Billy Sunday Draws a Crowd
Over 1,000 hopefuls packed Jamieson’s Opera House for the evangelist's visit, but most were left in the cold.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Of more than 1,000 people who came to Lynden to see and hear Rev. Billy Sunday Wednesday morning, not more than 400 got to hear him. When the opera house was crowded full, Mr. Jamieson very wisely refused admittance to the hall and entry. Another overflow meeting had been provided for in the Methodist church, but Mr. Sunday positively refused to go there to even say a few words. During the morning, J.W. Wilmore, who had been sick for some time and was weak, was overcome in the hall and had to be removed to his home. Sunday preached on the hope of the gospel but, as usual, did not stick very closely to his text. He remarked that local farmers would never be satisfied, even if they owned the whole township. Lynden made a free-will offering that amounted to over $44 net for Mr. Sunday.
“He said all Christians were in church but not all churchmen were Christians.”
Billy Sunday was the quintessential traveling revivalist of the early 20th century, a former baseball player turned preacher whose fire-and-brimstone style captured the anxieties of a rapidly industrializing America. Today, the site of the former Jamieson Opera House remains a focal point in downtown Lynden, serving as a reminder of when civic life was centered around the physical gathering spaces of main street.
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