Former professional baseball player-turned urban evangelist. Follow this daily blog that chronicles the life and ministry of revivalist preacher William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (1862-1935)
Billy used the newly constructed Kosair Auditorium for his Louisville revival meetings (April 22 – June 2).
” . . . during the six weeks of the revival to be held at the Kosair Auditorium, on Broadway between Floyd and Brook streets.” Source – newspaper
Now location of the 1922-23 Kosair Auditorium, adjacent to the Kosair Temple (now the Norton Research Institute).
The current Norton Research Institute was the original Kosair Temple, NOT the Auditorium. 224 E. Broadway (between Brook and Jackson Streets)
The Auditorium (Broadway between Floyd and Brook) pre-dated the Temple and likely served as a temporary venue while the Shrine built its new home a few blocks east (between Brook and Jackson).
I was living in Winona Lake in 1992 – attending Grace Theological Seminary – when the Billy Sunday Tabernacle was demolished. Knowing this was the last time anyone would see the sole remaining Sunday tabernacle in America, I took these pictures.
WITH BILLY SUNDAY. MISS GRACE SAXE, BIBLE INSTRUCTOR, HAS HAD INTERESTING CAREER
Miss Grace Saxe, who is with the Billy Sunday party, is a woman of wonderful ability and accomplishments. She is the bible instructor and organizes and teaches bible classes during the campaign.
Miss Grace Saxe
Miss Saxe was in Egypt doing missionary work when Colonel Roosevelt was there and was sent up the Nile to meet him to take notes of his speeches which he made at the different mission stations. She was with him two weeks.
Miss Saxe, whose full name is Nettie Grace Saxe, was born and reared at Fort Scott, Kansas. When she was nine years of age her mother died. Her uncle, Colonel Chaddock, took her upon her father again marrying and from then on, as Miss Saxe says, she had no home.
She completed her education at the Kansas Normal College, at Fort Scott. Her brother, who conducted a business college, taught her stenography when she was nine years old, and when she left the normal college she became a court reporter in St. Louis. While reporting some meetings which Dr. A. B. Simpson was conducting at that time she became converted.
Desiring to know more about the bible, she took a course of bible study at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for two years, after which she joined the forces of Charles Alexander and Dr. Torrey. She was with the party during the evangelistic campaign through England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, where she taught the bible.
At Birmingham, England, she organized what is to-day the largest bible study class in the world, which numbers 4,500 men and women. For two years she conducted this class herself. Returning to this country she rested for a short time and then went to Egypt to do missionary work. While there the mission board cabled for her to go up the Nine to meet Colonel Roosevelt.
She later taught the missionaries at Cairo and soon went to Palestine, where she spent several months. From there she went to Damascus, going through Italy and France on her return to America. She joined the Sunday party two years ago.
Miss Grace Saxe Compares Life of Old Israelites With That of Christian Today.
There is a remarkable correspondence between the experiences of the chosen people of Israel and of the saved soul,” said Miss Grace Saxe yesterday afternoon before her Bible class in the tabernacle. Miss Saxe has begun a study of the books of the Bible, their arrangements and their significance and her class which occupies the platform at the close of the afternoon meeting in the tabernacle fills every seat. Miss Saxe said:
The symbolism of the Pentateuch is remarkable. No less remarkable is the order of these first five books. Genesis is the book of beginnings and yet before it closes it shows the beginning of the entrance of sin. Exodus is the book of redemption symbolized by the release from bondage in Egypt. Leviticus is the book of worship showing the experience of redemption. Numbers, the book of journeying the experiences of the redeemed from day to day, while Deuteronomy is the book of instruction to the redeemed, the plan of regeneration.
Note the steps from Egypt, through the Wilderness to Canaan. Egypt typifies the world, Satan’s domain; the Wilderness, the place of the unsurrendered to God, while Canaan symbolizes the spirit-filled, spirit-controlled Christian life.
We are asked where we get our authority for this comparison of the life of the Israelites and the life of the Christian. You will find it in I Cor. 10:4.
As the Israelites left Egypt and wandered for 40 years in the Wilderness there is one thing I want you to note, that when they looked back toward Egypt they longed for the fish, the melons, cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic. Each stage of longing was lower, stronger and ranker. The picture is exact in every particular.
Every great revival has two objects. The first is to get people to obey God, to come out for Him. That is the first great crisis. The second object is to get the wilderness Christians to take a second step into the promised land, the land of Canaan, instead of wandering and drifting about. This is the second great crisis.
Miss Saxe will continue her study of the books of the Bible each afternoon at the close of the afternoon meeting. On Saturday afternoon of next week she will outline a plan for neighborhood Bible classes to continue after the close of the present Sunday meetings.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Fri, Jan 30, 1914 ·Page 7
The first important thing was to get the whole Christian population of the city to praying for the success of the campaign. Prayer is the one great secret of Billy Sunday’s success, he says himself. He prays without ceasing. The members of his party pray always. Every difficulty that arises is a subject of prayer. If some preacher declines to take part in the revival they pray for him and keep on praying. They pray for little things and big things. Billy catches cold; the whole party prays for him. His voice gets husky; they all begin praying. There is indecision as to which city the next campaign would better be held in; Billy and his party begin praying to be led aright. It is prayer, prayer, prayer, constantly.
And so, great maps of New York were hung upon the wall at headquarters. Each church and school was marked with a tack, a redheaded tack denoting a Methodist church, a blue tack a Baptist church, and so on. Then all of Greater New York was divided into districts and the work of prayer began.
An executive committee was named with twenty-seven men on it, each one a hustler. John D. Rockefeller jr. and William Jay Schieffelin, two of the richest men in New York, are on the committee, and both are actively working.
Billy Sunday told about 9,000 persons who attended his afternoon meeting in the Tabernacle how the “movie” people had offered him a cold $1,000,000 to pose for a film serial. And he told them how he had replied to their offer in this fashion:
“You can’t commercialize my mug for $10,000,000; you’re not going to get any help from me to make a circus of God’s religion. Not on your tintype.”
The “movie” reference was injected into Billy’s remarks through the presence of several “movie” cameramen at the Tabernacle just before he came into the building. They tried hard to “slip one over” on Billy and catch him as he got out of his limousine and started for the Tabernacle door. “Ma” Sunday, who was with Billy, protected the evangelist from the pointed cameras and pushed him inside the big building.
“Big Hand” for Billy.
The crowd cheered Billy to the echo. On the platform was Mrs. Marshall Field, widow of the noted Chicago merchant, with a party of friends from the Windy City. They, too, cheered Billy’s references to the “movie men.”
Billy’s afternoon sermon was chuck full of patriotic references and of slambang punches at “old Kaiser Bill.” And just before he finished it, he asked all those in the big audience who would pledge themselves to give undivided support to the national government in “its hour of need” to stand up. And the entire audience arose. Then he asked for a “Chautauqua salute,” and thousands of handkerchiefs waved over the great auditorium.
Billy took a hard slam at the “knocker,” who, he said, “is always going up and down the land, shouting that we are not prepared and that we should have done so and so long ago.”
“You folks ought to remember,” shouted Billy, “that we have a whale of a job on our hands. But we’ve got a whale of a country and we’re going to put it over. And we don’t propose to unsheath the sword until we have that gang on its knees pleading with Uncle Sam to call off the war.”
In his sermon Billy spoke of the drummer boy in Napoleon’s army who refused to beat a “retreat” when ordered by his commander. He looked squarely into the eyes of about 100 soldiers who were in the Tabernacle and declared loudly: “We don’t know how to beat a retreat either, do we boys? You bet your life we don’t! But we can beat a charge that can dig a grave so deep for that bunch of Kaiser Bill’s hot dogs that they won’t even hear the Angel Gabriel’s horn on the last day.”
The soldiers cheered Billy and the big crowd joined in. Billy emphasized that “we’ve got to scrap as well as play” and he declared that with such a fine army and such a navy as Uncle Sam boasts, there “isn’t a power anywhere in the world that can stand up against it, much less that bunch of cut-throats who would drag their Hohenzollern teachings into the land of the free.”
Billy took a hard rap at the Industrial Workers of the World and declared that if he had anything to do with “that bunch,” they all “would have faced the firing squad long ago.” His sermon was a likening of the Christian workers of the world to the grenadiers of old and the point he emphasized was that Christians everywhere are “fighters for the cause of Christ” in just as much the same sense as are the soldiers fighting now the cause of the allies.
In 1918, Billy Sunday stepped into one of America’s most divisive debates — women’s suffrage. What drove him? What can we learn from that boldness?
A century later, his words still challenge us to consider what moral courage looks like in public life today.
This original 1918 newspaper article captures Billy Sunday’s public support for women’s right to vote. At a time when the nation was debating suffrage, Sunday’s words reveal both his moral clarity and his ability to speak into civic life with conviction and wit.
Evangelist Says He Favored Proposition Long Before It Became a Fad. To Open Suffrage Session With Prayer.
With the vote on the suffrage amendment coming tomorrow, Rev. William A. Sunday is another prominent individual who is taking the opportunity to reiterate his faith in “votes for women.”
In a signed statement which “Billy” Sunday gave Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, of the National Woman’s Party, last night, the evangelist says:
“It is nothing new for me to favor woman suffrage. I have been advocating it for years, even before it became popular. We are living today in a new era. If she is good enough to be our mother and our wife, good enough to preside over our home, to care for us in times of sickness and to share our joys and our sorrows, why should she be denied the privilege of voting?
“Today, more nearly than ever before, she bears equally with men the world’s burdens. What would the nations of the earth do without her aid, either in times of peace or war? Women are sharing equally with men the burdens and the sacrifices of this war.
“They are in the munitions factories and in the fields of agriculture and in all other departments of war service. Without their co-operation the war could not be waged to a successful conclusion. As they share in the burdens they should also share in the responsibilities of government.
“I see no reason why the men and women of the nation should not walk side by side in the matters of law enactment as well as in the home and social life.”
Mr. Sunday will offer the prayer at the opening of the House tomorrow when the suffrage vote is take.
<End of newspaper article>
Sunday’s endorsement came just months before Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919. His statement offers a glimpse into how revivalists connected moral reform with public policy—a reminder that faith and social conscience have always been intertwined in the American story.
In an age when “Christian” can mean many things, it’s worth listening to voices from earlier times who held convictions with clarity. Billy Sunday’s definition of a Christian, from a pamphlet circulated among his “trail hitters,” challenges brevity without compromise. Let’s consider what he said — and why it still matters..
Here is Billy Sunday’s definition of a Christian, given in a pamphlet presented to each of the “trail hitters” at the Tabernacle:
“A Christian is any man, woman or child who comes to God as a lost sinner, accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal saviour; surrenders to Him as his Lord and Master; confesses Him as such before the world and strives to please Him in everything day by day.”
The pamphlet then gives these rules on “How to Make a Success of the Christian life:
“Study the Bible; pray much; win someone for Christ; shun evil companions; join some church; give to the support of the Lord’s work and don’t get discouraged.”
Extracted from a Chicago 1918 newspaper
Billy Sunday believed the term “Christian” should not be light nor vague. His concise, structured definition gives both challenge and invitation: a Christian is not just one who claims, but one who surrenders, confesses, strives. May we take his clarity as a prompt to examine not just what we call ourselves — but how deeply we follow.
In a culture where faith often stays behind closed doors, Billy Sunday’s early formation in the YMCA reminds us that calling is not just a private conviction — it’s forged in public discipline, community, and visible work. Let’s see how his “seminary without walls” shaped him — and what that might teach us today.
The YMCA as Bridge Between the Diamond and the Pulpit
Before the sawdust trail and the tabernacle crowds, Billy Sunday’s call to preach was forged in the YMCA.
From 1889 to 1894, the Young Men’s Christian Association was his classroom, pulpit, and proving ground—where athletic vigor met moral conviction.
Central YMCA Chicago (built in 1893)
From Ballplayer to Brotherhood
After his 1886 conversion through the Pacific Garden Mission, Sunday joined Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church and quickly connected with the YMCA. His first sermon—“Striking Out Satan” (Feb. 14, 1889)—sponsored by the YMCA, drew hundreds and led to 48 conversions. Newspapers from Chicago to Quebec reported on the ‘baseball evangelist,’ giving Sunday his first taste of national attention.
A Training Ground for Discipline and Leadership
Hired in 1890 as Assistant Secretary of the Chicago YMCA ($83/month), Sunday learned to run meetings, lead Bible studies, and recruit men to the faith. The YMCA’s ethos of “muscular Christianity”—combining physical strength, moral purity, and social reform—shaped his lifelong view that faith should be active, public, and manly. His preaching style—energetic, physical, direct—mirrored the YMCA gymnasium more than the traditional pulpit.
“He jumped after the devil as he once jumped after a fly ball.”
Platform and Network
Speaking regularly in YMCA halls from Cincinnati to Freeport, Sunday developed his reputation as a lay preacher for working men. These circles introduced him to Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, who later invited him to join his national evangelistic team in 1894. Even after resigning from the YMCA, Sunday continued to preach in its auditoriums—Chicago (1896), Cedar Rapids (1895), Dubuque (1899).
The Model That Endured
Summary Insight
The YMCA was Billy Sunday’s seminary without walls. It taught him how to lead, how to speak, and how to live out faith in public. Within its walls, the ex-ballplayer became an evangelist. Without it, the “Baseball Evangelist” might never have found his swing.
The YMCA wasn’t merely a stepping stone for Billy Sunday — it was formative, foundational, and catalytic. It taught him leadership, public engagement, spiritual discipline, and the courage to preach in everyday venues.
Legacy & Invitation: Calling is seldom revealed in isolation. It’s often forged through community, service, and visible responsibility. For us today, the question is: Where is your YMCA? Where might God be shaping your calling right now in your everyday context?
May we not despise the small openings, the local venues, the places of habit and service — for they may be the very grounds where our faith is tested, refined, and sent out into greater mission.
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) 