A Curbstone Recruit
You've got to sign your own Declaration of Independence before you can
celebrate your Fourth of July victory.--BILLY SUNDAY.
Nobody this side of heaven can tell to whom the credit belongs for any
great life or great work. But we may be reasonably sure that the unsung
and unknown women of the earth have a large part in every achievement
worth while.
Mrs. Clark, saintly wife of Colonel Clark, the devoted founder of the
Pacific Garden Rescue Mission in Chicago, is one of that host of women
who, like the few who followed Jesus in his earthly ministry, have
served in lowly, inconspicuous ways, doing small tasks from a great
love. Night after night, with a consecration which never flagged, she
labored in the gospel for a motley crowd of men and women, mostly
society's flotsam and jetsam, many of whom found this hospitable
building the last fort this side of destruction.
A single visit to a down-town rescue mission is romantic, picturesque
and somewhat of an adventure--a sort of sanctified slumming trip. Far
different is it to spend night after night, regardless of weather or
personal feelings, in coming to close grips with sin-sodden men and
women, many of them the devil's refuse. A sickening share of the number
are merely seeking shelter or lodging or food: sin's wages are not
sufficient to live upon, and they turn to the mercy of Christianity
for succor. Never to be cast down by unworthiness or ingratitude, to
keep a heart of hope in face of successive failures, and to rejoice
with a shepherd's joy over the one rescued--this is the spirit of the
consecrated rescue-mission worker.
Such a woman was Mrs. Clark, the spiritual mother to a multitude of
redeemed men. Of all the trophies which she has laid at the feet of her
Lord, the redemption of Billy Sunday seems to human eyes the brightest.
For it was this woman who persuaded him to accept Christ as his
Saviour: he whose hand has led perhaps a quarter of a million persons
to the foot of the Cross was himself led thither by this saintly woman.
When we contemplate the relation of that one humble rescue mission in
Chicago, the monument of a business man's consecration to Christ, to
the scores of Sunday Tabernacles over the land; and when we connect the
streams of penitents on the "sawdust trail" with that one young man of
twenty-five going forward up the aisle of the rude mission room, we
realize afresh that God uses many workers to carry on his one work;
and that though Paul may plant and Apollos water, it is God alone who
giveth the increase.
It was one evening in the fall of 1887 that Sunday, with five of his
baseball team mates, sat on the curbstone of Van Buren Street and
listened to the music and testimonies of a band of workers from the
Pacific Garden Rescue Mission. The deeps of sentiment inherited from a
Christian mother, and the memories of a Christian home, were stirred
in the breast of one of the men; and Sunday accepted the invitation of
a worker to visit the mission. Moved by the vital testimonies which he
heard, he went again and again; and at length, after conversation and
prayer with Mrs. Clark, he made the great decision which committed him
to the Christian life.
Sunday's own story of his conversion is one of the most thrilling of
all the evangelist's messages. It is a human document, a leaf in that
great book of Christian evidences which God is still writing day by day.
"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.
"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. I am going to Jesus
Christ. 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 and walked to the little mission
and fell on my knees and staggered out of sin and into the arms of the
Saviour.
"The next day I had to get out to the ball park and practice. Every
morning at ten o'clock we had to be out there. I never slept that
night. I was afraid of the horse-laugh that 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 Kelly.
"Up came Mike Kelly; 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, the best
ball player that ever played the game; Pfeffer, Clarkson, Flint, Jimmy
McCormick, Burns, Williamson and Dalrymple. There wasn't a fellow in
that gang who knocked; every fellow had a word of encouragement for me.
"Mike Kelly 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.
[Illustration: "BILL, I'M PROUD OF YOU!"]
"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 $4,700
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, and each
club, twelve in all, in the two leagues gave a month a year to his
wife. Mike sat here on the corner with me twenty-seven years ago, when
I said, 'Good-bye, boys, I'm going to Jesus Christ.'
"A. G. Spalding signed up a team to go around the world. I was the
second he asked to sign a contract and Captain Anson was the first. I
was sliding to second base one day. I always slid head first, and hit a
stone and cut a ligament loose in my knee.
"I got Dr. Magruder, who attended Garfield when he was shot, and he
said:
"'William, if you don't go on that trip I will give you a good leg.' I
obeyed and 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, a fellow weighing 225 pounds, was
the most active big man you ever saw. He went with them, and while
they were on the ship crossing the English channel a storm arose
and the captain thought the ship would go down. Williamson tied two
life-preservers on himself and one on his wife and dropped on his
knees and prayed and promised God to be true. God spoke and the waves
were stilled. They came back to the United States and Ed came back to
Chicago and started a saloon on Dearborn Street. I would go through
there giving tickets for the Y. M. C. A. meetings and would talk with
them and he would cry like a baby.
"I would get down and pray for him, and would talk with him. When
he died they put him on the table and cut him open and took out his
liver and it was so big it would not go in a candy bucket. Kidneys had
shriveled until they were like two stones.
"Ed Williamson sat there on the street corner with me, drunk,
twenty-seven years ago when I said, 'Good-bye, I'm going to Jesus
Christ.'
"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, masks and gloves. He caught bare-handed. Every bone in the
ball of his hand was broken. You never saw such a hand as Frank had.
Every bone in his face was broken, and his nose and cheek bones, and
the shoulder and ribs had all been broken. He got to drinking, his home
was broken up and he went to the dogs.
"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, mouth and eyes. Down the
street came a wealthy woman. She took one look and said, 'My God, is it
you, Frank?' and his wife came up and kissed him.
"She 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, one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
and the doctors said, 'He will be dead in about four hours.' She told
them to tell him what they had told her. She said, 'Frank, the end is
near,' and he said, 'Send for Bill.'
"They telephoned me and I came. He said, 'There's nothing in the life
of years ago I care for now. I can hear the bleachers cheer when I
make a hit that wins the game. But there is nothing that can help me
out 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 waved him to the club house, and the great gladiator
of the diamond was no more.
"He sat on the street corner with me, drunk, twenty-seven years ago in
Chicago, when I said, 'Good-bye, boys, I'm through.'
"Did they win the game of life or did Bill?"
[Illustration: "FIRST--ARE YOU KINDLY DISPOSED TOWARD ME?"]