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No Hard-Shell Baptist was more fundamentalist than Episcopalian Kelly in the latter half of his life. He studied the Bible minutely, handed tracts of his own composition to acquaintances, used even the inevitable pink rose in his buttonhole as a starter for religious conversations. Said the Christian Herald: "He is a regular 'town character.' " Dr. Kelly found it an advantage in World War I when his chauffeur was drafted—it spurred the doctor to evangelize the taxi drivers with whom he rode, and the chauffeur's salary was added to the lavish Kelly charities.
Dr. Kelly predicted World War II because "we have made an idol of science and idols always slay their victims." He kept snakes as pets in his big Baltimore home, which was further cluttered with turtle shells, stuffed animals and birds. But for Dr. Kelly snakes were no part of scientific idolatry; they were a testimony of the Creator's powers. Snakes, he pointed out, are handless, legless, yet there are 2,000 kinds—"given a rod with a mouth and a vent, what could you or I do with such an idea in the way of creating a vast number of interesting varieties?"
*Professor of Medicine Sir William Osier, mourning the death of his only son in World War I, died in Britain in 1919; Surgeon William Stewart Halsted died childless in 1922; Pathologist William Henry Welch died a bachelor in 1934.
†Its lineal descendant, Kensington Hospital for Women, still goes on with 66 beds, 35 bassinets.