Some one has said “To make ‘soul winners’ out of church members” is the business of Miss Francis Miller with the Sunday party. Her greatest opportunity comes each afternoon at the close of Mr. Sunday’s sermon. Christians of all ages and experience gather before her on the platform to be instructed how to use the Bible in meeting the excuses and answering the questions of sinners. She is an expert in teaching how to diagnose the sinner’s heart and apply the specific Scripture remedy chapter and verse. For years she was a passive church member when a sermon on “Personal Work” by Billy Sunday opened her eyes to a great responsibility. Mr. Alexander led her into Bible study and Grace Saxe made her eager to do Bible work. She carries ordination in the Congregational church and has had experience in pastoral work. Miss Miller’s work in other places is being duplicated in Cedar Rapids.
Miss Miller’s Bible work in connection with the revivals conducted by Mr. Sunday has ripened in the school of experience. At first she came on the ground at the close of the revival and organized union Bible study classes. Experiments of this kind at Knoxville, Iowa, Kewanee and Kankakee, Ill., revealed that the work done in this way could not be made of permanent value without local leaders, which was not always available. The experiment was tried out beginning in advance of the revival. Miss Miller went to Muscatine and Galesburg two weeks before Mr. Sunday to prepare the personal workers for his coming. Later Miss Miller worked during the three last weeks of the meetings and then remained two weeks after the close to organize the local Bible class work upon a permanent basis. This was the plan pursued at Springfield where forty-five district or neighborhood Bible classes were formed with a central training class for the leaders. These classes were interrupted by the summer vacation period but the classes took up their work this fall with about one thousand members working in the various districts. A class was formed among the so-called “society girls,” the girls of leisure, in well to-do homes. They call it “The Worth While Bible Class,” and they have been aggressive in Y.W.C.A. and associated charity work. One Bible class in Springfield supplanted a card club. The girls gave up their cards for Bibles. There was no breaking up of existing social ties but a change of bonds. No new social lines were drawn but a new directive of interest was taken. Many girls who have been stimulated to take up personal work have gone to Moody Institute for training. Word comes from Boulder, Col. that sixty high school girls hold regular Bible study meetings in the high school building. Miss Miller is one of the busiest workers of the Sunday party. She meets with the home girls of leisure at 10 a.m. The fifty gathered at the home of Mrs. Frank Watson Friday may be regarded as typical; at 11:15 three days of the week she meets the Coe college girls; at 12:15 she talks about 150 high school girls at St. Paul’s M.E. church; at 3:00 holds a personal workers’ class for everybody and at 6:30 for clerks, teachers and others. Careful plans are being made to insure systematic Bible study after the close of the big revival.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Thu, Nov 18, 1909 ·Page 5
Miss Frances Miller
TRUE today as it ever has been, the title, “church member,” or “Christian,” are not synonymous with “soul winning.” Miss Miller, with Bible in hand, finger on chapter and verse, persuades you—yes, convinces you they should be—that they are. To make “soul winners” out of church members is her business with Mr. Sunday’s party, and she does it. Skilled herself through years of study and practice, she stands before her class of hundreds, each afternoon at the close of Mr. Sunday’s sermon and schools them to meet the excuses and questions of the sinner, not as the quack with the patent cure all, but as the trained physician who diagnoses, then prescribes. With clear, logical reasonings, deduced from Scripture, carried by a clear, far-reaching voice, she instructs how to diagnose the sinner’s heart and apply the specific Scripture remedy with chapter and verse.
Miss Miller herself was not always a soul-winning church member. For five years she was not. A church member, simply, she thinks, because she was asked to be. Reared in a Christian home, honest at heart, she was ready. When Billy Sunday, about sixteen years ago, broke the truth to her in a sermon on “Personal Work,” she surrendered to it. Mr. Alexander led her into Bible study and Grace Saxe made her want to do Bible work.
She was born in Minnesota, grew up in North Dakota, lived in Illinois, was educated in the high school at Waterloo, Iowa, and college at Fargo, N. D., and afterwards taking a two years’ course and finals in the Bible Institute in Chicago.
She spent a summer with Mr. Williams and Mr. Alexander, organizing Bible classes, etc., one of which at Vinion, Ia., still continues, and that is over ten years ago. Her first year out of college she had charge of two Congregational churches near Valley City, N. D., and later was ordained a member of the Congregational church.
Besides “personal work” classes she teaches systematic Bible study classes, special prayer meetings in Y.M.C.A., laundries, shops, high schools, etc., at times and places convenient for the many who cannot attend the regular services. Morning and afternoon she does it, conducting four or more meetings a day and plunges into the vast tabernacle in the evening hunting for someone to lead to her Christ.
Her Bible is pre-eminently a part of a great revival campaign in supplementing the preaching by preparing intelligent workers and grounding converts in the Scriptures. Thus two of the weakest spots, two chief causes of failure in modern revival work, are cared for.
The 1909 Springfield souvenir campaign booklet
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) 