"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message / With his own words which have won thousands for Christ

by William T. Ellis

Still more novel than this was the expedition sent by a great daily newspaper to hear the evangelist in Scranton. There is no parallel in the history of Christian work for the deputation of more than two hundred pastors who went to Scranton from Philadelphia. These went entirely at the charges of the Philadelphia North American, being carried in special trains. The railroad company recognized the significance of this unusual occasion, and both ways the train broke records for speed.

While in the city of Scranton the ministers were the guests of the Scranton churches. They had special space reserved for them in the Tabernacle and their presence drew the greatest crowds that were experienced during the Scranton campaign. Of course thousands were turned away. Nobody who saw and heard it will ever forget the way that solid block of Philadelphia pastors stood up and sang in mighty chorus "I Love to Tell the Story."

Between sessions these Philadelphia ministers were visiting their brethren in Scranton, learning in most detailed fashion what the effects of the Sunday campaign had been. Whenever they gathered in public assemblies they sounded the refrain, which grew in significance from day to day: "I Love to Tell the Story." Billy Sunday fired the evangelistic purpose of these pastors.

When this unique excursion was ended, and the company had de-trained at the Reading Terminal, the ministers, without pre-arrangement, gathered in a body in the train shed and lifted their voices in the refrain "I Love to Tell the Story," while hundreds and thousands of hurrying city folk, attracted by the unwonted music, gathered to learn what this could possibly mean.

A new militancy was put into the preaching of these clergymen by their Scranton visit; and many of them later reported that the largest congregations of all their ministerial experience were those which gathered to hear them report on the Sunday evangelistic campaign. Not a few of the preachers had to repeat their Billy Sunday sermons. Needless to say, an enthusiastic and urgent invitation to Sunday to come to Philadelphia to conduct a campaign, followed this demonstration on the part of the daily newspaper.

That there is a strategic value in rallying all the churches about one man was demonstrated by the Methodists of Philadelphia on this occasion. Bishop Joseph F. Berry had heartily indorsed the project, and had urged all of the Methodist pastors who could possibly do so to accept the North American's invitation. The Methodist delegation was an enthusiastic unit. When they returned to Philadelphia a special issue of the local Methodist paper was issued, and in this thirty-two articles appeared, each written by an aroused pastor who had been a member of the delegation. Incidentally, all of the city papers, as well as the religious press of a very wide region, reported this extraordinary pilgrimage of more than two hundred pastors to a distant city to hear an evangelist preach the gospel. A reflex of this was the return visit, some months later, of a thousand "trail-hitters" to speak in Philadelphia pulpits.

Before leaving the subject of the criticism of Sunday, pro and con, it should be insisted that no public man or institution should be free from the corrective power of public opinion, openly expressed. This is one of the wholesome agencies of democracy. Mr. Sunday himself is not slow to express his candid opinion of the Church, the ministry, and of society at large. It would be a sad day for him should all critical judgment upon his work give way to unreasoning adulation.

The best rule to follow in observing the evangelist's ministry is, "Never judge unfinished work." Only a completed campaign should pass in review before the critics; only the whole substance of the man's message; only the entire effect of his work upon the public. Partial judgments are sure to be incorrect judgments.

Billy Sunday succeeds in making clear to all his hearers—indeed he impresses them so deeply that the whole city talks of little else for weeks—that God has dealings with every man; and that God cares enough about man to provide for him a way of escape from the terrible reality of sin, that way being Jesus Christ.

When a preacher succeeds in lodging that conviction in the minds of the multitudes, he is heaven's messenger. Whether he speak in Choctaw, Yiddish, Bostonese or in the slang of Chicago, is too trivial a matter to discuss. We do not inspect the wardrobe or the vocabulary of the hero who rides before the flood, urging the people to safety in the hills.