VIII

BEGINNING OF SUNDAY'S EVANGELISTIC CAREER

S

UNDAY continued with Dr. Chapman for three years, and then, during the holidays of 1895-6, Dr.

C. wired that he had agreed to return to the pastorate of his old church in Philadelphia. Almost the same day that he received this message, he also received a telegram from a little town in Iowa named Garner, asking him to conduct a ten days' meeting there. Sunday has never been able to learn what prompted the call from Garner. He didn't know anybody there, and does not think any one living there had ever heard him preach. The call coming so opportunely, however, satisfied him that it was of the Lord, and he wired his acceptance.

At that time he had never held a meeting alone, and only had eight sermons, which would in some way have to be extended to ten. At that time there were two little children at home to be cared for, Helen and George, and it required a good deal of courage to swing out alone. But Sunday hurried out to Garner, and held a good meeting in the little opera house. He had no singer with him, and the choir numbered only twenty. On the last day of the meeting they took up a collection for him which footed up sixty-eight dollars. Two churches had united in that meeting.

From that day to this Sunday has never in all his

evangelistic career lacked a call for a meeting. Immediately following the meeting at Garner came others at Sigourney, Iowa, and Pawnee City, Neb.

From his experience in so many meetings with Dr. Chapman Sunday derived great benefit. There was no single detail in a series of special meetings with which his recent experiences had not made him familiar, and whatever came up he mastered so thoroughly that he grasped the meaning of other parts of the work. To this clear and practical knowledge of the requirements of each department is to be traced the ease and precision with which he to-day directs the multiplied activities of a great religious campaign. Many who come in contact with the executive side of a Sunday evangelistic movement are startled at its complexity, yet marvel at the smoothness with which it operates.

For some time after going to Garner, the meetings held by Sunday were in small towns, beginning generally in the largest church building, and then when the interest outgrew it, going to the opera house or largest hall. Many of the first calls received were from Iowa, the state in which he was born.

Though the work grew gradually, it increased steadily, and this it has continued to do up to the present time. It was not long before the Sunday meetings in various places were definitely fixed months in advance. At the present time meetings are arranged for two years in advance regularly, and occasionally more than that. The date for a campaign in Steubenville, Ohio, had been set three years in advance. The calls for meetings are now so many that a large number must of necessity be declined, and the evangelist has no task more trying than the arrangement of his schedule of future engagements.

From the very beginning, Sunday has insisted that the churches of the community should unite before he would agree to conduct a campaign. He has held that unless the forces for good were united little progress could be made against the work of the devil.

As the work grew it served to draw the Protestant churches in various communities into closer fellowship. To secure this agreement on the part of all the churches to give up their regular services during the meeting, and stand shoulder to shoulder, was not in every case easy to do, but the wisdom of it has been clearly shown in every instance. Three hundred churches united for the campaign in Pittsburg, Pa. Eight hundred churches united in extending a call to Mr. Sunday for a campaign in Philadelphia.

Sunday has always opposed the showing up of results in figures, or any attempt at a statistical summary of his years of evangelism, but a comparison can be made of one feature of the meeting in Garner, and another at Columbus, Ohio, in 1913. When Sunday went to Garner for his first meeting he had eight sermons only at his command. At Columbus he preached ninety-three in the tabernacle, taking no account of the special talks and addresses given in dozens of other places during the meeting.

Early in his evangelistic work Sunday employed a singer, and from that time on the music has always been a prominent feature of the tabernacle services.

In view of the great work Sunday has accomplished, the comments on his early meetings, published in the local papers, are most interesting. Here is one concerning a meeting held at Dunlap, Iowa:

"Scores have heard the message as never before, and have set out to lead Christian lives. Never in the history

of Dunlap has there been such a spiritual awakening among the people. The result is not only seen in the revival meetings, but it has reached the Sunday schools and Young People's meetings, where the attendance has been greatly increased. Also offices, homes and places of business, where profanity has been smothered and prayers are heard. Dancing and card playing are no longer treated as trivial affairs, and good morals and right living are now matters of public concern.

"Mr. Sunday leaves town to-day, but his influence will remain for years to come. No one can measure its magnitude. Who can say how much trouble and grief have been averted by his coming? He will ever hold a warm place in the hearts of our people, who will wish him Godspeed in the work before him. The editor of the Missouri Valley News, who spent Sunday here, has this to say of the meeting:

"We have heard of revivals in which the entire community was stirred as one man, but never before witnessed such a Pentecost as that of yesterday. Mr. Sunday is a young man, of near thirty-five, a perfect specimen of healthy, vigorous manhood. Since we taught him in his youth, he has been an impetuous, vigorous advocate of whatever he believed, and this spirit characterizes all his work as an evangelist. So great is his endurance that he can preach three times a day through an entire series of meetings, hold several specials, make personal calls, talk with seekers, and show no trace of fatigue. He looks on his work as being divinely directed. He said in his sermon yesterday, with an earnestness no one could doubt, that he expected to continue his labors until Gabriel sounded his trumpet from the sky.

"His first work in any town is to revive the professors of religion; then he makes every one of them