But the persons who listened seemed to enjoy
themselves, and I understood that I had met with a popular
preacher.
Later on, when I had perused the sermons of a gentleman called
Talmage and some others, I perceived that I had been listening to
a very mild specimen. Yet that man, with his brutal gold and
silver idols, his hands-in-pocket, cigar-in-mouth, and
hat-on-the-back-of-the-head style of dealing with the sacred
vessels, would count himself, spiritually, quite competent to
send a mission to convert the Indians.
All that Sunday I listened to people who said that the mere fact
of spiking down strips of iron to wood, and getting a steam and
iron thing to run along them was progress, that the telephone was
progress, and the net-work of wires overhead was progress. They
repeated their statements again and again.
One of them took me to their City Hall and Board of Trade works,
and pointed it out with pride. It was very ugly, but very big,
and the streets in front of it were narrow and unclean. When I
saw the faces of the men who did business in that building, I
felt that there had been a mistake in their billeting.
By the way, 'tis a consolation to feel that I am not writing to
an English audience.
