"Nobody ever knew why Bishop Goodloe never came back after he married

while on a mission from the Southern Methodist Conference to the

Northern Methodist Conference. He severed his relations with his own

Conference, and he never preached again though he was one of the most

wonderful and eloquent preachers the South has ever known. He was the

youngest bishop the church had ever ordained. Nobody ever knew what

happened, and all we know now is that this perfectly beautiful man, who

is the bishop's son, came down to the General Conference in Nashville,

was examined and ordained, and the presiding bishop sent him out here to

Goodloets last November. We don't know anything about him except that he

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has been fighting in the trenches in France for a year and has had a

bullet cut out of his left lung. Everybody adores him, and we all sit

spellbound listening to him preach, I think mostly on account of his

voice, because none of us ever seems to remember what he is preaching

about. He's been having services in the ballroom at the Country Club but

he is going to dedicate the chapel soon and we are all relieved. It has

been fun to go out to church at the Club twice every Sunday and to

prayer meeting on Wednesday night all winter, and we've danced in the

long parlor at home and in the double parlors at Jessie Litton's so as

not to disarrange the pews, I mean the chairs, in the ballroom, but now

that the spring has come we--we need the Club. I'm glad you will be here

for the dedication, and you will help us kind of--kind of--"

"Taper off from your religious spree?" I asked with a laugh that Letitia

echoed shamefacedly.

"That's an awful way to put it--but--"

"True?"

"We've all tried hard, but--but it is such a--a bore. It doesn't seem

fair to enjoy Gregory Goodloe so much at dinners and parties and not

show our respect and--and admiration by being good church members.

Jessie joined his study workers and she took a class of the awful little

children from down in the Settlement beyond the Phosphate Mills, who all

smelled terribly. She worked hard with them twice a week for a month,

and then Mother Spurlock, who is the front pillar of his congregation,

found that she had taught all the dirty little things to sew with their

left hands. She came in one morning and found them all stitching away

industriously backwards, just because Jessie is left-handed herself.

Mother Elsie laughed until she lost her breath and Mr. Goodloe had to

help unloosen her belt for her. The meeting broke up with ice cream on

Jessie for everybody. We all belong to home mission societies and sewing

circles and--"

"You want me to get you out of your purgatory and let you backslide

to--"




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