...
* * * * *
William Jennings Bryan came to talk to us at our school auditorium. His
lecture, _The Prince of Peace_, soon degenerated into an old-fashioned
attack on science and the evolutionary theory.
The professors sat bored and mute on the platform beside him, while he
evacuated the forty-year-old wheeze of "your great-great-great-grandfather
might have been a monkey, but, thank God, mine was not!" he won the
usual great response of handclapping and laughter with this....
And then he held out a glass of water, to prove that miracles might
happen, because God, being omnipotent, could, at will, suspend natural
laws.
"Look at this glass of water. I hold it out at arm's length, so. If I
did not hold it, it would drop to the floor and shatter into pieces.
Thus I, by a human act, suspend the law of gravitation ... so God!--"
There was huzzaing and applause. Several professors uneasily shifted the
crossing of their knees ... one or two stared diplomatically at the
ceiling.
I grew angry and sent forth several sharp hisses before I knew what I
was doing ... the effect was an electric stillness for the moment. Then
a roar of indignant applause drowned my protest. And I stopped and
remained quiet, with much craning of necks about me, to look at me.
As the crowd poured out, I ran out into the road, from group to group,
and, wherever I found a professor walking along, I vociferated my
protest at our allowing such a back-water performance at the State's
supposed centre of intelligence.
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