BILLY SUNDAY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1919, Page 2

BILLY SUNDAY.

A WELLINGTON MAN'S IMPRESSIONS. Mr. A. E. Batt, who recently returned front a trip abroad, had the interesting experience of hearing that remarkable evangelist Billy Sunday. Mr. Batt heard Billy Sunday speak to an audience of 25,000 people at the Citadel in New York on a Sunday afternoon. This Citadel) situated on the ultra-fashionable Riveraide Drive, was built for Mr. Sunday by his admirers. It seats 25,000 people, has a sawdust-on-earth floor, and the people sit on rough benches, as in a circus or stadium. "There is no nonsense about Billy Sunday," says Mr. Batt. "He flings off his coat, tucks up lub sleeves, and sometimes rolls up his trousers, in order to pitch into his audience with the greater freedom. And he doqs go it! He is chock full of the quaintest slang phrases, which tickle the American ear immensely. Not, of course, the educated public. Billy is not for them—does not pretend to be. He goes for the other fellow—the underworld, the Eaat-siders, and so on, and hits them where they live until many of them 'hit the trail for Heaven!' Billy is a Salvation Army branded 'made in America' in the one knan. He has a tremendous following. In New York he spoke twice a day for six weeks, Sundays included, and never to leas than 20,000 people. He in said not to have any money. The cash side of the business was being attended to by a committee, and I know the Y.M.C.A. and other bodies interested in war work benefited largely by the Now York campaign. There was a choir of (iOOO voices present the day 1 heard Sunday, and they could sing! When he left New York city for the Middle West, his friends hitched a special truck behind his train, labelled: "A present for Billy Sunday." It was a gorgeous limousine car, purchased and presented to Sunday in this unique way by Rockefeller, Wanampker, and a few of his friends i in the millionaire, clais. I tell you, Billy Sunday is a power in Amor- ■ ■ • i