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

by William T. Ellis

I said, "Yes, indeed, and if you want enough to make a mattress, all right, take it; and if you want enough of the tent to make a pair of breeches for each of the boys, why take your scissors and cut it right out, if it will help you to keep your mind on God."

That is why I like to have people come down to the front and publicly acknowledge God. I like to have a man have a definite experience in religion—something to remember.

A PLAIN TALK TO WOMEN

And I say to you, young girl, don't go with that godless, God-forsaken, sneering young man that walks the streets smoking cigarettes. He would not walk the streets with you if you smoked cigarettes. But you say you will marry him and reform him; he would not marry you to reform you. Don't go to that dance. Don't you know that it is the most damnable, low-down institution on the face of God's earth, that it causes more ruin than anything this side of hell? Don't you go with that young man; don't you go to that dance. That is why we have so many whip-poor-will widows around the country: they married some of these mutts to reform them, and instead of doing that the undertaker got them. I say, young girl, don't go to that dance; it has proven to be the moral graveyard that has caused more ruination than anything that was ever spewed out of the mouth of hell. Don't go with that young fellow for a joy ride at midnight.

Girls, when some young fellow comes up and asks you the greatest question that you will ever be asked or called upon to answer, next to the salvation of your own soul, what will you say? "Oh, this is so sudden!" That is all a bluff; you have been waiting for it all the time.

But, girls, never mind now, get down to facts. When he asks you the greatest question, the most important one that any girl is ever asked, next to the salvation of her soul, just say, "Sit down and let me ask you three questions. I want to ask you these three questions and if I am satisfied with your answer, it will determine my answer to your question. 'Did you believe me to be virtuous when you came here to ask me to be your wife?'" "Oh, yes, I believed you to be virtuous. That's the reason I came here. You are like violets dipped in dew." The second question: "Have you as a young man lived as you demand of me as a girl that I should have lived?" The third question: "If I, as a girl, had lived and done as you, as a young man, and you knew it, would you ask me to marry you?"

They will line up and nine times out of ten they will take the count. You can line them up, and I know what I am talking about, and I defy any man on God's earth successfully to contradict me. I have the goods. The average young man is more particular about the company he keeps than the average girl. I'll tell you. If he meets somebody on the street whom he doesn't want to meet he will duck into the first open doorway and avoid the publicity of meeting her, for fear she might smile or give an indication that she had seen him somewhere and sometime before that. Yet our so-called best girls keep company with young men whose character would make a black mark on a piece of anthracite. Their characters are foul and rotten and damnable.

I like to see a girl who has a good head, and can choose right because it is right, never minding the criticism. Choose the good and be careful of good company and good conduct, and keep company with a good young fellow. Don't go with the fellow whose reputation is bad. Everybody knows it is bad, and if you are seen with him you will lose your reputation as well, although your virtue is intact; and they might as well take you to the graveyard and bury you, when your reputation is gone. When a man like that asks you to go with him, say to him that if he will live the way you want him to you will go with him. If he would take a stand like that there wouldn't be so many wrecks. If our women and girls would take higher stands and say, "No, no, we will not keep company with you unless you live the way I want you to," there would be better men. A lot of you women hold yourselves too cheaply. You are scared to death for fear you will be what the world irreverently calls "an old maid."

Hospitality

You remember the prophet Elisha and his journey to the school of prophets up to Mount Carmel. There was a woman who noticed the actions and conduct of the man of God and she said to her husband, "Let us build a little room and place therein a bed, and bowl and pitcher, that he may make it his home."