Part 1

Burning Truths from Billy’s Bat

A Graphic Description of the Remarkable Conversion of

Rev. “Billy” Sunday (The World’s Famous Evangelist)

Embodying Anecdotes, Terse Sayings, etc., Compiled from Various Sources

1914 Diamond Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa.

Copyright, 1914, By JOSEPH PALLEN

CONTENTS

PAGE

Mr. Sunday’s Early Life 9

Conversion of “Billy” Sunday 9

Beacon Lights on Billy’s Trail 16

Hard to Keep Good Man Down 17

Honor Your Wife 18

Two Pictures of American Homes 18

Kind Words to Children 19

Tribute to Wife 20

Scores Smart Set 20

Father Gives Up, but Mother Doesn’t 22

Bright Word Picture to Mothers 22

Bravest Battle Ever Fought 22

One Act, One Word Will Blight a Child 23

Touching Tribute to Mother’s Love 24

Every Child a Trust to Mother 25

Says Men Are What Mothers Make Them 26

Songs of Mothers Sweetest 26

Gathering Up the Sunbeams 28

Start Children Right 28

Dancing Worst of Amusements 29

Ballroom Permits Liberties 30

On Motherhood 31

Too Many Girls Are Not in Love 32

High Spots in Sermon to Women 32

Picking a Husband 33

Thy Kingdom Come 34

Hot Shots on Cards and Gambling 36

Taboo on Theatre 39

Taboo on Wedding Knots 40

Every Palace Not a Home 41

Drawing the Line on Christians 42

The Preachers and the Laymen 44

Belshazzar’s Feast 45

A Remarkable Prayer 47

Hitting the Sawdust Trail, Origin 49

Trying to Serve God and the Devil 50

Inconsistent Church Members 50

Christians Can’t Live Double Lives 51

A High Tribute to General Lee 52

Expose of Graft Stories 53

Women Have Same Right as Men 54

Backsliders Like Groundhogs 57

True to Lodge, False to Christ 57

Sunday to Society Women 58

Consolation for Old Maids 66

Girls Who Flirt 66

Drinking and Matrimony 67

Says Society’s to Blame 68

Some Extra Shots 68

Billy’s Sketch of Leper Bathing 69

Snapshots from Sermons 71

A Trip Through the Bible 72

Defends Divine Origin of the Bible 74

Spiritualism on the Grill 75

Straight Shots from the Shoulder 75

Others Suffer from Your Sins 79

Lessons from Story of Pilate 80

Moral Truths 80

These Three Will Ruin City 81

Billy’s Key to Success 82

A Few Bunts to Live Students 84

Tribute to the Holidays 85

Living Up to One’s Profession 89

Stray Shots from the Gallery 89

Some Hot Ones, Fired at Random 90

A Characteristic Prayer 90

Sunday’s Bombshells 92

Sundayisms 96

Sunday’s Prayer for Strength 98

Faith of Great Men 99

Bible Above All 99

Some Home Runs 100

Up to Mothers 100

Electric Flashes 101

Sunday on Evolution 103

Rev. William A. Sunday

(The World’s Famous Evangelist)

His Early Life, a Dramatic Portrayal of His Conversion, and the Disintegration of the Old White Stocking Baseball Team, of Which He was a Member

Rev. “Billy” Sunday (as he is familiarly known) was born in a log cabin in the backwoods of Story County, Iowa, November 19, 1862. Not long after his birth his father went to the Civil War and never returned. Billy remained home until he was about fourteen years of age, and as a hired hand later lived with Colonel John Scott, former Lieutenant Governor of Iowa, and was enabled to acquire a high-school education. He tried various lines of work, from a hired hand at sixteen years old to a furniture polisher, driver of a hearse, member of a volunteer hose company, railroad fireman, ball player, student and now evangelist.

MR. SUNDAY’S REMARKABLE CONVERSION.

“Twenty-seven years ago I walked down a street in Chicago in company with some ball players who were famous in this world—some of them are dead now—and we went into a saloon. It was Sunday afternoon and we got tanked up and then went and sat down on a corner. I never go by that street without thanking God for saving me. It was a vacant lot at that time. We sat down on a curbing. Across the street a company of men and women were playing on instruments—horns, flutes and slide trombones—and the others were singing the gospel hymns that I used to hear my mother sing back in the log cabin in Iowa and back in the old church where I used to go to Sunday school.

“And God painted on the canvas of my recollection and memory a vivid picture of the scenes of other days and other faces.”

“WON’T YOU COME?”

“Many have long since turned to dust. I sobbed and sobbed and a young man stepped out and said: ‘We are going down to the Pacific Garden mission. Won’t you come down to the mission? I am sure you will enjoy it. You can hear drunkards tell how they have been saved and girls tell how they have been saved from the red light district. I arose and said to the boys: “I’m through. We’ve come to the parting of the ways,” and I turned my back on them. Some of them laughed and some of them mocked me; one of them gave me encouragement; others never said a word. Twenty-seven years ago I turned and left that little group on the corner of State and Madison streets, walked to the little mission, fell on my knees and staggered out of sin and into the arms of the Saviour.

I went over to the west side of Chicago where I was keeping company with a girl now my wife, Nell. I married Nell. She was a Presbyterian, so I am a Presbyterian. Had she been a Catholic, I would have been a Catholic—because I was hot on the trail of Nell.

The next day I had to go out to the ball park and practice. Every morning at 10 o’clock we had to be out there and practice. I never slept that night. I was afraid of the horse-laugh that the gang would give me because I had taken my stand for Jesus Christ.

I walked down to the old ball grounds. I will never forget it. I slipped my key into the wicket gate and the first man to meet me after I got inside was Mike Kelley.

Up came Mike Kelley. He said: “Bill I’m proud of you—religion is not my long suit, but I’ll help you all I can.” Up came Anson, Pfeffer, Clarkson, Flint, McCormick, Burns, Williamson and Dalrymple. There wasn’t a fellow in that gang who knocked, every fellow had a word of encouragement for me.

That afternoon we played the old Detroit club. We were neck and neck for the championship. That club had Thompson, Richardson, Rowe, Dunlap, Hanlon and Bennett, and they could play ball. I was playing right field and John G. Clarkson was pitching. He was as fine pitcher as ever crawled into a uniform. There are some pitchers today, O’Toole, Bender, Wood, Mathewson, Johnson, Marquard, but I do not believe any one of them stood in the class with Clarkson.

We had two men out and they had a man on second and one on third, and Bennett, their old catcher was at the bat. Charley had three balls and two strikes on him. Charley couldn’t hit a high ball. I don’t mean a Scotch high-ball, but he could kill them when they went about his knee.

I hollered to Clarkson and said: “One more and we got ’em.”

You know every pitcher digs a hole in the ground where he puts his foot when he is pitching. John stuck his foot in the hole and he went clear to the ground. Oh, he could make them dance. He could throw over-handed, and the ball would go down and up like that. He is the only man on earth I have seen do that. The ball would go by so fast that a thermometer would drop two degrees. John went clear down, and as he went to throw the ball his right foot slipped, and the ball went low instead of high.

I saw Charley swing hard and heard the bat hit the ball with a terrific blow. Bennett had smashed the ball on the nose. I saw the ball rise in the air and knew it was going clear over my head.

I could judge within ten feet of where the ball would light. I turned my back to the ball and ran.

The field was crowded with people and I yelled: ‘Stand back!’ and the crowd opened like the Red Sea opened for the rod of Moses. I ran on, and as I ran I made a prayer; it wasn’t theological, either, I tell you. I said: “God, if you ever helped mortal man, help me to get that ball, and you haven’t got much time to make up your mind, either.”

I ran and jumped over the bench and stopped. I thought I was close enough to catch it. I looked back and saw it going over my head, and I jumped and shoved my left hand out and the ball hit it and stuck. At the rate I was going, the momentum carried me on and I fell under the feet of a team of horses. I jumped up with the ball in my hand. Up came Tom Johnson. He was afterwards Mayor of Cleveland. “Here is $10.00 Bill; buy yourself the best hat in Chicago. That catch won me $1,500. Tomorrow go and buy yourself the best suit of clothes you can find in Chicago.”

An old Methodist minister said to me a few years ago: “Why, William, you didn’t take the $10.00 did you.” I said: “You bet I did.”

Listen! Mike Kelley was sold to Boston for $10,000. Mike got half of the purchase price. He came up to me and showed me a check for $5,000. John L. Sullivan the champion fighter, went around with a subscription paper and the boys raised over $12,000 to buy Mike a house.

They gave Mike a deed to the house and they had $1,500 left and gave him a certificate of deposit for that. His salary for playing with Boston was $4,700 a year. At the end of that season Mike had spent the $5,000 purchase price and the $5,000 he received as salary and the $1,500 they gave him and had a mortgage on the house. And when he died in Pennsylvania they went around with a subscription to get money enough to put him in the ground. Mike sat there on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago, when I said: “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”

A. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the first man he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the second.

I was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and I hit a stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.

I got a doctor and had my leg fixed up and he said to me: “William, if you don’t go on that trip I will give you a good leg.” I obeyed and I have as good a leg today as I ever had. They offered to wait for me at Honolulu and Australia.

Spalding said: “Meet us in England, and play with us through England, Scotland and Wales.” I didn’t go.

Ed Williamson, our old short-stop, was a fellow weighing 225 pounds, and a more active man you never saw. He went with them, and while they were on the ship crossing the English channel a storm arose. The captain thought the ship would go down. Then he dropped on his knees and promised God to be true, and God spoke and the waves were still. They came back to the United States and Ed. came back to Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street.

I would go there and give tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would talk with him, and would cry like a baby, I would get down and pray for him. When he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out his liver. It was so big it would not go in a candy bucket.

Ed Williamson sat there on the street corner with me twenty-seven years ago when I said, “Goodbye, boys, I’m through.”

Frank Flint, our old catcher, who caught for nineteen years, drew $3,200 a year on an average. He caught before they had chest protectors and masks and gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the ball of his hand was broken. You never saw a hand like Frank had. Every bone in his face was broken and his nose and cheekbones, and the shoulder and ribs had all been broken.

I’ve seen old Frank Flint sleeping on a table in a stale beer joint and I’ve turned my pockets inside out and said: “You’re welcome to it, old pal.”

He drank on and on, and one day in winter he staggered out of a stale beer joint and stood on a corner and was seized with a fit of coughing.

The blood streamed out of his nose, his mouth and his eyes. Down the street came a woman. She took one look and said: “My God, is it you, Frank?” And the old love came back.

The wife called two policemen and a cab and started with him to her boarding house. They broke all speed regulations. She called five of the best physicians, and they listened to the beating of his heart—eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—and the doctor said: “He will be dead in about four hours.” She said: “Frank the end is near,” and he said: “Send for Bill.”

They telephoned me and I came. When I reached his bedside he said to me: “There’s nothing in the life of years ago I care for now. I can hear the grandstand hiss when I strike out. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I make a hit that wins the game, but there is nothing that can help me now, and if the umpire calls me out now, won’t you say a few words over me, Bill?”

He struggled as he had years ago on the diamond when he tried to reach home—but the great Umpire of the universe yelled: “You’re out.” And the great gladiator of the diamond was no more.

Frank Flint sat on the street corner drunk with me twenty-seven years ago in Chicago when I said: “I’ll bid you goodbye, boys, I’m going to Jesus.” Say men, did I win the game of life, or did they?

BEACON LIGHTS ON BILLY’S TRAIL.

I owe God everything. I owe the devil nothing except the best fight I can put up against him.

The church needs more of God and less dress and strife over money.

Judas bought a ticket to hell for thirty pieces of silver, and it wasn’t a round-trip ticket, either.

Every saloon gives the devil a better chance to land your boy in hell.

You breed more infidels with your “divine philosophy” than all the Ingersols in the world.

The church doesn’t need new members as much as she needs to have the old bunch made over.

A lot of people, from the way they live, make you think they’ve got a ticket to heaven on a Pullman parlor car, and have ordered the porter to wake ’em when they get there. But they’ll get side-tracked almost before they’re started.

HARD TO KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN.

“Somebody says: ‘But you don’t know my circumstances, Mr. Sunday. I’m handicapped by my parents. I’m handicapped by poverty.’ Listen! Go down tonight and get down your books and read of the men of history who have crept and crawled from the sewers of poverty and the quagmires of squalor. Obscurity never kept Benjamin Franklin walking the streets of Philadelphia gnawing at his loaf. Obscurity didn’t keep Edison working as a telegraph operator at $60.00 a month. Obscurity didn’t keep David herding sheep. If gold and diamonds weren’t so hard to get they wouldn’t be worth so much. Obscurity didn’t keep Grant in a tannery. Obscurity didn’t keep Garfield on the towpath of a canal. If you’ve got it in you, squalor and want can’t keep you down.”

“If you are going to win out you must have grit. That means you must be able to say “no” when asked to do wrong, so loud it will stagger hell. Or “yes” so loud it will gladden the angels of God. Put up your dukes and fight the devil.”

HONOR YOUR WIFE BEFORE SHE DIES.

“Don’t wait until your wife dies before you brag on her. Tell her that coffee was fine. Tell her how you like those biscuits—not those big four-story ones, but the little flat fellows with crust on both sides—that’s the kind I like. Think of the days you bought her gumdrops and candy hearts with reading on them. I wish I had all the money I’ve spent on candy hearts with reading on them. You’ve bought ’em, too, you fellows, haven’t you? Ha, ha! Thought so! (Here Mr. Sunday recited the poem, “Kiss Her.”) Some fellows pet dogs more than they pet their wives.

“Play with the children. You say, ‘Bill, I haven’t any.’ I say, ‘Then get some.’”

TWO PICTURES OF AMERICAN HOMES.

I think one of the prettiest pictures ever looked upon is to see a father with the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a mother with the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and to see them throw their arms about their eldest child, and the oldest child throw his arms about their next oldest child, and that child take the next oldest child by the hand, and on until the youngest and all with happiness in their hearts and songs on their lips, start for heaven.

And I think the blackest, darkest picture ever looked upon is to see a father without the religion of Jesus Christ in his heart, and a be-frizzled society woman without the religion of Jesus Christ in her heart, and the next oldest child, and on down until the baby in the cradle, and to see that father and mother lock arms and all start to hell, like many of them are doing today.

KIND WORDS TO HELP CHILDREN.

There are fewer things more important in the home than conversation. Think of the good you can do in your home with your voice. You use it to give pain, but the conversation in your home ought to be loving. In many homes they have no conversation. There is no affectionate greeting in the morning when the children start for school, no little kiss to linger on their lips, and when they come home at noon, hungry, there is no kind greeting. The old man never says a word unless he growls for you to pass something, and so far as anyone would know, you would be in a deaf and dumb asylum. No fireside chats with the children.

You are down at some fool club, some lodge; you are off to some literary social, beer and wine-drinking hell, and you let your children go to the devil. You turn them over to some nurse, whose only interest in the child is so many dollars per week.

EVANGELIST PAYS TRIBUTE TO WIFE.

Sunday humorously complimented his wife at the tabernacle meeting Thursday night. He quoted “Battling” Nelson’s statement that Mrs. Sunday was worth $10,000,000.00, but said Bat had the estimate too low.

Sunday began by speaking of the traits of various nations. “Scotch blood” he said, “stands for persistency, stick-to-it-iveness, faithfulness and bulldog tenacity. I guess I ought to know, for Ma’s full-blooded Scotch, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

SEVERELY SCORES “SMART SET” BUNCH.

And of the women in our “smart set” nowadays. Too much can not be said in condemnation of them. Too much time is spent by them outside of their homes. They have thrown to the wind all womanly modesty and prudence. They are flattered and cajoled, and they look upon themselves as sort of an especial form upon which to hang the latest creation of a Worth or a Redfern. They have digestive apparatus with which to digest highly seasoned foods which some rich husband can buy and cram into their gullets. And they lend their presence to vaudeville, and have vaudeville performances in their homes, and their children are allowed to witness performances which border on the obscene. And they indulge in gambling to such an extent, poker, roulette wheels, champagne, and all the whole long list, my friends, and they are more familiar with poker chips and gambling devices and frivolity than they are with their Bible, the English language or classic literature.

“No man lives to himself alone. When you go to hell you’re going to drag someone else down with you, and if you go to heaven you’re going to take someone else with you. You say you hate sin. Of course you do if you have respect. You never saw anyone in this town who hates sin worse than I, or loves a sinner more than I. I’m fighting for the sinners. I’m fighting to save your soul, just as a doctor fights to save your life from a disease.”

“If there is a father that hits the booze, he doesn’t want his son to. If he is keeping someone on the side, he doesn’t want his son to. In other words, you would not want your son to live like you if you are not living right.”

“Look on the bright side. Every time you smile you put a crimp in the undertaker’s business, keep the hearse standing in the shed, keep the embalming fluid out of your veins, and keep the quartet from singing ‘Lead, Kindly Light.’”

SUNDAY’S BRIGHT WORD PICTURES IN HIS SERMON TO MOTHERS.

_Father Gives up but Mother Doesn’t._

“Fathers often give up. The old man often goes to boozing, becomes dissipated, takes a dose of poison and commits suicide, but the mother will stand by the home and keep the little band together if she has to manicure her fingernails over a washboard to do it. If men had half as much grit as the women, there would be different stories written about a good many homes. Look at her work! It is the greatest in the world; in its far-reaching importance it is transcendently above everything in the universe—her task in molding hearts and lives and shaping character. If you want to find greatness, don’t go toward the throne; go to the cradle, and the nearer you get to the cradle, the nearer to greatness. The launching of a boy or girl to live for Christ is greater work than to launch a battleship.”

BRAVEST BATTLE FOUGHT IN WORLD.

“The bravest battle that ever was fought, Shall I tell you where and when? On the maps of the world you’ll find it not— ’Twas fought by the mothers of men.

“Nay, not with cannon or battle shot. With sword or nobler pen. Nay, not with eloquent word or thought, From mouths of wonderful men.

“But deep in a walled up woman’s heart— Of woman that would not yield, But bravely, silently bore her part— Lo, there is the battlefield.

“No marshaling troops, no bivouac song, No banner to gleam and wave; But oh! these battles, they last so long— From babyhood to the grave.”

“There is a mighty power in a mother’s kiss—inspiration, courage, hope, ambition. One kiss made Benjamin West a painter, and the memory of it clung to him through life. One kiss will drive away the fear in the dark and make the little one brave. It will give strength where there is weakness.”

ONE ACT, ONE WORD WILL BLIGHT CHILD.