The Patron Evangelist of the Perennial Revival
If one proposes to present a modern name in this connection, Dwight L. Moody is without a peer. Jesus once said of John the Baptist: “What went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” The same remark might have been made to any group of men who had been at Moody’s feet. His greatness grew upon the pubHc mind for more than twenty years, and yet his full measure was never taken until after his death.
When you walk in the thick forest, and find there some mighty oak, you may stand beside it tO’ admire its splendid proportions, you may look at its height and feel how it pushes itself toward heaven; but every woodsman will tell you that its real proportions can be appreciated only after it has fallen to the ground. Some years ago, while the Northfield Conference was in session, Doctor Gordon, who was in charge, received a telegram from Mr. Moody saying that he could not be present, but that he had three helpers, Meyer, Pierson, and Pentecost, who would take his place, and he added an encouraging Scripture reference. Doctor Gordon immediately replied: “See i Corinthians 1 6: 17: ‘I am glad oi the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus: for that which was lacking on your part they have supplied.’” Truly he was equal to many men, a Napoleon for generalship, a Whitefield for eloquence, a Wesley for fervor, and a Spurgeon for direct speech and effective organization. And when he was gone, no wonder the ministers, missionaries, laymen, and even men of the world said one to another: “Know ye not that a prince and a great man is fallen this day in Israel?” In order to understand this evangelist one needs to trace the history of his life. First of all, we are interested in
The Birth of the Boy
It was on February 5, 1837, that Dwight Moody opened his eyes to the light, in historic Northfield. When his mother carried him outside the humble house, his eyes rested upon the beautiful mountain ranges that rise on either side of the picturesque Connecticut River. The hill-country is a good place in which to be born. It is more easy to grow a giant when one has the mountains to climb, the forests, brooks, and rivers to look upon. Outdoor life is an education at once to muscle and mind; and doubtless the spirit of man, by communication with nature in such forms, is lifted into communion with nature’s God, for, as Walter Scott says in “Guy Mannering,” “Who can presume to analyze that inexplicable feeling which binds a person, born in a mountainous country, to his native hills?”
This boy was of Puritan parentage. His father and mother were of the good old New England stock. While his father, Edwin Moody, was removed by death when Dwight was four years of age, he was by no means orphaned thereby, for Betsy Holten Moody was equal to playing the part of both parents. The fact that she was left in poverty and charged with the care and support of eleven children did not reduce her stout heart to despair. On the contrary, her courage rose to meet these adverse circumstances, and she not only maintained her home, keeping her children together, but gave to. the world an exhibition of what a woman can do. If there is one class of women for whom we have respect above all other classes, it is the widowed mothers of the land. We have often thought that if one undertook to write a history of the great among widows’ sons, many volumes would be required. Take, for a single illustration of this thought, the family of Wendell Phillips.. William Phillips, grandfather of Wendell, died at the early age of thirty- four. His young widow so succeeded in the training and education of her son as to see him become famous as the Hon. John Phillips. Carlos Martin says of her: “She was a woman of unusual strength of character, well educated, and a devoted Christian, and when at last this only son stood forth on public occasions as the most finished orator of Boston, it was easy to see how the mother had molded and made him. John Phillips was the father of Wendell, but he too, like his father, was destined for an early death. And so when Wendell had seen but twelve years, his mother was widowed, and the entire responsibility for the education and outfit of a family of nine children rested upon her, and IMartin says: “The sagacious manner in which she met and mastered the emergency contributed, no doubt, to give her son that respect for, and appreciation of, female ability which became one of his characteristic traits.” But, admirable as was the result of Sally Phillips’ influence over Wendell, it was not more to be praised than was that which Betsy Holten Moody exerted upon her son’s life.
When John Adams said, “I am what my mother made me,” he voiced the same thought expressed by Mr. Moody on the occasion of his mother’s funeral when, contrary to custom, he stood forth and uttered those eloquent words of tribute to her character, and of gratitude for her influence upon his own life. When some one asked Napoleon what France needed, he replied, “Mothers.” When we trace the history of a great man back to the breeding of such a mother as was Mrs. Moody we are compelled to say: “ America’s need is the same — ’ mothers ‘!”
His Beginnings in Business
These are almost of equal interest with his birth. When he was seventeen years of age he left Northfield to seek employment in Boston. It is not difficult to imagine the separation of mother and son. Those who were at the World’s Fair and looked on the original, yea, all who have studied even the copy, of the famous picture, “ Breaking Home Ties,” will need no further aid to the imagination as they think of the parting of D wight Moody and his mother. Into the anxious face of that mother the artist has wrought all of the suffering and all of the solicitude incident to the hour when a country woman gives up her boy to city life — with all of its difficulties of situation, all of its insidious temptations, and all of its noble possibilities.
D wight encountered difficulties from the first day. His uncle, William Holten, was a shoe merchant and able to give him a situation. But Dwight’s reputation had preceded him toi Boston, and the uncle had been cautioned that if he gave the boy a place in the store he must plan to take second place himself, for D wight was headstrong and bossy. In consequence, this merchant uncle sent the lad forth day after day in search of a position, and when he saw that even his failures to find one did not discourage him, he could not withhold his admiration; and he offered him a place in his own store on two conditions: first, that he be obedient; secondly, that he attend the Congregational Church every Sunday. The lad readily consented to both, and his first place of employment associated him with friends destined to help in shaping his life and labors. The restraining hand of that uncle was an influence needful and beneficent, while the love and instruction of the Congregational pastor were factors of might in the making of the coming man. One of God’s best gifts to a young man is a true friend. Pastor Stalker says: “Such a friend purifies and exalts. He may be a second conscience; a consciousness of what he expects from us may be a spur tO’ high endeavor... Even when the fear of facing our own conscience might not be strong enough to restrain us from evil, the knowledge that our conduct will have to encounter his judgment, will make the commission of what is base intolerable.”
How much, therefore, is to be attributed to the influence of the merchant uncle, and to that of the church pastor, in the making up of the sum total of Moody’s manhood no one can tell. It is certain, however, that God blessed him in bringing him into their association.
But, after all, the secret of his success lay in the, boy himself. He performed his duties faithfully. Like Richard Arkwright, the inventor; like Turner, the painter; like Shakespeare, the poet; like Burns, Ben Jonson, Hugh Miller, John Foster, David Livingstone, and others, he compelled poverty to play the part of the steppingstone, adversity to mother ambition, disappointment to give place to hope by doing his every duty well; and, as the old maxim says, “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
In 1856, the nineteen-year-old lad was leaving Boston for Chicago, quitting his uncle’s shoe-store to take a better position in the same business in the Western city.
It was here in Chicago that he
Blossomed into an Evangelist
The beginnings of his religious work, like his boyhood, and his embarkation in business, were small and seemingly insignificant. In Chicago he united with the Plymouth Congregational Church, As many know, it was even then one of the well-to-do and aristocratic institutions of the city. Imagine, then, the surprise of the splendid superintendent when this awkward and uncouth lad made application to teach a class. He was told there was no vacancy — model school! Some men would have gone off with injured feelings to speak angry words, but this youth, burning with enthusiasm, did the saner thing. He hied himself to some of the back streets, and there made friends with a score of ragamuffins, and on the following Sabbath had them seated on a log half-covered by the sands that make up the Lake Michigan shore, and for a Sabbath or two he opened up to this company the word of God. Again he went back to the superintendent in the Plymouth Church and asked for a class, and that Christian gentleman replied: “You can teach if you get your own class.” It was just the word that Moody wanted, and the very next Sunday, to the consternation of some of those who were willing to send their money to evangelize the heathen, and who had shed many tears over the degraded estate of people in India, China, Japan, and Africa, but who had never concerned themselves for the State Street crowd, he led them in, fourteen strong, and seated them well to the front. Through the influence of a well-to-do and godly young man. Moody and his unwashed were permitted to become permanent factors in the Plymouth Church. In Mr. Moody’s home in Northfield visitors used to see an interesting sight. In strange contrast with the splendid oil paintings which adorned the walls of the Moody home there hung two modest little photographs framed in plain oak. One of them represented the fourteen boys as they were when Moody began with them. They were unkempt, ragged, dirty, unattractive! The other represented the twelve boys upon whom Mr. Moody was able to keep his hold. And though the time between the first picture and the second was not long, the transformation was marked and beautiful, for these twelve were clean- faced, the hair of each had been tamed and trained by the comb, while their clothes had no hint of dirt or rags. Under the first of these pictures was written the words, “Does it pay?” Under the second was written, “It does pay.” There in that work was the promise of God’s prophet. The elements that made him great never better manifested themselves than they did in that matter. There he showed his enthusiasm for souls. There he showed himself difficult to discourage. There he showed himself capable of reaching the neglected. There he manifested that matchless love for his fellow men which was the never-failing secret of his success in dealing with them. From that time he followed the promptings of the Spirit, and the young shoe merchant as naturally became the Young Men’s Christian Association secretary, and eventually the great evangelist, as did Philip the deacon become Philip the peerless preacher under the guidance of the same Spirit.
One thing has profoundly impressed us as we have studied Moody, the young man. He seems never to have dreamed of his own abilities; and while John B. Farwell and John Wanamaker were among his early friends and had great faith in him, it is doubtful if they ever divined his splendid powers until the years had proved them. It has been true of most great men that they have appreciated their own abilities. When Henry Ward Beecher was but a lad in Indianapolis he set such price upon his own sermons as to presume upon their publication, at a time when printing was expensive and patronage difficult. When Doctor Lorimer was yet in his youth he published his “Jesus — the World’s Saviour,” a book concerning which, twenty-five years ago, he said, “I esteem it my best.” When Charles Spurgeon was a lad the great Doctor Knill took him upon his knee one day, and said:
“This boy will yet preach the gospel, and he will preach it to a great multitude. I am persuaded that he will preach in the chapel of Rowland Hill.” But Moody seems never to have entertained such a thought of himself, and if the most ardent admirers of his youth saw evidence of his coming greatness they were silent about it. But, as Doctor Gunsaulus, lecturing on the great Savonarola, said, as he pictured that great prophet of God going on from conquest to conquest, from triumph to triumph, “ One never rises so high as when one does not know whither one is going.” But if we were to ask how it came to pass that this country-bred boy, this ungainly and uneducated young salesman, shot into the zenith of religious life, and shone there for forty years with a luster that dimmed the brilliance of the brainiest men of English and American ministry; how it came to pass that this slouchy-looking Sunday-school teacher, beginning with fourteen slum-urchins, was suddenly standing on the platform, swept about by the thousands of the high and low, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the learned, swaying with his fervent speech the whole multitude, we would be compelled to answer: “It was only because he surrendered himself absolutely to do the divine will.”
In studying Moody in the ascendent, one is impressed that he was
Broadened by His Blessings
Success with him resulted in greater unselfishness. One of the secrets of his success in dealing with the ministers of this country was his unselfishness. He was extremely careful to have as many ministers as possible take part in his services, and often asked if there were some of the pastors who had not been invited to the platform. Every singer, from the time of Mr. Sankey’s service, down to his latest associate, found him not a master, but a brother. But that unselfishness displayed itself more perfectly still in his methods of handling money. He was a master at taking collections. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars the public put into his hands, and while he might have kept a considerable portion as a rightful exchange for his preaching, he retained of it all only a comfortable living, and would have left his wife and children in poverty but for the importunity of his friends, who succeeded, just a little while before his decease, in arguing him into a life insurance. One of the tests of manhood is what one does with his money, and the touchstone of one’s Christianity is his treatment of silver and gold.
Another respect in which Mr. Moody was broadened by his blessings appeared in the fact that swelling audiences drove him to study. There are not a few men in America and England, whose only honor is a college degree, and who at one time spoke sneeringly of Moody’s lack of education. At the time of his death, Dr. Henry C. Mabie referred to this sneer, and pitied the man that uttered it, saying: “Mr. Moody’s private library is one of the best I have ever looked upon, and few men of my acquaintance are such students of books as this peerless evangelist.” That he was more than a patron of learning, that he was her faithful friend, is evidenced by those magnificent schools which stand at Northfield — a monument to his labors, and his gift to the Master and to needy men. No wonder February 5 is made a holiday in that little town; no wonder the stores are closed on that day each year and all business is suspended, and the people turn into the house of God. That thousand acres of land beautified beyond any possibilities of art; those thirty buildings erected in the cause of education; those three schools, the Female Seminary, Mount Hermon for the boys, and the Training School for both sexes, that summer assembly, a fountain opened for the revival of men’s souls, through the instruction of the word — are not these indeed institutions in which any village in the land would rejoice? And if this little townp — more nearly a miniature heaven to-day than anything we have known on earth besides — did not commemorate his birth and mourn over his death, it would be a village of ingrates indeed.
Time will not suffice for us to speak of his loyalty to the word of God. The noblest defender of a full inspiration, the kindest but keenest critic of the critics, he stood always firm for the old faith. If Paul had lived in his time, and had occasion to write to Moody, he would never have said, as he did to Timothy: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Tim. 4: 1-5). There would have been no need, for Paul was not more faithful to that word than was this modern prophet, nor did he know better how to preach it.
The Monuments to His Memory Are Not Alone at
North Field
The Moody Church in Chicago- is easily the greatest agency for evangelism known to that city, or to the entire West. In addition to the hundreds of souls that are saved through its direct work, the students of the Moody Training School are going out annually in splendid companies: — agents of God and his gospel every one; while the Colportage Association press is pouring out a stream of publications that make up indeed a river of life, on either bank of which trees of knowledge grow, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
But, in our judgment, the greatest work Mr. Moody ever did is the one of which men make the least mention, namely, the one of evangelizing those pastors who are not utterly indifferent to their true ministry, and those churches which were not too cold to respond to the call of this modern prophet of God. The Clarendon Street Church dated the day of its enlargement and power to the meetings held there forty-five years ago by Mr. Moody. Among his later labors was a meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston. A friend, writing of the services of that great church on the Sunday succeeding his death, said: “When Doctor Lorimer had finished his morning sermon concerning Mr. Moody a score of people rose to request the saved to pray for them. At night, after a fervent, affectionate plea by Doctor Lorimer, a watch-meeting was entered upon, in the course of which a full hundred more rose to say: ‘Brethren, pray that we may be saved.’” Oh, that this great evangelist might have lived to breathe upon every pastor of the land, and upon every church a reviving breath; and to have witnessed them enjoying, every one, a perennial revival!