The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-04-01
William A. Sunday, Evangelist, Max
ing Converts Everywhere.
He Is Creating Religious Excitement
In Illinois and Iowa.
Thousands Are Led to Christ BY
His Incisive Appeals.
II Was He Who Made the Bad Good
at Marshall.
From Fridays Daily.

~@oA 1Ao'y boiiy.
William A. Sunday, the base bali
player, who entered the arena against
Satan and has knocked His Royal Nibs
out IN round or two, forcing men to
take their places on the mourners' bench
and profess love for Christ, has been
touring Iowa, where he made converts
right and left. 1t was Sunday who sent
Satan out of Marshall, Mimi, compelling
the fellow to take to the "tall and un-
cut" with a rapidity that was to say the
least surprising:
Late dispatches now say that for forty
days Sunday has been the hero of re-
lgious tempest that has swept over
northern Illinois and eastern Iowa, east
ward and northward up the Rock river
valley, westward across the Mississippi,
southwark distance of seventy five
miles, over territory inhabited by hun
dreds of thousands of people, it has rag
ed. Throughout a section of Illinois,
with a population of 265,000, and over
an area of Iowa with population of
100000 this religious fervor has spread.
At Sterling, H., the center of the
crusade, 2,647 converts have been made.
At one meeting the attendance was l45,-
600. Whole communities have been con-
verted. In Sterling and Rock Falls, with
a combined population of $4,000, every
form of so-called sinful amusement has
been abandoned.
The "good" and dad" amusements
are thus segregated:
Good-Golf, baseball, bowling, check
ers, chess, crokinole, authors, tennis,
parchesi, backgammon.
Bad-Theaters, progressive cinch. polk
er, euchre, square, round dances, hooch-
iekoochie dance, cards, gambling, pro-
gressive whist, bridge whist.
Dixon, Rochelle, Fulton, Morrison,
Lyndon and Tampico sent thousands to
the meetings. Each night excursion
trains ran from a distance of fifty to
seventy five miles, carrying to the meet
ings great crowds of young and old,
saints and sinners alike. The religious
awakening spread to Rockford, to Ga
lena and to Freeport.
Those who were turned away or who
would not leave home at all demanded
to hear the sermons. Recently the tele-
phone company placed three receivers
just in front of the pulpit, and for sew
eral nights the words of the great evan
gelist were carried by telephone to one
hundred and eighty-five cities and towns
in Illinois and Iowa. One night more
than eight thousand people heard the
sermon over the telephone. A taber-
nacle l04 feet square, holding 5000 per-
sons, was built for the revival. Sunday
was called against the protest of minis
tiers. He belongs to no denomination; he
processes to be ''just a Christian" His
sermons are simple, but direct and in
cisive, and his personality magnetic.
OF dancing he says: dancing is
hugging match set to music. How long
would the dance last if men were COM
PEELED to dance with each other and
women had to dance with one another.
This fact alone proves that passion is
the seat of the dance"
And of the theaters: "The average
theatre is teeming with filth and rot on
its boards. Lust and intrigue; stories
of mans infdelity to woman, and of
woman's infdenity to man form the
foundation of the average play. The up
to-date drama deals in double dealing
and suggestive lines. Public won't have
moral plays. Look at sUlysses!' What
a faikare!"