I XXI SOME PERSONAL MATTERS T may surprise many to learn that in private life active in his preaching, and so full of fire when holding a meeting, that many think he must be noisy at all times, but nothing could be more wide of the mark. With his great store of general information, his matured opinions upon nearly all subjects, and his ability to give clear expression to what he thinks, he could easily become a brilliant conversationalist, if he cared to, but he seems to prefer hearing others talk. Those who have known him long say he has always been of a sensitive nature, and of quiet and retiring disposition. When with others he has little to say, but is one of the best of listeners. He never misses a word that is addressed to him, and shows his keen interest by his expression and attitude. He also has a remarkable memory, and seems not to forget anything he hears or reads, especially if it has anything in it that will make "good sermon stuff." Even when among his most intimate friends, he lets them do most of the talking. He tells many stories in illustrating his sermons, and good ones, too, and he tells them with master strokes, but seldom or never does he tell a story in private conversation. Sunday has a keen sense of humor, and enjoys hearing a good story as well as any one, but it must be clean in thought and language. He will not listen to anything that is at all questionable. Billy is quite fastidious about his clothes. They must fit him "like the paper on the wall." He is never seen on the platform wearing anything that has the remotest suspicion of a wrinkle in it. He believes that some men are as divinely called to be tailors as he has been to preach, and so he allows the tape measure to be passed over his person only by the knight of the goose he is sure fills the bill on that line. It is because his tailor is an artist that everywhere, except at Winona Lake, Sunday always looks as though he had just stepped out of a fashion plate. How he looks at Winona is shown in one of the illustrations. He generally carries a half-dozen suits with him, in a wardrobe trunk, that takes them through without a crease, and he sees to it that they are all kept pressed and ready to put on. He never wears a Prince Albert, or anything that gives him a preacher look. To have the preacher marks about him, he fears, might make some men take the other side of the street, and as a servant of God he wants to get as close to men as he can. A few years ago he always wore a white vest, but now he is usually seen clad in a two-piece suit, with a belt. His linen is always immaculate, and his ties very neat and tasty, and harmonizing with his suit. He sweats so profusely when speaking that he has to buy expensive ties to prevent their being faded. His overcoat is about the only article of dress he ever puts on that has much weight, for he seems to abhor heavy clothing as he does a hypocrite, and sticks to light summer underwear all the year round, and yet he seems never to take cold. One of Billy's strongest peculiarities is that he will not often use adhesive postage stamps in his correspondence. To receive a letter with a stamp stuck to it, and purporting to come from him, would be certain to awaken distrust from any of his intimate friends. No psychologist has ever undertaken to give a scientific explanation of just why Sunday will not have anything to do with the gummed postage stamp, but the milk in the cocoanut is probably this: 66 In the days when a letter from the girl who is now Mrs. Sunday was due to reach him every day, and two on Monday, there were times, no doubt, when in spite of the best intention on the part of the sender, the stamp would come off, and if the creamy missive reached William at all, its beauty was marred by having "TWO CENTS DUE" smeared upon it with a rubber stamp, by a postal clerk who had no poetry in his soul, and which, considering the way Billy was "gone on Nell," must have greatly marred his enjoyment of the closely written eighteen scented pages, and postscript on a piece of curl paper he found inside. But whether this is the correct surmise or not, the fact remains that Billy always keeps well stocked up with government envelopes, which have the stamp both embossed and printed in the grain, so that if the letter ever reaches its destination the stamp cannot be somewhere else. Sunday shaves himself, and does it good and proper, too, with the same kind of a razor Noah had in the ark. He abominates a safety as a Turk does soap, and will have nothing to do with it. Those who live in the same house with him sometimes hear wails in the morning hour, that in their drowsy state make them dream that one of the domestics is doing penance for mortal sin, but they are soon sufficiently aroused to know that "it is only the boss in the bathroom shaving." Sunday is good at drawing the blade, but he is not an artist at sharpening a razor, and as he will not wait a minute for anybody else to help him there, he makes up by main strength for what the razor lacks in edge, and so both he and those who want to sleep have to suffer the consequences. A more deliberate man than Billy would have a smoother time, in some ways, and so would his friends. Sunday has had many experiences that do not come to all of us. When a little fellow out in Iowa, he was one day having a small boy's time in "the old swimmin' hole," when he got beyond his depth, and was so nearly drowned that it took all the neighbors and the hardest kind of work to bring him to. He still remembers the experience with a shudder, and says the common impression that drowning is a most delightful death to die is all bunk. He wouldn't go through it again, he says, for anything you could name. He would rather shave. In the summer of 1909 he made a trip with Glenn Curtiss, in an aeroplane, and that he remembers as beating drowning forty laps for delight. "That was something worth while! Interesting? You're talking. Something doing every minute; and as for thrills-a half-dozen at once sometimes-and then some. The ascension was made at Winona Lake, and the sail around over the lake, high enough to get a magnificent view reaching a long distance, and not too high up to see things below distinctly-it was great! It was a wonderful-wonderful experience; to climb up into the air, and see the beautiful world God has given to us, as the birds see it! Think of it!" He says the sentence, "They shall mount up with wings as eagles," was always a favorite promise of his, but he never expected to see it so literally fulfilled as it was in his case. One of Sunday's experiences that proved to be a most unpleasant one, occurred at Springfield, Ill. One evening, soon after the beginning of the meeting, a man who was afterward found to be insane, made a vicious attack upon him with a wagon whip, just after he had announced his text and begun to preach. With the subtle cunning which is so characteristic of the insane, the man had managed to elude the ushers, and smuggle himself and his great whip into a seat well to the front. Watching his chance, he sprang forward, almost with the speed of light, and gave Sunday one most vicious cut over the legs below the knees. But before he could raise his arm to strike another blow, Sunday jumped from his high platform upon the man, and knocked him down as he descended. Sunday was not much hurt by the whip, but in the jump his ankle was sprained so badly that he had to go on crutches for several weeks, but he never missed a night service. Billy has all sorts of experiences with people who are off in their minds, and gets anonymous letters almost by the hatful, from some of the crankiest cranks anybody ever had to deal with. All such letters go into the waste basket without a second glance. Sunday is a man of many moods, and those who would get on well with him need to learn to read them as a sailor does the weather signs. He is as finely organized as a thoroughbred racer, and is of such a strongly nervous temperament that he is as sensitive to surrounding conditions as a thermometer. He has fine health, and is always ready for every duty that presents itself. If he ever had a regular spell of sickness, or missed a speaking date through illness, the knowledge |