Dwight L. Moody: His Life, His Work, His Personality

Born at Northfield, Franklin County, Mass., February 5, 1837. “Went to Boston in 1854 and was employed in his uncle’s shoe store. Joined the Sunday-school of the Mount Vernon Congregational Church

in the same year and was admitted to membership of the church. Arrived in Chicago in 1856 and became salesman in a shoe store, Joined the Plymouth Congregational Church in the same year and

organized a Sunday-school class of his own. Rented an empty saloon building and removed his headquarters to the

North Side. Founded the Mission of North Market Hall and worked among the

depraved young men of the “North Market street gang.” Founded “Moody’s Church” in 1863 and became its lay pastor. Burned out by the great fire in 1871.

Met Ira D. Sankey in 1872 and made him his evangelical partner. Went to Great Britain in 1873 and amazed that country with his work. Founded the Northfield seminary for girls in 1875. Founded the Mount Vernon school for boys in 1861. Established the Moody Bible Istitute of Chicago in 1889, and the

Northfield training school for women in 1890.
Died December 22, 1899.

D WIGHT L. MOODY’S name is coupled inseparably with the Town of Northfield. Mass., where he was born, in 1837. His Bible Training school, which he always looked on as his monument, is located there, and when the breakdown came at Kansas City he hurried home to Northfield to die. The attachment for the little town was formed many years ago, when Mr. Moody as a boy ran barefoot and hungry about the town to help his widowed mother support himself and his eight small brothers and sisters. Years afterwards he established his own family there, and it was to Northfield he always returned after his revival seasons.

Mr. Moody went away to Boston when he was 17 years old and began work as clerk in his uncle’sstore. He was given the place on condition that he would go regularly to church and Sunday-school. This was in line with what he always had done at home and was no bardship, but Mr. Moody in after years always told of his first months in Boston as if he had not then been possessed of a soul. From his standpoint the “light” did not come to him until, one day, after a call at the shoe store by his Sunday-school teacher, he was “converted.”

Much has been written about how Dwight L. Moody came to give up. what promised to -be a successful business career and devote all his energy to evangelistic work. The story, as the great evangelist himself told it, is as follows:

“I had never lost sight of Jesus Christ since the first night I met Him in the store at Boston. When I went to Chicago, I hired five pews

Vlii. MOODY S BIOGRAPHY.

in a church, and used to go out on the street and pick up young men and fill these pews. I never spoke to these young men about their souls; that was the work of the elders, I thought.

. “After working for some time like thab, I started a mission Sabbath school. I thought numbers were everything, and so I worked for numbers. When the attendance ran below 1,000 it troubled me; and when it ran to 1,200 or 1,500 I was elated. Still none was converted; there was no harvest.’

“Then God opened my eyes. There was a class of young ladies in the school, who were without exception the most frivolous set of girls I ever met. One Sunday the teacher was ill and I took the class. They laughed in my face, and I felt like opening the door and telling them all to get out and never come back.

“That week the teacher of the class came into the store where I worked. He was pale and looked very ill.

“« What is the trouble?” I asked.

“‘I have had another hemorrhage of my lungs. The doctor says I cannot live on Lake Michigan, so I am going to New York State. I suppose I am going home to die.’ He seemed greatly troubled, and when I asked him the reason he replied: ‘Well, I have never led any of my class to Christ. I really believe I have done the girls more harm than good.’

“I had never heard anyone talk like that before, and it set me thinking. After a while I said: ‘Suppose you go and tell them how you feel-I will go with you in a carriage, if you want to go.” He consented, and we started out together. It was one of the best journeys I ever had on earth. We went to the house of one of the girls, called for her, and the teacher talked to her about her soul. There was no laughing then! Tears stood in her eyes before long. After he had explained the way of life he suggested that we have prayer. He asked me to pray. True, I had never done such a thing in my life as to pray God to convert a young lady there and then. But we prayed, and God answered our prayer.

“We went to other houses. He would go upstairs and be all out of breath, and he would tell the girls what he had come for. It wasn’t long before they broke long and sought salvation. When his strength gave out I took him back to his lodgings. The next day we went out again. At the end of ten days he came to the store with his face literally shining.

“‘Mr. Moody,’ he said, ‘the last of my class has shielded herself to Christ.’ I tell you we had a time of rejoicing. He had to leave the next night, so I called his class together that night for a prayer meeting, and there God kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out.

“I was disqualified for busines; it had become distasteful to me. I had got a taste of another world, and cared no more for making money. For some days after, the greatest struggle of nry life took place. Should I give up business and give myself to Christian work or should I not? I have never regretted my choice. Oh, the luxury of leading some one out of the darkness of this world into the glorious light and liberty of the gospel.”

John V. Farwell had already become interested in the energetic young evangelist and given him free use of North Market Hall.

Mr. Moody, whose preaching ability constantly improved, located his mission there. Mr. Farwell himself acted as superintendent. The hall always was used for dancing on Saturday nights, and Mr. Moody would come down early Sunday morning and sweep out the place with his own hands.

After he had decided to give up selling shoes he devoted all his time to his mission. As he could find no one to pay him a salary, he slept on

MOODY S BIOGRAPHY. ix.

a bench in the rooms of the Y. M. C. A., which he had helped organize, and ate at the 10-cent restaurants. Before long his friends came to his aid with contributions, and on the strength of this increased pay he married, two years later, Miss Emma C. Revell of Chicago. Many times after his marriage, Mr. Moody was forced to borrow both food and money from his friends.

Mr. Moody’s mission continued to grow, however, in spite of poverty. In 1863 a $20,000 church was erected in Illinois street, and the congregation soon numbered nearly a thousand. When the Y. M. C. A. began the agitation for its first building, Mr. Moody was elected President, and it was largely through his efforts and the financial support of John V. Farwell that old Farwell Hall was built. The night of the great fire of 1871, Mr. Moody was preaching there and had to flee with his congregation through the La Salle street tunnel. Within three months he had erected a huge frame tabernacle and resumed his services.

During the years when Mr. Moody was acquiring his reputation as a great preacher there was one interruption. Mr. Moody went to the war. He did not enlist as a soldier, but went to the prisons and worked on the battle fields. He was with the army in the Chattanooga campaign, was one of the first to enter Richmond, and his experiences served him afterwards for numberless themes for his sermons. In the same way, he became interested in the Spanish war, visiting the camps and addressing the soldiers before the invasion of Cuba began. He would have followed the army to Cuba if his physician had not forbidden him doing so.

Mr. Moody never lacked for a story or an idea. His sermons were in reality a series of anecdotes mixed with appeals in such a way that in hearing them people never stopped to inquire about logical sequence. He was fond of bringing strange objects into his meetings to serve as texts. During his last great revival in Chicago, held two years ago at the Auditorium, he appeared one morning with a tea cup and a pitcher of water, and preached on them one of the most eloquent sermons of his life. He was one of the few men who never had to stop to think what they were going to say next. His ideas seemed to come to him without effort, and apparently he never had to exert much effort in choosing. His illustrations always were apt and he would preach day after day without repeating a story or using an illustration a second time.

Mr. Moody’s eloquence served him in raising thousands of dollars. It was his boast that he had given away over $2,000,000 paid him in contributions or in royalties on his books since he first came to Chicago. The bulk of the money derived from subscriptions and from sales of his sermons, went to support his Bible school at Northfield and the Chicago Bible Institute.

When he founded the school the Bible was the only text book. Afterwards other branches were added to the course. A scientific and a classical school were added. The girls’ seminary which was founded two years before Mr. Moody purchased the farm-house, now has an attendance of 350, and applications are on file for two or three years in advance. Mr. Moody finally had to erect a big hotel to care for the patrons of the school. Since it was established nearly forty large buildings have been erected, surrounding the Moody homestead and forming the center of a busy town.

The church and Bible institute at Chicago and La Salle avenues were founded by Mr. Moody shortly after the fire. The money, $100,000. expended there was raised by him. The church is independent, but is closely modeled after the Congregational denomination for which Mr.

Moody always had close sympathy. He was the director of both the church and institute, although seldom in Chicago of late years.

Ira D. Sankey. the famous associate of Mr. Moody in evangelistic work, said in an article published recently in Success:

“I consider Dwight L.Moody the most remarkable man of the century, distinguished especially for his devotion to the cause of Jesus Christ and the betterment of the world. His character is marked by great common sense and by the utmost sincerity; his heart by singleness of philanthropic purpose, and his life by tremendous power of achievement. His work has resulted in the conversion of hundreds of thousands of men and women.”

Mr. Sankey described the manner in which he met Mr. Moody. He was in Indianapolis in 1870. During a prayer meeting at which Mr. Moody presided the singing was poor, until Mr. Sankey sang the hymn. “There is a fountain filled with blood.” After the meeting Mr. Moody asked him to leave the internal revenue service and join him in his Christian work. Six months later Mr. Sankey came to Mr. Moody at Chicago, where he worked for a year and a half. When Chicago was destroyed by fire Mr. Moody raised money to rebuild his church, and then accepted an invitation to go to England with Mr. Sankey.

“We sailed in June, 1873,” continued Mr. Sankey. “At Queenstown we received a letter announcing that both of the men who had invited us to England had died. At Liverpool Mr. Moody declared to me that if the Lord opened a door to us we would go in; otherwise we would return to America.

“That night Mr. Moody found an unopened letter among his papers; it said that if we ever came to England we would be welcomed at York, to speak for the Y. M. C. A there. Mr. Moody said at once: ‘We will go to York.’ Our meetings there for the first day or two were not large, but at the end of the week no building in the city would hold all the people who desired to attend.”

“No man ever paid a greater tribute to his wife than Mr. Moody paid to Mrs. Moody,” said Mrs, William K. Holden. “I never met with a happier couple. In every way he deferred to her. She answered all hisfvoluminous correspondence. She was the one to whom he always spoke of his plans and his work. No trouble was too great for him if he could save her any bother or everyday, ordinary little troubles. They were married in 1864, and Mr. Moody had already then started on his missionary work at North Market Hall. They were very poor, had hardly enough to live on and resided in a little house at Dearborn avenue and Indiana street, but they were happy, and this happiness has always continued through their lives.”

Mr. Moody’s life was that of a powerful Christian, reminding one of the early disciples wandering all over the world preaching the Word. His impress on millions of minds has been deep and durable, and when he surrendered his soul to his Maker, one of the greatest instruments of mankind’s salvation stopped work for ever.