Nothing more impels Deity to sympathy and sufferance than man's inept gestures toward devotion. The church of Saint Bypass, set on an abrupt jog of uphill road, was built and beneficed in the very year when the horseless carriage was invented. It was planned and placed for that slow, wheel-sifting, sandy traffic when horse was hierarch. The first automobilist, in his demon gear of duster and goggles, was ill omen for Saint Bypass. They were afraid to go again, because the Friendly elders rushed out to shake hands after the meeting.
Some people find it hard to be folksy just after prayer.
While the Army's great construction was proceeding, the plight of Saint Bypass was grim. The rectory, never too sturdy and perched on a slope, quaked like blancmange. Wide cracks opened in the parson's consulting room. During those thunderous weekdays the rector even attempted the trick of Oriental rhapsodists, putting himself in trance by swallowing his tongue. That member was no use to him anyway, he said, since anything uttered was inaudible.