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Billy Sunday gave his speech vigorous physical accompaniment. Sunday's "tabernacles" held audiences of about fifteen thousand people, to whom he spoke without any sound equipment. To one observer, his platform manners recalled those of the Broadway performer George M. Cohan, and with good reason:

Billy Sunday gave his speech vigorous physical accompaniment. Sunday's "tabernacles" held audiences of about fifteen thousand people, to whom he spoke without any sound equipment. To one observer, his platform manners recalled those of the Broadway performer George M. Cohan, and with good reason:

:Needing to arrest the attention of an incredibly large number of people, he adopts various evolutions that have a genuine emphatic value. It is a physical language... Sunday gives to his words a drive that makes you tense in your seat. Whipping like a flash from one side of the table to the other, he makes your mind keep unison with his body."<ref>"Billy Sunday," ''The New Republic,'' March 20, 1915, from ''The New Republic Book,'' [http://books.google.com/books?id=x7IiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA183&as_brr=1#PPA183,M1 p. 183]</ref>

:Needing to arrest the attention of an incredibly large number of people, he adopts various evolutions that have a genuine emphatic value. It is a physical language... Sunday gives to his words a drive that makes you tense in your seat. Whipping like a flash from one side of the table to the other, he makes your mind keep unison with his body."<ref name=tnr>"Billy Sunday," ''The New Republic,'' March 20, 1915, from ''The New Republic Book,'' [http://books.google.com/books?id=x7IiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA183&as_brr=1#PPA183,M1 p. 183]</ref>

A 1917 biographer referred to his "acrobatic preaching," saying "Sunday is a physical sermon. In a unique sense he glorifies God with his body."<ref name=ellis>Ellis, WIlliam T. (1917), [http://www.archive.org/details/billysundaymanan00ellirich Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message]; online text at archive.org</ref> A description of him in action says

A 1917 biographer referred to his "acrobatic preaching," saying "Sunday is a physical sermon. In a unique sense he glorifies God with his body."<ref name=ellis>Ellis, WIlliam T. (1917), [http://www.archive.org/details/billysundaymanan00ellirich Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message]; online text at archive.org</ref> A description of him in action says

:He begins to dance like a shadow-boxer. He slaps his hands together with a report like a broken electricl lamp. He poses on one foot like a fast ball pitcher winding up. He jumps upon a chair. In the stress of his routine he may stand with one foot in the chair and another on the lectern. All the while he is flaying the "whisky kings," the German war lords, slackers, suffragettes, or the local ministry. And, if his story of the sinner come home to salvation fits the gesture, he may emphasize the moral by throwing himself on the floor with an outstretched arm groping for the home plate like a baserunner sliding safely in with a stolen run.<ref name=nytobit/>

:He begins to dance like a shadow-boxer. He slaps his hands together with a report like a broken electricl lamp. He poses on one foot like a fast ball pitcher winding up. He jumps upon a chair. In the stress of his routine he may stand with one foot in the chair and another on the lectern. All the while he is flaying the "whisky kings," the German war lords, slackers, suffragettes, or the local ministry. And, if his story of the sinner come home to salvation fits the gesture, he may emphasize the moral by throwing himself on the floor with an outstretched arm groping for the home plate like a baserunner sliding safely in with a stolen run.<ref name=nytobit/>