Seven Week Revivalist

Having delivered himself of opinions upon the Bible ("a bloody book"), upon the many cases of substitution to be found in the streets of St. Louis ("I can show you a thousand"), and upon an enormous number of other topics*, famed evangelist and onetime baseball player Billy Sunday last week prepared to conclude his seven-week revival meeting in the city which was once perfumed by the aroma of Anheuser-Busch or other famed brands of beer.

He spoke, in a last sermon, of prayer: "God always answers prayer--'Yes.' 'No.' 'Wait.'--but He always answers. . . ."

Of piety: "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. . . ."

In another sermon he described the scene which would take place when he arrived in Heaven. First he will shake hands with Jesus and thank Him for coming to the world and for calling Billy Sunday to His work. He, Billy Sunday, will then say, in case his "hunch" bears fruit and he dies before Mrs. Sunday: "I left Nell and the children down there on earth and I'd like to hang around the gate here to meet them." Jesus, Mr. Sunday thought, would reply in these terms: "All right, Bill, just sit down there. They'll come right through here. . . . There's the biggest bunch from St. Louis you ever saw."

Evangelist Sunday made another prophecy, anent his stop in St. Louis. "We'll talk about the campaign we held here for millions of years." he said. With parables and epigrams he summarized the serious topic of his sermon, Eternal Life: "Man tries to whitewash himself when God wants to wash him white. . . . Don't let God hang a 'For Rent' sign in the mansion he's prepared for you. . . . It's up to you. . . . It's up to you. . . ."

In his very last sermon, Billy Sunday again referred to his seven week revival meeting. "As long as you live you'll never see another meeting like this one. . . ." This last sermon had a text, taken from Exodus VIII., 10: "And he said 'Tomorrow.' " Billy Sunday said: "Tomorrow--that's the soft lounge on which multitudes lie down to be lulled into an eternal sleep."

"The next time you come in here you'll see my face and hear my voice in your imagination. You will note this spot where the platform stood and you will imagine me standing here. Say, Jesus, I'm through in St. Louis. Though I never walk the streets of St. Louis again in the flesh, I shall walk them in the spirit. Often in spirit I shall come to the Locust street entrance of the Coliseum, where those fine policemen have met me for seven weeks. . . ." Billy Sunday reached for his overcoat and let the converts come up to him through a trap door in the stage.

It had been a highly successful revival meeting. Mr. Sunday had made 7,049 converts and $20,671. Of the latter figure he remarked, "I was in debt $17,000. Now I'm going to get out of the hole."

Evangelist Sunday paid little attention to the complaint made by a local minister that he had shown signs of commercialism in his recent Chicago revival. His Man Friday, Ralph T. Finley, of the local committee, announced from the Coliseum platform that all the proceeds from that revival had been pledged to the Pacific Garden Mission, where Sunday himself had been converted.

Mr. Sunday had come to St. Louis from West Frankfort, Ill., famed gang battlefield, of whose alleged viciousness he said this to St. Louis citizens: "There's just as good folks up there as ever lived . . . a lot of St. Louis crooks went down there and hid behind machine guns. . . ." On leaving St. Louis, Evangelist Sunday will proceed to Iola, Kan., for six weeks of pouncing, bouncing, trouncing preaching; then he will go to Greenville, N. C.

* As: "Americanism;" "The Moral Leper;" "The Devil's Boomerang" (for men only); "Chickens Come Home to Roost" (for men only); "What Shall the End Be?;" "Nuts for Skeptics to Crack" (anti-evolution).