Billy Sunday

When the evangelist was in Pittsburgh, McKeesport, where he had been six years before, sent many delegations to hear him and on one occasion fifteen hundred persons made the journey from McKeesport to Pittsburgh to testify to the lasting benefits which their city had received from the evangelist's visit.

Usually some organization of the "trail-hitters" is effected after the evangelist's departure. These are bands for personal Christian work. The most remarkable of them all is reported from Wichita, Kansas, where the aftermath of the Sunday meetings has become so formidable as to suggest a new and general method of Christian service by laymen.

The Sunday converts organized themselves into "Gospel Teams," who announce that they are ready to go anywhere and conduct religious meetings, especially for men. They offer to pay their own expenses, although frequently the communities inviting them refuse to permit this. Sometimes these Gospel Teams travel by automobiles or street cars and sometimes they make long railway journeys.

The men have so multiplied themselves that there are now more than three hundred Gospel Teams in this work and they have formed "The National Federation of Gospel Teams" of which Claude Stanley of Wichita is president and West Goodwin of Cherryvale, Kansas, is secretary.

Up to date, the tremendous total of eleven thousand conversions is reported by these unsalaried, self-supporting gospel workers, who joyously acclaim Billy Sunday as their leader. They represent his teachings and his spirit in action.

The most celebrated of these gospel teams is "The Business Men's Team" of Wichita, an interdenominational group. It comprises such men as Henry Allen, the editor of the Wichita Beacon and one of the foremost public men of the state; the president of the Inter-urban Railway; the president of the Kansas Mutual Bank, and other eminent business men. This team has visited eleven states in its work, all without a penny of cost to the Church, and with results exceeding those achieved by many great and expensive organizations.

The Billy Sunday converts not only stick but they multiply themselves and become effective servants of the Church and the kingdom.

Nobody is left to conjecture as to the sort of counsel that Mr. Sunday gives his converts. Every man, woman and child who "hits the trail" is handed a leaflet, telling him how to make a success of the Christian life.

A trumpet call to Christian service by every confessed disciple of Jesus Christ is sounded by the evangelist. The following is an appeal of this sort:

"SHARP-SHOOTERS"

The twentieth century has witnessed two apparently contradictory facts: The decline of the Church and the growth of religious hunger in the masses. The world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries passed through a period of questioning and doubts, during which everything in heaven and earth was put into a crucible and melted down into constituent elements. During that period many laymen and preachers lost their moorings.

The definite challenging note was lost out of the life of the ministry. The preacher today is oftentimes a human interrogation point, preaching to empty pews. The hurrying, busy crowd in the street is saying to the preacher and the Church, "When you have something definite to say about the issues of life, heaven, hell and salvation, we will listen; till then we have no time for you." I believe we are on the eve of a great national revival. The mission of the Church is to carry the gospel of Christ to the world.

I believe that lack of efficient personal work is one of the curses of the Church today. The people of the Church are like squirrels in a cage. Lots of activity, but accomplishing nothing. It doesn't require a Christian life to sell oyster soup or run a bazaar or a rummage sale.

Last year many churches reported no new members on confession of faith. Why these meager results with this tremendous expenditure of energy and money? Why are so few people coming into the kingdom? I will tell you what is the matter – there is not a definite effort put forth to persuade a definite person to receive a definite Saviour at a definite time, and that definite time is now.

I tell you the Church of the future must have personal work and prayer. The trouble with some churches is that they think the preacher is a sort of ecclesiastical locomotive, who will snort and puff and pull the whole bunch through to glory.

A politician will work harder to get a vote than the Church of God will work to have men brought to Christ. Watch some of the preachers go down the aisles. They drag along as if they had grindstones tied to their feet.

No political campaign is won by any stump speaker or any spell-binder on the platform. It is won by a man-to-man canvass.

The Value of Personal Work

The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light. You can learn something from the world about how to do things. Personal work is the simplest and most effective form of work we can engage in. Andrew wins Peter. Peter wins three thousand at Pentecost. A man went into a boot and shoe store and talked to the clerk about Jesus Christ. He won the clerk to Christ. Do you know who that young man was? It was Dwight L. Moody, and he went out and won multitudes to Christ. The name of the man who won him was Kimball, and Kimball will get as much reward as Moody. Kimball worked to win Moody and Moody worked and won the multitude. Andrew wins Peter and Peter wins three thousand at Pentecost. That is the way God works today. Charles G. Finney, after learning the name of any man or woman, would invariably ask: "Are you a Christian?" There isn't any one here who hasn't drag enough to win somebody to Christ.

Personal work is a difficult form of work; more difficult than preaching, singing, attending conventions, giving your goods to feed the poor. The devil will let you have an easy time until God asks you to do personal work. It is all right while you sing in the choir, but just as soon as you get out and work for God the devil will be on your back and you will see all the flimsy excuses you can offer for not working for the Lord. If you want to play into the hands of the devil begin to offer your excuses.

There are many people who want to win somebody for Jesus and they are waiting to be told how to do it. I believe there are hundreds and thousands of people who are willing to work and who know something must be done, but they are waiting for help; I mean men and women of ordinary ability. Many people are sick and tired and disgusted with just professing religion; they are tired of trotting to church and trotting home again. They sit in a pew and listen to a sermon; they are tired of that, not speaking to anybody and not engaging in personal work; they are getting tired of it and the church is dying because of it. A lot should wake up and go to the rescue and win souls for Jesus Christ.

I want to say to the deacons, stewards, vestrymen, prudential committees, that they should work, and the place to begin is at your own home. Sit down and write the names of five or ten friends, and many of them members of your own church, and two or three of those not members of any church; yet you mingle with these people in the club, in business, in your home in a friendly way. You meet them every week, some of them every day, and you never speak to them on the subject of religion; you never bring it to their attention at all; you should be up and doing something for God and God's truth. There are always opportunities for a Christian to work for God. There is always a chance to speak to some one about God. Where you find one that won't care, you'll find one thousand that will.

My Father's Business

Be out and out for God. Have a heart-to-heart talk with some people and win them to Christ. The first recorded words of Jesus are these: "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

The trouble is we are too lackadaisical in religion, indifferent and dead and lifeless. That is the spirit of the committees today in the Church. I think the multitude in the Church will have to get converted themselves before they can lead any one else to Christ. It is my firm conviction, after many years of experience in the work, that half the people in the Church have never been converted, have never been born again. I take up a bottle of water, uncork it and take a drink. That is experimental. One sip of water can convince me more of its power to slake thirst than 40,000 books written on the subject. You know quinine is bitter because you have experimented; you know fire will burn because you have experimented; you know ice will freeze; it is cold; you have experimented.

A man must experience religion to know God. All you know of God is what you read in some book or what you heard somebody else talk about; you haven't lived so that you could learn first-handed, so most of your religion is second-handed. There is too much second-hand stuff in the Church. It is your privilege to know and to have salvation. Jesus said to Peter: "When you are converted strengthen your brethren." You are not in a position to help anybody else unless you have been helped yourself.

So many church members know nothing about the Bible. A preacher will take a text from the Bible and get as far from it as the East is from the West. A young preacher just out of the seminary said: "Must I confine myself in my preaching to the Bible?" Just like a shrimp who would say, "Must I confine my roaming to the Atlantic Ocean?" Imagine a little minnow saying: "Must I confine myself to the Atlantic Ocean?" "Must I confine myself to the Bible?" Just as if his intellect would exhaust it in two or three sermons.

We have cut loose from the Bible, and any man who is living contrary to the Bible is a sinner, whether he feels like a sinner or not. Every man who is living contrary to the laws is a criminal, whether he feels like it or not. A man who breaks the law of God is a sinner, and is on the road to hell, whether he feels like it or like a saint. Jesus came into the world to reveal God to man, and man reveals him to man. The only revelation we have of Jesus is through the Bible. You have got to know Jesus to know God; that's how I get through there. There is no revelation for God to make of himself greater than he has made through Jesus Christ. It is not possible for the human intellect to have a greater conception of God. Every man needs Christ. Jesus is the Saviour that he needs and he has got to know the Bible to show what it is that makes Jesus the Saviour. He needs a Saviour and now is the time to accept the Saviour and be saved. That's what the Bible says. Whatever the Bible says, write "finish" after it and stop.

Feeding the Spiritual Life

Then you need the Holy Spirit. Without him you cannot do anything. The spirit of God works through clean hands. There are too many dirty hands, too many dirty people trying to preach a clean gospel. I have known men that have preached the truth and God has honored the truth, although their lives were not as they should be. But God honored the truth and not the people who preached the truth. But if they had been Christians themselves then God would have honored them more, because he would have honored them and the truth.

Prayer. Three-fourths of the church members have no family prayer. They let spiritual life starve. That is the reason the pews are full of driftwood; that is the reason that religion is but a mirage to many.

Pray God to give you power. Pray God to give you power to carry on his work after you have become converted. I don't preach a sermon that I don't pray God for help, and I never finish a sermon that I don't thank God that I have preached it. Then I say: "Lord, you take care of the seed I have sown in that sermon." I think the Church needs a baptism of good, pure "horse sense."

Pure hearts. If I have any iniquity in my heart the Lord will not come in. We need a wise head. We need horse sense in preaching. We need horse sense in what we do. I think God is constantly looking for a company of men and women that are constantly alive. There are too many dead ones. He needs men and women that are always at it, not only during the revival; we need to be full of faith; dead in earnest, never give up, a bulldog tenacity and stick-to-it-iveness for the cause of God Almighty.

The Dignity of Personal Work

If it is beneath your dignity to do personal work then you are above your Master. If you are not willing to do what he did, then don't call him your Lord. The servant is not greater than the owner of the house. The chauffeur is not greater than the owner of the automobile. The servant on the railroad is not greater than the owners of the road. Certainly they are not greater than our Lord Jesus Christ.

It requires an effort to win souls to Christ. There is no harder work and none brings greater results than winning souls.

You'll need courage. It is hard to do personal work and the devil will try to oppose you. You'll seek excuses to try to get out of it. Many people who attend the meetings regularly now will begin to stay at home when asked to do personal work. It will surprise you to see them lie to get out of doing personal work.

We need enthusiasm for God. If there is any place on God's earth that needs a baptism of enthusiasm, it is the church and the prayer-meetings. It is not popular in some communities and in some churches to be enthusiastic for God. You'll never accomplish anything without pure enthusiasm, and don't be afraid of being a religious enthusiast. Religion is too cold. Formality is choking it in the pews.

There is nothing accomplished in war, politics or religion, without enthusiasm. Admiral Decatur once gave this toast: "My country: May she always be right, but right or wrong, my country!" That's enthusiasm.

Perseverance is needed to conquer in this old life. Perseverance is contagious, not an epidemic. Religion is contagious. Roman soldiers shortened their swords and added to their kingdom. You shorten the distance between you and the sinner and you'll add to the kingdom of God. The trouble is you have been trying to reach them with a ten-foot pole. Drop your dignity and formality and walk up to them; take them by the hand. You are too dignified. You sit in your fine homes and see the town going to hell.

We need carefulness to win souls. The way to win souls is to be careful what you say. Study the disposition of the person with whom you talk.

We need tact. Personal work is the department of the church efficient to deal with the individual and not the masses. It is analogous to the sharpshooter in the army so dreaded by the opposing forces. The sharpshooter picks out the pivotal individual instead of shooting at the mass. The preacher shoots with a siege gun at long range. You can go to the individual and dispose of his difficulties. I shoot out there two or three hundred feet and you sit right beside people. If I were a physician and you were sick I'd not prescribe en masse, I'd go down and see you individually. I'd try to find out what was the matter and prescribe what you needed. All medicine is good for something, but not for everything.

We need sympathy. One of the noblest traits of the human character is sympathy. It levels mountains, warms the broken heart and melts the iceberg. Have sympathy with the sinner. Not with sin, but the fact that he is one. God hates sin and the devil. He will not compromise. Have sympathy with the girl who sins, but not with the sin that ruined her. Get down on the ground where the others are. You are away up there saved, but you must get down and help the sinner.

Five Classes of People

There are five classes of people and this classification will touch every man and woman, whether in Scranton, New York or London.

First, those who can not attend church, and you will always find some. Some are sick, shut in; some have to work in hotels and restaurants; the maids in your house have to get your meals, the railroad men have to go out, the furnaces must be kept going in the steel works.

Second, those who can attend and who do not attend church. There are millions of people that can and don't attend church. Some fellows never darken the church door until they die, and they carry their old carcass in to have a large funeral. It is no compliment to any man, and it is an insult to manhood, and disgrace to the individual, that he never darkens the church door. But he darkens the door of the grog shop any day.

Third, those who can and do attend church and who are not moved by the preaching. There are lots of people who come out of curiosity.

Fourth, those who can go to church and those who do go to church and are moved by the preaching and convicted but not converted. Every man that hears the truth is convicted. Talk to those men about Jesus Christ. Get them to take their stand for righteousness.

Fifth, those who can and do go to church and are convicted by the preaching and converted. They need strengthening. They are converted now, but they need the benefit of your experience. You say, "Where will I find these people to talk to them?" Where won't you find them? Where can you find a place where they are not? You will only find one place where they are not and that is in the cemetery. Right in your neighborhood, right in your block, how many are Christians? Is your husband a Christian? Are your children Christians? If they are, let them alone and get after somebody else's husband and children. Don't sit down and thank God that your husband and children are Christians. Suppose I were to say: "My family, my George, my Nell, my Paul, my Helen are Christians!" We are all Christians, let the rest of the world go to the devil. There is too much of that spirit in the Church today.

Go from house to house. Go to the people in your block, in your place of business. Have you said anything to the telephone girl when you called her up? You are quick enough to jump on her when she gives you the wrong number. Have you said anything to the delivery boy – to the butcher? Have you asked the milkman? Have you said anything to the newsboy who throws your paper on the doorstep at night? Have you called them up at the newspaper office? Have you said anything to the girl who waits on you at the store; to the servant who brings your dinner in at home; to the woman who scrubs your floors? Where will you find them? – where won't you find them?

The Privilege of Personal Work

Personal work is a great privilege. Not that God needs us, but that we need him. Jesus Christ worked. "I must do the works of Him that sent me." So must you. He didn't send me to work and you to loaf. Honor the God that gives you the privilege to do what he wants. Jesus worked.

Please God and see how it will delight your soul. If you'll win a soul you will have a blessing that the average church member knows nothing about. They are absolute strangers to the higher Christian life. We need an aroused church. An anxious church makes anxious sinners.

If all the Methodist preachers would each save a soul a month there would be 460,000 souls saved in a year. If all the Baptist preachers would each save a soul a month there would be 426,000 souls saved in a year. If all the other evangelical preachers would save a soul a month there would be 1,425,000 souls saved a year. Over 7,000 Protestant churches recently made report of no accessions on confession of faith. Christ said to preach the gospel to all the world and that means every creature in the world.

Listen to this: There are 13,000,000 young men in this country between the ages of sixteen and thirty years; 12,000,000 are not members of any church, Protestant or Catholic; 5,000,000 of them go to church occasionally; 7,000,000 never darken a church door from one year's end to another. They fill the saloons and the houses of ill fame, the haunts of vice and corruption, and yet most young men have been touched by some Sunday-school influences; but you don't win them for God and they go into the world never won for God.

I want to tell you if you want to solve the problem for the future get hold of the young men now. Get them for God now. Save your boys and girls. Save the young man and woman and you launch a life-boat.

At the Iroquois fire in Chicago six hundred people were burned to death. One young woman about seventeen years of age fought through the crowd, but her hair was singed from her head, her clothes were burned, her face blistered. She got on a street car to go to her home in Oak Park. She was wringing her hands and crying hysterically, and a woman said to her: "Why, you ought to be thankful you escaped with your life."

"I escaped – but I didn't save anybody; there are hundreds that died. To think that I escaped and didn't save anybody."

In Pennsylvania there was once a mine explosion, and the people were rushing there to help. Up came an old miner seventy or eighty years of age, tired, tottering and exhausted. He threw off his vest, his coat and hat and picked up a pick and shovel. Some of them stopped him and said: "What is the matter? You are too old; let some of the younger ones do that. Stand back."

The old fellow said: "My God, I've got two boys down there!"

So you see it seems to make all the difference when you've got some boy down there.

Who is wise? You say Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire, is wise, the mayor, the judge, the governor, the educator, the superintendent of schools, the principal of the high school, the people who don't worry or don't live for pleasure, the inventor. But what does the Lord say? The Lord says, "He who winneth souls is wise."

CHAPTER XXVI

"A Good Soldier of Jesus Christ"

I'd rather undertake to save ten drunkards than one old financial Shylock – it would be easier. – Billy Sunday.

Sympathetic observers comment in distressed tones upon the physical exhaustion of Sunday after every one of his addresses. He speaks with such intensity and vigor that he is completely spent by every effort. To one who does not know that he has worked at this terrific pace for near a score of years it seems as if the evangelist is on the verge of a complete collapse. He certainly seems to speak "as a dying man to dying men." The uttermost ounce of his energy is offered up to each audience. Billy Sunday is an unsparing worker.

For a month or six weeks of every year he gives himself to rest. The remainder of the year he is under a strain more intense than that of a great political campaign. Even his Monday rest day, which is supposed to be devoted to recuperation, is oftener than not given to holding special meetings in some other city than the one wherein he is campaigning. Speaking twice or oftener every day, to audiences averaging many thousands, is a tax upon one's nerve force and vitality beyond all computation. In addition to this, Sunday has his administrative work, with its many perplexities and grave responsibilities.

Withal, the evangelist, like every other man pre-eminent in his calling, suffers a great loneliness; he has few intimates who can lead his mind apart from his work. What says Kipling, in his "Song of Diego Valdez," the lord high admiral of Spain, who pined in vain for the comradeship of his old companions, but who, in the aloneness of eminence, mourned his solitary state?

"They sold Diego ValdezTo bondage of great deeds."

The computable aggregate of Sunday's work is almost unbelievable. His associates say that his converts number more than a quarter of a million persons. That is a greater total than the whole membership of the entire Christian Church, decades after the resurrection of our Lord. Imagine a city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, every one of whom was a zealous disciple of Jesus Christ. What a procession these "trail-hitters" would make could they all be gathered into one great campaign parade!

Of course these converts are not all trophies of Billy Sunday's preaching power. He has not won them alone. He has merely stood in the forefront, as the agent of the Church, with vast co-operative forces behind him. Nevertheless, he has been the occasion and the instrument for this huge accomplishment in the Church's conquest.

When it comes to counting up the aggregate size of Sunday's audiences, one is tempted not to believe his own figures, for the total runs up into the millions, and even the tens of millions. Probably no living man has spoken to so great numbers of human beings as Billy Sunday.

More eloquent than any comment upon the magnitude and number of his meetings is the following summary of his campaigns gathered from various sources. Sunday himself does not keep records of his work. His motto seems to be, "Forgetting those things which are behind."