Another View of Billy Sunday

BILLY SUNDAY KNOXVILLE EXPRESS' VIEW .OF THE EVANGELIST. Says He Creates a Pessimistic Atmosphere Also 'Gives -Him Credit for ' Good Accomplished. There Are Good People in th World. "Billy" Sunday, the famous baseball evangelist, has now been preaching in Knoxville for nearly two weeks and the Knoxville Express thus sums up the lively evangelist. He has delivered nearly a score of sermons, so that It is possible to form some intelligent idea of the man, his methods, his ideas and his limitations. The worst thing L notice in Mr. Sunday's preaching is the pessimistic atmosphere he creates. He. is not solemn, nor gloomy; he sets you laughing (and presumably can set you crying, for laughter md tears are not far apart, and the man who makes you laugh can usually make you cry if he so wills), yet there is something oppressive about it, as if your lungs were filled with sewer, gas; and when you leave the tabernacle and its stories of crime and misery and suggestions of Impurity and go out into the fresh air and the green fields, you feel relieved to find that, the birds sing, the sun shines and all nature seems in a conspiracy to make you happy. Billy Sunday urges you to laugh and be glad and not put on a long face; but he creates a pessimism that he does not preach in 'words. He lifts the cover from a cesspool, stirs the contents and complains of the smell. And to what purpose at last? Can he clean it out and prevent its recurrence? Moreover, It seems to me that Billy Sunday's slang is an Index of bis views of sin and crime His point of view seems to be no higher than the source of his expressive slang of the streets. He seems to revel in talk of sin (especially tho social evil.) ' The couplet, I ' '. .-. . .' ". ," i "The optimist the doughnut sees The pessimist, the hole." expresses it exactly. There is sin and crime, and grief, and woe in the world, but they are not all. There are good men and virtuous women In the world most of - the population is composed of them hut Mr. Sunday appears to Gee very, very few of them. ANOTHER VIEW