Burning Truths from
Billy’s Bat

A Graphic Description of the
Remarkable Conversion of

Rev. “Billy” Sunday
(The World’s Famous Evangelist)

Embodying Anecdotes, Terse
Sayings, etc., Compiled from
Various Sources

1914
Diamond Publishing Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Copyright, 1914,
By JOSEPH PALLEN

CONTENTS

Rev. William A. Sunday

(The World’s Famous Evangelist)

His Early Life, a Dramatic Portrayal of His Conversion, and the Disintegration of the Old White Stocking Baseball Team, of Which He was a Member

Rev. “Billy” Sunday (as he is familiarly known) was born in a log cabin in the backwoods of Story County, Iowa, November 19, 1862. Not long after his birth his father went to the Civil War and never returned. Billy remained home until he was about fourteen years of age, and as a hired hand later lived with Colonel John Scott, former Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, and was enabled to acquire a high-school education. He tried various lines of work, from a hired hand at sixteen years old to a furniture polisher, driver of a hearse, member of a volunteer hose company, railroad fireman, ball player, student and now evangelist.

MR. SUNDAY’S REMARKABLE CONVERSION.

“Twenty-seven years ago I walked down a street in Chicago in company with some ball players who were famous in this world—some of them are dead now—and we went into a saloon. It was Sunday afternoon and we got tanked up and then went and sat down on a corner. I never go by that street without thanking God for saving me. It was a vacant lot at that time. We sat down on a curbing. Across the street a company of men and women were playing on instruments—horns, flutes and slide trombones—and the others were singing the gospel hymns that I used to hear my mother sing back in the log cabin in Iowa and back in the old church where I used to go to Sunday school.

“And God painted on the canvas of my recollection and memory a vivid picture of the scenes of other days and other faces.”

“WON’T YOU COME?”

“Many have long since turned to dust. I sobbed and sobbed and a young man stepped out and said: ‘We are going down to the Pacific Garden mission. Won’t you come down to the mission? I am sure you will enjoy it. You can hear drunkards tell how they have been saved and girls tell how they have been saved from the red light district. I arose and said to the boys: “I’m through. We’ve come to the parting of the ways,” and I turned my back on them. Some of them laughed and some of them mocked me; one of them gave me encouragement; others never said a word. Twenty-seven years ago I turned and left that little group on the corner of State and Madison streets, walked to the little mission, fell on my knees and staggered out of sin and into the arms of the Saviour.

I went over to the west side of Chicago where I was keeping company with a girl now my wife, Nell. I married Nell. She was a Presbyterian, so I am a Presbyterian. Had she been a Catholic, I would have been a Catholic—because I was hot on the trail of Nell.

The next day I had to go out to the ball park and practice. Every morning at 10 o’clock we had to be out there and practice. I never slept that night. I was afraid of the horse-laugh that the gang would give me because I had taken my stand for Jesus Christ.

I walked down to the old ball grounds. I will never forget it. I slipped my key into the wicket gate and the first man to meet me after I got inside was Mike Kelley.

Up came Mike Kelley. He said: “Bill I’m proud of you—religion is not my long suit, but I’ll help you all I can.” Up came Anson, Pfeffer, Clarkson, Flint, McCormick, Burns, Williamson and Dalrymple. There wasn’t a fellow in that gang who knocked, every fellow had a word of encouragement for me.

That afternoon we played the old Detroit club. We were neck and neck for the championship. That club had Thompson, Richardson, Rowe, Dunlap, Hanlon and Bennett, and they could play ball. I was playing right field and John G. Clarkson was pitching. He was as fine pitcher as ever crawled into a uniform. There are some pitchers today, O’Toole, Bender, Wood, Mathewson, Johnson, Marquard, but I do not believe any one of them stood in the class with Clarkson.

We had two men out and they had a man on second and one on third, and Bennett, their old catcher was at the bat. Charley had three balls and two strikes on him. Charley couldn’t hit a high ball. I don’t mean a Scotch high-ball, but he could kill them when they went about his knee.

I hollered to Clarkson and said: “One more and we got ’em.”

You know every pitcher digs a hole in the ground where he puts his foot when he is pitching. John stuck his foot in the hole and he went clear to the ground. Oh, he could make them dance. He could throw over-handed, and the ball would go down and up like that. He is the only man on earth I have seen do that. The ball would go by so fast that a thermometer would drop two degrees. John went clear down, and as he went to throw the ball his right foot slipped, and the ball went low instead of high.

I saw Charley swing hard and heard the bat hit the ball with a terrific blow. Bennett had smashed the ball on the nose. I saw the ball rise in the air and knew it was going clear over my head.

I could judge within ten feet of where the ball would light. I turned my back to the ball and ran.

The field was crowded with people and I yelled: ‘Stand back!’ and the crowd opened like the Red Sea opened for the rod of Moses. I ran on, and as I ran I made a prayer; it wasn’t theological, either, I tell you. I said: “God, if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get that ball, and you haven’t got much time to make up your mind, either.”

I ran and jumped over the bench and stopped. I thought I was close enough to catch it. I looked back and saw it going over my head, and I jumped and shoved my left hand out and the ball hit it and stuck. At the rate I was going, the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of horses. I jumped up with the ball in my hand. Up came Tom Johnson. He was afterwards Mayor of Cleveland. “Here is $10.00 Bill; buy yourself the best hat in Chicago. That catch won me $1,500. Tomorrow go and buy yourself the best suit of clothes you can find in Chicago.”

An old Methodist minister said to me a few years ago: “Why, William, you didn’t take the $10.00 did you.” I said: “You bet I did.”

Listen! Mike Kelley was sold to Boston for $10,000. Mike got half of the purchase price. He came up to me and showed me a check for $5,000. John L. Sullivan the champion fighter, went around with a subscription paper and the boys raised over $12,000 to buy Mike a house.

They gave Mike a deed to the house and they had $1,500 left and gave him a certificate of deposit for that. His salary for playing with Boston was $4,700 a year. At the end of that season Mike had spent the $5,000 purchase price and the $5,000 he received as salary and the $1,500 they gave him and had a mortgage on the house. And when he died in Pennsylvania they went around with a subscription to get money enough to put him in the ground. Mike sat there on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago, when I said: “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”

A. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the first man he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the second.

I was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and I hit a stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.

I got a doctor and had my leg fixed up and he said to me: “William, if you don’t go on that trip I will give you a good leg.” I obeyed and I have as good a leg today as I ever had. They offered to wait for me at Honolulu and Australia.

Spalding said: “Meet us in England, and play with us through England, Scotland and Wales.” I didn’t go.

Ed Williamson, our old short-stop, was a fellow weighing 225 pounds, and a more active man you never saw. He went with them, and while they were on the ship crossing the English channel a storm arose. The captain thought the ship would go down. Then he dropped on his knees and promised God to be true, and God spoke and the waves were still. They came back to the United States and Ed. came back to Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street.

I would go there and give tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would talk with him, and would cry like a baby, I would get down and pray for him. When he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out his liver. It was so big it would not go in a candy bucket.

Ed Williamson sat there on the street corner with me twenty-seven years ago when I said, “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”

Frank Flint, our old catcher, who caught for nineteen years, drew $3,200 a year on an average. He caught before they had chest protectors and masks and gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the ball of his hand was broken. You never saw a hand like Frank had. Every bone in his face was broken and his nose and cheekbones, and the shoulder and ribs had all been broken.

I’ve seen old Frank Flint sleeping on a table in a stale beer joint and I’ve turned my pockets inside out and said: “You’re welcome to it, old pal.”

He drank on and on, and one day in winter he staggered out of a stale beer joint and stood on a corner and was seized with a fit of coughing.

The blood streamed out of his nose, his mouth and his eyes. Down the street came a woman. She took one look and said: “My God, is it you, Frank?” And the old love came back.

The wife called two policemen and a cab and started with him to her boarding house. They broke all speed regulations. She called five of the best physicians, and they listened to the beating of his heart—eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—and the doctor said: “He will be dead in about four hours.” She said: “Frank the end is near,” and he said: “Send for Bill.”

They telephoned me and I came. When I reached his bedside he said to me: “There’s nothing in the life of years ago I care for now. I can hear the grandstand hiss when I strike out. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I make a hit that wins the game, but there is nothing that can help me now, and if the umpire calls me out now, won’t you say a few words over me, Bill?”

He struggled as he had years ago on the diamond when he tried to reach home—but the great Umpire of the universe yelled: “You’re out.” And the great gladiator of the diamond was no more.

Frank Flint sat on the street corner drunk with me twenty-seven years ago in Chicago when I said: “I’ll bid you goodbye, boys, I’m going to Jesus.” Say men, did I win the game of life, or did they?

BEACON LIGHTS ON BILLY’S TRAIL.

I owe God everything. I owe the devil nothing except the best fight I can put up against him.

The church needs more of God and less dress and strife over money.

Judas bought a ticket to hell for thirty pieces of silver, and it wasn’t a round-trip ticket, either.

Every saloon gives the devil a better chance to land your boy in hell.

You breed more infidels with your “divine philosophy” than all the Ingersols in the world.

The church doesn’t need new members as much as she needs to have the old bunch made over.

A lot of people, from the way they live, make you think they’ve got a ticket to heaven on a Pullman parlor car, and have ordered the porter to wake ’em when they get there. But they’ll get side-tracked almost before they’re started.

HARD TO KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN.

“Somebody says: ‘But you don’t know my circumstances, Mr. Sunday. I’m handicapped by my parents. I’m handicapped by poverty.’ Listen! Go down tonight and get down your books and read of the men of history who have crept and crawled from the sewers of poverty and the quagmires of squalor. Obscurity never kept Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia gnawing at his loaf. Obscurity didn’t keep Edison working as a telegraph operator at $60.00 a month. Obscurity didn’t keep David herding sheep. If gold and diamonds weren’t so hard to get they wouldn’t be worth so much. Obscurity didn’t keep Grant in a tannery. Obscurity didn’t keep Garfield on the towpath of a canal. If you’ve got it in you, squalor and want can’t keep you down.”

“If you are going to win out you must have grit. That means you must be able to say “no” when asked to do wrong, so loud it will stagger hell. Or “yes” so loud it will gladden the angels of God. Put up your dukes and fight the devil.”

HONOR YOUR WIFE BEFORE SHE DIES.

“Don’t wait until your wife dies before you brag on her. Tell her that coffee was fine. Tell her how you like those biscuits—not those big four-story ones, but the little flat fellows with crust on both sides—that’s the kind I like. Think of the days you bought her gumdrops and candy hearts with reading on them. I wish I had all the money I’ve spent on candy hearts with reading on them. You’ve bought ’em, too, you fellows, haven’t you? Ha, ha! Thought so! (Here Mr. Sunday recited the poem, “Kiss Her.”) Some fellows pet dogs more than they pet their wives.

“Play with the children. You say, ‘Bill, I haven’t any.’ I say, ‘Then get some.’”

TWO PICTURES OF AMERICAN HOMES.

I think one of the prettiest pictures ever looked upon is to see a father with the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a mother with the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and to see them throw their arms about their eldest child, and the oldest child throw his arms about their next oldest child, and that child take the next oldest child by the hand, and on until the youngest and all with happiness in their hearts and songs on their lips, start for heaven.

And I think the blackest, darkest picture ever looked upon is to see a father without the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a be-frizzled society woman without the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and the next oldest child, and on down until the baby in the cradle, and to see that father and mother lock arms and all start to hell, like many of them are doing today.

KIND WORDS TO HELP CHILDREN.

There are fewer things more important in the home than conversation. Think of the good you can do in your home with your voice. You use it to give pain, but the conversation in your home ought to be loving. In many homes they have no conversation. There is no affectionate greeting in the morning when the children start for school, no little kiss to linger on their lips, and when they come home at noon, hungry, there is no kind greeting. The old man never says a word unless he growls for you to pass something, and so far as anyone would know, you would be in a deaf and dumb asylum. No fireside chats with the children.

You are down at some fool club, some lodge; you are off to some literary social, beer and wine-drinking hell, and you let your children go to the devil. You turn them over to some nurse, whose only interest in the child is so many dollars per week.

EVANGELIST PAYS TRIBUTE TO WIFE.

Sunday humorously complimented his wife at the tabernacle meeting Thursday night. He quoted “Battling” Nelson’s statement that Mrs. Sunday was worth $10,000,000.00, but said Bat had the estimate too low.

Sunday began by speaking of the traits of various nations. “Scotch blood” he said, “stands for persistency, stick-to-it-iveness, faithfulness and bulldog tenacity. I guess I ought to know, for Ma’s full-blooded Scotch, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

SEVERELY SCORES “SMART SET” BUNCH.

And of the women in our “smart set” nowadays. Too much can not be said in condemnation of them. Too much time is spent by them outside of their homes. They have thrown to the wind all womanly modesty and prudence. They are flattered and cajoled, and they look upon themselves as sort of an especial form upon which to hang the latest creation of a Worth or a Redfern. They have digestive apparatus with which to digest highly seasoned foods which some rich husband can buy and cram into their gullets. And they lend their presence to vaudeville, and have vaudeville performances in their homes, and their children are allowed to witness performances which border on the obscene. And they indulge in gambling to such an extent, poker, roulette wheels, champagne, and all the whole long list, my friends, and they are more familiar with poker chips and gambling devices and frivolity than they are with their Bible, the English language or classic literature.

“No man lives to himself alone. When you go to hell you’re going to drag someone else down with you, and if you go to heaven you’re going to take someone else with you. You say you hate sin. Of course you do if you have respect. You never saw anyone in this town who hates sin worse than I, or loves a sinner more than I. I’m fighting for the sinners. I’m fighting to save your soul, just as a doctor fights to save your life from a disease.”

“If there is a father that hits the booze, he doesn’t want his son to. If he is keeping someone on the side, he doesn’t want his son to. In other words, you would not want your son to live like you if you are not living right.”

“Look on the bright side. Every time you smile you put a crimp in the undertaker’s business, keep the hearse standing in the shed, keep the embalming fluid out of your veins, and keep the quartet from singing ‘Lead, Kindly Light.’”

SUNDAY’S BRIGHT WORD PICTURES IN HIS SERMON TO MOTHERS.
Father Gives up but Mother Doesn’t.

“Fathers often give up. The old man often goes to boozing, becomes dissipated, takes a dose of poison and commits suicide, but the mother will stand by the home and keep the little band together if she has to manicure her fingernails over a washboard to do it. If men had half as much grit as the women, there would be different stories written about a good many homes. Look at her work! It is the greatest in the world; in its far-reaching importance it is transcendently above everything in the universe—her task in molding hearts and lives and shaping character. If you want to find greatness, don’t go toward the throne; go to the cradle, and the nearer you get to the cradle, the nearer to greatness. The launching of a boy or girl to live for Christ is greater work than to launch a battleship.”

BRAVEST BATTLE FOUGHT IN WORLD.

“The bravest battle that ever was fought,

Shall I tell you where and when?

On the maps of the world you’ll find it not—

’Twas fought by the mothers of men.

“Nay, not with cannon or battle shot.

With sword or nobler pen.

Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,

From mouths of wonderful men.

“But deep in a walled up woman’s heart—

Of woman that would not yield,

But bravely, silently bore her part—

Lo, there is the battlefield.

“No marshaling troops, no bivouac song,

No banner to gleam and wave;

But oh! these battles, they last so long—

From babyhood to the grave.”

“There is a mighty power in a mother’s kiss—inspiration, courage, hope, ambition. One kiss made Benjamin West a painter, and the memory of it clung to him through life. One kiss will drive away the fear in the dark and make the little one brave. It will give strength where there is weakness.”

ONE ACT, ONE WORD WILL BLIGHT CHILD.

“There is power enough in a word or act to blight a boy, and through him, curse a community. There is power enough in a word or act to tincture the life of that child so it will become a power to lift the world to Jesus Christ. The mothers will put in motion influences that will either touch heaven or hell. Talk about greatness! Oh, you wait until you reach the mountains of eternity, then read the mothers’ names in God’s hall of fame, and see who they have been in this world. I want to tell you women, fooling away your time hugging and kissing a poodle dog, caressing a Spitz, drinking a society bran mash and a cocktail, and playing cards, is mighty small business to moulding the life of a child.”

“When God gave the office of mother to women it was just like giving you his own right hand. Think of what importance is attached to it! Think of the mother’s power! There is more power in a mother’s hand than in a king’s scepter.”

TOUCHING TRIBUTE TO MOTHER’S LOVE.

“I once read the story of an angel who stole out of heaven and came to this world one bright sunshiny day; roamed through the field, forest, city and hamlet, and as the sun went down, plumed his wings for the return flight. The angel said: ‘Now that my visit is over, before I return I must gather some mementoes of my trip.’ He looked at the beautiful flowers in the garden and said, ‘How lovely and fragrant,’ and plucked the rarest roses, made a bouquet, and said, ‘I see nothing more beautiful and fragrant than these flowers.’ The angel looked further and saw a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked child, and said, ‘That baby is prettier than the flowers; I will take that, too;’ and, looking beyond to the cradle, he saw a mother’s love pouring out over her babe like a gushing spring, and the angel said, ‘The mother’s love is the prettiest thing I have seen; I will take that too.’ And with these three treasures the heavenly messenger winged his flight to the pearly gates, saying: ‘Before I go in I must examine the mementoes of my trip to the earth.’ He looked at the flowers; they had withered. He looked at the baby’s smile; it had faded. He looked at the mother’s love; it shone in all its pristine beauty. Then he threw away the withered flowers, cast aside the faded smile, and with the mother’s love pressed to his breast, swept through the gates into the city, shouting that the only thing he had found that would retain its fragrance from earth to heaven is a mother’s love.”

EVERY CHILD IS A TRUST TO MOTHER.

“Every child is put in a mother’s arms as a trust from God, and she has to answer to God for the way she deals with that child. No mother on God’s earth has any right to raise her children for pleasure. She has no right to send them to dancing school and haunts of sin. You have no right to do those things that will curse your children. That babe is put in your arms to train for the Lord. No mother has any more right to raise her children for pleasure than I have to pick your pockets or throw red pepper in your eyes. She has no more right to do that than a bank cashier has to rifle the vaults and take the savings of the people. One of the worst sins you can commit is to be unfaithful to your trust.”

“The biggest place in the world is that which is being filled by the people who are in close touch with youth. Being a king, an emperor or a president is mighty small business compared to being a mother, or the teacher of children, whether in a public school or in a Sunday school, and they fill places so great that there isn’t an angel in heaven that wouldn’t be glad to give a bushel of diamonds to boot to come down here and take their place. Commanding an army is little more than sweeping a street or pounding an anvil compared with the training of a boy or girl.”

SAYS MEN ARE WHAT MOTHERS MAKE THEM.

“Emerson said: ‘Men are what their mothers make them.’ They are what their mothers make them, and if the mothers of today were true to their trust, then they could send their boys to college and need not be afraid of them coming back infidels, like many of them do. There is no power on earth that can lift to heaven or shove to hell like the touch of a mother’s hand. Everywhere men have been brought back from the valley of the shadow of death simply by the touch of mother’s hand.”

SONGS OF MOTHER SWEETEST TO HEAR.

“There is power in a mother’s song, too. It’s the best music the world ever heard. There is no brass band or pipe organ that can hold a candle to mother’s song, the kind she sings gets tangled up in your heart strings. There would be a disappointment in the music of heaven to me if there were no mothers there to sing. The song of an angel or a seraph would not have much charm for me. What would you care for an angel’s song if there is no mother’s song? The song of a mother is sweeter than that ever sung by minstrel or written by poet. Talk about sonnets! You ought to hear the mother sing when her babe is on her breast, when her heart is filled with emotion. Her voice may not please an artist, but it will please any one who has a heart in him. The songs that have moved the world are not the songs written by the great masters. I think when we reach heaven it will be found that some of the best songs we will sing there will be those we learned at mother’s knee.”

“There is power in a mother’s love. A mother’s love must be like God’s love. How God could ever tell the world that He loved it without a mother’s help has often puzzled me. If the devils in hell ever turned pale, it was the day when mother’s love flamed up for the first time in a woman’s heart. If the devil ever got ‘cold feet,’ it was that day, in my judgment.”

“To teach a child to love the truth and hate a lie, to love purity and hate vice, is greater than inventing a flying machine that will take you to the moon, or to the North pole. Unconsciously, you set in motion influences that will damn or bless the old universe and bring new worlds out of chaos and transform them for God.”

GATHERING UP THE SUNBEAMS.

“If we knew the baby fingers pressed against the window pane,

Would be cold and still tomorrow, never trouble us again,

Would the bright eyes of our darling catch the frown upon our brow?

Would the prints of little fingers vex us then as they do now?

Let us gather up the sunbeams lying all around our path,

Let us keep the wheat and roses, casting out the thorns and chaff!

We shall find our sweetest comforts in the blessings of today, and

With patient hand removing all the briers from our way.”

START CHILDREN RIGHT, ONLY SOLUTION.

“When God wants to throw a world out into space he is much concerned about it. The first mile that world takes settles its course for eternity. When God throws a child out into the world he is mighty anxious that it gets a right start. The Catholics are right when they say: ‘Give us the children until they are ten years old, and we don’t care who has them after that.’ The Catholics are not losing any sleep about losing men and women from their church membership. It is the only church that has ever shown us the only sensible way to reach the masses—that is, by getting hold of the children. That’s the only way on God’s earth you will ever solve the problem of reaching the masses. You get the boys and girls started right and the devil will hang crepe on his door, bank his fires, and hell will be “for rent.”

“There is power in a mother’s smile. See the boy, how he will outdo himself if he knows his mother is watching him, and it makes the hard places easy and the dark places light. A long face and a gloomy look are about the last things you ought to give to your children if you want to inspire and cheer them.”

DANCING WORST OF AMUSEMENTS.

The dance is the hotbed of iniquity, and I denounce it as the rottenest, most hellish, vice-producing institution that ever wriggled from the depths of perdition.

The dance is simply a hugging match set to music.

Dancing is not an innocent amusement. It has caused the downfall of more girls than anything else.

Three-fourths of the fallen women in big cities, fell because of the dance.

You’d just as soon husk corn by moonlight as to dance with your own wife. It’s the other fellow’s wife, some other fellow’s sister that you want to dance with.

A man will wallow and get so low he’ll have to climb a hill to get into hell, then make a bluff at reforming and society takes him in. Then at the dance he’ll breathe promises into the ears of some innocent young girl, gain her confidence and then ruin her.

You say you need exercise and that’s why you dance. All right, then, let women dance with women, and men with men.

The dance brings vice and virtue into such close contact that virtue loses.

Any church that encourages dancing is too low down to deserve the name of church.

If there are variations of hell, the dancer will crack brimstone in the hottest spot.

If there was nothing but card players and dancers in the church, how it would stink and rot!

DECLARES BALLROOM PERMITS LIBERTIES.

You grant men liberties on the ball room floor that if any man attempted in your home and your husband found you at it, he would have no trouble in securing a divorce, and if he shot the man, no jury in the world would convict him for it.

If I found any man hugging Mrs. Sunday as a man does in a dance, I’d clear for action like a battleship, and give him HIS.

Where do you find your most accomplished dancers? In the brothels.

When a girl gets so low that she’ll smoke and drink, she is on the toboggan slide and going to hell fast.

And you fellows like to “sit out” a dance. I always did think it was a foolish proposition to gallop a mile to get a hug.

The round and square dances look alike to me. It doesn’t take very long to cut the corners off.

There was a time in America when the stately cotillion seemed to satisfy, but it is too slow now for the hot blood of the Twentieth Century. The young people must have something that will chase hurdles through their veins.

WHAT BILLY SAID ON MOTHERHOOD.

“I don’t believe there is an angel in heaven that would not come to earth and be honored with motherhood if God would grant them that privilege. Like produces like in animals and in human beings. Blood will tell in horses, sheep, quadruped and in human beings. A consumptive mother will produce a consumptive child, and the same is true of its paternity. It is time to lay aside mock modesty. You can’t trifle with God’s rules. Society has just about put maternity out of fashion. When you stop to consider the average society woman I do not think maternity has lost anything. The child of affluence is turned over to nurses at birth and is fed on prepared foods and knows nothing of its mother. The children of humbler homes are raised by their mothers, instead of being turned over to governesses. These mothers spend their time in bridge parties, gadding, and fondling pet dogs; no wonder men go to the clubs. No man wants to play second fiddle to a bow-legged bulldog. I am sure I would not!”

TOO MANY GIRLS ARE NOT IN LOVE.

“There are too many girls marry for other causes than love. I think ambition, indolence, avarice, laziness and indifference lead more girls to the altar than love. Girls not actuated by the noblest of human feeling, but simply willing to pay the price for a good time. They are not moved by the nobler desires of manhood and womanhood. Maternity is the highest possible gift of God to woman. The up-to-date women pride themselves on their criminal knowledge. Some girls marry for society, some marry for home, some marry for ease, some marry to reform man; he wouldn’t marry you to reform you—you little fool. It is no easier to make a kingly husband out of a beer-soaked, cigaret-smoking specimen of a man than a prostitute can make a queenly wife.”

HIGH SPOTS IN BILLY’S SERMON TO WOMEN.
Up to Women to Save World.

“Woman lives on a higher plane morally than man. No woman was ever ruined that some brute of a man did not take the initiative. Women have kept themselves purer than men. I believe a good woman is the best thing this side of heaven, and a bad woman the worst thing this side of hell. I think they rise higher and sink lower than men. I think she is the purest on earth or the most degraded on earth. Our homes are on the level with women. Towns are on the level with homes. Nations are on the level with towns. What our women are, the towns will be. What the town is the men will be. The devil and women can damn this world, and Jesus and women can save this world. The womanhood of the world has to settle the destiny of the world. I believe there is something unfinished in the makeup of a girl with the absence of religion. The average girl of today no longer looks forward to motherhood as the crowning glory of womanhood.”

GIVES ADVICE ON PICKING A HUSBAND.

“Say, girls, don’t simper and look silly when you speak about love. There is nothing silly about it although some folks are silly because they are in love; love is the noblest and purest gift to man and womanhood. Don’t let your actions advertise “Man Wanted Quick.” That is the surest way not to get a real one. You might get something with pantaloons on, but that is not a man. Some men should be arrested for going around and being disguised as men. Don’t get excited and try to hurry things along. If the man wants you he’ll come around in his good time; and don’t try to do half the courting. Don’t bestow the love that God gave you to bestow upon a baby on a poodle dog. Dogs are all right in their places, but their place is out in the kennel.”

DON’T LET GIRLS MARRY INFIDELS.

“Don’t teach your girls,—mothers,—that the only thing in the world is to marry. A girl is a big fool to marry an infidel. God says be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. If she does she will have a hard life as sure as she lives. The offsprings of such marriages either follow in the footsteps of their father, and go to hell, or cling to their mother and are sneered at all their life by their father.”

“THY KINGDOM COME.”

If you really pray “Thy Kingdom Come” you will pray with your hands, feet and money as well as with your voice, every day.

Your religion should mean that you’re going to bring about the conversion of the world before you sit down to breakfast.

The minister who prays with a true appreciation of “Thy Kingdom Come” don’t cater to the small highbrow bunch of his church. He puts the cookies on the bottom shelf.

The man who truly prays “Thy Kingdom Come” won’t slip coppers in the collection plate and then go home with his head up singing “Jesus Paid It All.”

When we really mean what we are praying, the old devil won’t own an inch of this world. We won’t need any penitentiary then, or jails or have any murders, or young girls robbed of their womanhood.

God never meant anybody to offer up a prayer that was measured in square miles.

Some people here are so busy singing about the streets of glory that they forget to sweep the snow off their own streets.

Talk about non-church goers—it makes me sick. Why don’t you talk about the non-going church?

The proof of the pudding is not found in smelling the bag or chewing the strings. There are lots of church members who only smell the bag and chew the rag.

Christianity must be a good thing or why would they try to counterfeit it. You never heard of a counterfeit infidel.

The man who refuses to be a Christian because there are hypocrites in the church is a fool.

You can find about everything in the ordinary church from a humming bird to a turkey buzzard.

I could no more shock some of you fellows than I could pour something on a skunk and make him smell good.

The inconsistency you talk about is in your life, not in the Bible.

Talk to people on business and they’ll talk sense; talk to them on religion and they’ll talk nonsense.

Christianity is the one thing that allows the angel to take hold of you and strangle the animal in you.

HOT SHOTS ON CARDS AND GAMBLING.

If you have a deck of cards and a Bible in your home, throw the deck in the alley. Either throw the cards out and keep the Bible, or throw out the Bible and keep the cards.

What’s the difference between a game of cards and a game of checkers? Just as much difference as between heaven and hell.

It is said nine-tenths of the gamblers are taught in their homes by their mothers, and 80 per cent by Christian people.

I believe that cards and dancing are doing more to damn the spiritual life of the church than the grog-shops, though you can’t accuse me of being a friend of that stinking, dirty, rotten, hell-soaked business.

I believe more people backslide on account of the social side than on account of the saloon.

Lots of church members have cards on their tables as often as food.

A billiard table is the first cousin to a saloon.

The saloonkeepers and gamblers laugh every time they read the announcement of a euchre or card party in the newspapers, for they know it will only be a question of time until they get the players.

You have no right to find fault with the city officials because they don’t suppress gambling when it is carried on right in your home.

WAITING FOR THE OPENING OF THE TABERNACLE.

EVANGELIST PUTS TABOO ON THEATER.

The theater, as conducted today, is one of the rottenest institutions outside of hell.

It is upon the charred souls of women that most of the men who are a power in the theatrical world have climbed to their height.

The theater is corrupting, educationally, commercially and morally.

It is almost impossible to find in the theater decency and purity.

The church and the theater have nothing in common.

The only way to reform the theater is to turn it into something else.

The rogue and scoundrelism and man’s infidelity form the groundwork of most plays.

The day is long past when any number of serious-minded citizens look to the theater for inspiration or instruction.

If it were not for the leg shows the theater would go bankrupt.

Booth and Garrick would not allow their own children to go to the theater.

Smiling religion—that’s what we want.

The devil can’t laugh—poor devil.

God enjoys a little fun. He made the parrot, donkey, monkey and some of you folks.

The Lord wants the best; why can’t he have it?

Some men are so rotten and vile they ought to be disinfected and take a bath in carbolic acid and formaldehyde every five minutes.

To see some people you would think that the essentials of Christianity is to have a face so long you could eat oatmeal out of a gas pipe. Religion is not cramp colic.

I want to lift the burden tonight from the heads of unoffending womanhood and hurl it at the heads of offending manhood.

Some people have just enough religion to give them goosepimples. Get in the game. Some of you have just enough religion to get to the edge of life but not faith enough to plunge in.

Don’t find fault with your physician until after you have tried his remedy; don’t find fault with God until you have tried him.

I know some fellows here who are afraid to come to the Tabernacle and do one thing decent before going to Hell. I despise a religious coward.

Society takes no notice of sin at first; it waits for the mute evidences of that sin.

BILLY PUTS TABOO ON WEDDING KNOTS.

Although an ordained minister, in all of his twenty-seven years’ experience as an evangelist, Mr. Sunday has united but one couple in marriage. And that, he declares, he did very reluctantly.

In nearly every city where Billy has a campaign, he is besieged by young men and young women who want him to marry them. But Billy states that there is absolutely nothing doing in that line. He has performed his first and last marriage ceremony, and says he will stick to plain evangelism, and leave the marrying part to other ministers.

EVERY PALACE IS NOT A HOME.

“I have walked and ridden and driven over the hills and through the valleys and looked at your beautiful homes and your spacious lawns and your happy children; you can build your palaces and amass your fortunes; your sideboards can groan beneath the weight of gold and silver, cut glass and hand-painted china; and you can let your little ones play over your Brussels carpet or your Persian or Axminster rugs; and you can have a retinue of servants to wait upon you and do your bidding and satisfy your slightest desire; and you can loll upon your oriental divans and breathe the perfumed air and watch the sparkling water as it spurts from fountains; and you can look at your rare paintings and ransack Europe in order to find the masterpieces; and you can lie there with some one to fan you, and take your afternoon siesta; and you can sit and gormandize upon all the viands that the earth can produce; and your chef may be a Frenchman whose ability would command a princely fortune even in the homes of the crowned heads of Europe.

“But, after all, if you sit behind the tapestry and look out through the plate-glass and wait for the staggering reeking, vomiting, spewing, drink-soaked, drunken sot of a son, or you wait for the coming of the steps of a girl who has lost her virtue, I tell you, all that wealth can bring you will fly and you will think you are sitting in a sepulchre and the rich furniture will simply become the bones of other days and other faces, for nothing can make happy the father or the mother who has a drunken sot of a boy, as many of them have today, and nothing can make happy the father or the mother of a girl who has sold her womanhood for gain. And I tell you, not only should our homes be the center of all that is pure, but all that is cheerful and bright.”

DRAWING THE LINE ON CHRISTIANS.

Too many of you kneel at the communion table and then beat down the wages of your employes so their children go to bed hungry at night.

What God wants is workers and boosters; not knockers and iconoclasts.

Every time a lazy man looks towards heaven, the angels close the door.

It would be a Godsend if the church could smell a little gunpowder. A little persecution would be a good thing to get rid of the parasites and driftwood in the churches.

Enthusiasm for Jesus Christ is like the measles and diphtheria—it’s catching.

You sing “Calvary in Heaven,” and yet you put the wrong figures on the ledger book; you profess brotherly love, and yet slander your neighbor.

There is no use trying to build a revival on a bottle of booze and on skullduggery and intrigue. I’m just trying to clear away the debris now.

A lot of people will wear out ten pair of holdbacks and only one pair of tugs working for God.

Too many churches are frauds, four-flushers, excess baggage and false alarms.

The dude who splutters and splurges and spends his daddy’s dough, is the missing link between man and the monkey.

You say religion causes insanity; I say you’re a liar!

You tell the doctor, who says you need beer for your health that he’s a liar.

Knowledge is of no benefit unless you use it.

The world is being born into sin 20 to 1 faster than into the spirit of God.

Religion doesn’t make anybody mad; it’s hell that makes men mad.

Any fool can criticise; it needs neither brains nor heart to find fault.

Churches in New York City have 50,000 less members today than a year ago.

All denominations are failing to reach the multitude.

You’re either a patriot or a traitor to God’s cause in this revival.

The man with real red blood in his veins scorns the path of roses our modern churches have made to accept Christ.

Criticism is the scales on which you weigh yourself.

THE PREACHERS AND THE LAYMEN.

Lots of churches will sidestep the man with two dollars, but who ever heard of a man with five hundred thousands being turned out of church.

Lots of sermons today are nothing but a book review with a little religion tacked on the end.

A poor sinner couldn’t find Jesus Christ in some of the churches with a searchlight.

We’ve got too many preachers breaking their necks, trying to please the worldly gang that is going to increase their salaries.

Nobody nowadays is afraid of God; the picture of Jesus Christ is fading from the world; the word of God has been discarded as being too crude for this enlightened age.

Many churches are nothing but social clearance houses.

There are lots of people in this city who would rather have their friends go to hell than be saved by my preaching.

The best Christian will be the best citizen everywhere.

An employer is a thief if he takes advantage of his employe by not paying him for the honest work he does; the employe is a thief who does not give honest toil for honest wages.

Public opinion is not always competent to judge whether or not a man is worthy.

BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST.
What the Bible says.

“Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords and drank wine before the thousands.

“Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines might drink therein.

“They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone.

“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace; and the king saw part of the hand that wrote.

“Then the king’s countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against another.

“The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers.

“Then came the king’s wise men; but they could not read the writing nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

“Then was Daniel brought before the king, and the king said: “If thou canst read the writing thou shalt be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about thy neck and shalt be third ruler of the kingdom.”

“Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Let thy gifts be to thyself and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing and make known unto the king the interpretation.”

“And this is the writing that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.”

BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST.
“Billy” Sunday’s Version.

Belshazzar’s feast was no common beer, pretzel and dill pickle blow-out, but the real goods. Nude and lewd women wormed and wriggled their way through the banquet hall. The bunch began to get soused and the revelry increased.

Then came the obscene song, the drunken hiccough, the slavering lip, and the guffaw of idiotic laugh bursting from the lips of princes, flushed, reeling and bloodshot, while mingled with it all were the hurrahs for great Belshazzar.

Then from the atmosphere flashed an armless hand which wrote upon the frieze in words that blazed like fire and glistened like gold. Terror froze Belshazzar to the very soul. His countenance changed, his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his loins were loose and his knees smote together. I tell you old “Bel” was about all in.

In a few moments he hoarsely cried: “Bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers (we’d call ’em mediums today). And in came the Magi and when they couldn’t decipher the heiroglyphics, Belshazzar cried, “Give ’em the hook.”

Then he sent for Daniel on his mother’s advice.

I can see him say: “Put her there Dan,” as he slapped his hand in Daniel’s, and say, “My maw’s be tellin’ me about you. This bunch has got on my nerves. The four-flushers have been feedin’ and fattenin’ around here and can’t read that writing. If you’ll do it I’ll give you a chain and a ring of gold.”

But Daniel said: “Nothin’ doing on the chain and ring proposition, Bel.” Then Daniel read the writing. “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.”

A REMARKABLE PRAYER.
Sunday says Devil Growls when 10,000 Confess their Wrongs.

“Oh, Jesus, isn’t this a great spectacle? This must make you smile, Jesus. I know it does me. And devil, this sight must make you growl. I can hear you saying, ‘What’s Bill Sunday doing up there? Look at that crowd of 10,000 people standing because they’re sorry they broke any of God’s commandments. We’ve got to get busy or we’ll lose thousands. Come on all you devils, get out of hell. Get out I say.’

“And Jesus, I’ll bet all those devils are trembling when they look up here, and I’ll bet all the angels in heaven are rejoicing and shouting with joy. I can see mothers and fathers up there saying, ‘Get back, Moses, get back Solomon, get back David, you haven’t got any children down there. Let me look and see if my boy or girl is in that audience. Yes, there she is down in section 27; yes, there is my boy over by post 14; thank God for that.’

“And, oh, Jesus, if any preacher here tonight has got cold feet, help him to stiffen up; give him backbone so he can fight for you. And, Jesus, bless these preachers, thank them for deepening the spirit here tonight. Bless all newspaper boys who are giving us such wonderful reports. Bless all in their offices that we met the other day—all of the clerks, stenographers, printers, pressmen and from the men that own the papers down to the boys that sell the papers on the street.

“And, Jesus, bless this choir, bless the ushers, bless the Chief, the Mayor, the Governor, help the state officials, Jesus. And bless this old state and this city and may we have a rousing time here. Guide us and keep us for your sake, Jesus, amen, amen, amen and amen. Good night.”

“HITTING THE SAWDUST TRAIL.”

The meaning “to hit the sawdust trail,” has a beautiful and appropriate meaning. It was first used when Sunday and his party were in the midst of a campaign among the lumbermen on Puget Sound. At the tabernacle at Bellingham, Washington. The floor of the tabernacle was covered with the sawdust from the lumber camp and the lumbermen, when any of their men went down front to speak to Rev. Sunday, called it “Hitting the Trail.”