"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for ChristEllis, William T. (William Thomas)
Religion
"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message: With his own words which have won thousands for Christ
Ellis, William T. (William Thomas)
Baseball players -- United States -- Biography; Evangelists -- United States -- Biography; Sunday, Billy, 1862-1935
Nobody can measure the results of the social forces which this
simple-thinking evangelist sets to work. His own figure of the dwarf
who could switch on the electric lights in a room as easily as a
giant, comes to mind. He has sent into Christian work men who can do
a kind of service impossible to Sunday himself. Thus, one of Sunday's
converts out in Wichita, two years ago, was Henry J. Allen, editor of
_The Beacon_ and Progressive candidate for governor. Mr. Allen became
a member of one of the celebrated "Gospel Teams," which, since the
Sunday meetings, have been touring Kansas and neighboring states and
have won more than eleven thousand converts. It was in a meeting held
by this band that William Allen White, the famous editor, author and
publisher, took a definite stand for Christ and Christian work. One of
the most interesting facts about Sunday's work is this one that the
three greatest editors in the State of Kansas today are his direct
or indirect converts. An "endless chain" letter would be easier to
overtake than the effects of a Sunday revival campaign.
In the face of the mass of testimony of this sort is it any wonder
that business men deem a Sunday campaign worth all it costs, merely
as an ethical movement? The quickest and cheapest way to improve
morals and the morale of a city is by a revival of religion. Thus
it is illuminating to learn that there were 650 fewer inmates in
the Allegheny County jail, during the period of the Sunday revival
meetings, than during the same time in the preceding year.
From Pittsburgh also comes the remarkable story that the Cambria
Steel Company, one of the largest steel concerns in the country, has
established a religious department in connection with its plant, and
placed a regularly ordained minister in charge of it. This as an avowed
result of the Sunday campaign.
The Rev. Dr. Maitland Alexander, D.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church of Pittsburgh, is sponsor for this news, and he also
declares that nine department stores of Pittsburgh are now holding
prayer-meetings every morning at eight o'clock. These two statements
are taken from Dr. Alexander's address to a body of ministers in New
York City. He is reported to have said also:
Billy Sunday succeeded in moving the city of Pittsburgh from one
end to the other. That, to my mind, was the greatest result of the
meetings. It is easy to talk about religion now in Pittsburgh. Men
especially are thinking of it as never before, and the great majority
are no longer in the middle of the road. They are on one side or the
other. I never knew a man who could speak to men with such telling
effect as Billy Sunday. I covet his ability to make men listen to him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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