{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70739/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70739","id":"gutenberg_70739","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70739","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Biographies","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life","Conduct of life","Sunday, Billy, 1862-1935 -- Anecdotes"],"text":"[Illustration:\n\n                      REV. WM. A. SUNDAY         MRS. SUNDAY\n\n             B. D. ACKLEY         HOMER A. RODEHEAVER   REV. L. K. PEACOCK\n    PIANIST AND PRIVATE SECRETARY    CHOIR MASTER           ASSISTANT\n]\n\n\n\n\n                            Burning Truths from\n                                Billy\u2019s Bat\n\n                       A Graphic Description of the\n                         Remarkable Conversion of\n\n                            Rev. \u201cBilly\u201d Sunday\n                      (The World\u2019s Famous Evangelist)\n\n                        Embodying Anecdotes, Terse\n                       Sayings, etc., Compiled from\n                              Various Sources\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                                   1914\n                          Diamond Publishing Co.,\n                             Philadelphia, Pa.\n\n                             Copyright, 1914,\n                             By JOSEPH PALLEN\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                   PAGE\n\n    Mr. Sunday\u2019s Early Life                           9\n\n    Conversion of \u201cBilly\u201d Sunday                      9\n\n    Beacon Lights on Billy\u2019s Trail                   16\n\n    Hard to Keep Good Man Down                       17\n\n    Honor Your Wife                                  18\n\n    Two Pictures of American Homes                   18\n\n    Kind Words to Children                           19\n\n    Tribute to Wife                                  20\n\n    Scores Smart Set                                 20\n\n    Father Gives Up, but Mother Doesn\u2019t              22\n\n    Bright Word Picture to Mothers                   22\n\n    Bravest Battle Ever Fought                       22\n\n    One Act, One Word Will Blight a Child            23\n\n    Touching Tribute to Mother\u2019s Love                24\n\n    Every Child a Trust to Mother                    25\n\n    Says Men Are What Mothers Make Them              26\n\n    Songs of Mothers Sweetest                        26\n\n    Gathering Up the Sunbeams                        28\n\n    Start Children Right                             28\n\n    Dancing Worst of Amusements                      29\n\n    Ballroom Permits Liberties                       30\n\n    On Motherhood                                    31\n\n    Too Many Girls Are Not in Love                   32\n\n    High Spots in Sermon to Women                    32\n\n    Picking a Husband                                33\n\n    Thy Kingdom Come                                 34\n\n    Hot Shots on Cards and Gambling                  36\n\n    Taboo on Theatre                                 39\n\n    Taboo on Wedding Knots                           40\n\n    Every Palace Not a Home                          41\n\n    Drawing the Line on Christians                   42\n\n    The Preachers and the Laymen                     44\n\n    Belshazzar\u2019s Feast                               45\n\n    A Remarkable Prayer                              47\n\n    Hitting the Sawdust Trail, Origin                49\n\n    Trying to Serve God and the Devil                50\n\n    Inconsistent Church Members                      50\n\n    Christians Can\u2019t Live Double Lives               51\n\n    A High Tribute to General Lee                    52\n\n    Expose of Graft Stories                          53\n\n    Women Have Same Right as Men                     54\n\n    Backsliders Like Groundhogs                      57\n\n    True to Lodge, False to Christ                   57\n\n    Sunday to Society Women                          58\n\n    Consolation for Old Maids                        66\n\n    Girls Who Flirt                                  66\n\n    Drinking and Matrimony                           67\n\n    Says Society\u2019s to Blame                          68\n\n    Some Extra Shots                                 68\n\n    Billy\u2019s Sketch of Leper Bathing                  69\n\n    Snapshots from Sermons                           71\n\n    A Trip Through the Bible                         72\n\n    Defends Divine Origin of the Bible               74\n\n    Spiritualism on the Grill                        75\n\n    Straight Shots from the Shoulder                 75\n\n    Others Suffer from Your Sins                     79\n\n    Lessons from Story of Pilate                     80\n\n    Moral Truths                                     80\n\n    These Three Will Ruin City                       81\n\n    Billy\u2019s Key to Success                           82\n\n    A Few Bunts to Live Students                     84\n\n    Tribute to the Holidays                          85\n\n    Living Up to One\u2019s Profession                    89\n\n    Stray Shots from the Gallery                     89\n\n    Some Hot Ones, Fired at Random                   90\n\n    A Characteristic Prayer                          90\n\n    Sunday\u2019s Bombshells                              92\n\n    Sundayisms                                       96\n\n    Sunday\u2019s Prayer for Strength                     98\n\n    Faith of Great Men                               99\n\n    Bible Above All                                  99\n\n    Some Home Runs                                  100\n\n    Up to Mothers                                   100\n\n    Electric Flashes                                101\n\n    Sunday on Evolution                             103\n\n\n\n\nRev. William A. Sunday\n\n(The World\u2019s Famous Evangelist)\n\n\n\n\nHis Early Life, a Dramatic Portrayal of His Conversion, and the\nDisintegration of the Old White Stocking Baseball Team, of Which He was a\nMember\n\n\nRev. \u201cBilly\u201d Sunday (as he is familiarly known) was born in a log cabin in\nthe backwoods of Story County, Iowa, November 19, 1862. Not long after his\nbirth his father went to the Civil War and never returned. Billy remained\nhome until he was about fourteen years of age, and as a hired hand later\nlived with Colonel John Scott, former Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, and\nwas enabled to acquire a high-school education. He tried various lines\nof work, from a hired hand at sixteen years old to a furniture polisher,\ndriver of a hearse, member of a volunteer hose company, railroad fireman,\nball player, student and now evangelist.\n\n\n\n\nMR. SUNDAY\u2019S REMARKABLE CONVERSION.\n\n\n\u201cTwenty-seven years ago I walked down a street in Chicago in company with\nsome ball players who were famous in this world\u2014some of them are dead\nnow\u2014and we went into a saloon. It was Sunday afternoon and we got tanked\nup and then went and sat down on a corner. I never go by that street\nwithout thanking God for saving me. It was a vacant lot at that time. We\nsat down on a curbing. Across the street a company of men and women were\nplaying on instruments\u2014horns, flutes and slide trombones\u2014and the others\nwere singing the gospel hymns that I used to hear my mother sing back in\nthe log cabin in Iowa and back in the old church where I used to go to\nSunday school.\n\n\u201cAnd God painted on the canvas of my recollection and memory a vivid\npicture of the scenes of other days and other faces.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cWON\u2019T YOU COME?\u201d\n\n\n\u201cMany have long since turned to dust. I sobbed and sobbed and a young man\nstepped out and said: \u2018We are going down to the Pacific Garden mission.\nWon\u2019t you come down to the mission? I am sure you will enjoy it. You can\nhear drunkards tell how they have been saved and girls tell how they have\nbeen saved from the red light district. I arose and said to the boys: \u201cI\u2019m\nthrough. We\u2019ve come to the parting of the ways,\u201d and I turned my back on\nthem. Some of them laughed and some of them mocked me; one of them gave me\nencouragement; others never said a word. Twenty-seven years ago I turned\nand left that little group on the corner of State and Madison streets,\nwalked to the little mission, fell on my knees and staggered out of sin\nand into the arms of the Saviour.\n\nI went over to the west side of Chicago where I was keeping company\nwith a girl now my wife, Nell. I married Nell. She was a Presbyterian,\nso I am a Presbyterian. Had she been a Catholic, I would have been a\nCatholic\u2014because I was hot on the trail of Nell.\n\nThe next day I had to go out to the ball park and practice. Every morning\nat 10 o\u2019clock we had to be out there and practice. I never slept that\nnight. I was afraid of the horse-laugh that the gang would give me because\nI had taken my stand for Jesus Christ.\n\nI walked down to the old ball grounds. I will never forget it. I slipped\nmy key into the wicket gate and the first man to meet me after I got\ninside was Mike Kelley.\n\nUp came Mike Kelley. He said: \u201cBill I\u2019m proud of you\u2014religion is not my\nlong suit, but I\u2019ll help you all I can.\u201d Up came Anson, Pfeffer, Clarkson,\nFlint, McCormick, Burns, Williamson and Dalrymple. There wasn\u2019t a fellow\nin that gang who knocked, every fellow had a word of encouragement for me.\n\nThat afternoon we played the old Detroit club. We were neck and neck for\nthe championship. That club had Thompson, Richardson, Rowe, Dunlap, Hanlon\nand Bennett, and they could play ball. I was playing right field and John\nG. Clarkson was pitching. He was as fine pitcher as ever crawled into a\nuniform. There are some pitchers today, O\u2019Toole, Bender, Wood, Mathewson,\nJohnson, Marquard, but I do not believe any one of them stood in the class\nwith Clarkson.\n\nWe had two men out and they had a man on second and one on third, and\nBennett, their old catcher was at the bat. Charley had three balls and two\nstrikes on him. Charley couldn\u2019t hit a high ball. I don\u2019t mean a Scotch\nhigh-ball, but he could kill them when they went about his knee.\n\nI hollered to Clarkson and said: \u201cOne more and we got \u2019em.\u201d\n\nYou know every pitcher digs a hole in the ground where he puts his foot\nwhen he is pitching. John stuck his foot in the hole and he went clear to\nthe ground. Oh, he could make them dance. He could throw over-handed, and\nthe ball would go down and up like that. He is the only man on earth I\nhave seen do that. The ball would go by so fast that a thermometer would\ndrop two degrees. John went clear down, and as he went to throw the ball\nhis right foot slipped, and the ball went low instead of high.\n\nI saw Charley swing hard and heard the bat hit the ball with a terrific\nblow. Bennett had smashed the ball on the nose. I saw the ball rise in the\nair and knew it was going clear over my head.\n\nI could judge within ten feet of where the ball would light. I turned my\nback to the ball and ran.\n\nThe field was crowded with people and I yelled: \u2018Stand back!\u2019 and the\ncrowd opened like the Red Sea opened for the rod of Moses. I ran on, and\nas I ran I made a prayer; it wasn\u2019t theological, either, I tell you. I\nsaid: \u201cGod, if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get that ball, and\nyou haven\u2019t got much time to make up your mind, either.\u201d\n\nI ran and jumped over the bench and stopped. I thought I was close enough\nto catch it. I looked back and saw it going over my head, and I jumped and\nshoved my left hand out and the ball hit it and stuck. At the rate I was\ngoing, the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of\nhorses. I jumped up with the ball in my hand. Up came Tom Johnson. He was\nafterwards Mayor of Cleveland. \u201cHere is $10.00 Bill; buy yourself the best\nhat in Chicago. That catch won me $1,500. Tomorrow go and buy yourself the\nbest suit of clothes you can find in Chicago.\u201d\n\nAn old Methodist minister said to me a few years ago: \u201cWhy, William, you\ndidn\u2019t take the $10.00 did you.\u201d I said: \u201cYou bet I did.\u201d\n\nListen! Mike Kelley was sold to Boston for $10,000. Mike got half of the\npurchase price. He came up to me and showed me a check for $5,000. John L.\nSullivan the champion fighter, went around with a subscription paper and\nthe boys raised over $12,000 to buy Mike a house.\n\nThey gave Mike a deed to the house and they had $1,500 left and gave him\na certificate of deposit for that. His salary for playing with Boston\nwas $4,700 a year. At the end of that season Mike had spent the $5,000\npurchase price and the $5,000 he received as salary and the $1,500 they\ngave him and had a mortgage on the house. And when he died in Pennsylvania\nthey went around with a subscription to get money enough to put him in\nthe ground. Mike sat there on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago,\nwhen I said: \u201cGoodbye, boys, I\u2019m through.\u201d\n\nA. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the first\nman he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the second.\n\nI was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and I hit\na stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.\n\nI got a doctor and had my leg fixed up and he said to me: \u201cWilliam, if you\ndon\u2019t go on that trip I will give you a good leg.\u201d I obeyed and I have as\ngood a leg today as I ever had. They offered to wait for me at Honolulu\nand Australia.\n\nSpalding said: \u201cMeet us in England, and play with us through England,\nScotland and Wales.\u201d I didn\u2019t go.\n\nEd Williamson, our old short-stop, was a fellow weighing 225 pounds, and a\nmore active man you never saw. He went with them, and while they were on\nthe ship crossing the English channel a storm arose. The captain thought\nthe ship would go down. Then he dropped on his knees and promised God\nto be true, and God spoke and the waves were still. They came back to\nthe United States and Ed. came back to Chicago and started a saloon on\nDearborn Street.\n\nI would go there and give tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would\ntalk with him, and would cry like a baby, I would get down and pray for\nhim. When he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out\nhis liver. It was so big it would not go in a candy bucket.\n\nEd Williamson sat there on the street corner with me twenty-seven years\nago when I said, \u201cGoodbye, boys, I\u2019m through.\u201d\n\nFrank Flint, our old catcher, who caught for nineteen years, drew $3,200 a\nyear on an average. He caught before they had chest protectors and masks\nand gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the ball of his hand was\nbroken. You never saw a hand like Frank had. Every bone in his face was\nbroken and his nose and cheekbones, and the shoulder and ribs had all been\nbroken.\n\nI\u2019ve seen old Frank Flint sleeping on a table in a stale beer joint and\nI\u2019ve turned my pockets inside out and said: \u201cYou\u2019re welcome to it, old\npal.\u201d\n\nHe drank on and on, and one day in winter he staggered out of a stale beer\njoint and stood on a corner and was seized with a fit of coughing.\n\nThe blood streamed out of his nose, his mouth and his eyes. Down the\nstreet came a woman. She took one look and said: \u201cMy God, is it you,\nFrank?\u201d And the old love came back.\n\nThe wife called two policemen and a cab and started with him to her\nboarding house. They broke all speed regulations. She called five of the\nbest physicians, and they listened to the beating of his heart\u2014eight,\nnine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen\u2014and the doctor said: \u201cHe\nwill be dead in about four hours.\u201d She said: \u201cFrank the end is near,\u201d and\nhe said: \u201cSend for Bill.\u201d\n\nThey telephoned me and I came. When I reached his bedside he said to me:\n\u201cThere\u2019s nothing in the life of years ago I care for now. I can hear the\ngrandstand hiss when I strike out. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I\nmake a hit that wins the game, but there is nothing that can help me now,\nand if the umpire calls me out now, won\u2019t you say a few words over me,\nBill?\u201d\n\nHe struggled as he had years ago on the diamond when he tried to reach\nhome\u2014but the great Umpire of the universe yelled: \u201cYou\u2019re out.\u201d And the\ngreat gladiator of the diamond was no more.\n\nFrank Flint sat on the street corner drunk with me twenty-seven years ago\nin Chicago when I said: \u201cI\u2019ll bid you goodbye, boys, I\u2019m going to Jesus.\u201d\nSay men, did I win the game of life, or did they?\n\n\n\n\nBEACON LIGHTS ON BILLY\u2019S TRAIL.\n\n\nI owe God everything. I owe the devil nothing except the best fight I can\nput up against him.\n\nThe church needs more of God and less dress and strife over money.\n\nJudas bought a ticket to hell for thirty pieces of silver, and it wasn\u2019t a\nround-trip ticket, either.\n\nEvery saloon gives the devil a better chance to land your boy in hell.\n\nYou breed more infidels with your \u201cdivine philosophy\u201d than all the\nIngersols in the world.\n\nThe church doesn\u2019t need new members as much as she needs to have the old\nbunch made over.\n\nA lot of people, from the way they live, make you think they\u2019ve got a\nticket to heaven on a Pullman parlor car, and have ordered the porter to\nwake \u2019em when they get there. But they\u2019ll get side-tracked almost before\nthey\u2019re started.\n\n\n\n\nHARD TO KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN.\n\n\n\u201cSomebody says: \u2018But you don\u2019t know my circumstances, Mr. Sunday. I\u2019m\nhandicapped by my parents. I\u2019m handicapped by poverty.\u2019 Listen! Go down\ntonight and get down your books and read of the men of history who have\ncrept and crawled from the sewers of poverty and the quagmires of squalor.\nObscurity never kept Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia\ngnawing at his loaf. Obscurity didn\u2019t keep Edison working as a telegraph\noperator at $60.00 a month. Obscurity didn\u2019t keep David herding sheep. If\ngold and diamonds weren\u2019t so hard to get they wouldn\u2019t be worth so much.\nObscurity didn\u2019t keep Grant in a tannery. Obscurity didn\u2019t keep Garfield\non the towpath of a canal. If you\u2019ve got it in you, squalor and want can\u2019t\nkeep you down.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you are going to win out you must have grit. That means you must be\nable to say \u201cno\u201d when asked to do wrong, so loud it will stagger hell.\nOr \u201cyes\u201d so loud it will gladden the angels of God. Put up your dukes and\nfight the devil.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nHONOR YOUR WIFE BEFORE SHE DIES.\n\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t wait until your wife dies before you brag on her. Tell her\nthat coffee was fine. Tell her how you like those biscuits\u2014not those\nbig four-story ones, but the little flat fellows with crust on both\nsides\u2014that\u2019s the kind I like. Think of the days you bought her gumdrops\nand candy hearts with reading on them. I wish I had all the money I\u2019ve\nspent on candy hearts with reading on them. You\u2019ve bought \u2019em, too, you\nfellows, haven\u2019t you? Ha, ha! Thought so! (Here Mr. Sunday recited the\npoem, \u201cKiss Her.\u201d) Some fellows pet dogs more than they pet their wives.\n\n\u201cPlay with the children. You say, \u2018Bill, I haven\u2019t any.\u2019 I say, \u2018Then get\nsome.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTWO PICTURES OF AMERICAN HOMES.\n\n\nI think one of the prettiest pictures ever looked upon is to see a father\nwith the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a mother with the\nreligion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and to see them throw their arms\nabout their eldest child, and the oldest child throw his arms about their\nnext oldest child, and that child take the next oldest child by the hand,\nand on until the youngest and all with happiness in their hearts and songs\non their lips, start for heaven.\n\nAnd I think the blackest, darkest picture ever looked upon is to see\na father without the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a\nbe-frizzled society woman without the religion of Jesus Christ in her\nheart, and the next oldest child, and on down until the baby in the\ncradle, and to see that father and mother lock arms and all start to hell,\nlike many of them are doing today.\n\n\n\n\nKIND WORDS TO HELP CHILDREN.\n\n\nThere are fewer things more important in the home than conversation.\nThink of the good you can do in your home with your voice. You use it to\ngive pain, but the conversation in your home ought to be loving. In many\nhomes they have no conversation. There is no affectionate greeting in\nthe morning when the children start for school, no little kiss to linger\non their lips, and when they come home at noon, hungry, there is no kind\ngreeting. The old man never says a word unless he growls for you to pass\nsomething, and so far as anyone would know, you would be in a deaf and\ndumb asylum. No fireside chats with the children.\n\nYou are down at some fool club, some lodge; you are off to some literary\nsocial, beer and wine-drinking hell, and you let your children go to the\ndevil. You turn them over to some nurse, whose only interest in the child\nis so many dollars per week.\n\n\n\n\nEVANGELIST PAYS TRIBUTE TO WIFE.\n\n\nSunday humorously complimented his wife at the tabernacle meeting Thursday\nnight. He quoted \u201cBattling\u201d Nelson\u2019s statement that Mrs. Sunday was worth\n$10,000,000.00, but said Bat had the estimate too low.\n\nSunday began by speaking of the traits of various nations. \u201cScotch blood\u201d\nhe said, \u201cstands for persistency, stick-to-it-iveness, faithfulness and\nbulldog tenacity. I guess I ought to know, for Ma\u2019s full-blooded Scotch,\nand I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d do without her.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSEVERELY SCORES \u201cSMART SET\u201d BUNCH.\n\n\nAnd of the women in our \u201csmart set\u201d nowadays. Too much can not be said\nin condemnation of them. Too much time is spent by them outside of their\nhomes. They have thrown to the wind all womanly modesty and prudence.\nThey are flattered and cajoled, and they look upon themselves as sort\nof an especial form upon which to hang the latest creation of a Worth\nor a Redfern. They have digestive apparatus with which to digest highly\nseasoned foods which some rich husband can buy and cram into their\ngullets. And they lend their presence to vaudeville, and have vaudeville\nperformances in their homes, and their children are allowed to witness\nperformances which border on the obscene. And they indulge in gambling to\nsuch an extent, poker, roulette wheels, champagne, and all the whole long\nlist, my friends, and they are more familiar with poker chips and gambling\ndevices and frivolity than they are with their Bible, the English language\nor classic literature.\n\n\u201cNo man lives to himself alone. When you go to hell you\u2019re going to drag\nsomeone else down with you, and if you go to heaven you\u2019re going to take\nsomeone else with you. You say you hate sin. Of course you do if you have\nrespect. You never saw anyone in this town who hates sin worse than I, or\nloves a sinner more than I. I\u2019m fighting for the sinners. I\u2019m fighting to\nsave your soul, just as a doctor fights to save your life from a disease.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf there is a father that hits the booze, he doesn\u2019t want his son to. If\nhe is keeping someone on the side, he doesn\u2019t want his son to. In other\nwords, you would not want your son to live like you if you are not living\nright.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook on the bright side. Every time you smile you put a crimp in the\nundertaker\u2019s business, keep the hearse standing in the shed, keep the\nembalming fluid out of your veins, and keep the quartet from singing\n\u2018Lead, Kindly Light.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY\u2019S BRIGHT WORD PICTURES IN HIS SERMON TO MOTHERS.\n\n_Father Gives up but Mother Doesn\u2019t._\n\n\n\u201cFathers often give up. The old man often goes to boozing, becomes\ndissipated, takes a dose of poison and commits suicide, but the mother\nwill stand by the home and keep the little band together if she has to\nmanicure her fingernails over a washboard to do it. If men had half as\nmuch grit as the women, there would be different stories written about\na good many homes. Look at her work! It is the greatest in the world;\nin its far-reaching importance it is transcendently above everything in\nthe universe\u2014her task in molding hearts and lives and shaping character.\nIf you want to find greatness, don\u2019t go toward the throne; go to the\ncradle, and the nearer you get to the cradle, the nearer to greatness.\nThe launching of a boy or girl to live for Christ is greater work than to\nlaunch a battleship.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBRAVEST BATTLE FOUGHT IN WORLD.\n\n\n    \u201cThe bravest battle that ever was fought,\n      Shall I tell you where and when?\n    On the maps of the world you\u2019ll find it not\u2014\n      \u2019Twas fought by the mothers of men.\n\n    \u201cNay, not with cannon or battle shot.\n      With sword or nobler pen.\n    Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,\n      From mouths of wonderful men.\n\n    \u201cBut deep in a walled up woman\u2019s heart\u2014\n      Of woman that would not yield,\n    But bravely, silently bore her part\u2014\n      Lo, there is the battlefield.\n\n    \u201cNo marshaling troops, no bivouac song,\n      No banner to gleam and wave;\n    But oh! these battles, they last so long\u2014\n      From babyhood to the grave.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is a mighty power in a mother\u2019s kiss\u2014inspiration, courage, hope,\nambition. One kiss made Benjamin West a painter, and the memory of it\nclung to him through life. One kiss will drive away the fear in the dark\nand make the little one brave. It will give strength where there is\nweakness.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nONE ACT, ONE WORD WILL BLIGHT CHILD.\n\n\n\u201cThere is power enough in a word or act to blight a boy, and through him,\ncurse a community. There is power enough in a word or act to tincture\nthe life of that child so it will become a power to lift the world to\nJesus Christ. The mothers will put in motion influences that will either\ntouch heaven or hell. Talk about greatness! Oh, you wait until you reach\nthe mountains of eternity, then read the mothers\u2019 names in God\u2019s hall of\nfame, and see who they have been in this world. I want to tell you women,\nfooling away your time hugging and kissing a poodle dog, caressing a\nSpitz, drinking a society bran mash and a cocktail, and playing cards, is\nmighty small business to moulding the life of a child.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen God gave the office of mother to women it was just like giving you\nhis own right hand. Think of what importance is attached to it! Think\nof the mother\u2019s power! There is more power in a mother\u2019s hand than in a\nking\u2019s scepter.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTOUCHING TRIBUTE TO MOTHER\u2019S LOVE.\n\n\n\u201cI once read the story of an angel who stole out of heaven and came to\nthis world one bright sunshiny day; roamed through the field, forest, city\nand hamlet, and as the sun went down, plumed his wings for the return\nflight. The angel said: \u2018Now that my visit is over, before I return\nI must gather some mementoes of my trip.\u2019 He looked at the beautiful\nflowers in the garden and said, \u2018How lovely and fragrant,\u2019 and plucked\nthe rarest roses, made a bouquet, and said, \u2018I see nothing more beautiful\nand fragrant than these flowers.\u2019 The angel looked further and saw a\nbright-eyed, rosy-cheeked child, and said, \u2018That baby is prettier than\nthe flowers; I will take that, too;\u2019 and, looking beyond to the cradle,\nhe saw a mother\u2019s love pouring out over her babe like a gushing spring,\nand the angel said, \u2018The mother\u2019s love is the prettiest thing I have\nseen; I will take that too.\u2019 And with these three treasures the heavenly\nmessenger winged his flight to the pearly gates, saying: \u2018Before I go in\nI must examine the mementoes of my trip to the earth.\u2019 He looked at the\nflowers; they had withered. He looked at the baby\u2019s smile; it had faded.\nHe looked at the mother\u2019s love; it shone in all its pristine beauty. Then\nhe threw away the withered flowers, cast aside the faded smile, and with\nthe mother\u2019s love pressed to his breast, swept through the gates into the\ncity, shouting that the only thing he had found that would retain its\nfragrance from earth to heaven is a mother\u2019s love.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nEVERY CHILD IS A TRUST TO MOTHER.\n\n\n\u201cEvery child is put in a mother\u2019s arms as a trust from God, and she has to\nanswer to God for the way she deals with that child. No mother on God\u2019s\nearth has any right to raise her children for pleasure. She has no right\nto send them to dancing school and haunts of sin. You have no right to do\nthose things that will curse your children. That babe is put in your arms\nto train for the Lord. No mother has any more right to raise her children\nfor pleasure than I have to pick your pockets or throw red pepper in your\neyes. She has no more right to do that than a bank cashier has to rifle\nthe vaults and take the savings of the people. One of the worst sins you\ncan commit is to be unfaithful to your trust.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe biggest place in the world is that which is being filled by the\npeople who are in close touch with youth. Being a king, an emperor or a\npresident is mighty small business compared to being a mother, or the\nteacher of children, whether in a public school or in a Sunday school,\nand they fill places so great that there isn\u2019t an angel in heaven that\nwouldn\u2019t be glad to give a bushel of diamonds to boot to come down here\nand take their place. Commanding an army is little more than sweeping a\nstreet or pounding an anvil compared with the training of a boy or girl.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSAYS MEN ARE WHAT MOTHERS MAKE THEM.\n\n\n\u201cEmerson said: \u2018Men are what their mothers make them.\u2019 They are what their\nmothers make them, and if the mothers of today were true to their trust,\nthen they could send their boys to college and need not be afraid of them\ncoming back infidels, like many of them do. There is no power on earth\nthat can lift to heaven or shove to hell like the touch of a mother\u2019s\nhand. Everywhere men have been brought back from the valley of the shadow\nof death simply by the touch of mother\u2019s hand.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSONGS OF MOTHER SWEETEST TO HEAR.\n\n\n\u201cThere is power in a mother\u2019s song, too. It\u2019s the best music the world\never heard. There is no brass band or pipe organ that can hold a candle to\nmother\u2019s song, the kind she sings gets tangled up in your heart strings.\nThere would be a disappointment in the music of heaven to me if there were\nno mothers there to sing. The song of an angel or a seraph would not have\nmuch charm for me. What would you care for an angel\u2019s song if there is\nno mother\u2019s song? The song of a mother is sweeter than that ever sung by\nminstrel or written by poet. Talk about sonnets! You ought to hear the\nmother sing when her babe is on her breast, when her heart is filled with\nemotion. Her voice may not please an artist, but it will please any one\nwho has a heart in him. The songs that have moved the world are not the\nsongs written by the great masters. I think when we reach heaven it will\nbe found that some of the best songs we will sing there will be those we\nlearned at mother\u2019s knee.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is power in a mother\u2019s love. A mother\u2019s love must be like God\u2019s\nlove. How God could ever tell the world that He loved it without a\nmother\u2019s help has often puzzled me. If the devils in hell ever turned\npale, it was the day when mother\u2019s love flamed up for the first time in a\nwoman\u2019s heart. If the devil ever got \u2018cold feet,\u2019 it was that day, in my\njudgment.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo teach a child to love the truth and hate a lie, to love purity and\nhate vice, is greater than inventing a flying machine that will take\nyou to the moon, or to the North pole. Unconsciously, you set in motion\ninfluences that will damn or bless the old universe and bring new worlds\nout of chaos and transform them for God.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nGATHERING UP THE SUNBEAMS.\n\n\n    \u201cIf we knew the baby fingers pressed against the window pane,\n    Would be cold and still tomorrow, never trouble us again,\n    Would the bright eyes of our darling catch the frown upon our brow?\n    Would the prints of little fingers vex us then as they do now?\n\n    Let us gather up the sunbeams lying all around our path,\n    Let us keep the wheat and roses, casting out the thorns and chaff!\n    We shall find our sweetest comforts in the blessings of today, and\n    With patient hand removing all the briers from our way.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSTART CHILDREN RIGHT, ONLY SOLUTION.\n\n\n\u201cWhen God wants to throw a world out into space he is much concerned about\nit. The first mile that world takes settles its course for eternity. When\nGod throws a child out into the world he is mighty anxious that it gets a\nright start. The Catholics are right when they say: \u2018Give us the children\nuntil they are ten years old, and we don\u2019t care who has them after that.\u2019\nThe Catholics are not losing any sleep about losing men and women from\ntheir church membership. It is the only church that has ever shown us\nthe only sensible way to reach the masses\u2014that is, by getting hold of\nthe children. That\u2019s the only way on God\u2019s earth you will ever solve the\nproblem of reaching the masses. You get the boys and girls started right\nand the devil will hang crepe on his door, bank his fires, and hell will\nbe \u201cfor rent.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is power in a mother\u2019s smile. See the boy, how he will outdo\nhimself if he knows his mother is watching him, and it makes the hard\nplaces easy and the dark places light. A long face and a gloomy look are\nabout the last things you ought to give to your children if you want to\ninspire and cheer them.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDANCING WORST OF AMUSEMENTS.\n\n\nThe dance is the hotbed of iniquity, and I denounce it as the rottenest,\nmost hellish, vice-producing institution that ever wriggled from the\ndepths of perdition.\n\nThe dance is simply a hugging match set to music.\n\nDancing is not an innocent amusement. It has caused the downfall of more\ngirls than anything else.\n\nThree-fourths of the fallen women in big cities, fell because of the dance.\n\nYou\u2019d just as soon husk corn by moonlight as to dance with your own wife.\nIt\u2019s the other fellow\u2019s wife, some other fellow\u2019s sister that you want to\ndance with.\n\nA man will wallow and get so low he\u2019ll have to climb a hill to get into\nhell, then make a bluff at reforming and society takes him in. Then at the\ndance he\u2019ll breathe promises into the ears of some innocent young girl,\ngain her confidence and then ruin her.\n\nYou say you need exercise and that\u2019s why you dance. All right, then, let\nwomen dance with women, and men with men.\n\nThe dance brings vice and virtue into such close contact that virtue loses.\n\nAny church that encourages dancing is too low down to deserve the name of\nchurch.\n\nIf there are variations of hell, the dancer will crack brimstone in the\nhottest spot.\n\nIf there was nothing but card players and dancers in the church, how it\nwould stink and rot!\n\n\n\n\nDECLARES BALLROOM PERMITS LIBERTIES.\n\n\nYou grant men liberties on the ball room floor that if any man attempted\nin your home and your husband found you at it, he would have no trouble\nin securing a divorce, and if he shot the man, no jury in the world would\nconvict him for it.\n\nIf I found any man hugging Mrs. Sunday as a man does in a dance, I\u2019d clear\nfor action like a battleship, and give him HIS.\n\nWhere do you find your most accomplished dancers? In the brothels.\n\nWhen a girl gets so low that she\u2019ll smoke and drink, she is on the\ntoboggan slide and going to hell fast.\n\nAnd you fellows like to \u201csit out\u201d a dance. I always did think it was a\nfoolish proposition to gallop a mile to get a hug.\n\nThe round and square dances look alike to me. It doesn\u2019t take very long to\ncut the corners off.\n\nThere was a time in America when the stately cotillion seemed to satisfy,\nbut it is too slow now for the hot blood of the Twentieth Century. The\nyoung people must have something that will chase hurdles through their\nveins.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT BILLY SAID ON MOTHERHOOD.\n\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t believe there is an angel in heaven that would not come to earth\nand be honored with motherhood if God would grant them that privilege.\nLike produces like in animals and in human beings. Blood will tell in\nhorses, sheep, quadruped and in human beings. A consumptive mother will\nproduce a consumptive child, and the same is true of its paternity. It\nis time to lay aside mock modesty. You can\u2019t trifle with God\u2019s rules.\nSociety has just about put maternity out of fashion. When you stop to\nconsider the average society woman I do not think maternity has lost\nanything. The child of affluence is turned over to nurses at birth and is\nfed on prepared foods and knows nothing of its mother. The children of\nhumbler homes are raised by their mothers, instead of being turned over to\ngovernesses. These mothers spend their time in bridge parties, gadding,\nand fondling pet dogs; no wonder men go to the clubs. No man wants to\nplay second fiddle to a bow-legged bulldog. I am sure I would not!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTOO MANY GIRLS ARE NOT IN LOVE.\n\n\n\u201cThere are too many girls marry for other causes than love. I think\nambition, indolence, avarice, laziness and indifference lead more girls to\nthe altar than love. Girls not actuated by the noblest of human feeling,\nbut simply willing to pay the price for a good time. They are not moved\nby the nobler desires of manhood and womanhood. Maternity is the highest\npossible gift of God to woman. The up-to-date women pride themselves on\ntheir criminal knowledge. Some girls marry for society, some marry for\nhome, some marry for ease, some marry to reform man; he wouldn\u2019t marry you\nto reform you\u2014you little fool. It is no easier to make a kingly husband\nout of a beer-soaked, cigaret-smoking specimen of a man than a prostitute\ncan make a queenly wife.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nHIGH SPOTS IN BILLY\u2019S SERMON TO WOMEN.\n\n_Up to Women to Save World._\n\n\n\u201cWoman lives on a higher plane morally than man. No woman was ever ruined\nthat some brute of a man did not take the initiative. Women have kept\nthemselves purer than men. I believe a good woman is the best thing this\nside of heaven, and a bad woman the worst thing this side of hell. I think\nthey rise higher and sink lower than men. I think she is the purest on\nearth or the most degraded on earth. Our homes are on the level with\nwomen. Towns are on the level with homes. Nations are on the level with\ntowns. What our women are, the towns will be. What the town is the men\nwill be. The devil and women can damn this world, and Jesus and women can\nsave this world. The womanhood of the world has to settle the destiny of\nthe world. I believe there is something unfinished in the makeup of a girl\nwith the absence of religion. The average girl of today no longer looks\nforward to motherhood as the crowning glory of womanhood.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nGIVES ADVICE ON PICKING A HUSBAND.\n\n\n\u201cSay, girls, don\u2019t simper and look silly when you speak about love. There\nis nothing silly about it although some folks are silly because they are\nin love; love is the noblest and purest gift to man and womanhood. Don\u2019t\nlet your actions advertise \u201cMan Wanted Quick.\u201d That is the surest way\nnot to get a real one. You might get something with pantaloons on, but\nthat is not a man. Some men should be arrested for going around and being\ndisguised as men. Don\u2019t get excited and try to hurry things along. If the\nman wants you he\u2019ll come around in his good time; and don\u2019t try to do half\nthe courting. Don\u2019t bestow the love that God gave you to bestow upon a\nbaby on a poodle dog. Dogs are all right in their places, but their place\nis out in the kennel.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDON\u2019T LET GIRLS MARRY INFIDELS.\n\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t teach your girls,\u2014mothers,\u2014that the only thing in the world is\nto marry. A girl is a big fool to marry an infidel. God says be ye not\nunequally yoked with unbelievers. If she does she will have a hard life as\nsure as she lives. The offsprings of such marriages either follow in the\nfootsteps of their father, and go to hell, or cling to their mother and\nare sneered at all their life by their father.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cTHY KINGDOM COME.\u201d\n\n\nIf you really pray \u201cThy Kingdom Come\u201d you will pray with your hands, feet\nand money as well as with your voice, every day.\n\nYour religion should mean that you\u2019re going to bring about the conversion\nof the world before you sit down to breakfast.\n\nThe minister who prays with a true appreciation of \u201cThy Kingdom Come\u201d\ndon\u2019t cater to the small highbrow bunch of his church. He puts the cookies\non the bottom shelf.\n\nThe man who truly prays \u201cThy Kingdom Come\u201d won\u2019t slip coppers in the\ncollection plate and then go home with his head up singing \u201cJesus Paid It\nAll.\u201d\n\nWhen we really mean what we are praying, the old devil won\u2019t own an inch\nof this world. We won\u2019t need any penitentiary then, or jails or have any\nmurders, or young girls robbed of their womanhood.\n\nGod never meant anybody to offer up a prayer that was measured in square\nmiles.\n\nSome people here are so busy singing about the streets of glory that they\nforget to sweep the snow off their own streets.\n\nTalk about non-church goers\u2014it makes me sick. Why don\u2019t you talk about the\nnon-going church?\n\nThe proof of the pudding is not found in smelling the bag or chewing the\nstrings. There are lots of church members who only smell the bag and chew\nthe rag.\n\nChristianity must be a good thing or why would they try to counterfeit it.\nYou never heard of a counterfeit infidel.\n\nThe man who refuses to be a Christian because there are hypocrites in the\nchurch is a fool.\n\nYou can find about everything in the ordinary church from a humming bird\nto a turkey buzzard.\n\nI could no more shock some of you fellows than I could pour something on a\nskunk and make him smell good.\n\nThe inconsistency you talk about is in your life, not in the Bible.\n\nTalk to people on business and they\u2019ll talk sense; talk to them on\nreligion and they\u2019ll talk nonsense.\n\nChristianity is the one thing that allows the angel to take hold of you\nand strangle the animal in you.\n\n\n\n\nHOT SHOTS ON CARDS AND GAMBLING.\n\n\nIf you have a deck of cards and a Bible in your home, throw the deck in\nthe alley. Either throw the cards out and keep the Bible, or throw out the\nBible and keep the cards.\n\nWhat\u2019s the difference between a game of cards and a game of checkers? Just\nas much difference as between heaven and hell.\n\nIt is said nine-tenths of the gamblers are taught in their homes by their\nmothers, and 80 per cent by Christian people.\n\nI believe that cards and dancing are doing more to damn the spiritual life\nof the church than the grog-shops, though you can\u2019t accuse me of being a\nfriend of that stinking, dirty, rotten, hell-soaked business.\n\nI believe more people backslide on account of the social side than on\naccount of the saloon.\n\nLots of church members have cards on their tables as often as food.\n\nA billiard table is the first cousin to a saloon.\n\nThe saloonkeepers and gamblers laugh every time they read the announcement\nof a euchre or card party in the newspapers, for they know it will only be\na question of time until they get the players.\n\nYou have no right to find fault with the city officials because they don\u2019t\nsuppress gambling when it is carried on right in your home.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: WAITING FOR THE OPENING OF THE TABERNACLE.]\n\n\n\n\nEVANGELIST PUTS TABOO ON THEATER.\n\n\nThe theater, as conducted today, is one of the rottenest institutions\noutside of hell.\n\nIt is upon the charred souls of women that most of the men who are a power\nin the theatrical world have climbed to their height.\n\nThe theater is corrupting, educationally, commercially and morally.\n\nIt is almost impossible to find in the theater decency and purity.\n\nThe church and the theater have nothing in common.\n\nThe only way to reform the theater is to turn it into something else.\n\nThe rogue and scoundrelism and man\u2019s infidelity form the groundwork of\nmost plays.\n\nThe day is long past when any number of serious-minded citizens look to\nthe theater for inspiration or instruction.\n\nIf it were not for the leg shows the theater would go bankrupt.\n\nBooth and Garrick would not allow their own children to go to the theater.\n\nSmiling religion\u2014that\u2019s what we want.\n\nThe devil can\u2019t laugh\u2014poor devil.\n\nGod enjoys a little fun. He made the parrot, donkey, monkey and some of\nyou folks.\n\nThe Lord wants the best; why can\u2019t he have it?\n\nSome men are so rotten and vile they ought to be disinfected and take a\nbath in carbolic acid and formaldehyde every five minutes.\n\nTo see some people you would think that the essentials of Christianity is\nto have a face so long you could eat oatmeal out of a gas pipe. Religion\nis not cramp colic.\n\nI want to lift the burden tonight from the heads of unoffending womanhood\nand hurl it at the heads of offending manhood.\n\nSome people have just enough religion to give them goosepimples. Get in\nthe game. Some of you have just enough religion to get to the edge of life\nbut not faith enough to plunge in.\n\nDon\u2019t find fault with your physician until after you have tried his\nremedy; don\u2019t find fault with God until you have tried him.\n\nI know some fellows here who are afraid to come to the Tabernacle and do\none thing decent before going to Hell. I despise a religious coward.\n\nSociety takes no notice of sin at first; it waits for the mute evidences\nof that sin.\n\n\n\n\nBILLY PUTS TABOO ON WEDDING KNOTS.\n\n\nAlthough an ordained minister, in all of his twenty-seven years\u2019\nexperience as an evangelist, Mr. Sunday has united but one couple in\nmarriage. And that, he declares, he did very reluctantly.\n\nIn nearly every city where Billy has a campaign, he is besieged by young\nmen and young women who want him to marry them. But Billy states that\nthere is absolutely nothing doing in that line. He has performed his first\nand last marriage ceremony, and says he will stick to plain evangelism,\nand leave the marrying part to other ministers.\n\n\n\n\nEVERY PALACE IS NOT A HOME.\n\n\n\u201cI have walked and ridden and driven over the hills and through the\nvalleys and looked at your beautiful homes and your spacious lawns and\nyour happy children; you can build your palaces and amass your fortunes;\nyour sideboards can groan beneath the weight of gold and silver, cut\nglass and hand-painted china; and you can let your little ones play over\nyour Brussels carpet or your Persian or Axminster rugs; and you can have\na retinue of servants to wait upon you and do your bidding and satisfy\nyour slightest desire; and you can loll upon your oriental divans and\nbreathe the perfumed air and watch the sparkling water as it spurts from\nfountains; and you can look at your rare paintings and ransack Europe in\norder to find the masterpieces; and you can lie there with some one to\nfan you, and take your afternoon siesta; and you can sit and gormandize\nupon all the viands that the earth can produce; and your chef may be a\nFrenchman whose ability would command a princely fortune even in the homes\nof the crowned heads of Europe.\n\n\u201cBut, after all, if you sit behind the tapestry and look out through\nthe plate-glass and wait for the staggering reeking, vomiting, spewing,\ndrink-soaked, drunken sot of a son, or you wait for the coming of the\nsteps of a girl who has lost her virtue, I tell you, all that wealth can\nbring you will fly and you will think you are sitting in a sepulchre and\nthe rich furniture will simply become the bones of other days and other\nfaces, for nothing can make happy the father or the mother who has a\ndrunken sot of a boy, as many of them have today, and nothing can make\nhappy the father or the mother of a girl who has sold her womanhood for\ngain. And I tell you, not only should our homes be the center of all that\nis pure, but all that is cheerful and bright.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDRAWING THE LINE ON CHRISTIANS.\n\n\nToo many of you kneel at the communion table and then beat down the wages\nof your employes so their children go to bed hungry at night.\n\nWhat God wants is workers and boosters; not knockers and iconoclasts.\n\nEvery time a lazy man looks towards heaven, the angels close the door.\n\nIt would be a Godsend if the church could smell a little gunpowder. A\nlittle persecution would be a good thing to get rid of the parasites and\ndriftwood in the churches.\n\nEnthusiasm for Jesus Christ is like the measles and diphtheria\u2014it\u2019s\ncatching.\n\nYou sing \u201cCalvary in Heaven,\u201d and yet you put the wrong figures on the\nledger book; you profess brotherly love, and yet slander your neighbor.\n\nThere is no use trying to build a revival on a bottle of booze and on\nskullduggery and intrigue. I\u2019m just trying to clear away the debris now.\n\nA lot of people will wear out ten pair of holdbacks and only one pair of\ntugs working for God.\n\nToo many churches are frauds, four-flushers, excess baggage and false\nalarms.\n\nThe dude who splutters and splurges and spends his daddy\u2019s dough, is the\nmissing link between man and the monkey.\n\nYou say religion causes insanity; I say you\u2019re a liar!\n\nYou tell the doctor, who says you need beer for your health that he\u2019s a\nliar.\n\nKnowledge is of no benefit unless you use it.\n\nThe world is being born into sin 20 to 1 faster than into the spirit of\nGod.\n\nReligion doesn\u2019t make anybody mad; it\u2019s hell that makes men mad.\n\nAny fool can criticise; it needs neither brains nor heart to find fault.\n\nChurches in New York City have 50,000 less members today than a year ago.\n\nAll denominations are failing to reach the multitude.\n\nYou\u2019re either a patriot or a traitor to God\u2019s cause in this revival.\n\nThe man with real red blood in his veins scorns the path of roses our\nmodern churches have made to accept Christ.\n\nCriticism is the scales on which you weigh yourself.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PREACHERS AND THE LAYMEN.\n\n\nLots of churches will sidestep the man with two dollars, but who ever\nheard of a man with five hundred thousands being turned out of church.\n\nLots of sermons today are nothing but a book review with a little religion\ntacked on the end.\n\nA poor sinner couldn\u2019t find Jesus Christ in some of the churches with a\nsearchlight.\n\nWe\u2019ve got too many preachers breaking their necks, trying to please the\nworldly gang that is going to increase their salaries.\n\nNobody nowadays is afraid of God; the picture of Jesus Christ is fading\nfrom the world; the word of God has been discarded as being too crude for\nthis enlightened age.\n\nMany churches are nothing but social clearance houses.\n\nThere are lots of people in this city who would rather have their friends\ngo to hell than be saved by my preaching.\n\nThe best Christian will be the best citizen everywhere.\n\nAn employer is a thief if he takes advantage of his employe by not paying\nhim for the honest work he does; the employe is a thief who does not give\nhonest toil for honest wages.\n\nPublic opinion is not always competent to judge whether or not a man is\nworthy.\n\n\n\n\nBELSHAZZAR\u2019S FEAST.\n\n_What the Bible says._\n\n\n\u201cBelshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and\ndrank wine before the thousands.\n\n\u201cBelshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and\nsilver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple\nwhich was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his\nconcubines might drink therein.\n\n\u201cThey drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of\niron, of wood and of stone.\n\n\u201cIn the same hour came forth fingers of a man\u2019s hand and wrote over\nagainst the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king\u2019s palace;\nand the king saw part of the hand that wrote.\n\n\u201cThen the king\u2019s countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so\nthat the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against\nanother.\n\n\u201cThe king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the\nsoothsayers.\n\n\u201cThen came the king\u2019s wise men; but they could not read the writing nor\nmake known to the king the interpretation thereof.\n\n\u201cThen was Daniel brought before the king, and the king said: \u201cIf thou\ncanst read the writing thou shalt be clothed with scarlet and have a chain\nof gold about thy neck and shalt be third ruler of the kingdom.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen Daniel answered and said before the king, \u201cLet thy gifts be to\nthyself and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing and\nmake known unto the king the interpretation.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd this is the writing that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBELSHAZZAR\u2019S FEAST.\n\n_\u201cBilly\u201d Sunday\u2019s Version._\n\n\nBelshazzar\u2019s feast was no common beer, pretzel and dill pickle blow-out,\nbut the real goods. Nude and lewd women wormed and wriggled their way\nthrough the banquet hall. The bunch began to get soused and the revelry\nincreased.\n\nThen came the obscene song, the drunken hiccough, the slavering lip, and\nthe guffaw of idiotic laugh bursting from the lips of princes, flushed,\nreeling and bloodshot, while mingled with it all were the hurrahs for\ngreat Belshazzar.\n\nThen from the atmosphere flashed an armless hand which wrote upon the\nfrieze in words that blazed like fire and glistened like gold. Terror\nfroze Belshazzar to the very soul. His countenance changed, his thoughts\ntroubled him so that the joints of his loins were loose and his knees\nsmote together. I tell you old \u201cBel\u201d was about all in.\n\nIn a few moments he hoarsely cried: \u201cBring in the astrologers, the\nChaldeans and the soothsayers (we\u2019d call \u2019em mediums today). And in came\nthe Magi and when they couldn\u2019t decipher the heiroglyphics, Belshazzar\ncried, \u201cGive \u2019em the hook.\u201d\n\nThen he sent for Daniel on his mother\u2019s advice.\n\nI can see him say: \u201cPut her there Dan,\u201d as he slapped his hand in\nDaniel\u2019s, and say, \u201cMy maw\u2019s be tellin\u2019 me about you. This bunch has got\non my nerves. The four-flushers have been feedin\u2019 and fattenin\u2019 around\nhere and can\u2019t read that writing. If you\u2019ll do it I\u2019ll give you a chain\nand a ring of gold.\u201d\n\nBut Daniel said: \u201cNothin\u2019 doing on the chain and ring proposition, Bel.\u201d\nThen Daniel read the writing. \u201cMENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA REMARKABLE PRAYER.\n\n_Sunday says Devil Growls when 10,000 Confess their Wrongs._\n\n\n\u201cOh, Jesus, isn\u2019t this a great spectacle? This must make you smile, Jesus.\nI know it does me. And devil, this sight must make you growl. I can hear\nyou saying, \u2018What\u2019s Bill Sunday doing up there? Look at that crowd of\n10,000 people standing because they\u2019re sorry they broke any of God\u2019s\ncommandments. We\u2019ve got to get busy or we\u2019ll lose thousands. Come on all\nyou devils, get out of hell. Get out I say.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd Jesus, I\u2019ll bet all those devils are trembling when they look up\nhere, and I\u2019ll bet all the angels in heaven are rejoicing and shouting\nwith joy. I can see mothers and fathers up there saying, \u2018Get back, Moses,\nget back Solomon, get back David, you haven\u2019t got any children down there.\nLet me look and see if my boy or girl is in that audience. Yes, there she\nis down in section 27; yes, there is my boy over by post 14; thank God for\nthat.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd, oh, Jesus, if any preacher here tonight has got cold feet, help him\nto stiffen up; give him backbone so he can fight for you. And, Jesus,\nbless these preachers, thank them for deepening the spirit here tonight.\nBless all newspaper boys who are giving us such wonderful reports.\nBless all in their offices that we met the other day\u2014all of the clerks,\nstenographers, printers, pressmen and from the men that own the papers\ndown to the boys that sell the papers on the street.\n\n\u201cAnd, Jesus, bless this choir, bless the ushers, bless the Chief, the\nMayor, the Governor, help the state officials, Jesus. And bless this old\nstate and this city and may we have a rousing time here. Guide us and keep\nus for your sake, Jesus, amen, amen, amen and amen. Good night.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\u201cHITTING THE SAWDUST TRAIL.\u201d\n\n\nThe meaning \u201cto hit the sawdust trail,\u201d has a beautiful and appropriate\nmeaning. It was first used when Sunday and his party were in the midst\nof a campaign among the lumbermen on Puget Sound. At the tabernacle at\nBellingham, Washington. The floor of the tabernacle was covered with the\nsawdust from the lumber camp and the lumbermen, when any of their men went\ndown front to speak to Rev. Sunday, called it \u201cHitting the Trail.\u201d\n\nIn the lumber camps in the mountains there is a trail that leads through\nthe fastness of the wooded mountain side covered by wood chips, so as to\nmake it conspicuous by night as well as by day. The woodsmen some time\nwander far away from camp and are lost in the primeval forest. In their\nwanderings, if they can \u201chit the trail,\u201d they are saved, as it leads to\nthe safety and shelter of the camp. So on the pathway of life if you can,\n\u201chit the trail,\u201d of God\u2019s mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ you are led\nto safety. So these rude lumbermen called the giving up of self to God and\ngoing down the sawdust isle of the tabernacle\u2014\u201cHitting the Trail.\u201d\n\nThe phrase stuck to the Sunday party ever since and it has a thrilling\ntouch of the wildwood and a meaning that is very appropriate and beautiful\nwhen taken in the language of the backwoods.\n\n\n\n\nTRYING TO SERVE GOD AND THE DEVIL.\n\n\nIt would almost be a blessing if a wave of scarlet fever or small-pox\ncould visit some city just after a revival and sweep into heaven thousands\nwho had been converted before they were given a chance to backslide.\n\nLots of people never get any place to backslide from.\n\nThe man who keeps his store open on Sunday is an anarchist. I don\u2019t\nmean the hotel man or the restaurant proprietor, for some things are an\nabsolute necessity.\n\nYou never saw a dancing, card-playing and theatre-gadding church member\nthat amounted to the snap of your finger.\n\nBelonging to a church won\u2019t save you. A thief can be a church member.\n\nThere\u2019s too much playing tag with God, and hide-and-seek with the devil\nnowadays.\n\nThere\u2019s too much joining the church today and too little joining Jesus.\n\nEven preachers, elders, deacons and stewards may not be members of the\nbody of Christ, but merely church members.\n\n\n\n\nINCONSISTENT CHURCH MEMBERS.\n\n\nDon\u2019t start a Christian life and compromise on a pack of cards.\n\nReligion is not for time, money, applause or politics, but for God first,\nlast and all the time.\n\nThere never was an honest draft from an honest heart that was refused at\nthe bank window of heaven.\n\nIf you worked for God as hard as you do for the devil, you wouldn\u2019t be up\nagainst it.\n\nIf you\u2019re a backslider, you\u2019re a liar, a perjurer and you\u2019ve broken your\nmarriage vows with God.\n\nMany men may be true to their business, to their lodge and to their wives,\nbut dirty liars to God.\n\nYou can graduate from the best university on God\u2019s dirt and make a cold\nstorage plant out of your brain, but without Jesus you aren\u2019t worth a cent.\n\nThere is as much connection between some church members and Jesus as there\nis between a wooden leg and the man that wears it.\n\nLife is just chuck full of half-done things.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANS CAN\u2019T LIVE DOUBLE LIVES.\n\n\nIt don\u2019t make any difference with God whether the one who sins wears a\ncoat or petticoat; plug hat or a hairpin.\n\nThis double-standard business is the curse of humanity today. God demands\nthe same standard of purity in man as he does in woman.\n\nThere are a lot of lobsters here tonight who, if their wives lived the\nlives they did, would be down at the court house whining for divorces\ntomorrow morning.\n\nYou can\u2019t cut the week up into seven parts, call six secular and one\nSunday when you go to church and listen to a little sermonette, and expect\nto be saved.\n\nYou are a blackguard liar when you say every man and woman have a price.\nMost men are honest; most women are virtuous. It\u2019s the dishonest man and\nthe woman with no virtue that are in the minority.\n\nLots of people start on a royal race in life, but compromise at the finish\nin a mouse hole.\n\n\n\n\nA HIGH TRIBUTE TO THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF GEN. LEE.\n\n\nBilly Sunday paid the following tribute to the Christian character of\nGeneral Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces in the Civil\nWar:\n\n\u201cThere is no man I so delight to honor as the man who is true. There is\nno woman I so delight to honor as the woman who is true. There is no one\nI so abhor as a man or woman whose words are untruth and whose promises\nare as vapor. I may differ from a man in politics or religion, and if he\nis living up to his highest ideals, even if I think those ideals wrong, I\nrespect him and I will do my best to clear up his errors and lead him to\nthe sunlit hills of God\u2019s pardon.\n\n\u201cAt the beginning of the Civil War General Robert E. Lee said to General\nScott that he was a Union man at heart, but that his native state of\nVirginia had seceded and that as a loyal son he felt he must cast his\nfortunes with the Confederacy. As the war proceeded, Lee saw the bright\nhopes of the Confederacy fade, saw its government overturned and broken at\nhis feet. When the end came he was a prematurely old man, his health fled,\nhis fortune gone, his property at Arlington confiscated. At that time of\ndespair there came to him the officers of the Louisiana Lottery company,\noffering to make him its president.\n\n\u201c\u2018But, gentlemen,\u2019 he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know anything about the lottery\nbusiness.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018That makes no difference,\u2019 they said, \u2018we do. We want the use of your\nname, and we will give you $10,000 a year.\u2019\n\n\u201cGeneral Lee buttoned his coat over his sunken breast, brushed back his\ngray hair from his forehead, and said: \u2018Gentlemen, my good name and my\nself respect are all that is saved from the wreck, and they are not for\nsale. You cannot buy Robert E. Lee.\u2019\n\n\u201cMy father was a Union soldier. I am a loyal American, but I say that\nRobert E. Lee was one of the noblest Christian characters this country has\never produced, and that Stonewall Jackson was another.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nEXPOSES FALSEHOOD OF \u201cGRAFT\u201d STORIES.\n\n\nBilly Sunday takes frequent raps at those who knock him and accuse him\nof grafting. Wednesday night he became reminiscent for a few minutes and\nreferred to his turning down big offers from baseball teams, to become a\nY. M. C. A. secretary.\n\n\u201cWhen I turned down offers of $500.00 and even $1,000 a month from ball\nteams, to make $83.00 as a Y. M. C. A. secretary, they never called me a\ngrafter, and in those days we were up against hard times,\u201d he said. \u201cFor\nsix months I got no salary; I went hungry at noon and walked to and from\nwork to save car fare.\n\n\u201cThen there\u2019s another lie they tell about me and it is that I own a saloon\nin Chicago. I don\u2019t know what all they tell about me, but I do not and\nnever did own a single piece of property in Chicago.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nWOMEN HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS MEN.\n\n\n\u201cGod has marked out the same path for men and for women to follow. Away\nwith the hellish doctrine of a double standard of living in this twentieth\ncentury. It makes no difference whether the one who sins wears a plug hat\nor a petticoat. Young fellow, your sister has as good a right to live as\nyou do, as you have. She has as good a right to walk up street smoking a\ncigaret as you have. Your wife has as good a right to line up before a\nbar and put 10 beers under her belt as you have. She has as good a right\nto go to the corner grocery in the evening and sit around and put her\nfeet up on the stove and settle the questions of the day, as you have.\nShe has as good a right as you have to walk down street with a half a\nplug of Lorillard\u2019s sticking out of her mouth and spit enough to drown a\njackrabbit as you have. I wouldn\u2019t clean out your old spittoon for you.\nI\u2019d throw it at your old head. Yes, sir. Mop up your own slop, you old\nhog.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: WHEN THE TABERNACLE SERVICES ARE OVER.]\n\n\n\n\nSAYS BACKSLIDERS LIKE GROUNDHOGS.\n\n\n\u201cThe invitation is never given at a revival but there are those who will\nrespond to it and for a time will live as Christians should. Then, when\nthe revival is over and the routine of everyday life begins, they slip\ngradually back into their former ways. They are like the groundhog. When\nspring comes the groundhog awakes from his winter\u2019s sleep and emerges into\nthe sunlight and lives an active life until the storms of winter come\nagain. Then he crawls into his hole of hibernation and falls into a sleep\nof months. Oh, it is easy to think of things divine when the revival is on\nand there is inspiration on every side and the bands are playing and the\ncrowds are marching. These groundhog people have family prayer then, and\nthey attend to their religious duties faithfully, but when the revival is\nover they begin to relapse into their old ways.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTRUE TO LODGE; FALSE TO CHRIST.\n\n\n\u201cThey tell me a lodge man will share his last dollar with a needy person,\ndie for the widow or the orphan, put his head on the track ahead of the\nTwentieth Century Limited or allow himself to be shot to pieces before he\nwould be false to the vows he took amid the scent of the orange blossoms.\nThat sounds like a good man; but there are lots of men who will be true in\nall these things, and false to Jesus Christ. They will go to church and\npartake of the communion, then will go out and line up in front of some\nbar or tell smutty stories. True in business, true in society, true in the\nhome, but a perjurer in the sight of God. If you are such a man you are a\nbackslider\u2014a backslider, sir, and a liar.\u201d\n\n\u201cGirls, you are a fool if you will walk along the street with a fellow who\nsmokes a cigaret as he walks with you. He wouldn\u2019t walk with you if you\nsmoked one.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY ADVISES SOCIETY WOMEN TO SAVE SOULS.\n\n\n\u201cNo doubt you women have a retinue of servants and haven\u2019t dirtied your\nhands in dishwater for so long that you have forgotten how it feels. But\nyou have souls to save, and don\u2019t wait until just before the undertaker\nbacks up to your door.\u201d\n\nMr. Sunday took Van Dyke\u2019s sketch, \u201cThe Lost Word,\u201d as a theme for his\ntalk. He related how Hermas, the pagan, after accepting Christianity for\nseveral years, grew tired of it and sold the Word of Jesus for gold,\npleasure and worldly success. He demonstrated to the club women that, if\nthey had ever known Jesus, they could read their heart\u2019s biography.\n\n\u201cWithout that word you are nonentities!\u201d said Sunday, \u201cWithout that word\nyou are lost. And you can\u2019t find it in society. Do as society wants you to\ndo, and you will not be doing as Jesus wants you to do. If ease, comfort,\nluxury and the chasing of the phantoms of pleasure have led you away from\nthe old landmarks and moorings, get back, my friends, get back.\u201d\n\nThe man that bucks the jackpot until 3 o\u2019clock in the morning is just as\ngood as the church member that plays for a prize.\n\nThere\u2019s nothing too hard for God.\n\nIf your heart is full of sin you\u2019ll never be satisfied until you get\nothers to sin likewise.\n\nBad as is physical leprosy, moral leprosy is ten thousand times worse.\n\nSuppose every young man in the city who is a moral leper were compelled\nand impelled by some uncontrollable impulse to make public the sins you\u2019ve\ncommitted.\n\nThere\u2019s a day of judgment coming when God will peel off the bark and find\nmany full of wormholes.\n\nSuppose all had glass doors in our hearts. I think we would want stained\nglass windows, heavy tapestry and thick curtains.\n\nGod never made Hell for man. God made Hell for the devil. If you follow\nthe devil you must go to the abode of the devil.\n\nYou may live in the most beautiful house and the world passes by your door\nnot knowing of the sadness and sorrow within. But it will out. If the\nworld never finds it out, it\u2019ll meet you at the throne of God.\n\nIt\u2019s the men of means, wealth and leisure that support dens of vice.\n\nThe devil will let you have an easy time until God asks you to do personal\nwork.\n\nSome people think it is beneath their dignity to do personal work for God.\n\nIf it is beneath your dignity to do personal work, then you are above\nChrist.\n\nIf you haven\u2019t got religion enough to smile, there\u2019s a leak in your\nfountain.\n\nI pity that boy or that girl who has no incentive from a father or mother\nto be a Christian.\n\nSissy, that fellow wouldn\u2019t go with you to reform you.\n\nThose most likely to be affected by your sins are those nearest and\ndearest to you.\n\nSociety needs a new division of anathemas. Stop hurling your anathemas at\nthat girl and hurl them at that fellow.\n\nIf we only knew the secrets in the hearts and lives of a great many we\nenvy, we would be filled with sadness and sorrow.\n\nI wish to God the church were as afraid of imperfection as it is of\nperfection.\n\nIf the saloon is no place for a boy it\u2019s no place for a man either. You\u2019ll\nget what\u2019s coming to you, too, before I\u2019m through if you stand with that\ndamnable bunch.\n\nI had to say no to fifteen or twenty cities to come here.\n\nThe curse of the church is not so much sins of commission as sins of\nomission.\n\nTwo things I try to do\u2014strengthen the faith and clarify the vision of\nthose that believe; help bring the unsaved to Christ.\n\nNobody begins to live until they become a Christian. You\u2019re not ready to\ndie unless you\u2019re ready to live.\n\nYou can learn something from some politicians\u2014energy and organization.\n\nIt won\u2019t be long until the entire State of Iowa is cleared of the liquor\ntraffic. Only twenty counties remain wet and these are going dry with a\nrapidity almost dazzling.\n\nIt\u2019s hard for you to teach the baby how to walk; it\u2019s harder for the baby\nto learn how to walk.\n\nI never saw a revival movement yet until God\u2019s people fell on their knees\nand renewed their vows of Christianity.\n\nPersonal work is a difficult form of work; more difficult than preachings,\nsinging, attending conventions.\n\nSome things must be faultless to be valuable.\n\nLove is the greatest thing in the world; character the grandest.\n\nYou can bury a man, but his character will beat the hearse back from the\ngraveyard.\n\nDon\u2019t your hearts say, you must forsake sin before you can expect pardon?\n\nI will preach with all the power I have against sin, but I will never\n\u201cbawl\u201d a man out.\n\nGod is doing His best to keep men out of hell; men are doing their best to\nget into hell.\n\nGod cannot and will not put the good and bad in the same place.\n\nWhat did Jesus ever do that was not for the good of humanity?\n\nJesus Christ never preached a funeral sermon; that was out of his line.\n\nIf you are in favor of something Jesus is against, then he does not want\nyou.\n\nJesus Christ is against all wrong. Are you?\n\nJesus stands for a square deal all around.\n\nAre you against the saloon? Jesus Christ is.\n\nJesus Christ was the bravest man who ever lived. I am tired of hearing him\nreferred to as a dough-faced person.\n\nSomething is expected of a Godless person that is not of a sinner.\n\nI do not care a rap for your claps or applause unless your acts take the\nform of living your Christianity.\n\nWithout faith there would not be a factory or a bank here.\n\nNothing was ever accomplished without men first believing something.\n\nThe man who is a Christian has life more abundantly than an infidel.\n\nChrist turned houses of mourning into houses of joy.\n\nYou act as though you had reached the apex and written \u201cfinis\u201d after\neverything you do. We haven\u2019t learned the a b c\u2019s of what is yet to come\nin this old world.\n\nThere\u2019s a law of gravitation in character as well as in matter.\n\nA saloonkeeper does not enjoy a prayer meeting.\n\nWith everything wicked men can do today they try to check religion. Yet\nreligion never will be stopped. You might as well try to dam Niagara Falls\nwith toothpicks.\n\nFor twenty-seven and a half years I have been a Christian. I defy the\ndevil or anyone else on earth or in hell to prove that I don\u2019t live what I\npreach.\n\nA motorman might as well try to run his car up yonder hill by blowing his\nbreath against the front vestibule as to expect salvation without Jesus\nChrist.\n\nYou can\u2019t stop religion by making fun of it.\n\nIf it\u2019s wrong for me to hit the booze, it\u2019s wrong for you.\n\nGod says, if you give me a chance, old man, I can make you sober and keep\nyou sober.\n\nTake out of this town what Christianity has done for it and its real\nestate would not be worth ten cents by Christmas.\n\nDo not be deluded to believing that all you need is sincerity of thought.\nA man may believe he can handle nitro-glycerine with impunity, but if he\ndoes he will be slivered into atoms.\n\nI know Jesus made good with me. Has he with you?\n\nWherever Jesus\u2019 teachings have gone joy has followed.\n\nJesus Christ has crowned womanhood and placed garlands on her head.\n\nSome men bequeath disease and cravings for drink to their children.\n\nIf Paul and Silas had looked as gloomy as some of you coming to the\nTabernacle that man in jail would not be liberated yet.\n\nJesus bled and died to save you. Whosoever will.\n\nI am traveling to heaven according to a time-card, the gospel schedule.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BILLY SUNDAY AT THE AGES OF 14 AND 18 YEARS.]\n\n\n\n\nCONSOLATION FOR THE OLD MAIDS.\n\n\n\u201cTake this from Uncle Fuller: \u2018Don\u2019t worry if you don\u2019t marry, there are\nworse things in the world than being an old maid, and one of them is\nmarrying the wrong man. Love is the divinest gift of God to man and woman.\nSome of the noblest women in the world have been old maids; they are not\nold maids, simply ladies-in-waiting, but I tell you girls I would rather\nbe an old maid, with dogs, cats, furniture and bric-a-brac than to be\nyoked to a profane, cigaret smoking, cursing, whisky-soaked, jug-handle\nfor a husband.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTAKES RAP AT GIRLS WHO FLIRT.\n\n\n\u201cI wish I could make a girl that flirts see herself as others see her.\nIf you make eyes at a man on the street he will pay you back. It means\nthat if you don\u2019t care any more than that for yourself why should he? It\ntakes a whole lot of nerve for a fellow to look a girl in the face and\nsay: \u2018Will you be my wife and partner and help me fight the battle during\nlife?\u2019 But I think it means a whole lot more to the girl who has to answer\nand fight that question; but the fool girl loafs around, waits to be\nchosen and takes the first chance she gets and seems to think that if they\nget made one the laws of man can make them two again. The divorce laws are\ndamnable and pernicious.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDRINKING AND MATRIMONY.\n\n\nNo man ever intended being a drunkard. He started out a moderate drinker.\n\nIf any young buck would come and ask to take my daughter out on a midnight\njoy ride, so help me God, I certainly would land on him.\n\nIf these automobiles and carriages could talk, there\u2019d be something doing.\n\nThe reason we\u2019ve got so many little whip-poor-will widows nowadays is that\nthey married men to reform them.\n\nGirls, you sell yourselves too cheap. You\u2019ll keep company with some\nmiserable young buck who\u2019ll dodge into a doorway so as not to be\nembarrassed by the look of recognition from some fallen woman on the\nstreet, just to have \u201csteady\u201d company.\n\n\n\n\nSAYS SOCIETY TO BLAME FOR SINNERS.\n\n\nI say, you card playing women for little prizes such as a dinky cream\npitcher or pair of silk hose (maybe you\u2019ve got \u2019em on now) are responsible\nfor many of the gamblers, because you started \u2019em.\n\nThe purer life for men and women will never come till the girls raise the\nstandard of their company. Then we\u2019ll clean up some of these young bucks\naround town.\n\nI believe the man who will seduce an innocent young girl and sell her into\na life of shame, ought to be shot on the spot.\n\nSociety takes no notice of an innocent flirtation. It waits till the mute\nevidence of a girl\u2019s downfall cannot be concealed, then gasps in horror\nand turns her out.\n\nSociety is responsible for the sins of those you saw starting toward hell\nand didn\u2019t warn \u2019em.\n\nSociety\u2019s to blame for many a blithering drunkard, for starting him\ndrinking at a fashionable party.\n\n\n\n\nSOME EXTRA SHOTS TO THE OUTFIELD.\n\n\nIf I can send one girl from the red light back to home, mother and God,\nthen I\u2019ll be repaid for having stood all your bitter raillery and your\nmockery. Mock you old devil, mock.\n\nGehazi was the first grafter mentioned in the Bible.\n\nIf by some power I could yank a string and pull from you all the clothes\nyou are wearing that are not paid for, some of you would have left only a\ncelluloid collar and pair of socks.\n\nMany a fool today, when told what to do to keep out of hell, gets mad at\nGod.\n\nSome fellows are so rotten that they ought to be disinfected for two years\nand then given a bath in carbolic acid and formaldehyde before they should\nbe allowed to speak to a decent woman.\n\nChristian Scientists, I notice, always answer the call for dinner just as\nquick as I do.\n\nDon\u2019t condemn your doctor until you try his remedies.\n\nThe devil\u2019s no fool. If you get to playing tag with him he\u2019ll touch you on\nthe shoulder, say \u201ctag, you\u2019re it,\u201d and get your goat. He\u2019s never idle. He\nnever gets the rheumatiz, peritonitis, gout or appendicitis.\n\n\n\n\nBILLY\u2019S SKETCH OF LEPER BATHING IN JORDAN.\n\n\nBilly Sunday\u2019s impersonation of the leper Naaman, entering the waters of\nthe Jordan river to dip seven times, given Thursday night in his sermon on\n\u201cThe Moral Leper,\u201d in the language of the vaudeville press agent, was a\n\u201cbell-ringer.\u201d\n\nBilly, in the role of Naaman, made things so realistic that his vast\naudience could almost expand their imagination enough to see the muddy\nwaters of the river, the slippery bank and the frightened and shivering\nNaaman, endeavoring to bolster up enough courage to plunge in and take\nhis seven dips to be cured of leprosy.\n\nBilly cautiously approached the water\u2019s edge, stuck one toe in to\nascertain the temperature of the water, drew it back with a shiver and an\n\u201cU-u-gh, but that\u2019s cold!\u201d Then he stopped to explain that Naaman was not\naccustomed to such surroundings, but was used to a porcelain bath tub at\nhome and to a \u201ccrooked-handle dingaramus\u201d to rub his back with. With this\nBilly went through the contortions of a man trying to reach the hollow of\nhis back with a brush or sponge.\n\n\n\n\nSAYS WATER MADE NAAMAN SHIVER.\n\n\nHe told of a big \u201csnake doctor\u201d stinging Naaman on the shoulder, emitting\nan unearthly screech and slapping one hand to the offended spot. Then he\ntried the water again. He got part way in, slipped, stubbed his toe and\nwent hobbling about on his left foot, holding the other in both hands\nas his facial contortions told of Naaman\u2019s pain after getting hurt. He\nshivered again, let his teeth chatter with a loud \u201cb-r-r-r,\u201d as he again\nwent into the water, pinched his nose shut after taking a long breath,\nsquinted his eyes and \u201cducked\u201d under the surface, coming up spluttering,\nspitting and choking.\n\nThen Billy told of the spots of leprosy on Naaman beginning to itch. He\nnearly had every one in the tabernacle scratching arms and legs as he\nvigorously rubbed various spots on his body, and scratched \u2019em. Then he\nresumed his ducking stunt. After the seventh dip, he told of Naaman\u2019s\nflesh being covered with the delicate skin of a babe and of him emerging\nfrom the river no longer a leper. Here Sunday ended his monologue with the\nexclamation, \u201cGee, wonder what Mrs. Naaman and the kids will say when I\ncome home and they see me cured.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSNAPSHOTS FROM SUNDAY\u2019S SERMONS.\n\n\nGod never owned a slave. All the service you render for God is or should\nbe prompted by gratitude.\n\nIt\u2019s hell and damnation that put men and women in the asylums and jails.\n\nIf my vehemence and exertions amaze you, your apathy and laziness stagger\nme.\n\nIf God could get possession of all the flesh and blood that belongs to\nHim, He could create a commotion in this city in 48 hours.\n\nSome people work only with their mouths. But God wants that part of you\nthat\u2019s on the ground as well as in the air.\n\nChristianity and red whiskey don\u2019t stay in the same hide together.\n\nBill Shakespeare was onto his job when he said \u201cWhat fools these mortals\nbe.\u201d\n\nThe Lord\u2019s having just as bad a time today with the folks here as with the\nold Jews out there in the wilderness.\n\nIt gives me prostration to see how some people do things in this world.\nIt\u2019s no wonder the devil\u2019s got a mortgage on the world and is about ready\nto foreclose it.\n\nSome churches have 500 in the congregation and about 25 turn out at prayer\nmeeting. Where are the other 475? They have just as much right to be there\nas the 25.\n\nFaith is like a headlight on a train.\n\nI don\u2019t believe one-half the people in the churches were ever converted or\nhad an experience.\n\nI believe in experimental religion.\n\nFaith is above all other graces; it honors God and brings blessings to the\nindividual.\n\nThe average preacher don\u2019t pray much more than five minutes each day; the\naverage churchgoer not more than three minutes.\n\nIf we got what was coming to us\u2014it\u2019d be Hell for all of us.\n\n\n\n\nA TRIP THROUGH THE BIBLE WITH BILLY SUNDAY.\n\n_An Example of the Evangelist\u2019s Power in Painting Word Pictures._\n\n\nTwenty-seven years ago with the Holy Spirit as my guide, I entered at the\nportico of Geneses and went into the art gallery of the Old Testament,\nwhere, on the wall, hung pictures of Enoch, Noah, Jacob, Abraham, Elijah,\nDavid, Daniel and other famous prophets of old. Then I passed into the\nmusic room of the Psalms, where the spirit swept the keyboard of my\nnature and brought forth the dirge\u2014like a wail of the weeping prophet,\nJeremiah, to the grand exultant strain of the 24th Psalm and where every\nreed and pipe in God\u2019s great organ of nature seemed to respond to the\ntuneful harp of David, as he played for King Saul in his melancholy moods.\n\nNext I passed into the business office of Proverbs, then into the chapel\nof Ecclesiastes, where the voice of the preacher was heard; then over\ninto the conservatory of the songs of Solomon, where the Lily of the\nValley and the Rose of Sharon and sweet-scented spices perfumed my life.\nThen I stepped into the prophetic room and saw through telescopes various\nstars, some pointing to far-off stars and others to nearby stars, but all\nconcentrated upon the bright and Morning Star which was to rise above the\nmoon-lit hills of Judea, while shepherds guarded their flock by night.\n\nFrom there I passed into the audience room and caught a vision of the King\nfrom the standpoint of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I then went into the\nActs of the Apostles, where the Holy Spirit was doing office work in the\nformation of the Infant Church. From here I went to the correspondence\nroom where Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James and Judah sat at\ntheir desks, penning their epistles to the church. Then I passed last of\nall into the throne room of Revelations and the king sitting high upon his\nthrone.\n\n\n\n\nDEFENDS DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE.\n\n\nIf the Bible were the dreams of men, it would have gone down long ago.\nBut it still stands like a light-house, shining out into the darkness,\nsurrounded by thousands of dead birds, which have battered their brains\nout, knocking it.\n\nThe biggest fool today is the man who sneers at the word of God.\n\nGod\u2019s word can\u2019t be overthrown. It is too hard for the tooth of time and\nwill last forever.\n\nGod\u2019s plan in the beginning was that man should never die and that no\nman should ever work. Now, because of sin, white or black, Christian or\nskeptic, civilized or savage, it\u2019s work for you or over the hills to the\npoor house.\n\nYou can say, if you want to, that your great-great-great-great-grandfather\nwas a monkey with a prehensile tail, playing in the back alley, all right,\nbut you can\u2019t connect me with your monkey ancestors.\n\nWhy is it that corn that is fed to chickens makes feathers; that fed to\nsheep makes wool; that fed to the cow makes milk, and that which you eat\ngoes into brain?\n\nThe men who undertake to overthrow the Bible will find the biggest job\nthey ever had on their hands, and a lot of these lobsters have already\ngone to the mat for the count.\n\nDon\u2019t you feel like brutes; don\u2019t you feel lower than snakes when you\nraise you voice against the Bible and this campaign, which is working for\nthe influence of Christianity?\n\nYou can take all the books of all ages and nations, and take out all that\nis good and noble in them, and you can\u2019t produce a book which will touch\nthe hem of the Bible, which, is the word of God.\n\n\n\n\nSPIRITUALISM ON THE GRILL.\n\n\nSpiritualism is of the devil, pure and simple. I have no quarrel with you\nif you\u2019re a spiritualist, but I have with that damnable doctrine.\n\nSpiritualism is as old as the Egyptian mummies or the sphinx. It had long,\ngray hair and walked on crutches of decrepitude before Athens or Rome had\na single mud hut or Romulus and Remus had been nourished by the wolf. It\ncannot work in the light, but needs darkness, because its deeds are evil.\nI never knew a confirmed spiritualist who had a normal physical body.\nTheir religion is unclean. Christian science is the worst tommyrot since\nthe Third Century.\n\n\n\n\nSTRAIGHT SHOTS FROM THE SHOULDER.\n\n\nBryan, clean as a hound\u2019s tooth\u2014he\u2019s a friend of mine, too\u2014isn\u2019t afraid to\nput a Bible under his arm and preach the word of God.\n\nThe churches used to be daffy over high-critic preachers. Nowadays your\nhigh-critic preachers are wearing out shoe leather and going blind\nreading the want columns, trying to find jobs.\n\nDown in Georgia they were having a dress ball. Huh! Better call it an\nundress ball.\n\nReligion will do more for the world than it is now, as soon as God gets\nmore than dimes and nickles to work with.\n\nSome ministers are as crazy after sensation as the \u201cyellowest\u201d newspaper\nthat ever came off the press.\n\nSome of you society women are so stuck-up with pride that you can\u2019t lie\nstraight in bed at night.\n\nThese long-winded prayers will never get anything for Christ.\n\nIn nearly every church there is a little bunch that prays and all the rest\nare going to the devil.\n\nWhat Shakespeare says is \u201cliteratwah,\u201d but what Bill Sunday says is\n\u201cvulgwah.\u201d\n\nThe worst thing that ever wriggled out of hell is a church scrap.\n\nI believe that some time in the life of every man and woman there will\ncome a time when they will pray.\n\n\u201cI\u2019d like to see the day,\u201d said Sunday, \u201cwhen there wouldn\u2019t be a store\nopen on Saturday night. I can\u2019t see to save my gizzard why it\u2019s necessary.\nPeople can do their shopping early. If they\u2019d close the stores Saturday\nevening the same as on other days, the church attendances would be\ndoubled. But of course, when you do anything to help humanity, some\nyellow dog has got to block it. And you employers and proprietors sit\naround in the churches and wonder why the attendance is so small, when\nyou\u2019re to blame yourself by making your employes work themselves to death\nso that they are too tired to go to church.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BILLY SUNDAY AT THE AGES OF 20 AND 22 YEARS.]\n\n\n\n\nOTHERS SUFFER FROM YOUR SINS.\n\n\n\u201cWhen you come staggering home, cussing right and left and spewing and\nspitting, your wife suffers, your children suffer, you infernal old\ndevil. Don\u2019t think that you are the only one that suffers. You\u2019re placing\na stain on your wife and your children. If you\u2019re a dirty, low-down,\nfilthy, drunken, whisky-soaked bum you\u2019ll affect all with whom you come in\ncontact. If you\u2019re a God-fearing man you will influence all with whom you\ncome in contact. You can\u2019t live by yourself.\n\n\u201cPersonal liberty is not personal license. Our forefathers did not fight\nand die for personal license, but for personal liberty bounded by laws.\nPersonal license is the liberty of a red-handed anarchist. Personal\nlicense is the liberty of a burglar, of a seducer, of a raper, of a wolf\nthat wants to remain in a sheep fold, or the fox in a henroost.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nLESSONS FROM STORY OF PILATE.\n\n\nPilate was a pliable, plastic, rathole, stand pat, peanut, lunch counter\npolitician of his day.\n\nPilate sent Jesus to an innocent death to please the machine politicians.\n\nAway with your hell-born, stinking lie of Unitarianism that Jesus was\nnot a good man. He was either the Son of God or a fraud and liar, and I\nbelieve Him to be the Son of God.\n\nGod keeps no half-way house. It\u2019s either heaven or hell for everyone.\n\nA millionaire will go to hell just as fast as a hobo counting the ties on\na railroad, if he doesn\u2019t live true to God.\n\nI challenge all the infidels on the earth to find one flaw in the\ncharacter of Jesus Christ.\n\nEven if Jesus wasn\u2019t the Son of God I would worship Him anyway, for he is\nmy ideal. I can\u2019t conceive a grander character.\n\n\n\n\nMORAL TRUTHS BILLY GAVE TO MEN.\n\n\nLyman Beecher was the father of more brain than any other man.\n\nIt\u2019s everybody\u2019s business how you live.\n\nLaw stands between you and personal liberty.\n\nI brand that man with a black brand whose iniquities are responsible for\nthe fall of others.\n\nNo man lives to himself alone.\n\nNo man will argue that sin is a good thing.\n\nIt doesn\u2019t take boys long to get on the wrong track.\n\nThere are little frizzled top sissies who know more about vice than their\ngray-haired grandmothers.\n\nAs a rule a man wants something better for his children than he had\nhimself.\n\nYou would not want your son to live like you, if you are not living right.\n\nA young buck that cusses will crush your daughter\u2019s honor like he would an\neggshell.\n\nIf you never become religious, men, for God\u2019s sake stop your cussing.\n\nLike produces like in everything.... Blood will tell.\n\n\n\n\nSAYS THESE THREE WILL RUIN CITY.\n\n\n\u201cNo man can be a good husband, no man can be a good father, no man can be\na respectable citizen, no man can be a gentleman, and cuss. You can hang\nout a sign of gentleman, but when you cuss you might as well take it in.\n\n\u201cThere are three things which will ruin any town, open license saloons,\nopen stores on the Sabbath day and a dirty, cussing, swearing gang of\nblacklegs on the streets. Let a town be known for these three things, and\nthese alone, and you could never start a boom half big enough to get one\nman there.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can\u2019t go anywhere any more, in a car, a depot, a restaurant, but\nwhat you find some fiend with his foul-mouthed oaths ready to spew them\nout. What an awful place hell will be when it gets all of that bunch down\nthere.\u201d\n\n\u201cSay, boys, if I was on a jury and you could prove to me that a father\nhad stolen a loaf of bread to keep his wife from starving, you could keep\nme in the room until the ants took me out through the keyhole before I\u2019d\nstick him. That may not be law, I don\u2019t know, but you\u2019ll find there is a\nbig streak of humanity in Bill.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nDO GOD\u2019S WILL.\n\n\nHe told the women that it was not sufficient to be familiar with all the\npoets and the books of etiquette to get into heaven. The one essential\nthing is the doing of the will of God, he said.\n\nMr. Sunday showed through the story of Lady Anne Erskine of Rome, how the\ndevil and Christ are bidding for their souls\u2014the devil offering beauty,\npleasure, adulation and ease; Jesus promising peace, joy and eternal\nhappiness\u2014and it was left to them to choose.\n\n\n\n\nBILLY\u2019S KEYS TO SUCCESS.\n\n\n      \u201cDig the foundation deep, young man;\n      Plant firm the outer wall.\n    Build it well what ere you do;\n    Build it straight and strong and true;\n      Build it clean and high and broad,\n      Build it for the eye of God.\u201d\n\nHave some definite aim in life. Don\u2019t drift \u2019round and \u2019round like a log\nin a whirlpool.\n\nDo the best you can and you will win; God could not ask more than that.\n\nNot only aim high, but muster up enough power to pierce the opposition and\nto ring the bell.\n\nDon\u2019t try to build character with a whisky bottle, a pack of cards, a\nlibertine life and cigarets. Put the Bible and Jesus Christ in your life\ninstead.\n\nBe careful what you read. Don\u2019t read bad, worthless books.\n\nDon\u2019t assassinate every noble desire that comes to you.\n\nGet a good introduction of yourself to yourself and find out how little\nyou really know.\n\nCut out the cigarets, boys, or they\u2019ll cut you out. Just take that from\nyour Uncle Fuller.\n\nHave the grit of Sampson in your system so that you won\u2019t tremble when the\nlions roar.\n\nDon\u2019t have your veins filled with ice water. Get some pepper, ginger and\ntabasco sauce into them.\n\nBe a live wire. Be like the man with the itch; make everybody scratch when\nthey come near you.\n\nRemember, you\u2019re not measured by your size, but by what you are.\n\nIf your pockets are empty, fill your heart with resolutions and get into\nthe game. Don\u2019t sit on the bleachers and growl.\n\nYou can\u2019t determine success by the rattle of the cash register.\n\nThe limbs of the tree of knowledge hang so low that anybody with ambition\ncan reach up and pluck the fruit.\n\nCities are whirlpools that whirl you into the jaws of hell.\n\n\n\n\nA FEW BUNTS TO LIVE STUDENTS.\n\n\nIt\u2019s a sad day for the young man when President Taft\u2019s overcoat won\u2019t make\nhim a vest, he\u2019s so chesty.\n\nEducation is knowing what you want, knowing how to get it, and knowing\nwhat to do with it after you get it.\n\nIf you find a fellow on the top of the hill, he never \u201clit\u201d there; he\nclimbed.\n\nYou can\u2019t measure manhood by a tape line around the waist.\n\nParents, don\u2019t try to make your boy another \u201cyou.\u201d If God had wanted\nanother \u201cyou,\u201d he would have made you twins.\n\nYou can\u2019t always tell the size of a man by the fuss he makes. A frog makes\nmore noise than a whale.\n\nWe can build universities, tax the people to support them and furnish\nthe best curriculum on God\u2019s dirt, but we can\u2019t make something out of a\nnonentity.\n\nWhen a girl is seventeen and is introduced to a young man, she asks, \u201cWho\nis he?\u201d At twenty-two she asks, \u201cWhat is he?\u201d and at thirty-five she\ncries, \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, where is he?\u201d\n\nIf I had lived in Napoleon\u2019s day I would have followed his star for he\ncould hit the ball.\n\nYou can hear more curbstone, barbershop and livery stable theology in this\ncity today than ever before.\n\nAll some men are fit for is to make one more when the census count is\ntaken.\n\nThe man who has nothing but money is the poorest man on earth.\n\nIt\u2019s the false ideal that strews this world with wrecks.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY\u2019S TRIBUTE TO THE HOLIDAYS.\n\n\n\u201cI\u2019m glad we celebrate the Fourth of July, when we can uncork our\nenthusiasm and shoot firecrackers and eat peanuts and drink red lemonade,\nfor it makes us realize that we are living in the greatest nation that\nman\u2019s eye ever saw or God\u2019s hand ever made. I\u2019m glad we have Labor\nday, when the man who toils can have a holiday of his own. I\u2019m glad we\ncelebrate Easter to commemorate the time when the Son of Man arose in\nconquering majesty. I\u2019m glad we celebrate Thanksgiving, when we sit at our\nsumptuously laden tables and recall that as a nation we have never gone\nto bed hungry and that our granaries have never been empty, and reflect\nthat we have one state that can raise corn enough to feed us all. America\ncan feed the world. I pay tribute to the man with the dinner bucket,\nwith bundles of muscle that knot like steel. All these days are days of\nprecious memories, days that make the nation strong and great, days that\nmake us better men and women.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you are well prepared for life you\u2019ll never wear out shoe leather\nhunting for a job, and you\u2019ll never become blind reading the \u2018Help wanted\u2019\nads.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat songs do the people go daffy over today? Listen and I\u2019ll tell you.\u201d\n\n    \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself,\n      But let his wife alone;\n    For if you don\u2019t he\u2019ll soon get wise,\n      And then you\u2019ll lose your own.\u201d\n\nAnd here Sunday named some of the popular songs he said were causing\ndivorces. Among them were: \u201cMy Wife\u2019s Gone to the Country,\u201d \u201cI Love My\nWife, But Oh You Kid,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019ll Trust My Wife With Fifty Men, But With\nOne?\u2014Not On Your Life.\u201d\n\nSunday pointed out five things which he stated he considered necessary\nqualifications to win in life: Blood, environment, grit, education and\nreligion. He then added that the first four without the fifth meant\nnothing at all, and pleaded with his youthful audience to trust in God.\n\n\u201cIt takes more than a mortarboard cap, pipe, peg-top trousers, a cane and\nyour \u2018rah, rah, rah,\u2019 to make a man out of you. It takes character and\ndetermination. It pays to feed the Bible to the children,\u201d Sunday said.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BILLY SUNDAY AT THE AGES OF 24 AND 50 YEARS.]\n\n\n\n\nLIVING UP TO ONE\u2019S PROFESSION.\n\n\nYou can summon all your card-playing, theatre-going church members and\nthey can\u2019t drive the devil out of a boy as big as a peanut.\n\nIf you want the world to be better after awhile, then keep the devil out\nof your boys and girls now.\n\nI am an \u201camen\u201d Christian, but I don\u2019t shout it any louder than I live it.\n\nYou\u2019re killing religion with your dignity today.\n\nLots of people would go to hell sure if they died out of Lent season.\n\nOne-half the professing Christians amount to little or nothing as a\nspiritual force.\n\n\n\n\nSOME STRAY SHOTS FOR THE GALLERY.\n\n\nI\u2019m a graduate of the university of poverty and have taken several\npost-graduate courses there, too.\n\nSome of you sing, \u201cI\u2019m standing on the solid rock,\u201d through a set of false\nteeth that you haven\u2019t paid for yet.\n\nNine-tenths of the church members are bench warmers.\n\n\u201cNot my will but\u201d\u2014it costs some of you too much to complete the other\nthree words\u2014\u201cThine be done.\u201d That\u2019s why your spiritual batting average is\nonly fifteen when it ought to be nine hundred.\n\nI\u2019d rather see a child in the mouth of a crocodile than to see it dragged\ndown by some immoral influence.\n\nGo into the church and you\u2019ll find most of the bunch nearer the theatre\nand card party than to Jesus.\n\nThe nearer to Jesus the more elbow room there is; the farther away you\nfind the biggest crowd.\n\n\n\n\nSOME HOT ONES SHOT AT RANDOM.\n\n\nYou don\u2019t see the \u201cS. R. O.\u201d (standing room only) signs in the churches;\nyou have to go to the theatre to see them.\n\nShow me a church where the minister hasn\u2019t any concern in a spiritual\nrevival, and I will show you a rich, fashionable, third-rate amusement\nbureau with religion left out.\n\nYou\u2019ll spend more time and money getting a steer ready for a business\ndeal, than you will to start your boys on a safe trip to heaven.\n\nIf you\u2019re afraid to take your stand for fear of being ridiculed by the\nmiserable bunch that won\u2019t trot square, you ought to be ashamed to call\nyourself a man.\n\nIf you are in a business that religion hurts, you are a moral pauper and\nin a mighty dirty, rotten, stinking business.\n\nThe trouble with a great many men is they have got all their property and\nreligion in their wives\u2019 name.\n\n\n\n\nONE OF \u201cBILLY\u201d SUNDAY\u2019S CHARACTERISTIC PRAYERS.\n\n\n\u201cWell, Lord, we pray Thou will help us. I\u2019m glad, Jesus, that I can stand\nhere today and say that after all these years of trusting in Thee, Thou\nhast helped me. Help them, God. We beseech Thee to help us here today.\nHelp us as we go along from day to day. There\u2019ll be troubles, the way will\nbe dark and dreary sometimes. The sun will not always shine, there\u2019ll\nbe rain and dark clouds, but they\u2019ll soon clear away. It is the work of\nthe devil to make it hard for us. It is the devil\u2019s work to make us weak\nphysically, so that it will be hard to bear the strain of God\u2019s work. Oh,\ndevil, why do you strike us when we\u2019re down? Why do you prey upon our\nweaknesses? Why do you do it? You know, devil, you and I are enemies. We\nalways have been.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s no compromise between us. You know, devil, I\u2019ve never uttered a\nword, preached a sermon or written a line that I didn\u2019t believe was right\nand that I\u2019ll not stand upon. I wouldn\u2019t take back a single thing I ever\nsaid. And say, devil, if there\u2019s anything in my sermons that doesn\u2019t hurt\nyou, tell me, and I\u2019ll take it out, and Lord, if there\u2019s anything in my\nsermons that doesn\u2019t help your work, tell me, and I\u2019ll take it out. I\u2019ve\nlearned to love these people Lord. Oh, their friendship and generosity\nhave been wonderful. I never saw such love and kindness, Jesus. I\u2019ve been\noverwhelmed by it. And now, today, there may still be some who have not\nyet taken their stand, and who\u2019ll be the first to come down and take me by\nthe hand.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSOME OF SUNDAY\u2019S BOMBSHELLS.\n\n\nIf I ever accepted the pastorate of a church I\u2019d buy a round trip ticket.\n\nBut believe me, I\u2019d skin the bunch while I was on the job.\n\nToo many people desert the prayer meeting for a card party or a Dutch\nlunch.\n\nPaul was an evangelist. Wherever he preached they had to call out the cops\nto protect him. He always had a riot or a revival.\n\nWe need a revival because the churches are critical, cold, blown in the\nbottle, stamped on the cork\u2014petrified. You can\u2019t scald a hog in ice-water.\n\nThe world would sink into hell before the Fourth of July if it had to\ndepend on \u201cethical\u201d revivals.\n\nIf you want to see this city as God wants it to be you\u2019ll help. If you\nwant it to be as hell and the devil wants it, then knock.\n\nThere are two gangs in every church\u2014the rubs and the anti-rubs.\n\nSome people have sat in their pews so long that they are mildewed.\n\nThere are multitudes in heaven that have crept and crawled out of the\nquagmire of filth and the cesspools of iniquity and drunkenness.\n\nIt takes the combined efforts of the Trinity to keep you out of hell.\n\nI\u2019ll do anything on earth to help a sinner. I\u2019ll do anything in the world\nto put the devil and all his cohorts in hell.\n\nConversion must be effected by the influence of the truth on the mind.\n\nTruth resisted, loses its power on the mind that resists and each\nresistance weakens the truth.\n\nWhen God begins to show His power, then the devil and all of the demons\nget busy.\n\nReligion makes its appeal to your sensibility, not your intellect.\n\nThe way into the kingdom is heart first, not head first.\n\nGod is not an explanation; God is a revelation.\n\nMost people are converted at revival services.\n\nIf you are thirty and have not been converted, the chances are that if you\nare not converted now, you will never be converted.\n\nIf it weren\u2019t for revivals, just think what hell would be like.\n\nIf you spurn Jesus Christ you are doing the same thing which the Pharisees\ndid.\n\nSome say a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good.\n\nTrouble with some fellows is that they have their religion and property in\ntheir wives\u2019 names. You\u2019ve got to be something more than a brother-in-law\nto God.\n\nIf God had his way there\u2019d be no saloons.\n\nThe history of the church is a history of revivals; when any preacher\ntalks against revivals, he\u2019s a damn scoundrel.\n\nWhat the Church of God needs today is a baptism of horse sense.\n\nSome people never read the Bible from week-end to week-end. No wonder they\nare dried up like an Egyptian mummy.\n\nReligion doesn\u2019t affect some poor old sinners any more than shooting peas\nat the Rock of Gibraltar with a pop gun.\n\nIf I can win a man over to Christianity\u2014to keep a drunkard sober, even\njust for a year, it\u2019s worth every dollar.\n\nSome of the worst knockers I have in this county are the preachers\u2014sour\ngrapes; that\u2019s the only way I can see it.\n\nYou\u2019ve been so dignified, stiff and worldly until you\u2019ve grieved the\nSpirit of God.\n\nGive the Lord a main line and see what he\u2019ll do these days.\n\nNever saw God bless a stingy gang yet.\n\nI feel like a shouting Methodist. When you get a Presbyterian shouting\nthere\u2019s something doing.\n\nI am pleading for the old-fashioned Pentacostal revival. My evangelism is\n2,000 years old; as old as the nails in the cross.\n\nIf a city sags morally, the reason is not with God, but with her\ncitizenship. They\u2019d rather have a dirty, rotten town.\n\nThe biggest coward in America today, the biggest coward we have in the\nprofession of Christian religion, who is afraid to come out and declare\nhimself in a campaign like this is the business man. He is afraid of some\nsaloon keeper, some brewer, some gambler and others of that kind\u2014they\u2019re\nafraid they will lose their trade by it, and by the eternal God they ought\nto be punished before the moon changes.\n\nI believe you are getting ready to place this town on the map as a place\nwhere the name of God and decency are revered.\n\nOver your head, the devil and the angels of God are locked in a struggle\nfor your soul.\n\nWhen you work for Jesus you must expect to be abused.\n\nHeaven wants to save you, earth to cheat you and hell to damn you.\n\nYou are just as good as you want to be and not a whit better.\n\nYou haven\u2019t got money enough in your bank vault to hire me to come here if\nI didn\u2019t care for the welfare of your souls.\n\nIf man wrote the Bible we\u2019d never been told that Noah got drunk. Man would\nhave left such things out, but God didn\u2019t. He put everything in whether\npleasant or unpleasant.\n\nWhen you swell up like a poisoned pup and think you are complimenting God\nby being present here tonight, then God\u2019s got nothing for you.\n\nSome of the biggest heathens this side of hell are right here tonight.\n\n\u201cNo trade\u201d is the passport by which 90 per cent of the men are entering\nthe prisons and penitentiaries.\n\nYou may be lower down in the sight of God than the one whom you condemn.\n\nThe devil believes in God and in hell. He\u2019s more orthodox than some\npreachers I know who preach that there is no hell.\n\nHow can you pray when you look at the throne of God through the bottom of\na beer glass.\n\nSome people pray as though they never expected anything and they\u2019re not\ndisappointed.\n\nHow can you pray and say \u201cThy will be done,\u201d when you have the booze wagon\ndrive up to your back gate twice every week.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAYISMS.\n\n\nI wish to God we all could see what a common sense proposition religion\nreally is.\n\nGraft has a stranglehold on religion today.\n\nA preacher told me that in a certain town an undertaker came to him and\noffered a rake-off if he\u2019d throw the funerals his way.\n\nThe church member that rents his property for a saloon is as bad as the\nsaloon keeper himself.\n\nSomething has to be done to save this nation.\n\nWe are trying to apologize for man\u2019s condition today on an economic basis.\n\nA free nation cannot endure if it is dominated by grafters, special\ninterests, thieves and crooks.\n\nThe constitution was cradled in prayer.\n\nYou spend a whole lot of money for flowers at the funeral of your wife\nthat you might have spent for a hired girl.\n\nIt\u2019s a good thing for you I\u2019m not God for about fifteen minutes. I\u2019d keep\nthe undertaker busy unless you squared up.\n\nI could no more shock some of you folks than I could pour something on a\nskunk to make it smell sweet.\n\nIt makes no difference whether you kneel before God as a millionaire or a\nhobo\u2014it\u2019s a case of sin and salvation.\n\nI don\u2019t care whether you hot-footed it to the Tabernacle tonight or rode\nin an auto.\n\nGod puts no premium on laziness. You can bank on that\u2014Jesus Christ is the\ncenter, circumference and nucleus of the Old and New Testament.\n\nI believe that no man disbelieves in hell unless he finds himself on the\nstraight road to hell.\n\nI wonder God is doing as well as He is with the bunch He has to work with.\n\nThe new idea in religion says the world is getting better and better.\nThat\u2019s not true. The world is getting worse and worse.\n\nDon\u2019t storm and fuss at God about the plans of redemption when you don\u2019t\nknow beans about a housefly.\n\nThe greatest scientists, the greatest painters, the greatest inventors,\nthe greatest astronomers, have all been Christians.\n\nIf you are a member of a Masonic lodge, give me your hand or take off that\nbadge. Especially do I challenge you if you are a Knight Templar, with\nyour sword drawn in defense of the gospel I am preaching.\n\n\n\n\nAT A PRAYER MEETING, MR. SUNDAY OFFERED THE FOLLOWING PRAYER, PLEADING TO\nGOD TO GIVE HIM STRENGTH TO CARRY ON HIS WORK.\n\n\n\u201cOh Jesus, we\u2019re not making an excuse. We\u2019re not trying to offer an excuse\nfor not doing things as perhaps we might have done. But our voice is\nhoarse, we feel the strain of his campaign, our health is not the best,\nand we pray to Thee for more strength with which to battle down the forces\nof sin and hell. But Jesus, we\u2019re willing to fight for you, no matter how\nbad we feel. We\u2019ll stick to it, Jesus as long as you will let us. But,\nJesus, don\u2019t you think for a minute we\u2019re trying to give some excuse.\nWe\u2019re tired, but on the job, and we want to stick to it, so help us all\nand give us strength for Your sake. Amen.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nFAITH OF GREAT MEN.\n\n\nWashington, in the snow at Valley Forge, knelt down and prayed for\nvictory; Abraham Lincoln got down on his knees at the White House and\nprayed to God; Burke, Bismarck, Gladstone, Garfield, the immortal and\nmartyred McKinley, Hays and Roosevelt all had faith in God and have prayed\nto him in times of war or trouble. Cleveland, Harrison and Woodrow Wilson\nbelieve in the Bible. Milton, Longfellow, Shakespeare and all other famous\npoets drew their inspirations from the Bible; famous artists dipped their\nbrushes into the light of heaven and why can\u2019t we all have that same faith?\n\n\n\n\nBIBLE ABOVE ALL.\n\n\nMan has assailed the Bible for ages. All who have undertaken the job have\nfound it the biggest one they ever tackled and have been compelled to go\nto the mat and take the count. But the Bible has withstood the ravages of\ntime, and today it stands buttressed about with the demolished theories\nof speculators like the lonely light-house on the distant island, the\nsands about her covered with the bodies of seabirds that have battered\ntheir lives out against her light windows. The conflicts of the ages have\nswayed around this old book and the shores of time have been strewn with\nbroken and demolished theories while the old ship Zion speeds on her way\nas strong as ever with the banner floating from her mast.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY KNOCKS OUT SOME \u201cHOME\u201d RUNS.\n\n_On Training Children at Home._\n\n\nBlood tells: the time to start training the boy right is seventy-five\nyears before he is born.\n\nThe reason there are so many nickel theatres and hell-holes in the wall is\nbecause the home is not made attractive enough to retain the boy and girl.\n\nOf all the devil-inspired sentences this is the limit: \u201cChildren should be\nseen and not heard.\u201d\n\nThe biggest mistake we ever made was to take from the teachers the right\nto lick the kids.\n\nI believe the downfall of most men and women can be traced to some defect\nin the home.\n\nA home must be something more than four walls and a roof.\n\nThe biggest monstrosity God ever looked at is the mother with her children\nplaying about her feet and they not getting an inspiration of Jesus.\n\nWe\u2019re neglecting the home for the club, the lodge, the card party, the\nliterary society and the social function.\n\nIf a firm advertised for a bookkeeper it would expect something else than\njust a man on legs; something else than just a slot machine to shove its\nsalary into every Saturday night.\n\n\n\n\nUP TO MOTHERS.\n\n\nGod pity us. If mothers had failed as fathers have, God would have dumped\nyou into hell long ago.\n\nGod bless the women. I believe in women\u2019s rights.\n\nIf some of you women had to get to heaven on the testimony of your\nwasherwomen, would you make it?\n\nIf you see a kid with its stockings hanging down like the skin on a\nrhinoceros, and a dirty nose, it don\u2019t take a prophet to say, \u201cMa\u2019s gone\nto the club.\u201d\n\nOutlawism is not settled by the street mob\u2014it is settled in the home.\n\nI haven\u2019t much faith in the woman who talks heaven and makes her home a\nhell.\n\nDon\u2019t tell the children what you don\u2019t mean.\n\nDon\u2019t talk about your neighbors or anybody else.\n\nDon\u2019t hurt your children\u2019s self-respect by punishing them in the presence\nof company. Wait until the company is gone, then dust both hemispheres.\n\nDon\u2019t lie to your children, and then wonder where they learned to lie.\n\nDon\u2019t be a fool, and if you\u2019ve got plenty of income, overdress your\nchildren and send them to school to make the children of some poor,\nconscientious man dissatisfied because their dad can\u2019t give them as nice\nclothes.\n\n\n\n\nELECTRIC FLASHES.\n\n\nThe young man or woman who is ashamed of his or her father or mother, is a\nfool and too low down for me to spit on.\n\nTo hear boys cuss you\u2019d think cussing was a part of the school curriculum.\n\nThe woman who tries to rid herself of the responsibilities of maternity,\nis as red-handed and black-hearted a murderess as she who chokes to death\nher 12-months old babe.\n\nOf all the contemptable, triple-extract of hell, God-forsaken, hell-born,\ninfamous, vile, stinking and damnable people, the murderer who disguises\nunder the title of doctor is the worst.\n\nA gambler, if he wins, is a thief, and if he loses, he\u2019s a fool. So he\u2019s\nboth a thief and a fool, no matter how you look at it.\n\nIf a church runs a lottery, then it\u2019s a thief.\n\nThere are three ways of spreading news, telephone, telegraph and\ntell-a-woman. But that\u2019s really an insult, for some of these old\nhe-gossipers have got the women backed off the boards.\n\nI pity the woman who\u2019ll slap Jesus in the face to please some miserable\nsociety gang.\n\nThe dance hall has proved to be the biggest graveyard this side of hell\nfor young girls.\n\nThe fellow who lives purely for the gratification of his lust, is so low\ndown he\u2019d have to take an airship to reach hell.\n\nThe most useless woman on God\u2019s dirt is the society woman.\n\nIt\u2019s a good thing to have money and all it will buy, but it\u2019s a better\nthing to sit down and think whether you\u2019ve got what money can\u2019t buy.\n\nWe\u2019re making money by the bucketfuls in this country, and we\u2019re going to\nhell in carload lots and on excursion rates, too.\n\nCitizens who will not live on a level with the Ten Commandments ought to\nbe in the penitentiary. Public opinion does not always judge correctly.\n\n\n\n\nSUNDAY ON EVOLUTION.\n\n\n\u201cThe Bible says: \u2018In the beginning G-O-D, God!\u2019 I don\u2019t know when that\nbeginning was, but in the beginning God! whether it was 6,000 years ago\nor a hundred of millions of years ago, as some cranks now claim, created\nthe heaven and the earth. I don\u2019t believe the doctrine of evolution. Did\nthis tabernacle evolute? No: common sense will tell you that. Did flowers\nevolute? If things have evoluted, why haven\u2019t they been improved upon\nduring all these years? Flowers found today along the Nile grew there\nin exactly the same form centuries ago. Have they evoluted? You can put\na gold belt around a hog, tie his sides up with ribbons and he\u2019ll still\nsqueal for slop. He\u2019s the same old hog. Has he evoluted? If you believe\nhuman beings evoluted from the ape, all right. If you believe that your\ngreat-great-great-great-grandfather was a monkey with a prehensile tail\naround the limb of a cocoanut tree, all right; but don\u2019t connect your\nmonkey ancestors with me. Listen here, I\u2019m going to stick by that book\u2014the\nBible if I die the very next instant.\u201d","title":"Burning truths from Billy's bat : $b A graphic description of the remarkable conversion of Rev. \"Billy\" Sunday (the world's famous evangelist)\u2014embodying anecdotes, terse sayings, etc., compiled from various sources","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":20199}