"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
"Wherein does Jesus Christ fail to come up to your standard and the
highest conception of the greatest God-like spirit? Show me one flaw
in his character. I challenge any infidel on earth to make good his
claims that Christ was an ordinary man. The name of Jesus Christ, the
son of God, is greater than any. It is the name that unhorsed Saul of
Tarsus, and it is holding 500,000,000 of people by its majestic spell
and enduring power.
"If you can't understand what this means, just take a walk out into
some cemetery some day and look at the tombstones. You'll find that
the name of the man who had a political drag twenty-five years ago is
absolutely forgotten," continued the challenge.
"Do you fellows know what sacrifice means?" suddenly asked the speaker.
"Some of your fathers are making sacrifices and wearing old clothes
just to keep you here in school. He wants you to have an education
because he can't even handle the multiplication table.
"If Jesus Christ should enter this gymnasium we would all fall to our
knees. We have that much reverence in our hearts for him. I would run
down and meet him, and would tell him how much I love him and that I am
willing to go wherever he would have me go."
In closing, the evangelist told the story of a man who recklessly
tossed a valuable pearl high into the air, reaching over the side of
a ship to catch it as it fell. Time and again he was successful, but
finally the ship swerved to one side and the gem disappeared beneath
the waves.
"Boys, that man lost everything just to gain the plaudits of the crowd.
Are you doing the same thing?
"That is the condition of thousands of people beneath the Stars and
Stripes today--losing everything just to hear the clamor of the people,
and get a little pat on the back for doing something the mob likes."
Mr. Sunday suddenly abandoned his dramatic attitude, and lowered his
voice. There was an instantaneous bowing of heads, although he had
given no suggestion of a prayer. It seemed proper at that time, and one
of the evangelist's heart-to-heart talks with Christ, asking a blessing
on the Christian workers of the University, and an earnest effort, on
the part of every student, to live a Christian life, accompanied the
great audience as it filed from the gymnasium.
Real Manhood
"Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man," the Bible verse
reads, and Mr. Sunday promptly added: "Don't be a mutt! Don't be a
four-flusher--a mere cipher on the sea of human enterprise.
"God is a respecter of character, even if he isn't a respecter of
persons," continued the speaker. "Abraham towers out, like a mountain
above a molehill, and beside him some of our modern gimlet-eyed,
heel-worn fellows shrink like Edward Hyde in Doctor Jekyll's clothes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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