I + 

President Quarles urged him. + 

Elmer would, perhaps, affect the whole world if he became a minister. What glory for Old Terwillinger and all the shrines of Gritzmacher Springs! + 

Eddie Fislinger urged him. + 

“Jiminy! You’d go way beyond me! I can see you president of the Baptist convention!” Elmer still did not like Eddie, but he was making much now of ignoring Jim Lefferts (they met on the street and bowed ferociously), and he had to have someone to play valet to his virtues. + 

The ex-minister dean of the college urged him. + 

Where could Elmer find a profession with a better social position than the ministry⁠—thousands listening to him⁠—invited to banquets and everything. So much easier than⁠—Well, not exactly easier; all ministers worked arduously⁠—great sacrifices⁠—constant demands on their sympathy⁠—heroic struggle against vice⁠—but same time, elegant and superior work, surrounded by books, high thoughts, and the finest ladies in the city or country as the case might be. And cheaper professional training than law. With scholarships and outside preaching, Elmer could get through the three years of Mizpah Theological Seminary on almost nothing a year. What other plans had he for a career? Nothing definite? Why, looked like divine intervention; certainly did; let’s call it settled. Perhaps he could get Elmer a scholarship the very first year⁠— + 

His mother urged him. + 

She wrote, daily, that she was longing, praying, sobbing⁠— + 

Elmer urged himself. + 

He had no prospects except the chance of reading law in the dingy office of a cousin in Toluca, Kansas. The only things he had against the ministry, now that he was delivered from Jim, were the low salaries and the fact that if ministers were caught drinking or flirting, it was often very hard on them. The salaries weren’t so bad⁠—he’d go to the top, of course, and maybe make eight or ten thousand. But the diversions⁠—He thought about it so much that he made a hasty trip to Cato, and came back temporarily cured forever of any desire for wickedness. + 

The greatest urge was his memory of holding his audience, playing on them. To move people⁠—Golly! He wanted to be addressing somebody on something right now, and being applauded! + 

By this time he was so rehearsed in his role of candidate for righteousness that it didn’t bother him (so long as no snickering Jim was present) to use the most embarrassing theological and moral terms in the presence of Eddie or the president; and without one grin he rolled out dramatic speeches about “the duty of every man to lead every other man to Christ,” and “the historic position of the Baptists as the one true Scriptural Church, practising immersion, as taught by Christ himself.” + 

He was persuaded. He saw himself as a white-browed and star-eyed young evangel, wearing a new frock coat, standing up in a pulpit and causing hundreds of beautiful women to weep with conviction and rush down to clasp his hand. + 

But there was one barrier, extremely serious. They all informed him that select though he was as sacred material, before he decided he must have a mystic experience known as a Call. God himself must appear and call him to service, and conscious though Elmer was now of his own powers and the excellence of the church, he saw no more of God about the place than in his worst days of unregeneracy. + 

He asked the president and the dean if they had had a Call. Oh, yes, certainly; but they were vague about practical tips as to how to invite a Call and recognize it when it came. He was reluctant to ask Eddie⁠—Eddie would be only too profuse with tips, and want to kneel down and pray with him, and generally be rather damp and excitable and messy. + 

The Call did not come, not for weeks, with Easter past and no decision as to what he was going to do next year. + 