Physical vigor is necessary for the maintenance of our empire as mental vigor. To the philosopher of any

nation, not excluding our own, the spectacle of the Englishmen going through the world with rifle in one hand

and Bible in the other is laughable. But to Englishmen, who are neither logicians nor idealists, it is not.

We wish to see his skill with the one and his faith in the other strengthened and increased.

If asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire.

Our empire would never have been built up by a nation of

idealists and logicians. J.G. Cotton Mention, our public schools, their influence on English history.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 153, The Visionary and The Evangelist

William Ashley Sunday was born on November 19, 1862, in a log cabin near Ames, Iowa, the son of William and Mary Jane Sunday.

William Sunday, the elder, had been born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and was of Pennsylvania

German extraction. The family had anglicized their German name,ontag into the English Sunday.

Three months before Billy was born, William Sunday walked to the 30 miles from Ames,

leaving behind two older sons and a wife six months pregnant,

so he could enlist in the United States Army during the Civil War.

Sadly, a few days after Christmas, 1862, Mary Jane Sunday received a letter from the War

Department informing her that her husband had died of pneumonia.

Young Billy Sunday thus never knew his father, although later in life he would speak with

great emotion about his father's although later in life he would speak with great emotion about his

father's noble sacrifice, and his hope that one day he would meet his father at last in the

world to come. His mother remarried to a man named Leroy Heiser. Leroy was a drunkard who

abused his family. The couple separated when

Billy was nine and eventually divorced. This aspect of Billy's life is significant because of the

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