Page:Elmer Gantry (1927).djvu/132

 He had no such definite and ecstatic Call as came to Elmer Gantry, but he had always known that he would go on nibbling at theories about the eucharist, and pointing men the way to uncharted plateaus called Righteousness, Idealism, Honesty, Sacrifice, Beauty, Salvation.

Curly flaxen hair, clear skin, fine nose, setter eyes, straight back, Frank was a pleasant-looking young man at twenty-three, in his senior year at Mizpah Seminary.

He was a favorite of Dean Trosper, of the Professor of New Testament Interpretation; his marks were high, his manner was respectful and his attendance was perfect. But his master among the faculty was the stammering and stumbling Bruno Zechlin, that bearded advocate of Hebrew syntax, that suspected victim of German beer and German rationalism, and Frank was the only student of his generation whom Dr. Zechlin chose as confidant.

During Frank's first year in Mizpah, Zechlin and he were merely polite to each other; they watched each other and respected each other and remained aloof. Frank was diffident before Dr. Zechlin's learning, and in the end it was Zechlin who offered friendship. He was a lonely man. He was a bachelor, and he despised all of his colleagues whom he did not fear. Particularly did he dislike being called "Brother Zechlin" by active long-legged braying preachers from the bush.

At the beginning of Frank's second year in Mizpah he worried once in Old Testament Exegesis class, "Professor Zechlin, I wish you'd explain an apparent Biblical inconsistency to me. It says in John—some place in the first chapter, I think it is—that 'No man hath seen God at any time,' and then in Timothy it states definitely, about God, 'Whom no man hath seen nor can see,' and yet in Exodus xxiv, Moses and more than seventy others did see him, with pavement under his feet, and Isaiah and Amos say they saw him, and God especially arranged for Moses to see part of him. And there too—God told Moses that nobody could stand seeing his face and live, but Jacob actually wrestled with God and saw him face to face and did live. Honestly, professor, I'm not trying to raise doubts, but there does seem to be an inconsistency there, and I wish I could find the proper explanation."

Dr. Zechlin looked at him with a curious fuzzy brightness. "What do you mean by a proper explanation, Shallard?"