FREELY ADMITS HE TAKES SUGGESTIONS
BILLY SUNDAY EXPLAINS THAT OLD CHARGE OF STEALING.
OFTEN FAILS TO CREDIT
Citation: The South Bend Tribune. Wed, May 21, 1913 ·Page 11
Sometimes He Doesn’t Know Where Stuff Came From, Often He Forgets It, Baseball Evangelist Declares.
Ask Billy Sunday if he steals some of the material he uses in his sermons and perhaps he will frankly admit it.
That is, he will confess that he picks up hints, paragraphs, poems and anything else which will assist him in his work, only giving the creator of the things the credit when he happens to know their names, or when he thinks of it.
“The accusation in regard to my stealing the stuff for my sermons makes me tired,” said the evangelist when approached regarding the matter.
“There isn’t a public speaker today but what does the same thing. Every day I get poems and paragraphs and other knick-knacks through the mail from people I do not know, who suggest that I may have some use for them. I clip and save thousands of such things myself in the course of a year.
Doesn’t Know Author.
“Well, when I get ready to work them into my sermons, nine chances out of 10 I won’t know the name of the author. But I use them just the same, and give those who originated them credit when I can and when I remember it. But if I had to stop and give credit for every bit of outside material I work into the sermons, I wouldn’t have much time to say anything else.
“There are a dozen or 15 evangelists who are using my stuff every day they preach. Do I get any credit for it? Well, I guess not. They are free to use it if it will do any good without crediting it to me, so why should I go to the trouble of mentioning all these folks in my sermons.”
About Mothers’ Poem.
The evangelist told of an incident a few days ago in connection with his special Mothers’ Day address. He said he recited a poem during the sermon, which had been sent him by some anonymous letter writer. The poem was an excellent one and suited his purpose exactly. He quoted it word for word in his mothers’ sermon without giving any credit for it and a day or two later, discovered the name of the author while reading a magazine.
He has now noted down the name of the author and will give him credit for the work when he delivers the sermon again. The evangelist says if he is guilty of stealing literary stuff that every public speaker in the country could easily be convicted of the same offense.
Reads Everything.
The evangelist reads anything and everything worth reading, which is brought to his attention and by so doing he collects thousands of suggestions and hints for sermons and additions to sermons. He said he believed his clippings for his sermons in the course of a year, would fill an ordinary two horse wagon.
Sunday has a marvelous memory, which is also of great assistance in his work. In the preparation of a sermon, he writes only fragments of it out, depending on his faculty for remembering to carry him through it. A few notes, all of which have been typewritten, are all he has to show for the majority of his sermons, many of which have become famous and are generally regarded as masterpieces.
The sermon he will deliver to-night at the tabernacle, “The Second Coming of Christ,” has been heard by thousands, as one of the evangelist’s very best, is not in the mind of Sunday in full and probably never will be, unless he takes the trouble to clip it from some newspaper, which is printing detailed accounts of his talks.
Only Few Sentences.
Instead, it consists of only a few terse half completed sentences, which are set down in type written form to assist him in remembering the balance. In the majority of instances, the wonderful word painting in the sermons are simply noted in two or three words and a brief sentence may stand for two or three stories he tells during the talk.
The South Bend Tribune. Wed, May 21, 1913 ·Page 11
Evangelist Billy Sunday (1862-1935) 