Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-04-23

Even earlier than that Lindsay Den
ison writing in the September, 1907
number Of the American Magazine
without making a pretense to direc'
interest in religion. nor posing as al
authority on that subject, wrote:
IT have seen many a university football
victory celebration: I have seen severa
riots Of Joy after a YaleHarvard boat
race: was in the headquarters OF Dis
trict Attorney Jerome OF New York when
the word came, on election night, that he
had beaten Independently the candidates
Of all the regular parties. But I have
never seen any crowd more beside itself
than ives the congregation Of the taber'
nacie when the meeting was over. The
noise was inchoate until Fred Fischer
took charge and organized it. There were
q hundred dangerous PUSHES by people at
the back to reach the platform and Bill
Sunday. Fischer got them singing When
they were tired of singing = tune. he asked
them to whistle 1t and then to hum it.
Now and then somebody got up and in
terrupted by calling for three cheers for
Billy Sunday! And when 1t was an
nounced that altogether Sunday had won
LIS Fairfield souls from the Devil for
Christ 1t seemed as though the roof was
tuggtnE at the rafterS."
After the remarkable work in Co.
Iumbus the larger magazines began to
give more and more attention to the
career Of this evangelist. Bruce Bar
ton was assigned by Golfers to make
a close study Of the man and his
method. and In the spring Of 1913 he
made this summing up:
ITS fourteenth-century theology, you
say, and perhaps that's true But there
IL no can't in 1t. It is the hard-hitting
message Of strong man. stirred to the
depths Of his soul by the spectacle Of
puny, impotent, mortal men setting them
selves in revolt against the purpose Of
Almighty God. And men respond to it
the leading men of the city-editors mer
chants, bankers, as we'll as the rank and
file. No other evangelist owes so little
Of his success to emotionalism: none
other can number q larger proportion of
men and women on his convert rolls.
You must hear him more than once to
know his power; indeed it Is quite the
effect Of his meetings, night
after night, to represent him adequately
The particular sermon that you may hear
may seem to you overdrawn, even futile;
the immaculate eueCl OIL ~ OA tHe CoNSc1tS
who come forward may appear all out OF
to its worth. You should have
heard them all ! heard him once in a
little town In Central Illinois-a rainy
night, when he spoke with difficulty and.
to my mind, poorly. Surely I said to
myself, this is an of night for Billy;
there'll be no response to sermon like
that And vet he had hardly concluded
when the converts came trooping toward
the platform, and the first man among
them the president Of the local gas COM
paEy. a.r
cit is the hammer, hammer, ham
mer Of six or seven weeks of man-to-
man talk that compels results.
"And the results-what are they?
''In Decatur, Ill, he labored six weeks
and more than 5000 persons pressed for |
ward to take his hand-the sign Of their
Intention to begin another life. The
meetings closed on the eve Of a local
option election. On the morning after
the election. when the result Of the over :
whelning vote was known, there appear
ed this sign in the front window Of one
Of the most prominent saloons