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)
The church membership of Bellingham has been practically doubled as the result of the Rev. W. A. Sunday evangelistic campaign.
The meeting was fully attended, and perhaps the most remarkable feature of the session, was the enthusiasm with which the work of Rev.
W. A. Sunday in this city was referred to. Practically all of the pastors stated that their church membership had doubled, and in some cases almost trebled, while there is yet no sign of any cessation of the additions.
It is claimed now that the actual campaign itself has been but the start of a religious movement which is crystalizing in the different churches in a manner far beyond the highest expectation of the association.”
“First, he is natural, never tries to be another, is never affected. The champion of the diamond is in action for God. Second, he uses the word of God, knows it, believes it, and preaches it with consummate skill and commanding power. Third, he knows the heart of man, and helps every hearer to find and see one’s self. In papers, parts of his sermons may appear to be jokes, but they are no joke to the one whose soul is uncovered by them. A friend said Saturday, ‘I can’t laugh at the jokes, they are too awfully true.’ Another said, ‘Billy’s ‘darns’ aren’t nearly so large when you hear them as they appear to be in the press.” Mr. Sunday shows us the dead body of sin to which we are chained until we loath it and groan to be delivered from it.
Fourth, best and most important of all, he believes in and depends upon the Holy Spirit; who is here working in, working for, and working with Mr. Sunday, and every consecrated follower of God. Just so sure as these things be true, we shall see a great work in Scranton. Every lover of God and man ought to pray most earnestly that this may be fact as well as prophecy. We ought not to judge until we see and hear. Come to the tabernacle and you will wish that all of your family and friends were with you. Mr. Sunday is more than a man working with human skill. He is a man of God being used to help men. Years hence we shall regret it if we fail to hear Billy Sunday now.”
“Billy Sunday is an American Product – Where methods differ
More Lasting Good.
The old school of revivalists were of the itinerant class, moving rapidly through the country, their evangelism seemed sudden in its effect and I am afraid somewhat evanescent in its general results. It is just here that Mr. Sunday’s campaign gives promise of more lasting good. His coming has been carefully prepared for, his meeting place is undenominational in character. It is a movement conducted with great business acumen and sound common sense. He trains the ministers and church workers in such a way as to make them capable of caring for the harvest when it comes. Like a good farmer, he prunes the fruit trees with vigor cuts out all the dead wood and sprays them well to get rid of moths, beetles and canker worms, so that when the new fruit shall ripen it will be sound and beneficial. And the leaves of the trees shall be for the healing of the nations. Mr. Sunday is a man endowed with a great faith, He prays for the blessing, he prepares for the blessing, he is sure of getting it and it is therefore no surprise that he is so eminently successful.”
It is a campaign in the name of God against the world, the flesh and the devil, and against a revival you will find every brewer …. every whiskey seller in this valley; every blackleg gambler in this valley; every sham madame of the red-light district; every man and woman that feeds and fattens and gormandizes upon the virtue of men and women, so if you want to line up with a bunch like that, God pity you; that is the best compliment on God’s earth.
Men say the day of the revival is over. Fellows harp on that in the Methodist conference, in the Presbyterian meetings, in the Baptist associations, in the Congregational associations—the day of the revival is over. No, it is not. No, only with the fellow who vomits out the sentiment; but it is not over with God. The day of the revival is over. God Almighty leaned over the battlements of heaven and looked down into the coal mines of Wales and said, “Oh. Roberts!” and out of the depths of the coal mine came that grimy, soiled man, with dirty face, with a little lamp in his cap, and he said, “What is it, God?” And God said, “I want you to go and shake up Wales,” and he gave Wales the greatest revival that ever swept over that land since the days of Pentecost. There was not a college professor or preacher in Wales that God would trust with the job.
The Tribune-Republican. Wed, Mar 04, 1914 ·Page 10
You’ve got to work in harmony with God, or you can’t eat a potato. Try to plant your crop in the winter time.
A revival is the return of the church from her backsliding. Judgment must begin in the House of God.
There is as much sense in talking of a worldly Christian as there is in talking about a heavenly devil.
What would you say of the members of a fire company who kept playing cards and gossiping instead of answering the alarm.
We have so many denominations now that it gives a man brain fever to keep track of them. Somebody gets a new idea of truth, founds a new sect, and takes refuge under the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. There is as much need of more denominations as there is for a cat with more tails.
The average preacher stakes his claim on Jupiter and talks on—God knows what, I don’t.
The slaves would not be free men today if men had not gone on the firing line for $13 a month.
An Iowa preacher asked me: “Why don’t you preach the way I do?” “If I did,” I told him, “I wouldn’t be worth any more than you are.”
Some preachers would rather have people go to hell than preach anything except their sixteenth century religion. My mother used to wear hoops, but she doesn’t now, because there’s a different style.
Too many people windjam with their lips, but they don’t deliver the goods.
No wonder children of today grow up like asses’ colts!
You allow your daughters to go around with fellows whose character
would make a black mark on a piece of tar paper.
If you are not living to stir the devil, then you are a cipher and a
nonentity.
The church hasn’t smelled gunpowder for 150 years. It would do her
good. When she has grown rich, she has become independent of God
Almighty.
Some people think the more they look like a hedgehog the more pious
they are. They’d get to heaven a great deal quicker if they went to the
barber and dentist more often.
If you can’t own an automobile, take a trolley ride for a nickel. Ain’t it
fierce?
If some of you devils were to go a whole day without cussing your wife,
she’d think you were sick and send for the doctor, although she’d rather
send for the undertaker.
If there is any one person in this world that I despise with every atom
of my being, it is the weasel-eyed, lantern-jawed, knock-kneed, stiff-necked,
cadaverous, crooked-nosed, old neighborhood gossip, who can see more
through a keyhole seven blocks away than a decent woman could through
an open door right at her elbow.
The Tribune-Republican. Wed, Mar 04, 1914 ·Page 10
Despite one of the worst storms in recent memory for Scrantonites (March 1, 1914), 4,000 people showed up at the tabernacle, Unfortunately, about 1,500 could not get home. Over 100 trains were delayed or stopped running.
On the evening of March 1, 1914, a fierce winter storm swept into Scranton, Pennsylvania, just as evangelist Billy Sunday opened his long-anticipated revival campaign. Snow began falling heavily and, by night’s end, roughly 14 inches blanketed the city. Winds howled at nearly 45 miles perhour, rattling the enormous wooden tabernacle built for the meetings and at times drowning out Sunday’s booming voice.
Outside, the storm piled drifts as high as ten feet, choking off roads and halting the streetcars that normally ferried worshipers home. Inside the tabernacle, about 2,500 attendees quickly realized they were stranded. With travel impossible, they settled in for the night, huddling around pot-bellied stoves, brewing coffee, sharing whatever food they had carried, and making the best of their unexpected vigil.
Times-Republican, Tue, Mar 03, 1914 ·Page 1
By the next morning, Scranton lay silent under a white barricade. Billy Sunday canceled Monday’s services so people could rest and dig out. Local volunteers soon arrived with wagons and supplies, helping the weary congregation back to their homes.
The episode became known as the “Billy Sunday Snowstorm,” a dramatic blend of nature’s power and religious fervor that locals remembered for years as the night a revival meeting turned into an impromptu winter encampment.
The Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) · Mon, Mar 2, 1914 · Page 1.
In October 1906 Billy preached to a crowd of roughly 800 people in Salida, Colorado, at First Presbyterian Church. During his message he exhorted the crowd…..
Read good books and keep good company. Every gambler and drunkard became so by imitating the gang he went with. Good books and good companions are to character what water is to the fruit trees, the grasses and the vegetables in this beautiful valley.
There are a few hundred books in the present Winona Lake home that Billy lived in for the last 30 years of his ministry. On the shelf, one can find A History of the American People, by Wodrow Wilson in the first edition (1902).
While Sunday’s authority came from Scripture, A History of the American People offered a grand, moral narrative of the United States that fit seamlessly with his revivalistic call: a chosen nation needing repentance and reform to fulfill its destiny. Wilson’s combination of national mission, moral urgency, and literary flair reinforced Sunday’s belief that evangelism and patriotism were inseparable in early-20th-century America.
Morgan Library at Grace College (Winona Lake) has several cards or notes in which Sunday and Wilson communicated together. They seemed to have liked each other.
Before another issue of the Times-Leader reaches its readers, Rev. Billy Sunday and his co-workers will have left. This community has been stirred up as never before. We desire at this time to reproduce an editorial of the Ohio State Journal published at Columbus, when Mr. Sunday conducted a campaign just previous to his visit here:
“As a result of his mission in Columbus, we should say there is a stronger moral sense in this community than there ever was before; and now the pressing question is, how to preserve it, how to make it vital in civic, religious and business life. He has made of religion a thoroughly practical matter, and has made the people feel it to be that way; and now it becomes the duty of every one who loves his neighbor and his city to put into practice in his own life the high lessons of duty, and honor, and faith, which Rev. Sunday has been preaching to us for the past seven weeks.”
That’s the correct summing up of the entire situation. Sunday has recruited the soldiers. The responsibilities and duties rest with those who remain here.
Source: Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Sat, Apr 12, 1913 ·Page 6
The Columbus, Ohio Billy Sunday Tabernacle. Author’s Collection.
The following information* was addressed to the Wilkes-Barre Editor in 1913, probably just before the February revival. It was likely drafted by Billy himself or someone else close to him from his campaign team. The revival at Wilkes-Barre took place February 22 (23), thru April 13th, 1913.
Image made by J. Inbody, Elkhart, Indiana. Author’s collection. From a 1915 postmarked postcard.
“He [Billy] has skimmed the literature of the English race for information and illustrations, and has a slang vocabulary that is simply astounding. He uses his knowledge with such telling effect that those who come to scoff remain to pray. His earnestness, his transparent honesty, carries his hearers with him, and his slang is all forgotten in his clarion call for repentance; his denunciation of all that is bad, vile and wicked, and in his praise of God, home and country.
“The old school of evangelists were of the itinerant class, moving rapidly through the country, their evangelism seemed sudden in its effects, and I am afraid somewhat evanescent in its results. It is just here that Sunday’s campaign gives promise of more lasting good. His coming has been carefully prepared for, and his meeting place is undenominational and unconventional in character. His is a movement conducted with great business acumen and sound common sense. He trains the ministers and church workers in such a way as to make them capable of caring for the harvest when it comes. Like a good farmer, he prunes the fruit trees with vigor, cuts out all the dead wood and sprays well to get rid of moths, beetles, and such like, so that when the new fruit shall ripen it will be sound and good. Mr. Sunday is a man with a great faith. He prays for the blessing, he prepares for the blessing, and he is sure of getting it. It is therefore no surprise to him when it comes.”
*Original artifact is in the Billy Sunday Archives at the Morgan Library, Grace College.
Billy Sunday, and wife Helen, lead a procession of around 20,000 people in a Sunday School parade at Wilkes-Barre. Colorized by the author.
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) 