“The natural assumption is that they believe about religion, the religion of Christ, what this poor fellow does, and therefore, actually believe that this ‘weak stuff’ is a contribution to their cause.
“I remember Farmington, Mo., very well, having been there about twenty-five years ago. I do not remember Herbert Asbury at all.
“I am not surprised that I do not, as he must have been then somewhat as he evidently is now—a very small potato—and while I would feel naturally as interested in his conversion as in anyone else, at the same time I am forced to admit that it would not be possible for a man of training and experience to list a man of his evident mentality very highly, even though he were a professed convert in his meeting.
“I am very sorry that he was not really converted. If the Editor of the American Mercury cares for things of a really constructive nature, I can give him the life story of thousands of men and women whom because of the genuineness of their conversion to Christ in my own meetings, have given to the world characters of such beauty and worth as have reflected credit upon themselves and their church and have proved a blessing to society at large.
“I have never asked people to stand up if they want to go to Heaven. I think that very ridiculous.”
6
It was these people who taught me of God, and who had dominion over my spiritual welfare! And not only did they instruct me to worship their conception of Him; they threatened me with eternal damnation if I didn’t, and with even more horrible punishment if I ventured to cast doubt upon the truth and holiness of the Bible. Eternal damnation meant that I should, in the life to come, hang throughout eternity on a revolving spit over a great fire in the deepest pit of Hell, while little red devils jabbed white-hot pokers into my quivering flesh and Satan stood by and curled his lip in glee. I received the impression that Satan was the only one actively concerned with religion who was ever permitted to laugh. God was not, nor His disciples, and that Satan could and apparently did was sufficient proof that laughter was wicked.
And they described God to me, and told me in minute detail of the architectural design of Heaven and the furnishings of the Mansions in the Sky. I do not know where they obtained their information. I gathered that God was an old man who wore a long white nightgown and boasted a luxuriant growth of whiskers, with a disposition compounded of the snarls of a wounded wildcat and the pleasant conceits of a must elephant. He chewed tobacco—perhaps that impression was due to the fact that so many of our preachers were addicted to the vile weed—and He had an enormous head which contained an eye for every person on earth, and this eye was constantly upon its object. And it was a vindictive and jaundiced eye, peering into the innermost depths of the soul and the mind and the heart for some thought or feeling that might call for punishment.
The descriptions of Heaven and the physical appearance of the angels varied somewhat, according to whether the tale was told by a preacher or a Brother, or a Sister. But all of them talked with gusto of streets paved with gold and of clouds lined with silver, of magnificent buildings constructed of precious stones, and of angels sitting on the clouds with no worthier purpose in life than strumming a golden harp, protected from the weather by no more substantial raiment than a white nightgown, a halo and a pair of sandals. And whoever told the tale, there was always that underlying idea of sybaritic magnificence; Heaven bore no resemblance to the lowly stable in which the founder of their religion was born, and it was not a somber retreat for the further development of the soul and the cultivation of those virtues that are lost sight of upon the earth. As it was described to me in my youth, and as it is still described on those rare occasions when I can bring myself to hold converse with a Preacher, Heaven was a celestial reproduction of the palace of a Babylonian monarch. Nobody worked, and God’s House abounded with gold and silver and rubies and diamonds, and on every cloud that rolled down the street was a beautiful woman, eternally young and amiable. The Heaven that I was taught to aspire to was a motion picture set on an even grander scale than the creations of Cecil De Mille.
But even more emphasis was placed, in these tales, on feminine virginity. It seemed that Heaven was filled with virgins; I have never heard a Preacher describe an angel without mentioning the fact that the angel was a virgin, and I have never heard a Preacher describe Mary simply as the mother of Jesus. She is always the Virgin Mother, and he pronounces it all in capitals. Even as a boy I was impressed with the frequency with which the word “virgin” appeared in the discourses of our Pastor and in the lectures so freely bestowed upon me by the Brothers. It seemed to me that the word fascinated them; although I might be trembling with fear that God would strike me dead because I had not learned my Sunday-school lesson or had forgotten the Golden Text, I was so impressed that I found time to wonder at the enthusiasm with which they mouthed it.