The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney

Author:Russell Janney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

47

BILL DUNNIGAN had gone to sleep with the strong conviction that it was now up to him to carry the ball. But it seemed that Saint Michael thought otherwise—Saint Michael and an Ally even more powerful, no less than the Blessed Virgin Mother herself! For that night was the night of the miracle.

Bill’s thoughts had focused on the five forty-five Mass. Ideas about this Mass flocked to his mind as he passed into slumber. That Mass was Father Paul’s unique idea. That Mass set his church apart from the others. Unless they also adopted it, there was no reason why it should not draw an “audience” from all the Coaltown parishes. “Father Paul’s Mass for Miners”—all miners—before they started their dangerous work each day!

So reasoned the press agent, and he must try to “organize” this Mass. It had been laughed at, neglected! Father Spinsky even said it had brought discredit on the whole Church body! Very well, it must be made to be the most successful religious service in the town! The shining glory of the faith. The “stone that the builders rejected” that became a corner stone-there was a line like that in some play—a line out of the Bible. A service the fame of which would spread beyond the town!

The Miners’ Union-that was it. Bill was a union man. His trade of theatrical press agent had a very strong organization. He must find out the “powers” in the Coaltown workers’ Union and talk to them as one union man to another. Father Paul had plans for bettering their working conditions, helping their home life. The only Coaltown cleric who ardently wished to do something for them. Let them help Father Paul! Make him the official Chaplain of the Union! Just like in a regiment. And there would be a certain number of the men who would attend the Mass each morning. Fifty—a hundred—to take turns representing their fellows. Once a month an attendance of seven or eight hundred to completely fill St. Michael’s.

They would come, of course, in their work clothes, with dinner pails, wearing the caps with the electric lights at the front. On the day that they came in a body they would gather at headquarters and march to St. Michael’s with these cap-lights burning. It would almost be as if they carried candles. The candles of the workers! What a sight in the half light of winter dawns! He could land that picture in every rotogravure newspaper section in America! Saint Michael’s Miners! Father Paul’s Miners!

And perhaps there would be some place in the Mass—in the church service—where they could hold these caps before them—over their hearts—and suddenly have all the little bulbs blaze out in answer to the altar lights. What Bill could do with that picture and that story!

Let Father Spinsky and his grand organ be a friend of the mine owners. Father Paul and Saint Michael would take on the workers and make a “production” Flo Ziegfeld or Charlie Dillingham would have

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