Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Of all the people Bunny knew, it appeared just now that only one was perfectly successful and completely happy, and that was Eli Watkins, prophet of the Third Revelation. For the Lord had carried out to the letter the promise revealed to the runners of the Bible Marathon; he had caused a great banker, Mark Eisenberg, who ran the financial affairs of Angel City, to reflect upon the importance of Eli's political influence, and to put up a good part of the money for the new tabernacle. Now the structure was completed, and was opened amid such glory to the Lord as had never been witnessed in this part of the world.

Southern California is populated for the most part by retired farmers from the middle west, who have come out to die amid sunshine and flowers. Of course they want to die happy, and with the assurance of sunshine and flowers beyond; so Angel City is the home of more weird cults and doctrines -- you couldn't form any conception of it till you came to investigate. To run your eye over the pages of performances advertised in the Sunday newspapers would cause you to burst into laughter or tears, according to your temperament. Wherever three or more were gathered together in the name of Jesus or Buddha or Zoroaster, or Truth or Light or Love, or New Thought or Spiritualism or Psychic Science -- there was the beginning of a new revelation, with mystical, inner states of bliss and esoteric ways of salvation.