His wife was spending the evening in Manhattan, so when Harry Greene, a contractor of Weehawken, N. J., was offered a chance last week to see the inside of "God's Kingdom No. 1," headquarters of Harlem's benign black Major ("Father") Divine, he accepted eagerly. His friend Paul Comora, a process server, was to hand a summons to Father Divine, against whom a onetime follower named Jessie Birdsall had brought suit for $2,000 which, she said, represented savings she had turned over to the Harlem "God." Greene and Comora arrived at the Kingdom, a big brick building on 115th Street which as usual was full of Negro and white faithful, babbling, "Peace! It's wonderful," and gorging themselves on the cult's free food.
In a packjammed assembly room Father Divine was preaching, in his prolix, cir cuitous style, on "The Great Enthusiasm."
Greene and Comora joined the only other outsider present, a New York Jour nal reporter named Joseph Denove. After the garrulous black "God" had been at it for two hours, and showed no sign of concluding although it was 3 a. m., even Harry Greene grew bored watching. They approached the platform, where Comora in legal fashion smartly tapped Father Divine on the chest with the summons. According to the process server, Father Divine shouted "Ugh!" or "a sort of a yell," and the assembly room became uproar.
Mobbed by howling blackamoors, Comora and Denove were hurled downstairs and into 115th Street where they separated, Denove returning with police. By that time, Spectator Greene had been taken to a drugstore. He came to next morning, wounded about the head, kicked in the abdomen, a tube in his swollen nose, two ribs broken, a stab wound in his side.
Father Divine disappeared before police could lay hands upon him. An alarm went out for his arrest, for felonious assault and "acting in concert" with three other Negroes whom police charged with stab bing Greene. For the podgy little Messiah who claims 30,000,000 followers (and has about 50,000), there then followed other misfortunes. First of these was the apostasy of his fat, capable right hand, "Faithful Mary" (Viola Wilson).
Faithful Mary claims, and police records of Newark, N. J. back her up to a considerable extent, that she once drank, ate garbage, stole milk, became a depraved wreck before the influence of Father Divine restored her to health and happiness.