"Thank you, Jesus. I came to you twenty-seven years ago for salvation and I got salvation. Thank the Lord I can look in the face of every man and woman of God everywhere and say that for all those years I have lived in salvation. Not that I take any credit to myself for that; it was nothing inherent in me; it was the power of God that saved me and kept me.
"O Lord, sweep over this town and save the business men of this community, the young men and women. O God, save us all from the cesspools of hell and corruption. Help me, Lord, as I hurl consternation into the ranks of that miserable, God-forsaken crew who are feeding, fattening and gormandizing on the people! Get everybody interested in honesty and decency and sobriety and make them fight to the last ditch for God. There are too many cowards, four-flushers in the Church."
"O Jesus, we thank God that you came into this old world to save sinners. Keep us, Lord. Hear us, O God, ere we stumble on in darkness. Lead the hundreds here to thy throne. Help the professing Christians who have not done as they should in the past, to come down this trail and take a more determined stand for thee. Help the official boards, the trustees of our churches, to show the way to hundreds by themselves confessing sin. Help them to say, 'O Lord, I haven't been square with thee. It is possible for me to improve my business and I can certainly improve my service to thee. I know and I believe in God and I believe in hell and heaven.' Lead them down the trail, Lord."
"O Lord, there are a lot of people who step up to the collection plate at church and fan. And Lord, there are always people sitting in the grandstand and calling the batter a mutt. He can't hit a thing or he can't get it over the base, or he's an ice wagon on the bases, they say. O Lord, give us some coachers out at this Tabernacle so that people can be brought home to you. Some of them are dying on second and third base, Lord, and we don't want that. Lord, have the people play the game of life right up to the limit so that home runs may be scored. There are some people, Lord, who say, 'Yes, I have heard Billy at the Tabernacle and oh, it is so disgusting: really it's awful the way he talks.' Lord, if there weren't some grouches and the like in the city I'd be lost. We had a grand meeting last night, Lord, when the crowd come down from Dicksonville (or what was that place, Rody?), Dickson City, Lord, that's right. It was a great crowd. There's an undercurrent of religion sweeping through here, Lord, and we are getting along fine.
"There are some dandy folks in Scranton, lots of good men and women that are with us in this campaign, and Lord, we want you to help make this a wonderful campaign. It has been wonderful so far. Lord, it's great to see them pouring in here night after night. God, you have the people of the homes tell their maids to go to the meeting at the Y. W. C. A. Thursday afternoon, and God, let us have a crowd of the children here Saturday. Rody is going to talk to them, Lord. He can't preach and I can't sing, but the children will have a big time with him, Lord. Lord, I won't try to stop people from roasting and scoring me. I would not know what to do if I didn't get some cracks from people now and then."
"Well, Jesus, I don't know how to talk as I would like to talk. I am at a loss as to just what to say tonight. Father, if you hadn't provided salvation, we'd all be pretty badly off. Knowing the kind of life I live and the kind of lives other people live, I know you are very patient and kind, but if you can do for men and women what you did for me, I wish it would happen. I wouldn't dare stand up and say that I didn't believe in you. I'd be afraid you'd knock me in the head. I'd be afraid you'd paralyze me or take away my mind. I'm afraid you'd do that. There are hundreds here tonight who don't know you as their Saviour. The Bible class believes you are Jesus of Nazareth, but they don't know you as their personal Saviour. And these other delegations, Lord, help them all to come down. Well, well, well, it's wonderful—'I find no fault in Him.' Amen."
"Oh, devil, why do you hit us when we are down? Old boy, I know that you have no time for me and I guess you have about learned that I have no time for you. I will never apologize to you for anything I have done against you. If I have ever said anything that does not hurt you, tell me about it and I will take it out of my sermon."
"We thank thee, Jesus, for that manifestation of thy power in one of the big factories of the city. Lord, we are told that of eighty men who used to go to a saloon for their lunch seventy-nine go there no more. All these men heard the 'booze' sermon. Lord, they are working on the one man who is standing out and they'll get him, too. The saloon-keeper is standing with arms akimbo behind the bar, but his old customers give the place the go-by. Thank you, Jesus."
"Well, Jesus, I've been back in Capernaum tonight. I've been with you when you cast the devil out of that man. They all said, 'We know you're helping us, but you're hurting the hog business.' I've been with you when you got in the boat. And Jesus arose and said to the sea: 'Peace, be still.'
"Ah, look at her. Bless her heart. There comes that poor, crying woman.
"Say, Jesus, here are men who have been drunkards. They have been in our prayers. They have been in our sermons. If I could just touch Him. He's here."
"Well, thank you, Lord. It's all true. I expect this sermon has caused many men and women to look into their hearts. Perhaps they are powerless, helpless for the Church. O God, what it will mean to people in the cause of Christ all over this city! We appreciate their kind words, but we wish they would do more.
"O God, may some deacons, elders, vestrymen, come out for God this afternoon. May they come down these aisles and publicly acknowledge themselves for God. Help them, then, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
"Now, Lord, I'm not here to have a good time. I am here to show what you are doing for these people and to tell them that you are willing to save them and to bear their burdens if they will give their hearts to you."
"Well, Jesus, I'm not up in heaven yet. I don't want to go, not yet. I know it's an awful pretty place, Lord. I know you'll look after me when I get there. But, Jesus, I'd like to stay here a long time yet. I don't want to leave Nell and the children. I like the little bungalow we have out at the lake. I know you'll have a prettier one up there. If you'll let me, Jesus, I'd like to stay here, and I'll work harder for you if I can. I know I'll go there, Jesus, and I know there's lots of men and women here in this Tabernacle tonight who won't go.
"Solomon found it was all vanity and vexation of spirit. They're living that way today, Jesus. I say that to you here tonight, banker; to you, Commercial Club; to you, men from the stockyards. If you want to live right, choose Jesus as your Saviour, for man's highest happiness is his obedience to Jesus Christ. And now, while we're all still, who'll come down and say 'I'm looking above the world?' Solomon said it was all vanity. Why certainly, you poor fool. He knew. But I'm glad you saw the light, Solomon, and spread out your wings."
"O Lord, bend over the battlements of glory and hear the cry of old Pittsburgh. O Lord, do you hear us? Lord, save tens of thousands of souls in this old city. Lord, everybody is helping. Lord, they are keeping their churches closed so tight that a burglar couldn't get in with a jimmy. Lord, the angels will shout to glory and the old devil will say, 'What did they shut up the churches of Pittsburgh for, when they have so many good preachers, and build a Tabernacle and bring a man on here to take the people away from me? O Lord, we'll win this whisky-soaked, vice-ridden old city of Pittsburgh and lay it at your feet and purify it until it is like paraffine."
Sunday's sermon on prayer is entitled,
"TEACH US TO PRAY"
We live and develop physically by exercise. We are saved by faith, but we must work out our salvation by doing the things God wills. The more we do for God, the more God will do through us. Faith will increase by experience.
If you are a stranger to prayer you are a stranger to the greatest source of power known to human beings. If we cared for our physical life in the same lackadaisical way that we care for our spiritual, we would be as weak physically as we are spiritually. You go week in and week out without prayer. I want to be a giant for God. You don't even sing; you let the choir do it. You go to prayer-meeting and offer no testimony.