The cover of the August 5, 1920, issue of The Christian Century.
I’ve told you before that Douglas debuted with The Christian Century by entering an essay contest. John Spargo’s article, “The Futility of Preaching,” was the subject, and a number of ministers responded to the editor’s call for rebuttals. Douglas was one of them. Through his essay, “Preaching and the Average Preacher,” Douglas demonstrated a style all his own, and the editor, Charles Clayton Morrison invited him to submit more of his writing to the Century. In fact, he urged Douglas to do it right away, while readers still remembered his name.
Douglas did better than that: he submitted a series of articles, and he framed them as a longer, more in-depth response to Spargo’s criticisms. He called the series, “Wanted — A Congregation!” In this series, he offered advice about how one might preach in such a way that people would flock to the church (as his own parishioners had been doing for the past five years at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, adjacent to the University of Michigan). Douglas had a dynamic personality and was especially powerful in the pulpit and at the typewriter, but in this series of articles he claimed that others could learn from his successes (and failures).
It may seem astounding that Douglas could have responded to Morrison’s invitation so quickly and voluminously, but this series was based on a book he had already written more than a year earlier. In January 1919, Douglas sent a manuscript of the book The Mendicant to the Doran Company. George Doran liked the style of Douglas’s writing but wanted the book to be more religious than it actually was. Douglas didn’t take Doran’s advice, and the manuscript sat in his file cabinet, waiting for the right opportunity to try again.
Douglas recognized Morrison’s invitation as that opportunity. Although The Mendicant was written as a series of dialogues, Douglas took the information that was in his manuscript and rewrote it as a series of essays. Over the next few weeks, I will share excerpts from those essays.
From the Michigan Daily (the student paper of the University of Michigan) sometime in October 1919.
This is Part 2 in a short series of posts about some anonymous limericks Lloyd Douglas wrote for the Michigan Daily, the student paper at the University of Michigan, in the fall of 1919. These were meant as advice to incoming freshmen. “The Newcomer” tells about himself and an “Old Timer” (an upperclassman) offers advice. This one was printed sometime in October 1919 and it was titled, “Concerning Etiquette”:
The Newcomer Says:
I love this free Democracy Where all of us are brothers; But where I eat on Duroc Street They also board some others.
My Uncle! You should see this crew – Their arms up on the table – Our food supplies they vocalize As loudly as they’re able.
And when the feat is quite complete And they have mopped the platter, They find a stick and gouge and pick Where anything’s the matter.
Now I was taught that men of thought Are persons of good breeding; Please tell me why this rule’s awry When college men are feeding.
The Old Timer Replies:
My cultured friend, you need not mend The maxim you have quoted; Most men of thought, as you were taught, Are for good manners noted.
But don’t you know someday you’ll go From out these halls of knowledge? All sorts you’ll meet – and with them eat (For all you’re trained in college).
We could not bear to send you there Unused to sights revolting; So, for your good, you take your food Where some are skilled at bolting.
And afterwhile you’ll sometimes smile To see their feats courageous; Be careful, though; we’d have you know The habit is contagious.
[I will continue sharing these limericks over the next two posts.]
From the Michigan Daily (the student paper of the University of Michigan) sometime in October 1919.
For the past few months, I have been sharing Douglas’s preaching and published articles during the 1919-1920 school year. He also wrote anonymous limericks in the Michigan Daily, the student paper at the University of Michigan. These were all meant as advice to incoming freshmen. “The Newcomer” tells about himself and an “Old Timer” (an upperclassman) offers advice. The first of these limericks was printed sometime in October 1919 and it was titled, “Concerning Confusion”:
The Newcomer Says:
I like the looks of my new books; They cost me three weeks’ wages; Therefore I fain would ascertain What’s written on their pages.
But every day, where I now stay, The racket is increasing – A dreadful din, a mandolin – And chatter without ceasing.
Oh how, indeed, is one to read In such wild agitation? I’ve lost my poise in all this noise: Please deal with this vexation.
The Old Timer Replies:
You’ve told the truth, oh wretched youth; The tumult here is awful! We also used to feel abused, Declaring it unlawful.
But every year, this earthly sphere Grows noisier than ever: Our peace of mind we’ve left behind, To be recaptured never.
‘Twould be unkind to train your mind To think in peace and quiet, Then shout someday, ‘Get in the fray You cloistered monk – and try it!’
So: to have noise, we’ve hired some boys To furnish great confusion; They think that they are here to stay But this is mere delusion.
If you can toil in this turmoil, And practice concentration, You will agree someday with me That it was your salvation.
Editor’s Note: The above verses with some others which will appear in later issues of The Daily were written by a prominent man of Ann Arbor who is very much interested in student affairs but who, in his own words, wants his ‘anonymity carefully preserved.’ They were written for the purpose of printing them in a booklet for the freshmen. As the latter plan did not materialize, he has given them to The Daily for publication.
I will share the rest of his limericks over the next few posts.
Editor’s Note at the bottom of Douglas’s anonymous limerick, “On Confusion.”
The following is from “A Suggested Valedictory for Class Day at AnyCollege,” by Lloyd C. Douglas, in the June 1920 issue of The Intercollegian (the monthly magazine of the YMCA). Douglas had already done something similar a year earlier under the title, “A Truthful Commencement Address,” given by the college president. This time he’s pretending to be a member of the graduating class:
“Honorable Board of Directors, Members of the Faculty, Distinguished Guests, Alumni, Fond Parents, Fellow Students, Dear Classmates, Ladies and Gentlemen, and — have I forgotten anybody, I wonder?
“We are about through. One more long, trying session in these flowing robes — appropriately so-called because of their perspiration-exciting capacities — and we shall float out of them upon the sea of life.
“It is a well-known fact among us that only a few skippers of our gladsome fleet are aware of their next port of call. Most of us are concerned with the business immediately at hand — that of standing on the bridge, waving our handkerchiefs to the crowd on the wharf.
“Personally, I have an uneasy misgiving about my cargo. For some years, the stevedores have been dumping it into my hold, and I have stood by, checking the items: two B’s of this, three A’s of that, and ten C’s of something else, with an occasional D or two of something else — but making no effort to store the stuff in a manner that may permit of its being unloaded. Indeed, as I have looked into the hold now and again, of late, I have been quite worried over the problem. I find that I have been considering certain consignments as mere dunnage which really are of great value. There are huge bales of priceless wares chucked down in the bilge, probably water-soaked and half rotten by this time, that I could market for a fine price if only I had known earlier how important it was to preserve them.
“Moreover, I have my cabin piled high with boxes and cartons of merchandise which, a little while ago, seemed tremendously valuable, but now appear to be useless.
“I recall with a shudder how I laughed on the day that the big bale labeled ‘Political Economy’ broke loose from the grappling hooks and fell through to the very keel of me and smashed; and I said, ‘Oh, well; it amounts to little anyway! Let it lie!’ That same day, I was toting up to my stateroom packages of stuff which were so precious I wouldn’t let anyone else touch them — all about the movie stars, the latest crinkle in jazz, the last sartorial yip from the haberdashery.
“I would give much today if I might escape this Turkish bath for a few hours to dig about in my hold and lay hands upon some of the discarded and water-logged possessions of mine and fish them out.
“But that seems impossible. The engines are chug-chugging, and the band is um-pah-ing, and our admiring friends are bidding us ‘Bon voyage!’ We must be true to form and see the event through, according to the best traditions. Forgive us for wearing serious faces. We cannot help being reflective. Every mother’s son of us knows that he is embarking with a badly-distributed ballast.
“As for myself, I am aware that there isn’t a scrap of machinery in me capable of hoisting a single bale of my cargo up out of the hold. I hooted at the Literary Society and called the Oratorical Association funny names. I never learned how to speak in public and am considerably at a disadvantage when it comes to expressing myself clearly in private. I do not know how to write, convincingly or any other way. It is difficult for me to compose a readable letter of fifteen lines. In other words, I am full of knowledge up to my quarter deck, and I have no equipment for disgorging it.
“O ye who follow us — a word with you! Be careful how you store your cargo. Don’t emulate our folly who have debated, hours, on the respective merits of Gish and Pickford; who wrote long editorials admonishing the local play-houses against showing such an excessive amount of advertisements on the screen to the loss of our time who had come rather to see Deadeye Pete and Mexico Jake save the life of the Queen of Bronco Bill’s Dive; who had no time for concerts, lectures, art exhibits, or the paleontological museum — half ashamed, indeed, to be caught with an interest in such things — I say, don’t try to perpetuate our foolishness!
“Store your cargo so that you can get at it again. Be sure that you rig some windlasses and donkey-engines on your decks, to be used at various ports! And Heaven help you if you toss down into the bilge-water merchandise of great value. I know some of you. Already well on toward committing the same blunder that today causes us unrest. Nobody could persuade you to appear in a collar one-quarter inch too high — and you pooh-pooh the idea of trying to find out what ails Russia!
“Farewell! We are off! In many respects, we have been off all along. Farewell! Just toss that rear hawser in, will you? That’s a good fellow! Thanks!”
The front page of the February 1920 issue of The Intercollegian (the magazine of the YMCA).
It was early 1920, a little more than a year after the end of the First World War. Although the war was over, peace was illusive. Lloyd Douglas, watching global developments from Ann Arbor, Michigan, was concerned about the future. His essay, “Under the Juniper Tree,” published in The Intercollegian’s February 1920 issue, was prompted by a youth convention of some sort, probably involving the YMCA. I have been unable to get information about that conference, but here is Douglas’s response. The biblical reference is to the story of Elijah under the juniper tree in I Kings 19.
“An old statesman sat, fagged and gloomy, under a juniper tree. The place was a wilderness. The hour was twilight. The man was a fugitive.
“He had tried, unsuccessfully, to make something of a nation that was rotting. Too much war, too much social injustice, too much idle riches at the top and sour poverty at the bottom. All of these conditions had ‘done her in.’ Everybody was restless; the air was charged with revolution; two percent were profiteering on ninety-eight percent, and ninety-eight percent were rolling up their tattered sleeves to settle with the two percent. A mess it was — by all the rules of reckoning!
“The old statesman had given up the sacrificial struggle and wanted nothing else than to die. He tumbled into a forlorn heap under a juniper tree. Thus, the juniper tree became, forever and ever, a symbol of wretchedness. Even the berries thereof have been put under the ban.
“A Voice spoke to the despairing statesman. By no means was his cause lost. There were seven thousand still loyal to the best interests of the endangered kingdom. These seven thousand constituted the key to the desperate situation. Let them be lined up for service and the nation’s mistakes could be rectified.
“All of this happened in 920 B.C.
“At the opening of 1920 A.D., seating accommodations under the juniper tree were entirely inadequate to take care of the prophets who feared we were destined to perish of our quick and easy riches. Materialism rampant; indifference the vogue; selfishness at the crescent; almost everybody with his hand in the bag, up to the shoulder.
“Seven thousand potential leaders of the nation’s future affairs forego their holidays, at no little cost to themselves, to meet in a great convention and pledge their lives to lift, help, heal, serve, redeem!
“Moreover — these seven thousand were but picked representatives of seven times seven thousand who feel precisely as they feel about the responsibilities now facing the trained leadership of the republic.
“Let the juniper tree be cut down for a celebration bonfire! We are not so badly off as we thought! This country simply cannot make enough mistakes to abrogate the influence of these indomitable young dynamos!
“When the census taker inquires about your occupation, tell him you are a wood-cutter — specializing in juniper trees!
From the June 1919 issue of the YMCA’s monthly magazine, The Intercollegian.
This is from Lloyd Douglas’s essay, “A Truthful Commencement Address,” published in the June 1919 issue of The Intercollegian, put out by the YMCA. The full title is, “A Truthful Commencement Address (As It Might Be Delivered by the President of Any College).”
“My Dear Young Friends — or perhaps I had better say, Young Ladies and Gentlemen, for during your four years’ residence here I have been unable to become acquainted with you, having been required to be absent almost constantly, shaking down wealthy alumni and supplicating the state legislature for the wherewithal to pay salaries to your dearly beloved instructors.
“You have now arrived at an epochal hour in your lives — or what would be that, if so many of you were not contemplating post-graduate work which will keep you in the rah-rah for another three to five years. The few of you who do step forth today to grapple with life — or, more strictly speaking, who are all packed up to go home for the summer — might be felicitated upon the triumphal termination to your college career, were it not for the well-known fact that fully seven-ninths of you have been working only for credits, electing the pipes and snaps, and just skinning through with an oh-be-thankful average of C flat.
“I have it from your instructors that some of you are graduating by a very narrow squeak. They tell me that a considerable number of you never did fire on more than two cylinders; and that some of your batteries need renewing, even before you start on the journey of life, due to hard driving on your joy rides.
“Honestly, it makes me laugh when I see you sitting there, looking so solemn and wise, squinting up at me through your black tassels and wondering how far your rented gown misses connections with the back of your collar — for I saw your marks at the Registrar’s office; and, say, they were some grades!
“Doubtless you hope that I will say something about your painful ascent of the Mount of Wisdom — which only three or four of you took on high — for the benefit of your pa and ma who are admiring the top of your mortar-board from the balcony; but I am afraid to attempt it, for fear some of the faculty may grin and give the whole thing away. That being the case, let us approach the matter with friendly frankness — and tell the truth.
“You came here, four years ago, flushed with enthusiasm to become educated men and women. You had bright dreams of fitting yourselves for eminent service to society. The sophisticated upperclassmen had that all shamed out of you by the first Thanksgiving. The little handful of you who did contrive to retain your youthful visions were hectored and badgered and chaffed throughout your course by a bunch of roughnecks, many of whom will not be able to buy, borrow, or bank ten years from now unless they inherit something that can be doled out to them in the form of a pension. The majority of you settled down early to the belief that the faculty was your common enemy and that the big fight of your lives was to avoid seeming to take a personal interest in your studies, lest you should become an object of ridicule among your mates.
“You missed the lectures by eminent men, which we provided for you at considerable expense, and went to the movies instead, to see the man with the big hat and the leather pants rescue the heiress to all of Fifth Avenue from Madison Square to Seventy-Second Street from the clutches of Desperate Mike, in a log hut at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
“On the night of the orchestral concert which we brought on for your delectation to play the music of the masters, you had a dance — the music being furnished by two snare drums, a tin whistle, a pair of cymbals, a cowbell, a pistol, a couple of wooden blocks covered with sandpaper, the whole accompanied by a boy with a fatuous grin who beat the time by bouncing himself up and down on the piano bench. Again, when we enticed one of the foremost American artists to come here with his exhibition, you held another dance which was announced as ‘Strictly Modern’ — so modern, indeed, that some of the chaperones left before it was out.
“I have it on pretty good authority that some of you young gentlemen who are going out to lead in the great constructive movements of our day — pardon my smiling — used to get yourselves excused early from the seven-to-nine P.M. sociology seminar, where you were discussing the best processes of redeeming our degraded social order and setting to rights a badly befogged civilization, so that you might attend a vaudeville in which the chief bill featured a group of tired, underfed, underpaid girls who danced to the tune of ‘By the Moon, I Spoon,’ and coughed, between verses, to the tune of T. B., which was followed by a brief skit in which a trained monkey appeared and smoked a cigarette. This latter act must have been tame stuff, however, since one need not spend one’s good money to see such things.
“Well, here you all are; still young enough to make good, even if you have thrown away a chance you’ll never have again. Some of you possess a glimmer of genius which you can cash in, provided you don’t bank too heavily on what your family thinks you have found here on this campus. Don’t let any of our Commencement felicitations fool you too much about the real value of your college training, for mighty few of you have got anything worth all the fuss we are making over you.
“If you should care to come back about twenty years from today to attend the reunion of your class, it may interest you to see us pass out a generous chunk of the alphabet to some of your classmates who were hooted as ‘greasy grinds’ and ‘moles’ because they kept at their jobs while you went to see the trained monkeys, a sight you might have had any morning while shaving, except, possibly, for the adjective.
“And now, we bid you farewell; knowing that you would like to get loose and have a little walk with Flossie before the 3:15 train which carries you back to Jonesville, and Susie, who wears the Itta Bitta fraternity badge and has promised to share your fortunes when they are divisible by two.
“Don’t be depressed because it’s too late to mend the job you’ve foozled. Buck up, and play the game! A lot of people just like you, who trifled away their chances to learn something in college, have managed to put it over by imitating other people who had learned something. If you want to do a really constructive piece of service before you leave us, write a brief confession of the manner in which you bungled your job, seal it, and deposit it with us, to be handed to your own boy when he arrives here for college training. Maybe it will help to keep him steady; for, unless a new crop of youngsters comes along pretty soon with more interest in the real business of college life than you evinced, the whole thing will get to be a joke.
“Kindly step to the platform now and get your diplomas. We have printed your names on them in English so you might have no trouble identifying your own. As for the rest of it, we have prepared it in Latin. Few of you will ever know just what it says; but — no matter.
“We are sorry to see you leave. We would not be sorry if we thought the next outfit that comes along would be any more diligent. In that case, we should speed you on your way with an almost unseemly hilarity. But we know that you have set an example for your juniors which will make them as nearly like you as peas in a pod.
“Go out in the world, then; and, after five years of hard knocks, do create some new sentiment about college life! For we want to keep old alma mater going — and we can’t, very well, unless there is a change of attitude on the part of our constituency toward the real business of higher education!”
“There is also that tendency in middle life to slide. After the senses have become jaded, after the bloom has been rubbed off the ideals and anticipation holds out fewer dazzling fingers, then comes the menace of what an old-time bard called ‘the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’
“There was Saul. I would not weary you with a long story. Just a few broad charcoal strokes will suffice; a mere silhouette of him.
“His nation wanted a king. Saul was a brawny youth, handsome as any Terrean ever was. Head and shoulders over any other young man of his generation. And when the old judge, who had it all to say who should be appointed king, spied this super-youth, he called his long quest ended, invited him to an interview, told him to go home and wind up his affairs, and prepare to wear his nation’s crown.
“And Saul was completely overpowered by the high distinction that had come upon him, right out of the blue. He was afraid he wasn’t quite up to the part. Indeed, he hid himself among the freight of the caravan, half-inclined to ‘beat it,’ as we say, and evade the terrific responsibility. But persuaded at length that it was his duty to obey the call to kingship, he acceded to the throne, robed himself in the vestiture of royalty, and looked — and for a time acted — every inch a king.
“The years passed. Saul concentrated more and more upon the interests of his court as against the larger interests of his kingdom. More and more he took on the role of an autocrat, aristocrat — less and less the attitude of service to his nation. Little by little he came to regard with jealous hatred every strong personality in his court. Even the shepherd lad, brought in to play for him upon the harp, excited Saul’s envy until he was filled with murderous rage. Until, bye and bye, it was said of him, in curious words which are spoken in a tone of bleak finality, his spirit left him. And then the chronicler observes, ‘But Saul wist not that his soul had departed from him.’
“It was gone, but Saul didn’t know it. He didn’t miss it. He still had his crown; his scepter; his ermine — or whatever was the equivalent of ermine in Saul’s regal establishment; but his soul was gone.
“Where? How? When? Nobody could say.
“He had just aped the tawdry pomp of his heathen contemporaries a little too long. He had just allowed his own interests to outweigh his vested responsibilities a little too far. He had allowed his soul to come out of him gradually, until there was nothing left of it — even if he wist not that it had departed from him.
“If you have never read this majestic poem which recites the details of Saul’s tragedy and the Nemesis that overtook him, do not much longer deny yourself that experience. I do not mean to narrate any more of it. Just to stamp this one sentence down hard upon your consciousness: ‘And Saul wist not that his soul had departed from him.’
“How many a man who, as a youth, was visited by splendid dreams of a future made bright by loyal friendships, worthy achievements, and the reasonable rewards of fair deeds, has drifted and drifted on toward the twilight of age — morose, dissatisfied; both hands full of gold, perhaps; barns filled with corn, perhaps; ready to eat, drink, and be merry — and when his soul is required, he finds that he hasn’t a soul. It has departed, though he may not have observed its flight.
“And since we have been standing for a moment before an old-world portrait, let us tarry in this closing moment before another. The great emancipator of this same nation has been up on a hillcrest to commune with God concerning his responsiblity as a leader. The whole nation has been waiting in the valley for his return. And when he came down and rejoined them, it was said of him that his face was illumined. And the historian adds, ‘And Moses wist not that his face shone.’
“He was reflecting the glory that was his by virtue of his spiritual contact with his Father, but he didn’t know that his face shone. If he had known it and had thought about it and had prided himself on this distinction, perhaps the strange light would have departed from his eyes. But he was unaware of it, simply because he was too much wrapped up in the love he bore his people, and his sense of high obligation to serve them.
“I think we shall find it true that most men and women who are able to exercise great power over their fellows wist not that their faces are illumined. And just because they do not know it — being too much engrossed with the duties thrust upon them to love, to serve, to lift, to heal, to redeem — their faces shine.”
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.
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!’
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 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.”
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.
The Lloyd C Douglas Page 