shaded line the monastic manifestation…

“‘It would appear from this,’ continues Professor Cram, ‘that now while the next nodal point is possibly seventy-five years in the future [1994], the next manifestation of monasticism should already be showing itself. The curve of modernism is now descending as precipitously as did that of the Roman Imperialism; but already, to those who are willing to see, there are indisputable evidences of the rising of the following curve.

“‘Whether this is to emulate in lift and continuance the curves of Medievalism and of modernism, or whether it is to be but a poor copy of the sag and the low, heavy lift of the Dark Ages, is the question that man is to determine for himself during the next two generations [the 1920s and 30s].'”

In the remaining paragraphs of his announcement, Douglas calls Cram’s views “prophetic” and says, “This new conception of a ‘way out,’ surely cannot fail to be of interest to the ‘tried and tired mind’ of the present generation. For many of us it will have such an allurement that we may be tempted seriously to give ourselves to the promotion of this expedient to rescue our social order from its own blunders.

“Owing to the limited seating capacity of the church and the probable interest on the part of many people in the matter indicated above, Mr. Douglas will deliver this address on ‘Walled Towns’ at both the 10:30 AM and 7:30 PM services…”

It was unlike Douglas to create so much hype around a controversial idea of this kind. He was a modernist, and Cram was not. Cram was advocating a return to monasticism. For Douglas to jump on this bandwagon, especially at the beginning of the Christmas season, is rather alarming. But we have to remember that this was just a year after the end of the Great War, and it seemed clear that the nations were still in turmoil (a fact that would eventually lead to another World War). Douglas was obviously concerned about the future.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about “Walled Towns,” a sermon that wasn’t very important in its own right, but that laid the foundation for one of his most memorable novels.

St. Francis of Assisi’s Dad

by Ronald R Johnson

From the website of Trinity Episcopal Church of downtown Toledo, Ohio: https://www.trinitytoledo.org/the-feast-day-of-st-francis-of-assisi/

A quotable quote from Lloyd Douglas…

This is from a sermon entitled “The Pearl-Trader” which he preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

He’s talking about the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus and asked what he might do “to make his name forever deathless.” In Douglas’s words, Jesus told him that

…if he wanted to immortalize himself, let him consecrate his fortune to the uplift of his downtrodden countrymen, and then follow. He thought it over and decided that he couldn’t do it. It would have made a great story, if he had done it.

Francis of Assisi did it, and his name will be familiar to the chisels of sculptors, and his face will be a model for artists, and his sacrifice a theme for inspirational poets, long after most of the kings’ names have been forgotten.

His wealthy and princely father cautioned him against his rash deed. Perhaps you remember his father’s name. I don’t.

Does It Cost Too Much?

by Ronald R Johnson

From the title page of “The Pearl-Trader.” In Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

In my last post I showed how Lloyd Douglas, in 1919, was already moving in the direction his imagination would take him a decade later with his bestselling novels. I’ve been talking about a sermon entitled “The Pearl-Trader” which he preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

In this sermon he had his congregation imagine a pearl that had special powers (just like Christ’s garment would do in Douglas’s novel, The Robe). Those powers were the kinds of things that the Holy Spirit would do in the life of anyone who followed Jesus, but Douglas helped his congregation to see its effects more vividly by imagining them as properties of an object (in this case, a Super Pearl). As I mentioned in the previous post, this was similar to the plot devices Douglas would use later in his bestselling novels.

But he also anticipated his novels in another way: by imagining the main character (in this case, the Pearl Merchant) raising objections (the very ones that his listeners might be thinking of) and seriously considering them. In this sermon, and in his future novels, Douglas would seek common ground with his listeners (and later his readers), then explain why he thought those objections could be overcome. In this sermon, the Pearl Merchant wants the Super Pearl with its special powers, but the seller’s price is unbelievably high: he insists on the Merchant’s entire pearl collection.

Again, Douglas uses his imagination, but this time he does it in order to lead his listeners through the merchant’s thought process:

“I think I see this man deciding that he absolutely can’t make the trade – for several reasons. He had come to be very fond of hearing himself called a ‘skeptic.’ If he acquired the wonderful pearl, he would have to leave off all his bumptious sophistries and confess to his old friends that he had really come to a decision about a few things, and that he had turned in his stock of doubts for a serene and simple-hearted faith.

“That would be very difficult. I doubt not many a man has gone through life fairly bracing himself against the tug of his own spirit, just because he enjoyed the sensation of having certain solicitous friends and relatives worrying over his soul’s salvation. He fears that once he relieves them of this anxiety, they will lose all interest in him.

“And he may have good cause to think so. The sheep that is out in the dark, fast in a barbed-wire fence, is always a great deal more interesting than the sheep calmly ruminating in the fold. You may recall how the elder brother of the Prodigal felt on that point. Not once had they declared a holiday in his honor; but when this scapegrace tatterdemalion comes home, the whole place is upset. Nor can the Prodigal expect that the general stir caused by his return is going to last forever. After a while, he will become a familiar figure, and people will either forget him, or he will have to distinguish himself for something else besides his erstwhile profligacy.

“The pearl-trader knew all this. And he disliked to give up his ‘Agnostic pearl.’ Moreover, he had grown fond of hearing himself described as a just man. ‘Ah, yes,’ they would say, ‘he’s fair, but a mighty hard customer when it comes to transgressions. Let his enemies look out for themselves. A loyal friend, but a firm and uncompromising judge.’

He hesitated to have any man say, ‘What’s come over the pearl-trader? Getting soft, I should say.’ He hesitated, too, before the idea of loosening up some of his static wealth. It was a satisfaction just to own property. He knew he would be much more interesting to the public as a man of riches than as a philanthropist. Some of his friends would think him foolish.

“I can see him confiding his dilemma to a trusted friend, and I can hear that friend saying, ‘If you don’t want to exchange your entire stock of pearls for this one jewel, why not bargain for a part of it? Let the owner cut it, as he would a diamond.’

“‘No, my friend,’ responds the pearl-trader sadly. ‘One does not cut pearls. I must take it or leave it, just as it stands.'”

What Douglas does in this sermon is the very thing he will do again and again in his novels: he will lead his readers through the main character’s thought process, acknowledging his readers’ objections but showing why the main character decides, ultimately, to do the audacious thing he’s been contemplating. Here is how the sermon ends:

“And so, at length, [the pearl-merchant] carried his precious pearls to the city and spread them out upon a table and received in exchange this most beautiful and wonderful pearl in all the world. No longer did he wander about in quest of goodly pearls, now that he had found the best.

“It is after this manner, said Jesus, that the Kingdom of Heaven is realized in the heart of an individual. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

“Which is another way of saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is no easy thing to gain; but that, when a man has the calm discernment to realize its value, he will give up everything in this world to possess it, as they who have known its peace and happiness have testified for ages, by the splendor of their faith and the immortality of their ever-shining deeds.”

The Super Pearl

by Ronald R Johnson

In my last post I began talking about how Lloyd Douglas indulged his imagination in a sermon about one of Christ’s parables. The title of his sermon was “The Pearl-Trader,” and he delivered it at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

He imagined the Pearl Merchant having in his collection a pearl from Athens (his Agnostic pearl), another from Rome (the Justice pearl), and another from Alexandria (his Prosperity pearl) – all of them representing attitudes that were probably prevalent among the people in Douglas’s church.

Still using the imagination for which he would later become famous, Douglas described the merchant coming upon a “Super Pearl” that outshone any of the others in his collection. As Douglas says, the merchant “learned that whoever possessed this remarkable jewel would inevitably be strangely influenced by it. First of all, the wearer of this pearl would find his mind set at rest about the inexplicable mysteries of life. He would become invested with a simple, trustful, childlike faith in the reality of an unseen power leading him on by paths which he had previously found hard, but now quite easy to travel. In the presence of these mysterious forces, he would find himself saying, ‘I am persuaded. No; I cannot explain, but I am persuaded!’

“Again, this super-pearl, while it permitted its wearer to deal justly, forever urged him to interpret Justice with Charity, and temper Justice with Mercy. The ‘quid pro quo’ would fail any longer to satisfy the demands of him who wore this pearl. His measure would henceforth be heaped up, pressed down, and running over. His judgments would henceforth be warped in favor of the defendant. He would forgive and forbear and entreat, where previously he had balanced the scales in a spirit of absolute justice, regardless of the circumstances.

“And again, this pearl had the peculiar quality of making its owner ashamed of riches unless they were working for the common good. No man could wear this pearl and pile up wealth for the sake of satisfying his own love of ease. He might be rich, but the riches must not rust. He might be learned, but the learning would have to function, somehow, in the interest of human happiness. He might be famous, but he would have to find and rest his fame on the value of his investment… in the life of the race.”

Do you see what Douglas is doing? He’s anticipating the kind of thing he will do later in The Robe: he’s taking a physical object and asking his listeners to imagine that it produces the kinds of results that are normally produced by the Holy Spirit. He will also do something like this in Magnificent Obsession and Forgive Us Our Trespasses, although in those novels he will treat certain passages of scripture as though they have magical qualities. In all of these cases, he will base entire novels on the insight he’s developing here in this sermon: that people in the modern secular world are much more likely to understand what the Holy Spirit can do in their lives if they are asked to imagine an object endowed with magical properties. To modern sensibilities, that makes more sense, because people can imagine this magical object doing something in their lives, whereas the Holy Spirit’s work requires their cooperation, and they may not want to cooperate. Douglas is saying to his people: “Let’s play a game. Let’s imagine a ‘Super Pearl’ that can change your life. All you have to do is wear it.”

Part of Douglas’s genius was his ability to demonstrate, in very specific ways, how this magical pearl would improve their lives. For the skeptics in his audience, he described how the Spirit gives us a sort of “inner knowing”; it’s not about proving anything but about having a peace and confidence that aren’t based on proof. For the “Justice Only” people in the crowd, he tries to show that “Justice Tempered with Mercy” will lead to a more satisfying moral code. For the “Prosperity” people in his congregation, he argues that the real adventure is not only to acquire wealth but to do it in a way that benefits others.

It is, of course, quite possible for Douglas’s listeners to reject what he’s saying. But again, he uses his imagination to disarm them; and again, he anticipates a method that he will use quite effectively in his novels. I’ll tell you about that in my next post.

Just Imagine!

by Ronald R Johnson

Sometimes the little things end up being important later, even if we don’t notice them at the time.

In Lloyd Douglas’s case, it was a mere phrase he happened to utter in one of his sermons ten years before the publication of his bestselling novel, Magnificent Obsession. The title of his sermon was “The Pearl-Trader,” and he delivered it at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on October 26, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

The phrase I’m talking about was: “If we may be permitted to lend our imagination wings…”

His biblical text was Matthew 13:45-46, which says, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

There doesn’t seem to be much meat in that short passage, but Douglas used his imagination to make more out of it. From a strictly exegetical point of view, one may argue that he should stick to the text; but from a biographical point of view, the fact that he indulged his imagination on this occasion is significant. And, unlike the average pastor, Douglas’s imagination always produced interesting results.

He says of the pearl trader: “If we may be permitted to lend our imagination wings, we may venture a guess that he… picked up one of his treasured pearls in Athens, the traditional seat of learning. Perhaps he called it his ‘Agnostic’ pearl. It had a special value for him. It stood for a neutral-tinted, convictionless attitude of mind, forever in quest of truth and never satisfied with its booty; forever asking for evidence, cross-examining witnesses and demanding testimony – and never reaching a verdict.

“Sometimes his heart proposed that he take a definite stand for something; espouse a cause and see it through; join hands with a movement and put it over; announce discipleship to some Master and follow him; but always he remembered the Agnostic pearl and remained non-committal. ‘Skeptic,’ his friends called him, and the word was not an epithet but a badge of merit, to his mind. He liked to be called ‘free-thinker.’ I suppose that of all the pearls he had, the merchant loved this one best.”

A lot of people in the church that day could probably empathize with this position – especially freshmen. Douglas continued:

“But not much less ardently did he rejoice in the possession of the flawless pearl he had bought in Rome, the headquarters of jurisprudence. Whatever qualms of conscience the Agnostic pearl aroused in him, this Roman stone, which he called the Justice pearl, stirred him to a self-righteous pride. For Justice was an undeniably fine attribute for any man to possess.

“Sometimes his heart suggested that he waive aside the claims of inexorable justice and invest something in behalf of human woe and wretchedness – even if that misery had but little to justify it. Sometimes he would have been glad to do something, out of the charity of his heart, for a weaker fellow; but always he remembered the Justice pearl. Every man should have exactly his due from him, and no more. Mercy was enervating. Mercy was always wearing its heart on its sleeve and getting itself taken in by imposters. No; Justice would do for him.”

Personnel from the administrative side of the University of Michigan were there that morning, and perhaps they felt the same way. Douglas continued:

“And then there was that most showy pearl of the lot, the one he had found in Alexandria, the home of riches and commercial prosperity. As he rubbed his sensitive thumb delicately over its satin surface, he glowed with satisfaction over its ownership. Just carrying it had brought him wealth. After all, honor and influence were not far away from the man who had amassed much property. It was ever so. Poverty, even voluntarily embraced in the interest of a great cause was nevertheless a serious handicap. Not for any consideration would he part from this jewel which he knew as his Prosperity pearl.”

Members of the Ann Arbor business community were members of the church, including prominent business leaders. Perhaps they could relate to this attitude. Douglas continued:

“But with all his goodly pearls he was not content, but still sought others. He appears to have had a haunting suspicion that somewhere there was a valuable pearl to which he had not yet gained access. I daresay he felt it would be a great pity to have gone through life, bent upon the exclusive business of finding the most valuable pearls, and then discover, perhaps when it was quite too late to achieve it, that the most wonderful pearl in the whole world was not his – could never be his – that he had not even seen it, much less owned it.

“It is this gnawing unrest that brings many of us toward the day of silvering hair and faltering footsteps, fearful that, after all, try as we might to live purposefully, we had somehow missed the very best things – maybe passed them, unnoticed, along the way; maybe tossed them aside, as of no account, in our ignorance of their value. Indeed, the man of fifty sometimes reflects that he remembers the day when he passed a great opportunity to possess something of inestimable worth; and if he might set his life back as easily as we set back our clocks last night [for the fall time-change], he would surely want to go back to that crucial hour and live it again.

“I do not know just how much this pearl-merchant worried lest he was rejoicing in the possession of some second-rate jewels when he was seeking the very best; but I do know that when the Master introduces him to us, he is still seeking pearls, goodly pearls. Still touring about from country to country, by ship and caravan, seeking better pearls than these he owned. It doesn’t look as if he was entirely contented.

“You will find them all along the way, many of them people you have envied for their conspicuous positions, their learning, their culture, their wealth – you will find them, like the pearl-merchant, still in quest of something better than they possess. Restless souls, whose very quest proclaims their dissatisfaction with their accretions.”

We know, of course, that the Pearl Merchant is going to find that one pearl that will outshine the others. But Douglas indulges his imagination in other ways, and what he does next is very interesting. I’ll tell about it in my next post.

Ann Arbor, Fall Semester, 1919

by Ronald R Johnson

First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor circa 1917. In LCD’s 1917 Scrapbook, Box 5, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

Over the next several weeks, I will be using Frieda Diekhoff’s collection of Lloyd Douglas’s sermons to reconstruct his preaching during the 1919-1920 school year at the University of Michigan. If you want to imagine the scene, the first ingredient you’ll need to include is excitement. By all accounts, Douglas’s sermons attracted enthusiastic audiences – so much so, that latecomers were often turned away for lack of seating.

Lionel Crocker was a graduate student at the time. He remembered years later that Douglas “was the leading preacher in Ann Arbor when I was studying and teaching at the University of Michigan…. I, like hundreds of others, had to be in my pew at ten o’clock for a 10:30 service” (“Preaching Through the Novel,” Classmate, March 9, 1947, p. 3).

The congregation was composed of professors and administrators from the university, as well as businesspeople from Ann Arbor. Douglas appealed to both “town” and “gown.” But the balcony was reserved for students, and it was always filled to capacity. As I mentioned in previous posts, Douglas was in charge of the YMCA at the University of Illinois before coming to Ann Arbor, so he was popular with students. But he never talked down to them. His sermons were geared to the level of educated audiences – of all ages.

It’s the beginning of a new school year, and a new season of football at the University of Michigan. The Great War (which we, with a larger historical perspective, call the First World War) is in the recent past. It’s in the back of our minds, but quickly receding. Two years earlier, everyone was walking around in a grim mood, but not now. Life is good again. Although it’s too early for people to say so, the Roaring Twenties are about to begin.

The music at this church is excellent. Earl V. Moore is the organist and choir director. He will soon become the head of the Music Department at the university, but for now he is the university organist and Douglas’s prize catch. Although people come primarily to hear Douglas preach, they also come for the music.

Here is a description by Calvin O. Davis, Professor of Education, in A History of the Congregational Church in Ann Arbor, 1847-1947, published by the church circa 1947, pp. 60-61:

“Dr. Douglas was one of the most scintillating and brilliant ministers ever to occupy our pulpit. To many individuals he was a platform orator. Facile in speech, powerful in imagery, dramatic in delivery, and quick to utilize a pithy saying or a humorous anecdote in order to emphasize a point in his sermon, he made a tremendous appeal to young and old alike, particularly to many university students. Within a short time the auditorium of the church was filled to overflowing every Sunday morning – scores, if not hundreds, of persons often being turned away from the doors by ushers because there was not an available seat left in the building.

“Dr. Douglas was accustomed to use notes in the delivery of his sermons but rarely, if ever, did he read directly from his manuscript. His aesthetic nature was peculiarly sensitive and expressive, especially in his recital of poetry, his description of art pieces, and his appreciation of music. At times his audience would spontaneously laugh aloud at some unexpected descriptive phrase or witty saying.”

But Professor Davis didn’t gloss over the negatives: “To some he seemed not deeply spiritual – more of a lecturer and entertainer than a preacher and religious inspirer. Some withdrew from the church on that account; others stayed but criticized. Certainly the religious influence he exerted through the publication of his many books since leaving Ann Arbor is proof of the spiritual leadership he possessed. It is true his theological views were broad and liberal and he gave only slight emphasis to creeds, but to the thousands who came in contact with him either on Sunday mornings or at other times he was a genuine inspiration.”

But what did he say in those sermons? That’s the question I’ll be answering in detail over the next several weeks.

The Mission of Lloyd C Douglas

by Ronald R Johnson

Autograph on first page of a customer copy of Forgive Us Our Trespasses.

Although it’s true that the phenomenal success of the 1929 novel Magnificent Obsession changed the life of its author, it was a delayed reaction. Not until he sat down to write Forgive Us Our Trespasses in the summer of 1932 did Lloyd Douglas realize how greatly his life would change. As I told you in previous posts, he had wanted his next novel to be a satire on the state of modern art, with emphasis (apparently) on the New Fiction of the 1920s; but instead, he wrote another novel like Magnificent Obsession, in which the story was based on a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. As he neared retirement from full-time ministry (which he planned to do in the summer of 1933), he had imagined himself as a mainstream novelist, not as a writer of Christian fiction.

His embarrassment comes through in an unpublished essay that he had intended for the Ladies’ Home Journal in early 1933. (All quotations in this post are from that essay, “Adventures in Parables,” which is filed under “Addresses and Articles,” Box 3, Lloyd C Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. The University of Michigan holds copyright to this document.)

“More or less by accident,” Douglas wrote, “I have become an author of goody-goody stories in which the characters are tiresomely decent and everything turns out happily in the end. This is an offense to modern art in letters, and if I knew to whom apologies should be offered, perhaps I might solicit such shriving as the transgression demands.”

He was joking, but he really did feel like he had been caught trespassing in literary territory. In that sense, the title Forgive Us Our Trespasses was more appropriate than people realized.

“My main trouble, in the opinion of the literary critics,” he continued, “is that I broke all the rules of novel-composition through ignorance. That’s what makes my position in the world of letters so embarrassing. The only woman at the dinner party who dares plant her elbows on the table and hold the squab in her fingers is the lady whose social experience is beyond the reach of query or cavil. If Maggie O’Flaherty did such a thing, the whole solar system would be set back two minutes due to time out for recovery.”

To understand the next example, you have to bear in mind that this was the Great Depression, and Roosevelt wasn’t president yet. At the very moment he wrote this piece, banks all over the country were closing. Douglas wrote, “The only man in town who can afford to wear a greasy old hat is the banker. (Pardon me. I was momentarily thinking of earlier times when bankers had money. If you can think of another word here for ‘banker,’ give him the old hat with our envious felicitations.)”

Then he got to the point:

“The only writer who can take the risk of breaking the laws in respect to the composition of fiction is the sanctioned, seasoned, spurred veteran; which I am not.

“Nobody in these frugal days should waste ink, stamps, and sarcasm in notifying me that Magnificent Obsession and Forgive Us Our Trespasses are, technically, about as bad as stories could be without exposing themselves to censorship in the cause of sound literary production. Perhaps I am too naive to know just how bad they are, but I have a general idea.”

He was being too hard on himself. Although a case can be made that this or that aspect of his first two novels could have been improved, critics with credentials – especially those based in New York – had good things to say about both novels. As I noted in a previous post, there were only a few writers in local newspapers (Kansas City, for example, and Birmingham, Alabama) who trashed Magnificent Obsession, and that trend continued with Forgive Us. But Douglas didn’t consider either of those books literary masterpieces, and that’s why he was embarrassed when some people did criticize them on literary grounds.

“I have only one defense to fall back upon,” he said, “when the really competent critics complain that my stories are shocking examples of How Not to Write a Novel. I am fully aware of it. I do not think of myself as a novelist at all. These things I have written are probably not novels. Perhaps they are modern parables.”

Again, he was conceding too much. They were novels; they just weren’t the kind that was in vogue after the literary revolution of the 1920s. They were “purpose novels”: novels in which the thesis was more important than the plot. And yet his first two books demonstrate that he understood plotting and did it with skill. His only real problem was this: that he was a writer of purpose novels in a day when that genre was considered a thing of the past.

There’s something he’s not telling us in this essay, however. The truth is, he had always aspired to be a novelist – not a writer of purpose novels but of real ones – ones in which the story was everything. Through all his years as a minister, he had waited patiently for that day, when he could shed the clerical collar and WRITE. But when his moment came, his incoming mail convinced him that God had other ideas. As much as he wanted to be “the sanctioned, seasoned, spurred veteran” writer of modern novels, he chose the path he felt his people needed.

This was the mission of Lloyd C. Douglas: to write “modern parables” for people who desperately needed the guidance such stories could provide. When he composed Forgive Us Our Trespasses, he had to make a choice. Would he follow his heart and be the novelist he had always dreamed of being, or would he do what he discerned the Spirit of God calling him to do? Knowing how much it meant to him, I believe it was a gut-wrenching decision. But he chose what he perceived to be his calling. And the rest is history.

This is as much as I can tell you, in these blog posts, about Douglas’s life story. The biography that I’ve written picks up here (1932) and covers the rest of his life, until his death in 1951. If you would like to know more about that book, I send a free monthly newsletter to Lloyd Douglas fans, updating them on the progress of my research and writing. I invite you to fill out the form below, and I will be glad to add you to my list.

In the meantime, future posts at this site will delve more deeply into the documents in the Lloyd Douglas archive: his sermons, speeches, published articles, and interviews. Stay tuned!

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Release

by Ronald R Johnson

Although he never flaunted it, Lloyd Douglas knew his New Testament Greek. And that was probably why he chose the working title, Release, for his next novel,in the summer of 1932.

Luke 6:37 is usually translated into English as, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven,” but a literal translation would be “Release, and you will be released.” The Greek verb is apoluō, which means “to release.” It also means “to forgive,” because that is one example of how you can “release” someone. The point Douglas wanted to emphasize in this new novel was that, in releasing others, we ourselves are released.

Here is how he explained his thesis to Ira Rich Kent, the Managing Editor at Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company on 7/26/1932 (from Box 1, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan):

“This book is not in any sense a sequel to Magnificent Obsession…. The thesis of M.O. was, briefly: How to get what you want, and be what you would like to be, through a practice of a Galilean principle of secret philanthropy.

“The thesis of the present work is: how to get free of the encumbrances which block the way to the expansion of personality.

“The most common of these encumbrances is hatred – prejudice, toxic frustrations, cancerous might-have-beens, bottled-up injustices.”

Notice that his examples go beyond just hatred to include disappointment and frustration that has been “bottled-up.” The title Release has even more meaning in this regard. He continues:

“The solution – to be cryptically disclosed through a process not at all homiletic, but by a device capable of sustaining reader interest – is based on the only comment the Lord offered on ‘the Lord’s Prayer’: If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive yours.

“Trespasses, in this book, are considered as ‘invasions of rights.’ My ‘Major Personality’ has a right to energies which He has invested in me. I cannot hope to succeed in a large way unless I concede and honor His right to the control of such power.

“My freedom to enjoy; to savor life; to get out of it all that is in it for me by putting into it all that I possess, depends upon my willingness to put myself into complete harmony with His design for me.

“I cannot hope to do this unless I free myself of the encumbrances that weight me down.

“At this point, there arises a quite definite proposal of NEGOTIATION. If I sincerely forgive all who have made life difficult for me, I have offered the credentials necessary for this FREEDOM.

“All this sounds didactic and brittle, as I attempt to explain it; but it will not appear so in the book.”

That part about “negotiation” will almost certainly appear foreign to Christians. We place our trust in Jesus, not in any sort of “negotiations” or “credentials” we may bring. The thing to remember here is that Douglas isn’t talking about salvation, and he’s not using orthodox vocabulary. He’s talking about unleashing one’s potential in one’s daily pursuits, and he’s using the vocabulary of the ordinary person out in the world. His congregations were filled with people who professed to be Christians but who had never done the things Jesus talked about. He’s trying to get them beyond talking about it and actually doing it. And he’s starting at Square One.

In the book (Chapter 15), he has the character Julia explain it this way (and she seems to be referring to Matthew 18 here):

This little piece [of scripture]… doesn’t whine at all. It doesn’t ask you to whimper for mercy.

It’s just a business proposition same as if you owed a thousand dollars to Mr. Smith, and ten other people owed you a hundred dollars apiece, and Mr. Smith said, ‘Pay me that thousand dollars,’ and you said, ‘I can’t – with all these people owing me.’

And Mr. Smith said, ‘I don’t need the money so much, but I like you and want to be friends with you, and as long as you are owing me you’ll be keeping away from me for fear I’ll ask you for it and make you ashamed. And it won’t do any good for me to tell you just to keep the money and forget it, because that would make you ashamed, too, and you would always feel in debt. So – I’ll make you a proposition. If you will cancel all the debts of these people who owe you, and are afraid to face you, so that they can afford to cancel the debts of the people who owe them, I’ll call it square with you. Then we can all be good neighbors again, and nobody will be afraid of anyone else, or shy, or ashamed.’

This all sounds so much more sensible to me, dear, than the way they talk about it at the meetings. It’s just as if God wanted us to do business with Him about these things that have kept us strangers.

Houghton Mifflin published the book in November 1932 under the title, Forgive Us Our Trespasses. Douglas had thought it would be a clever satire of modern art, but it ended up being much more. And, in writing it, he found his mission in life. I’ll tell you about that in my next post.