Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Christmas had come, and the quail were calling from the hills at Paradise. There were not so many on the tract, but there was plenty of adjacent land over which an oil prince and his royal sire were welcome to shoot. And once you were out of sight of the derricks, and out of smell of the refinery, it was the same beautiful country, with the same clear sky and golden sunsets, and you could get the poisons of bootleg liquor out of your blood, and the embarrassing memories out of your soul. Tramping these rocky hills, drawing this magical air into your lungs, it was impossible to think that men would not some day learn to be happy!

This visit corresponded with a great historic event, which put Paradise upon the map of California. Eli Watkins, prophet of the Lord, had completed the payments for the land upon which his tabernacle in Angel City was to stand, and he celebrated this event by coming back to the scenes of his boyhood, the little frame temple where the Third Revelation had been handed down to mankind, and there holding a novel and interesting performance of his own invention, known as a "Bible Marathon. " You see, Eli had read in the papers about Marathon races, and though he didn't know what the word meant, it was romantic-sounding, and he had a fondness for strange words. So the disciples of the First Apostolic Church of Paradise announced that a "Bible Marathon" consisted in reading the Lord's Holy Word straight through without a single pause; they would be told off in relays, and day and night there would be a little group in the church, and one voice after another would take up the sacred task, regardless of oil wells "on the pump" just outside the door.