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

by William T. Ellis

I don't know just how the Holy Spirit will come, but Jesus said we should do even greater works than he did. What are you doing? You are not doing such works now.

The Last Dispensation

We find the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. When the prophets spoke they were moved by him. God seems to have spoken to man in three distinct dispensations. Once it was through the covenant with Abraham, then it was through Moses and under the Mosaic dispensation, and finally it is through his own son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world, proved that he is the Son of God, suffered, died and was buried, rose again, and sent his Holy Comforter. This is the last dispensation. There is no evidence that after the Holy Spirit once came, he ever left the world. He is here now, ready to help you to overcome your pride, and your diffidence that has kept you from doing personal work, and is willing and ready to lead you into a closer relationship with Jesus.

But you say, some are elected and some are not. On that point I agree with Henry Ward Beecher. He said: "The elect are those who will and the non-elect are those who won't."

But you go in for culture—"culchah." If you are too cultured to be a Christian, God pity you. You may call it culture. I have another name for it. Is there anything about Christianity that is necessarily uncultured? I think the best culture in the world is among the followers of Jesus Christ.

But you say: "Ignorance is a bar to some." No sir. Billy Bray, the Cornish miner, was an illiterate man. He was asked if he could read writing, and he answered: "No, I can't even read readin'." Yet Billy Bray did a wonderful work for God in Wales and England. Ignorance is no bar to religion, or to usefulness for Jesus.

Some time ago, over in England, a man died in the poor house. He had had a little property, just a few acres of land, and it hadn't been enough to support him. After he died the new owner dug a well on it, and at a depth of sixty-five feet he found a vein of copper so rich that it meant a little fortune. If the man who died had only known of that vein, he need not have lived in poverty. There are many who are just as ignorant of the great riches within their reach. Lots of people hold checks on the bank of heaven, and haven't faith enough to present them at the window to have them cashed.

"Little Things"

You may say, "I have failed in something, but it is a little thing." Oh, these little things! Bugs are little things, but they cost this country $800,000,000 in one year. Birds are little enemies of the bugs, and birds are little things, and if it weren't for the birds we would starve in two years. If there's anything that makes me mad it is to see a farmer grab a shotgun and kill a chicken hawk. That hawk is worth a lot more than some old hen you couldn't cook tender if you boiled it for two days. That chicken hawk has killed all the gophers, mice and snakes it could get its claws on and it has come to demand from the farmer the toll that is rightfully due to it, for what it has done to rid the land of pests.

Why is it that with all our universities and colleges we haven't produced a book like the Bible? It was written long ago by people who lived in a little country no bigger than some of our states. The reason was that God was behind the writers. The book was inspired.