A revival does two things. First, it returns the Church from her backsliding and second, it causes the conversion of men and women and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the Church. What a spell the devil seems to cast over the Church today!

Billy Sunday (1862–1935), a former professional baseball player turned evangelist, became one of the most prominent revival preachers in the United States during the early 20th century. His campaigns—often held in temporary “tabernacles”—combined theatrical delivery with urgent calls for repentance and public conversion. The quoted lines reflect a common theme in Sunday’s preaching: revival is not merely increased church activity but a moral and spiritual crisis beginning with the church’s own repentance (“backsliding”) and spreading outward to convert nonbelievers. The lament about “a spell the devil seems to cast over the Church today” fits his frequent warnings that complacency, worldliness, and sin within churches hinder evangelistic power.

The quote defines “revival” as a twofold event: internal reform and external evangelistic fruit. Sunday insists that genuine renewal starts with the church recognizing and confessing its own sin; only then does it effectively call others to conversion. His language frames spiritual decline as both human failure (“backsliding”) and active opposition (“the devil…over the Church”), intensifying the sense of urgency. The passage also implies a critique of superficial religiosity: if a movement does not produce conviction of sin—especially among believers—it is not true revival. In Sunday’s worldview, the church’s moral seriousness is the engine of social and personal transformation.