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The Eathornes are the oldest and wealthiest family in Zenith, their grim, red-brick house symbolizing the power they hold. As much as he dislikes the present Zenith, Lewis is too realistic to romanticize its past. The long-established Eathorne is more polite than the backslapping salesmen at the Athletic Club, but he isn\'t any less greedy.
Babbitt finds enough courage to offer his suggestions for improving Sunday School attendance--suggestions about as ridiculous and unreligious as we\'d expect. Prizes should be awarded to kids who bring in new members, and the prizes shouldn\'t be \"poetry books and illustrated Testaments\" but cash or motorcycle speedometers. Other \"stunts\" include hiring a press agent to plant favorable stories about the church in the local newspaper.
Much to Babbitt\'s surprise, Eathorne endorses the plans. The two men\'s styles may be very different, but when it comes to important matters like making money or increasing business, they think very much alike.
As Babbitt drives home, his happiness at impressing Eathorne makes every light in the city seem to glow beautifully. It isn\'t enough, he tells himself, to be someone like Vergil Gunch. Now he wants to be like Eathorne, powerful but dignified. Lewis hints at the futility of these dreams when Babbitt returns home and Mrs. Babbitt is unable to notice any change in him.
Babbitt hires Kenneth Escott, a reporter on the Zenith Advocate-Times, as press agent for the Sunday School. Today we\'d call this arrangement a conflict of interest--reporters should cover the news, not plant favorable stories about people who are paying them to do so. But in Zenith, conflicts of interest are accepted. Babbitt\'s plan works. The Presbyterian Sunday School becomes the second busiest in Zenith. The Reverend Drew claims it would have reached first place but for the \"ungentlemanly and unchristian\" tactics of the rival Central Methodist Church. Those tactics probably aren\'t very different from the Reverend Drew\'s--Zenith businessmen and men of God both tend to praise competition up until the moment they lose.
Kenneth Escott becomes friendly with Babbitt\'s daughter Verona. Together they represent the better educated younger generation of Zenith, yet Lewis doesn\'t leave us feeling they\'re any more intelligent than their parents. They call themselves radicals, but their views are little more liberal than Babbitt\'s.
As a press agent, Escott is a success. His articles make Babbitt so well-known that the distinguished William Eathorne accepts his invitation to dinner. This attempt at social climbing, unlike the attempt with the McKelveys, is a success. And because in Zenith social success is always tied to business success, Eathorne later helps Babbitt in yet another shady business deal, quietly lending him money.
NOTE: THE CORRUPTION OF RELIGION The past two chapters have shown that just as real art and literature are almost nonexistent in Zenith, so is real religion. Dr. Drew is indistinguishable from any Zenith businessman, and the magazines that promote Sunday School supplies are indistinguishable from trade journals. When Babbitt advises his son Ted, \"I tell you boy, there\'s no stronger bulwark of sound conservatism than the evangelical church, and no better place to make friends who\'ll help you gain your rightful place in the community than in your own church home,\" he\'s in effect saying he values religion because it\'s enabled him to form a profitable friendship with William Eathorne.
Compare Lewis\'s attitude toward religion to yours. Are attempts, like Babbitt\'s, to popularize it vulgar and out of place, or are they justified because they bring more people into the church? Do you think most people attend church out of a genuine belief in God or because it\'s the socially respectable (and perhaps profitable) thing to do? What should the relationship between religion and business be?
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