Studs Lonigan (72 page)

“For, my friends, your minds and your bodies are vessels of the Lord, given unto your keeping. They must not be abused. They are not tools for the indiscriminate enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. There is one commandment which, above all, you must not violate. God says, clearly and without equivocation: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery!' If you do, the torments of Hell await you for all eternity! That is clear and unmistakable.

“Today, sad to state, I come here as a priest of God, and I have to confess that the youth of this land neglects that commandment. On every side, they are encouraged. Books! Filthy movies. Newspapers. The doctrines in universities aimed to destroy morality. Men who cater to the purposes of the devil, and expose youth, tender girls and immature boys, to the danger of this sin, all because it is profitable, because a dirty, soiled thirty pieces of silver can be collected. Such men, I say, are worse than Judas.

“And what are the results? One result is this: today in America, there is a type, a class of young men, a recognizable young squirt. This squirt spends the money that his father earned and saved after long years of honest toil. He has an automobile. He has been miseducated at a godless university. He is fast, modern; he talks smartly, dresses smartly, acts smartly. He is always on the loose for a girl. He meets an innocent Catholic girl. She is pure and sweet and good, like Longfellow's Evangeline. But as young girls often are, she is attracted by his clothes, his talk, and his automobile. He has what they call a line. He gives her a lot of soft soap. So Mary has a date with him. He is pleasing, and spends money. She thinks he is a nice boy! Like the spider, he is weaving his web. He takes her out again, and drives toward the country. He pulls out a bottle and has a drink. He offers it to her. She demurs. He looks at her as if she were a zoological exhibit. He can't understand, because all the girls he knows drink. He laughs and asks if she is afraid. She shows her fear. So he tells her: ‘Come on Mary, don't be a wet blanket. Once won't hurt!'

“Cursed phrase; ‘Once won't hurt'. That first time seems so harmless and so easy. It seems to have such little effect. And it leads straight down the road to perdition and ruin. With it, he plays on Mary's vanity. He convinces her with soft-soap talk that once won't hurt. Then, he takes her to a roadhouse. There, they meet other couples. It is what they call a wild party. Everybody but Mary drinks. She is teased, and told not to be a kill-joy. Once hasn't hurt her. Once more won't, they tell her. Rather than spoil the party, Mary takes a second drink. Before she knows it, she is drunk. There is dancing, immoral animalistic dancing and petting. Then, there is another automobile ride. Mary goes home, pillaged of her most precious treasure, robbed (he smacked his right fist into his left palm) of that gift which is a girl's finest possession —her virtue, her honor, her chastity.

“This is not an exceptional occurrence. Pray God that it were! It is ordinary, and happens every day. It is the way in which Catholic girls, girls like those of you here, girls like the sisters and sweethearts and old schoolmates of you lads here, are ruined, and dispatched along a path that can only end in misery, both in this world and the next. You girls who are now listening to me! If you have not already met such temptations, you will. And, you fellows, your sisters will meet them. For if these squirts had their way, there would not be a decent girl left in this country.

“And when you girls do meet with this temptation what are you going to say? Are you going to agree that ... ‘Once doesn't hurt?' Or are you going to say: ‘See here now, what are your intentions? I'm a decent Catholic girl, and I do not intend to fling myself away on any rat because he has a funny-looking suit of bell bottoms and an automobile. Before I ride in any automobile of yours, I want to know why you want me to go, what intentions you have, what kind of a person you are?'

“And you fellows, if you find some cake-eater trying to take advantage of your sister, what are you going to do? Are you going to shrug your shoulders, and say that you are not your sister's keeper, or turn your head the other way to avoid trouble? I know of one such case. It happened in Marion, Ohio. The sister of a young Catholic fellow was ruined, and died giving birth to an illegitimate baby. And the spineless brother answered my questions this way. He said: ‘Father, it would have been such a mess. Father, I believe that each person has the right to live their own life.' Well, let me tell you this: God won't agree to such a principle on the final Day of Judgment.

“If there is an ounce of decency and red blood in a young fellow, he'll not do that. When any one of these jazz-age drug-store cowboys starts trying to fool around with his sister, he won't mince his words. He'll say: ‘See here, now, what do you mean, trying to ruin my sister?' That's what he'll say. He'll tell him to get out and stay out. And he'll punch his yellow nose in for him. Because that is the only kind of treatment these wise young squirts merit.

“Why, if I had a sister, and one of them started monkeying around with her, I'd grab him by the coat collar, and I'd say; ‘See here! You're not honorable! You're not decent! Are you going to let my sister alone?' And then I'd let him have one.”

Father Shannon paused, and again mopped his face. He glanced from face to face in the church. He spoke with calmness again.

“Remember these words! Years ahead, I want you, when you're my age, and I'm dead, to pause and think, to remember what Father Shannon said in his missions at St. Patrick's. And I want you to remember this statement particularly. . . . Sin doesn't pay.

“And I am willing to bet anyone here a hundred dollars that then you'll nod your head, and think that, yes, Father Shannon told you the truth. And of all sins, that which pays the least, is a sin of the flesh. Ah, you boys and girls, you don't want to ruin yourself, body and soul. You don't want to disease your body so that a decent person will shun you as he would a leper. Your bodies are young and strong now. You don't want to wreck them with disease and overindulgence. There is nothing as fine as the sight of a good strong boy or girl, whose body and mind are clean, pure, decent. And the ideal of retaining such a body, and such a mind is both noble and practical. It isn't as hard as sin. I know, because I've seen hospitals where people were rotting away with disease as the result of their sins. One day, my young friends, they had bodies like you had, and the chance that you still possess. And they forsook that ideal. You want to remember the words of Thomas à Kempis: ‘For they that follow their sensuality, do stain their own conscience, and lose the favor of God'.

“When the devil tempts you, as he tempted such people, you want to say to him: ‘Satan, No! No! No! you cannot have my body and my soul!' You young fellows, you don't want to be fools, and go skulking, like thieves in the night, into brothels, consorting with the lowest kind of human beings, exposing yourself to diseases that can ruin your lives, and blast the chances of a successful and happy marriage with that sweet little girl whom you love. Ah, no, you don't want to do that. Because it doesn't last! And it doesn't pay. It's not pleasure. It's not fine. It's not decent! It's not manly. You don't want to be that kind of a fellow. If you do, you're not choosing the brave course. You're being a coward and a fool.

“And you girls! I know many of you. I know your fathers, mothers and brothers. And, yes, some of your sweethearts too. I know that I've never met finer girls than you anywhere. That's why I'm saying that you don't want to be riding around in automobiles with fast young fellows, petting and necking, drinking, smoking cigarettes. You want to preserve that fine chastity you have, those fine, beautiful bodies God has given you, and later on when you marry that decent boy you love, you'll go to him clean and honorable. Worthy of the love he offers you, worthy to be the mother of his children, just as your own mothers were worthy of Dad.”

He paused.

“And there's one thing all of you should not do, if you want to avoid these evils. That's drink. Once does hurt. Once starts you off, and you're in grave danger. Drink destroys character and will power, and stultifies the voice of conscience. It is the precursor of all sins. It poisons the body. Today in this country there are scores and hundreds of young people in every city whose hearts, livers, stomachs, vital organs have been ruined by drink. They are dying in their prime. Why? Because they didn't believe that once would hurt. You know what Shakespeare, the greatest genius who ever lived, said of drink; ‘Oh, God, that men should put an enemy into their mouths, to steal away their brains.'

“You don't want to do that. Because it is you, your kind, your class, to which America looks. And if America is to avoid that drastic, terrible fate which befell the proud and mighty empire of Rome, it is you, and others like you, who will have achieved the victory. I can't save America. My generation cannot. But yours can. That is why Mother Church counts on you. She knows that today she must fight one of the greatest battles she has ever fought. She faces a world where materialism drives out the laws and will of God and Nature, where sin is rampant, where money is poured into the coffers of vice, making it rich and powerful, where great industries are built up only to pander to lust, where books, theatres, movies, universities, are all aligned on the side of godlessness, and where all these forces together constitute a mighty propagandistic effort to take her sons and daughters from her and give them into the hands of Satan. And her fight is your fight.... (A pause:) Now, how are you going to fight? What are you going to say?

“Unless I am wrong, you're going to say this: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!' You're going to be manly and womanly, clean, upright, decent, and you're going to stand four-square in the front line trenches of Mother Church in her ceaseless war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. You're going to be soldiers of righteousness, and you're going to say: ‘Jesus Christ, my Savior, has walked down the aisles of time, a white-robed figure of virtue and strength. And His Church has followed Him and His doctrine. With it, I take my stand. I shall not bargain away my soul, my honor, my right to be a member of that holy Church for a paltry night's pleasure, for filthy pieces of silver. I shall not be another Judas'!”

He wiped his face.

“Shakespeare laments: ‘Oh, that we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts'. You're not going to do that. No! I know it. I know that the young men and the young women of St. Patrick's parish are going to stand defending the gates of Truth and Righteousness, armed with Grace.

“ ‘Stand, therefore, having your loins girt with truth and having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.'

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!”

There was rustling and straining in the pews.

“And now, I want to ask you all to follow me in a prayer to Mary, asking her protection and aid in the struggle of the Catholic youth of this land for the triumph of virtue.”

He recited the prayer slowly, and the young people sing-songed it after him, verbatim.

“O Victorious Lady! Thou who hast ever such powerful influence with Thy Divine Son, in conquering the hardest of hearts, intercede for those for whom we pray that their hearts being softened by the rays of Divine Grace, they may return to the unity of the true Faith, through Christ, Our Lord! Amen!”

He climbed down from the pulpit, genuflected in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and disappeared through the sacristy door. An altar boy came onto the altar, cassocked, and lit the candles for Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

“Say, wasn't that a sermon!” Les exclaimed.

“It was a knockout,” Studs said, watching the people gush from church, looking at the girls coming out with an attitude of almost futile hope and expectancy.

“It was even better than the sermon he gave Tuesday night,” Red Kelly said.

“Sure it was, if it only teaches you guys something,” Barney said.

“People who live in glass houses shouldn't fling bricks,” Stan said.

“Me, I'm an old man. He was talking to youth, and you bastards might still technically classify as youth,” Barney said.

Studs scanned the faces. Maybe that girl would be coming out, but it seemed that she had moved away. Lucy. He wanted them to see him there, calm, nonchalant. But he realized that he wasn't so much to look at any more. Getting fatter all the time, had an alderman, was twenty pounds heavier than when he'd taken Lucy to that dance. Then he had been a damn good-looking guy, and he hadn't danced so badly either.

“I like what he said about these bastards monkeying around with a guy's sister. Like the time at Nolan's, and that bastard, Guy Bain, was trying to lay it into my kid sister on the dance floor. Remember, Studs? Well, I got him,” Weary Reilley said.

“He knows his apples,” Les said.

“He didn't hand it to the sheiks much, did he?” Tommy said.

“And neither did he to those people who think they are too good for the human race like Young O'Neill who goes to the University. He knows better than make the mission. He'd get his ear full,” said Red.

“Isn't he making the mission?” asked Studs.

“He's an atheist,” Red said.

“I always thought he was goofy,” Studs said.

Studs watched for a girl. Still plenty of them in the parish. He hated guys with a girl. Goddamn it, he needed a girl, he wanted the feeling a guy would have, having a girl that was his only. He edged over to listen to the punks razzing Curley, because he wanted to get closer to the crowd. He listened with a supercilious expression on his face. The razzing suddenly turned on Jerry Rooney because he had a big nose. Studs touched his own nose. . . . Well, Rooney's was bigger. Young Horn Buckford rushed to Studs from another group, and said he would let Studs prove it. Studs curtly asked him what?