"
"Frank, old boy, you look as though you had been pulled through a
small-sized auger hole yesterday. How is the work going?"
"All right. But Van Meter puzzles me. I want your advice about him.
You've come in contact with him in Wall Street and know him. He is
the one man power in my church--the senior deacon and chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the Society. In spite of all my eloquence
and the crowds that throng the building, he has set the whole Board
against me. He is really trying to oust me from the pastorate of
the church. Shall I take the bull by the horns now and throw him and
his Mammon-worshiping satellites out, or try to work such material
into my future plans? Give me your advice as a cool-headed outsider."
Overman was silent a moment.
"Well, Frank, now you've put the question squarely, I'm going
to be candid. I'm alarmed about you. The strain on your nerves is
too great. This maggot of Socialism in your brain is the trouble.
It is the mark of mental and moral breakdown, the fleeing from
self-reliant individual life into the herd for help. You call it
'brotherhood,' the 'solidarity of the race.' Sentimental mush. It's
a stampede back to the animal herd out of which a powerful manhood
has been evolved.
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