such as would develop his muscle, but not exhaust it. Another great thing in his favor is that he has not been handicapped with bad habits. His manhood has never been sapped by dissipation. He has never been lax in his morals or life, but has always held the rein of selfcontrol upon himself. He never used tobacco in any form. Had he been a cigarette fiend he would have been down and out long ago. He never had any appetite for liquor. During his early baseball days, when out with his team mates, he may have taken a glass of wine or beer sometimes, but it was his habit to use only soft drinks.

In his eating he is also just as temperate. He favors the most simply prepared foods, and seldom drinks anything but weak tea and coffee. He is a light eater, but generally when in a meeting eats four meals a day, the last being a small lunch about an hour after the close of the evening service. He also gets along with surprisingly little sleep, and claims that he can hold his own with Edison on that line.

This is one of the things that endeared Sunday to the baseball public: He bubbled over and sparkled with sheer vitality. Anson often said he might as well try to hold a frightened deer as undertake to restrain Sunday when he made up his mind to leave one base and fly to the

next.

His fleetness of foot attracted attention elsewhere than on the diamond. For Anson was in the habit of backing him against all comers. In one of his sermons Sunday tells the following story:

"Before I was converted Anson had backed me for a hundred-yard race with Arlie' Latham of the St. Louis 'Browns,' for five hundred dollars a side and the gate money, to be run at St. Louis one Sunday at the

end of the season, and this bothered me a lot, I tell you.

"I prayed over it night after night, but I couldn't

see my way clear.

I didn't want to do it, but how was I Finally I went to Pop' Anson and told him he would have to let me out.

to get out of it?

"Why, Billy,' he said, 'you're not going to be yellow, and a quitter, are you?'

I explained to him, but he wouldn't listen.

"No, Billy,' he said, 'I've backed you for a thousand dollars in this race, and so have a lot of my friends. There's about seventy-five thousand dollars up on it. I'm not much on religion, but I don't believe that God wants you to start out with him by throwing down your friends, on a contract that you took before you went with him. Now I tell you what you do. You go down to St. Louis and run that race, and then you can fix it up with God afterward.'

"And, well-friends, I did. I ran the race and won it, and then I came right back to Chicago, and went before the session of the church and owned up, and when they heard all about it they let me off, and I was an elder of that church for a good many years afterward. I have been sorry a thousand times since that I did this, but with my inexperience at that time, I could see no other way out of it."

One Sunday afternoon Billy was strolling about in the south end of the business district of Chicago, with half a dozen baseball friends. The New York Giants were in the city at the time, and several of them were in the party.

At the corner of State and Van Buren streets was an empty lot, which is now occupied by the Siegel & Cooper Department Store. Here a company of men and women

while the ball thrown by Sunday, to the contrary, seemed to gain in weight as it sailed through the air, and was heavy and soggy when it struck the hands. This is strange, but a fact, and one which perhaps some scientist can explain.

"Sunday was, in my opinion, the strongest man in the profession on his feet, and could run the bases like a frightened deer. His greatest lack as a ball player was his inability to bat as well as some of the hard-hitting outfielders. He was a fast and brilliant fielder, a fine thrower, and once on first he could steal more bases than any of his team mates."

III

THE BASEBALL PLAYER'S CONVERSION

HE remarkable vitality and buoyant energy which

TH

mark Sunday's preaching are the same as characterized his work on the diamond and other activities years ago. His elasticity and recuperative power have always amazed and puzzled his friends. He seems to have a quality of endurance that makes him well-nigh superhuman. A rallying force that never fails him, and makes him equal to the terrific strain of one hard campaign after another, with scarcely any rest between them. This must be due in great measure to the blood of iron and constitution of steel he inherited from his mother.

The early days of her young motherhood were spent in the turmoil and struggle of pioneer life. She was not enfeebled by the poison of bad air, so common to modern life, for no better ventilated dwelling was ever known than the log cabin of the early settler. Then, too, she had the advantage of being able to spend much time in God's great out-of-doors, drinking in health and strength from the life-giving sunshine.

This, with plain and wholesome food and pure water, equipped her well to transmit a good physical heritage to her children. When God wants to raise up a man with power to shake the world, he sees to it that he shall have the right kind of a mother, and this was especially true of Billy Sunday.

The daily routine of Sunday's life has always been

workers from the Pacific Garden Mission were holding an outdoor meeting.

Sunday and his friends stopped to listen. The meeting soon took hold of their attention, and they sat down on the curb and heard the service through. Sunday confesses that the singing of the old gospel songs-the same his mother had sung in the little log cabin home back in Iowa-caught at his heart strings and set them vibrating in sympathy with memories of childhood days. A new spirit welled up within him, and created dissatisfaction with the life he was living.

When the outdoor meeting was over, a young man named Harry Monroe, now superintendent of the Mission, seeing that Sunday had been touched, went to him and invited him to attend the meeting at the Mission, two blocks away.

"You'll enjoy it," he said. "You'll hear some things that will interest you. Won't you come?

"

Sunday accepted the invitation and went. The usual services were held in the Mission. There was singing and praying, and earnest and heartfelt testimonies from those who had found deliverance from many kinds of sin. Then some one gave a short gospel talk, that, though brief, was right to the point. The usual invitation to accept Christ was given, for no meeting has ever been held in that Mission without this being done, and there has never been a service when some one did not respond.

Sunday listened eagerly and closely to everything that was said, and though his heart was deeply stirred, he did not respond to the invitation, or in any way further commit himself; though when he left the Mission it was with the resolve that he would return again.

Several nights later he was once more in the Mission,