"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
The grave-diggers go to Graceland Cemetery, on the shore of Lake
Michigan, and dig his grave in the old family lot, nine feet wide, and
they put in there Portland cement four and a half feet thick, while it
is yet soft, pliable and plastic. A set of workmen drop down into the
grave a steel cage with steel bars one inch apart. They bring his body,
in the hermetically sealed casket all wrapped about with cloth, and
they lower it into the steel cage, and a set of workmen put steel bars
across the top and another put concrete and a solid wall of masonry
and they bring it up within eighteen inches of the surface; they put
back the black loamy soil, then they roll back the sod and with a
whisk broom and dust pan they sweep up the dirt, and you would never
know that there sleeps the Pullman-palace-car magnate, waiting for the
trumpet of Gabriel to sound; for the powers of God will snap his steel,
cemented sarcophagus as though it were made of a shell and he will
stand before God as any other man.
What does your money amount to? What does your wealth amount to?
I summon the three electrical wizards of the world to my bedside and
I say, "Gentlemen, I want to live and I have sent for you to come,"
and they say to me, "Mr. Sunday, we will flash messages across the sea
without wires; we can illuminate the homes and streets of your city and
drive your trolley cars and we can kill men with electricity, but we
can't prolong life."
And I summon the great Queen Elizabeth, queen of an empire upon which
the sun never sets. Three thousand dresses hung in her wardrobe. Her
jewels were measured by the peck. Dukes, kings, earls fought for her
smiles. I stand by her bedside and I hear her cry "All my possessions
for one moment of time!"
I go to Alexander the Great, who won his first battle when he was
eighteen, and was King of Macedonia when he was twenty. He sat down on
the shore of the Ægean sea, wrapped the drapery of his couch about him
and lay down to eternal sleep, the conqueror of all the known world,
when he was thirty-five years of age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account