The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-15

| master operated silver cornet, where as Rodeheaver relies a slip-horn.
 ALL SPLENDIDLY ORGANIZED 1 You may or may not admire Mr, l Sundays pulpiteering methods; you are | bound to(admire his business sagacity. | His New York revival has been as ] carefully organized and as expertly l systematized as modern factory. | From every department it fairly radi- | ates efficiency-an efficiency predi- cated on long experience in these mat 1 ters on the part of the evangelist and l his staff No detail has been ov9r-
 looked. The heating and the lighting and the seating arrangements, the res | taurant facilities. the facilities for l handling the enormous multitudes that are Hooking to the place, all bespeak 1 intelligence.
 | There is an emergency hospital; i there are special doors for the en- 1 trance and egress of choir members,
 ushers and other functionaries, so that | confusion may be avoided. There is retiring room for MT. Sunday, fitted with shower bath and the like There 1 is a 'postoffice," where the names of
 those who come forward protesting religion may be filed for indeXing | laterV The business side of this cant i paignt for redeemed souls is being run
 as a business pure and simple. Even l the youths who sell hymn books have | been smartly drilled. Salvation<is free; | but song books cost 25 cents a copy. Physically Mr. Sunday did not at all 1 correspond to my conceptions of him 1 as based on descriptions, printed in l the newspapers. He was smaller than | I had expected he would be and older and more beaten loolSing-I l mean his face is old, not his figure. l He is as 1.-the as a bob cat with the | bearing of a trained athlete. His work | keeps him in good physical shape, no | doubt: even so you have only to look | at his shoulders. and you know them l for the shoulders of gymnast. I guess he must have been a mighty | good ball player in his ball playing 1 days before he got religion. In his | garb there is nothing ministerial With his short sack coat his soft
 shirt front. his silk hose and his low l patent leather shoes. which make his | feet twinkle as he skips about the plat l form, you might take him for rath 1 CT foppish commercial traveller, bug never for preacher
 He has a round bullet-shaped head -the head of scrapper rather than
 the head of thinker-an angular l jaw, a nice friendly shrewd eye, and
 a fixed nervous grin which keeps bis 1 front teeth on display most of the
 
 | ing. After you have watched him for awhile you fall to wondering how h,s | features would look in repose. He is a very open -pored man. As Sir Henry l Irving once said of an amateur actor, l his skin acts beautifully. Five miu- 1 utes after he has started speaking i the sweat is pouring down his face | and when he filings himself about, as l he does almost continually, the dis | titled essence of his energy sprays 1 about him in little salty showers. When he opened his mouth to make l his first announcement I was sur prised-and disappointed as well--to ] discover that his voice was hoarse and raspy with what imagine Is a chronic hoarseness, due to the everlasting strain upon the chords in his throat. l Whether he was speaking in an easy l conversational drawl which somehow | reminded one of an Arizona cowboy. or whether he was shrieking out his defis to the liquor dealers, or wheth- 1 CT he was rocking back on his heels l giving the lone wolf howl of the pro- l fessional exhorter, this huskened rough ! note in his voice persisted
 l EXPECT SUNDAY TO SUCCEED | I think he is going to succeed in New | York. His is a No. road show it is l true. His box of tricks is small-time stuff, as they say in the best vaudeville circles. He smells of the corn belt. | Measured by metropolitan standards, he
 is of the middle west, westernly. But be- cause human nature is human nature, whether found in Weeping Willow, Neb., | or at Forty-second street and Broadway, because he used the same formula which I have no doubt St. Paul used; because he has orchestrated religious emotional fsm-he furnishing the words and his Man l Friday the harmonzing Homer Rode- | 6Na fl,a xs.,. |, oughly in earnest and most of all be- cause he believes he has message for the world, believes he has been called to save souls, believes he has been set down as bumper in the sin-slickened down-hill path of the blackslder. he is 1 going to do between even date and the l Fourth of July, what no other man has ever succeeded in doing before now He I Is going, to set in motion a wave of re. ] ligious enthusiasm which the scoffers, l perhaps will call voodooism and which 1 the strait-la will call hysteria and which the converts will call salvation
 a wave which will stir New York as it
 has never, in a spiritual way, been stirred Iuntil this year of grace. 1917
 Speaking as a newspaper man, here prophecy that he will do more than that | I predict that, despite the opposition of fered by the war, Colonel Roosevelt, Gen. eral Leonard Wood, war stocks and the new bond issue, he will be a front page headliner in the New York newspapers for three solid months. day in and day out. Just watch and see if I'm not right He is going to quicken the curiosity of
 this sensation living ficke-minded town as no preacher has ever quickened it in our times. And good many of those who come to scoff will remain to repent
 and to pray.
 | They have been saving that New York would be Sundays Waterloo. Well, may
 be so but pending the final decisiorE z te this in your hat for futfe feFene3 in
 June 30. If it is a Wsrari53 t1a hav. l MT. Sunday is going to ns not It's a.