Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-11-10
GORDON lATHROP
TELLS OF SUNDAY
oTTuMWA BOY SENDS REPORT
OF MEETINGS OF NOTED
EVANGELIST At CAPITAL.

Des Moines, Nov. 9.-"There's a
man listening to me tonight" thun-
dered Billy Sunday during dramatic
moment of his sermon based on the
text But He Was a Leper," who Is
a moral leper who is spending
sinful hours in the arms of a
bleak-hearted huzzy while his poor
wife's heart is breaking. know 1t
because received a letter today
from the wife telling me this His
index finger pointed rigidly downward
into the upturned faces of ten thou
sand people, his eyes blazing and TO-
cused at the tip of his accusing ting-
er, he presented perfectly, whether in
tentionally or not, breathing, pulsing
incarnation of that optical illusion ex-
perienced by everyone wherein the
eyes and pointed finger or revolver
of painted image seems trained
squarely on the onlooker, from what
ever angle he views it.
Speculations are rife as to the num-
Der of married men included in that
throng who left the tabernacle de-
termined to inspect surreptiously,
though none the less thoroughly, their
wives finger tips for ink stains.
! Sundays treatment of his text may
be illustrated by quoting from his SER
mon this sentence: Society takes
no note of sin until the fruitage is
brought forth, then it throws up it's
hands in holy horror but God notes
the beginning of things" He pursued
the paralleling of sin infection and
leprosy infection into many phases of
social and economic life. He attacked
bitterly the double standard, ridicul-
ing the contention made by some peo-
pie that a reformed rake makes the
best husband. IF so,'' he said, "a re-
formed prostitute makes the best
wife" He denounced the custom OF
card playing and drinking in homes.
He deplored the resentment felt and
expressed by so many people against
those who would warn them against
sinful living, particularly against
drinking. Concerning the first drink
a man takes, Sunday said: "You can't
find a drunkard in Des Moines who
expected to become drunkard when
he took his first drink"
He was in his happiest mood when
pleading for happy, smiley reli-
gion" of perfect faith. why, God
likes a little fun as can be seen by
the fact that he made the parrot, the
monkey and the donkey, and some OF
you folks out there he laughed, his
face crinkling with the. Billy Sunday
grin and his body double with merri-
ment over his own joke. Everyone
thought he was talking about thee, .
not me- and everyone laughed with
him.
Sundayisms.
II every moral leper had to cry out
"unclean' we might think we were
having an old fashioned Halloween.
The devil has no tune except the
spittoon.
You can harp on anything you want
today, but what the world needs is to
be baptized in old religion.
There is no man in America they
(the whiskey gang) hate and fear
more than they do me and I thank
God for it.
If you have no JOY in your religion
there's leak in your faith.
There are some fellows in Des
Moines so rotten in their lives that
they ought to be d1slnfected Tor Two
years before being allowed to touch
the door knob of a decent home.
Suppose we had glass doors to our
hearts; we'd want it stained glass or
tapestry covered.
Any man or woman who plays
cards for prize is a blackleg gam.
bier.
To look at some of YOU people one
would think that one of the essentials
of orthodox religion is to wear face
long enough to eat oatmeal out of a
gas pipe, or to grow whiskers until
you resemble hedgehog.
When COW stops giving milk, her
mission in life ends. You don't keep
a cow for company.
Your size depends upon your mind
how Machias is pronounced or not
Mu-chi-us, accent on second syllable
and short sound of u.