“That was my first thought; that is, as soon as I could think calmly about anything,” answered Bob. “But, after all, a miss is as good as a mile, and he didn’t get us. He came mighty near it though.”
“The most serious outcome of the whole thing will probably be the matter of the broken roof,” said Mr. Layton meditatively. “It will probably cost considerable to put it in perfect shape again. But, after all, that doesn’t count for anything as long as you boys weren’t hurt. I’ll see Looker about it on Monday and fix the matter up with him.”
“And of course the fathers of the other fellows will chip in on the expense,” said Bob. “I’d like to hear what Buck is telling his father about it tonight,” he continued, with a grin. “By the time he gets through, we’ll have pulled the whole house down.”
The next morning all the boys were at church in time for the morning service, even Jimmy, who walked very stiffly and smelled strongly of arnica.
“You fellows needn’t sniff as though I had the plague,” he protested, as his friends lifted their nostrils inquiringly. “I was the fellow who was underneath when you fell on me like a thousand of brick. You got off easy, while I had all the worst of it. But then I’m used to that,” he concluded, sighing heavily.
“Cheer up, old boy,” said Joe, clapping him on the back, at which poor Jimmy winced. “The first hundred years is the worst. After that you won’t mind it. But now we’d better get in if we want to sit together, for there’s a bigger congregation here than usual.”
Doctor Dale, the friend and counselor of the boys in radio, as in many other things, was in the pulpit. He was a very eloquent preacher and was always sure of a good congregation. But as Joe had said, the church was even fuller than usual that morning, and there was a general stir of expectancy, as though something unusual was in prospect.
The attention of the boys was attracted at once by a small disk-like contrivance right in front of the preacher’s desk. It had never been there before. They recognized it at once as a microphone, but to the majority of the audience its purpose was a complete mystery, and many curious glances were fixed upon it.
There were the customary preliminary services, and then Doctor Dale came forward to the desk.
“Before beginning my sermon this morning,” he said, “I want to explain what will seem to some an unusual departure from custom, but which I hope will justify itself to such an extent as to become a regular feature of our service.
“There is no reason why the benefits of that service should be confined to the persons gathered within these four walls. There are thousands outside who by the means of radio, that most wonderful invention of the present century, can hear every word of this service just as readily as you who are seated in the pews. The prayers, the hymns, the organ music, the sermon, the benediction – they can hear it all. The only thing they will miss will be the privilege of putting their money in the collection plate.”
He paused for a moment, and a smile rippled over the congregation.
“I have said,” he resumed, “that they can hear it. And if they can hear it, they ought to hear it – that is if they want to. This is no new or untried idea. It is being carried out today in Pittsburgh, Washington, and other cities. The pulpit becomes a religious broadcasting station, from which the service is carried over an area of hundreds of miles. Everybody within that area who has a receiving set can hear it if they wish. In some cases it is estimated that more than two hundred thousand people are enjoying at the same moment the same religious service. You can see at once what that means in immeasurably extending the usefulness and influence of the church.
“Now it has occurred to me that we might do here what is being done elsewhere on a larger scale. So, after a conference with the officials of the church, an adequate sending set has been installed in the loft of the building. What is said here is sent from this microphone to the loft, where it is flung out into the ether. Arrangements have been made with a number of churches in this county, too poor and small to have a regular pastor, by which they have installed loud speaker receiving sets in their buildings. At this moment there are a dozen scattered congregations where the people have gathered to worship, and where at this moment they are hearing everything that is said just as plainly as you do.
“And in addition to that,” he went on, “in hundreds, perhaps thousands of homes, people who cannot go to church because of illness or some other reason are listening to this service. The sick, the crippled, the blind – think of what it means to have the church brought to them when they cannot go to the church. You in the pews are the visible congregation. But outside these walls there is today an invisible congregation many times greater, to whom this service is bringing its message of help and healing.”
With this prelude, Doctor Dale announced his text and preached his sermon, which, if anything, was more eloquent than usual. It seemed as if he were inspired by preaching to the greatest audience that he had ever had in his whole career, and the audience in the pews also felt a thrill as they thought of the invisible listeners miles and miles away. It seemed as though the natural were being brought into close connection with the supernatural, and the impression produced was most powerful.
If the doctor had had any misgivings as to the attitude of his people toward this new departure, these were quickly dissipated by the cordial congratulations and approval that were expressed after the service was over and he moved about among them. It was the universal opinion that a great advance had been made and that the innovation had come to stay.
The radio boys had been intensely interested in this new application of their favorite study, and after the sermon they went up into the loft and examined the apparatus that had been used in sending. It was a vacuum tube set with two tubes and power enough to send messages out over the whole county. It had been set up by Dr. Dale himself, and that was proof enough for the boys that it had worked perfectly in sending out the morning service.
“What will radio do next?” asked Bob, as the boys were walking homeward.
“What won’t it do next is the way you ought to put it,” suggested Joe. “It seems as if there were no limit. There are no such things as space and distance any more. Radio has wiped them out completely.”
“That’s true,” chimed in Herb. “The earth used to be a monstrous big thing twenty-five thousand miles round. Now it’s getting to be no bigger than an orange.”
“What a fuss they made when it was proved that one could travel around the world in eighty days,” said Jimmy. “But radio can go round the earth more than seven times in a single second. Just about the time it takes to strike a match.”
“Gee, but I’m glad we weren’t born a hundred years ago,” remarked Bob. “What a lot of things we would have missed. Automobiles, locomotives, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, electric light – ”
“Yes,” interrupted Joe, “and radio would have been the worst miss of all.”
“They’re doing in the colleges now, too, something very like what the doctor did in the pulpit this morning,” said Bob. “In Union College and Tufts and a lot of others the professors are giving their lectures by radio. Talk about University Extension courses! Radio will beat them all hollow. Think of a professor lecturing to an audience of fifty thousand, instead of the hundred or so that are gathered in his classroom. And think of the thousands of young fellows who are crazy to go to college and haven’t the money to do it with. They can keep on working and get their college education at home. I tell you what, fellows, Mr. Brandon was right the other day when he said that the surface of radio had only been scratched so far.”
The next day at school the boys found that the story of their experience with the bear had had wide circulation, chiefly through the activity of Buck Looker, who took care at the same time, however, to express his belief that nothing of the kind had happened. There was a good deal of good-natured joking, and