|
To ignore his disappointment at the McKelveys\' rejection, Babbitt takes refuge in his club meetings. Clubs are important in Zenith, Lewis explains. They promote business contacts. They give people a sense of self-importance.
Still, Babbitt remains irritable, discontented. Even the pleasant evenings at Paul Riesling\'s house remind him of failed dreams: when Paul plays his violin, he\'s a lost and lonely man.
Another important part of life in Zenith centers around religion. But the city\'s devotion to God seems little different from--indeed, almost indistinguishable from--its devotion to business. We\'ve already seen one sorry example of a Zenith religious figure in evangelist Mike Monday. Now we meet the Reverend John Jennison Drew, more pretentious than Monday but hardly more devout--he\'s proud \"to be known primarily as a businessman.\" Babbitt greatly admires Drew\'s speaking ability, but his sermon is as full of nonsense as most public speeches in Zenith are.
After the service, Drew asks Babbitt to come to his office. There Babbitt is joined by Chum Frink and by William Eathorne, the seventy-nine-year-old president of the First State Bank of Zenith. Eathorne stands even higher on the social ladder than the McKelveys, for he\'s had his money longer. Babbitt, in awe of the old man, is delighted when Drew invites him to work with Eathorne on a project to increase Sunday School attendance.
Naturally, Babbitt knows and cares as little about theology as he does about science or art. He believes in Heaven, which he imagines as a good hotel, but he doesn\'t really believe in Hell. He goes to church mainly because being seen there will help earn him a reputation as a respectable member of the community--an image that\'s good for business.
In his efforts to increase Sunday School attendance, Babbitt begins investigating the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church as he would a failing company. He approves of the Busy Folks Bible Class because the lessons are as entertaining as a good after-dinner speech. The junior classes, taught by choir director Sheldon Smeeth, embarrass him with their sickly sweet talk of \"the perils and glory of sex.\" Classes in philosophy are dull enough to remind Babbitt of the agonies he suffered attending Sunday School as a youth.
It\'s with relief that Babbitt discovers the business side of Sunday School--the journals, \"as technical, as practical and forever lovely as the real estate columns or the shoe trade magazines.\" Babbitt has probably never read the Bible (his promise \"to read some of it again, one of these days,\" is a pretty hollow-sounding one), but he can understand talk of pep and of get-up-and-go, and--worst and most hilarious of all--of the \"Model for Pupils to Make Tomb With Rolling Door.\"
|
