When asked concerning his ancestry Mr. Moody replied: “Never mind the ancestry! A man I once heard of was ambitious to trace his family to the Mayflower, and he stumbled over a horsethief. Never mind a man’s ancestry!” Of his birth he said: “I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856.” Mr. Moody was born in Northfield, Mass., on Feb. 5, 1837; was converted in Boston, Mass., in 1856; and died in Northfield, Mass., on Dec. 22, 1899. He was the sixth child of a family of nine, coming of hardy, conscientious Puritan stock. Mr. Moody, like many of our Christian heroes, was born and reared in poverty. His father died at forty-one, leaving the widow with practically no means of support and with the homestead encumbered with a mortgage. The creditors took everything that they could secure, even to the kindling wood in the shed, and left the widow with her seven children in hard straits. The firewood became exhausted; the children remained in bed until school time to keep warm. A brother of Mrs. Moody then came to their rescue with what Dwight thought was the biggest load of wood that he had ever seen. The uncle split it, and soon they had a good fire. The birth of twins after the father’s death added to the heavy burden of the
mother and she was advised to break up the home and put the children out among different families for keeping. But “Trust in God” was the simple creed of this mother. Early in life the children learned to love that God and to pray to him who is the strength of the fatherless and the widow. With the sole care of a large family there was little of religious doctrine taught in the home, but the children were instructed in the true heart religion, “Seek God first and his righteousness.” Dwight, at seventeen, as a member of a young men’s Bible class in Boston, was bewildered and embarrassed by the request to find a simple Scriptural reference, yet few if any of his amused companions were more thoroughly established in the “pure religion” than he. He was not converted until he was eighteen, but it was to a tender conscience and an open heart that the gospel invitation was given, and Dwight was ready to honor God and accept his salvation. Mrs. Moody was tender-hearted. She taught the children the privilege of giving from their scanty store. The hungry were never turned away and once when the provision for the evening meal was very meager it was put to vote of the children whether they should share their food with a poor beggar who had appealed for aid. They voted to aid him and offered to have their own slices cut thinner. No fault-finding or complaining about neighbors was tolerated; thus the children learned independence as well as charity. No matter how inexcusable the neglect not one word of complaint was heard from any member of the family. Church attendance was compulsory. The boys went barefoot, carrying their shoes and stockings in their hands and putting them on when they came in sight of the church. They carried luncheon and remained all day at church hearing two long sermons and attending Sunday-school in between. In spite of the poverty that
parted the children and mother through the week, they all came home for Sunday, and thus the mother preserved the home life and religious training one day in seven. In later years Mr. Moody looked back to these days with gratitude, even though he had been compelled to attend church and listen to sermons which he could not understand, for it fixed upon him the habit of attending God’s house. Of these times Mr. Moody said: “I remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the Sabbath. On one occasion the preacher had to send someone into the gallery to wake me up. I thought it was hard to have to work in the field all the week, and then be obliged to go to church and hear a sermon I didn’t understand. I thought I wouldn’t go to church any more when I got away from home; but I had got so in the habit of going that I couldn’t stay away. After one or two Sabbaths, back again to the house of God I went. There I first found Christ, and I have often said since: ‘Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house of God when I didn’t want to go.’ ” Three books constituted the home library—a large family Bible, a catechism, and a book of devotions. From the latter a portion was read each morning, also a prayer was made before the family entered upon the work of the day. Mr. Moody could never speak of those early days without the most tender reference to that brave mother whose self-sacrifice and devotion had sacredly guarded the home entrusted to her care. When at the age of ninety, her lifevoyage ended, she entered the “Haven of Rest,” her children, her children’s children, and the entire community rose up to call her blessed. To rule a household of seven sturdy boys and two girls, the eldest twelve years old, required much more than ordinary tact and judgment, but this loyal mother was so discreet that she made home the most loved place on earth to her family and so trained her
children as to make them a blessing to society. “For nearly fifty years I have been coming back to Northfield,” said Mr. Moody, long after the circle had been broken up, “and I have always been glad to get back. When I get within fifty miles of home I grow restless and walk up and down the car. It seems as if the train will never get to Northfield. When I come back after dark I always look to see the light in mother’s window.” Thus the noble blood that coursed through his veins, the careful discipline, the early, persistent religious training, the influence of a godly mother, the hardships and privation which he endured uncomplainingly, laid the foundation for D. L. Moody, doubtless the greatest “lay” preacher of all time. It is conservatively estimated that during his ministry he preached the gospel to more than fifty million people in England, America, Scotland, Ireland, and the Holy Land. It has been said that his life and word glorified the ministry.