The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa Thursday, November 19, 1908 Evangelist Billy Sunday has his sermons copyrighted, thus no newspaper dare print them or any other person repeat them to the public, without his consent unless they desire to pay the penalty for so doing. The Ottumwa Courier printed a synopsis of his sermon on "Home," prefacing the clippings with "Copyrighted by William Ashley Sunday." This may be the proper thing for a preacher to do but to a sinner it looks much like making merchandise of the Gospel. The Leader fails to find where the Savior of Men took out a copyright on the Sermon on the Mount, which to our thinking is of greater spiritual value than anything Billy has uttered during all his years as an evangelist, but maybe Christ was not a business man in the strict sense of the word, or else he would have taken out a patent on his plan for the salvation of souls (like Billy Sunday does on his panacea for sin-sick humanity.)Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of purity up and down the shores of Galilee and pleaded for the people to accept a full and free salvation without any copyright on it. He just didn't seem to care who used his words or how many people were converted by his teachings even though it might be second handed -- but Billy Sunday adheres to a more strict business principle and would send people to perdition rather than have them behold the light -- without the copyright. And then again, according to Billy Sunday, what a mistake the evangelical writers (?) made in not taking out a copyright on the several books of the Bible, and thus restricting the Gospel reading until the publishers paid the "mulct tax," according to the theory of the apostle of fat collections. The Leader is not informed as to whether Billy has his prayers "protected" by copyright or not but should his word incense happen to penetrate, like vapor to the seat of eternal justice, it would not be safe to have them answered until a transcript was received from the American patent office. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert April 11, 2005 iggy29@rnetinc.net *Just another view on 'copyright'... smile..