A Shut Door--and an Open One
Faith is the beginning of something of which you can't see the end but
in which you believe.--BILLY SUNDAY.
Destiny's door turns on small hinges. Almost everybody can say out
of his own experience, "If I had done this, instead of that, the
whole course of my life would have been changed." At many points in
the career of William A. Sunday we see what intrinsically small and
unrelated incidents determined his future course in life.
If he had not been sitting on that Chicago curbstone one evening, and
if the Pacific Garden Mission workers had failed on that one occasion
alone to go forth into the highways, Billy Sunday might have been only
one of the multitude of forgotten baseball players. If he had not gone
to prayer-meeting in his new church home he would not have met the wife
who has been so largely a determining factor in his work. If he had not
joined the Y. M. C. A. forces in Chicago he would not have become Peter
Bilhorn's friend and so Dr. Chapman's assistant.
And--here we come to a very human story--if Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman had
not suddenly decided to abandon the evangelistic field and return to
the pastorate of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Sunday
would doubtless still be unknown to the world as a great religious
leader. The story came to me from the lips of the evangelist himself
one morning. We were discussing certain current criticisms of his
work and he showed himself frankly bewildered as well as pained by
the hostility displayed toward him on the part of those up to whom
he looked as leaders and counselors. Off the platform Sunday is one
of the most childlike and guileless of men. He grew reminiscent and
confidential as he said to me: "I don't see why they hammer me so. I
have just gone on, as the Lord opened the way, trying to do his work. I
had no plan for this sort of thing. It is all the Lord's doings. Just
look how it all began, and how wonderfully the Lord has cared for me.
"I had given up my Y. M. C. A. work, and was helping Chapman, doing all
sorts of jobs--putting up tents, straightening out chairs after the
meetings and occasionally speaking. Then, all of a sudden, during the
holidays of 1895-96, I had a telegram from Chapman saying that our work
was all off, because he had decided to return to Bethany Church.
"There I was, out of work, knowing not which way to turn. I had a wife
and two children to support. I could not go back to baseball. I had
given up my Y. M. C. A. position. I had no money. What should I do? I
laid it before the Lord, and in a short while there came a telegram
from a little town named Garner, out in Iowa, asking me to come out and
conduct some meetings. I didn't know anybody out there, and I don't
know yet why they ever asked me to hold meetings. But I went.
"I only had eight sermons, so could not run more than ten days, and
that only by taking Saturdays off. That was the beginning of my
independent work; but from that day to this I have never had to seek
a call to do evangelistic work. I have just gone along, entering the
doors that the Lord has opened one after another. Now I have about a
hundred sermons and invitations for more than two years in advance. I
have tried to be true to the Lord and to do just what he wants me to
do."
That naïve bit of autobiography reveals the real Billy Sunday. He
has gone forward as the doors have been providentially opened. His
career has not been shrewdly planned by himself. Nobody has been more
surprised at his success than he. Of him may be recorded the lines
that are inscribed on Emerson's tombstone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery,
Concord:
"The passive master lent his hand
To the vast Soul that o'er him planned."
From Garner, Iowa, to Philadelphia, with its most eminent citizens on
the committee of arrangements, seems a far cry; but the path is plainly
one of Providence. Sunday has added to his addresses gleanings from
many sources, but he has not abated the simplicity of his message. The
gospel he preaches today is that which he heard in the Pacific Garden
Rescue Mission a quarter of a century ago.
In childlike faith, this man of straight and unshaded thinking has gone
forward to whatever work has offered itself. Nobody knows better than
he that it is by no powers of his own that mighty results have been
achieved: "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."
While the Sunday meetings have swung a wide orbit they have centered
in the Middle West. That typically American section of the country was
quick to appreciate the evangelist's character and message. He was of
them, "bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh," mind of their mind.
When news of the triumphs of this evangelist's unconventionally-phrased
gospel began to be carried over the country a few years ago, the
verdict of religious leaders was, "Billy Sunday may do for the Middle
West, but the East will not stand him." Since then, again, to the
confusion of human wisdom, his most notable work has been achieved in
the East, in the great cities of Pittsburgh and Scranton; and at this
writing the city of Philadelphia is in the midst of preparations for a
Sunday campaign; while the Baltimore churches have also invited him to
conduct meetings with them. Billy Sunday is now a national figure--and
the foremost personality on the day's religious horizon. A recent issue
of _The American Magazine_ carried the results of a voting contest,
"Who's the Greatest Man in America." Only one other clergyman (Bishop
Vincent, of Chautauqua) was mentioned at all, but Billy Sunday was tied
with Andrew Carnegie and Judge Lindsey for eighth place.
To tell the stories of the Sunday campaigns in detail would be needless
repetition; with occasional exceptions they continue to grow in scope
and efficiency and results. The record of independent campaigns extends
over nearly twenty years, and in that time the evangelist has gone on
from strength to strength.
[Illustration: SUNDAY POSING IN FRONT OF TABERNACLE.]
[Illustration: BILLY'S SMILE.]
[Illustration: SUNDAY AND HIS YOUNGEST SON PAUL.]
[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. SUNDAY IN A REVIVAL PARADE.]