As Moody became older he had ambitions to change. His confines were too narrow. He began to appreciate the value of an education, and tried to make the most of his schooling opportunities. One day in the spring of 1854, while in the woods cutting and hauling logs, he said to his brother Edwin, “I’m tired of this! I’m not going to stay around here any longer. I’m going off to the city.” He tried to get work in Boston with his uncles who were in the shoe business, but failed. He then went to Clinton, Mass., where another brother was employed. There he got a job addressing wrappers for the first newspaper that was published in that town. But being dissatisfied he returned to Boston, where he had a homesick and trying time getting work. At last his uncles took him into their store on his promise that he would board at a place selected by them, attend Mount Vernon Church and Sabbath-school, and not drink or gamble. He accepted and became the store boy. Dwight had ambitions to make a hundred thousand dollars and become a successful merchant. Soon, through application to business principles, he came to the front as a salesman, but he passed through many trying circumstances before reaching this point. He had left home with five dollars; soon he became penniless. He said
of these trying days: “It seemed as if there was room for everyone else in the world, but none for me. For about two days I had the feeling that no one wanted me. I have never had it since, and I never want it again. It is an awful feeling. It seems to me that must have been the feeling of the Son of God when he was down here. They did not want him. He had come to save men, and they did not want to be saved. He had come to lift men up, and they did not want to be lifted up. There was no room for him in this world, and there is no room for him yet.” He would go to the post-office several times a day looking for mail, though he knew there was only one mail a day from Northfield. At last he got a letter; it was from his youngest sister. He opened it with a light heart, thinking it contained some good news from home, but the burden of the whole letter was that she had heard that there were pickpockets in Boston, and she warned him to beware of them. To a penniless, jobless boy, it appeared to him that the first thing he should think about was the getting of some money, and then he might be on the lookout for pickpockets. His first attitude toward his uncles had been that of independence, and a waiting for them to offer him employment. But at last his pride gave way under the dreadful sense of being adrift in a world that seemed to care nothing for him. At this point one of his uncles gave him some free advice to the effect that his self-will was greatly in his way and that modesty was sometimes as needful as courage. He then suggested that another uncle would no doubt be willing to give him work if he were a little more willing to be governed by people who were wiser and older than himself. At first Dwight demurred, but finally yielded and asked his uncle for a place in his shop. His uncle gave him a job with this good advice thrown in:
“Dwight, I am afraid if you come in here you will want to run the store yourself. Now, my men here want to do their work as I want it done. If you want to come in here and do the best you can and do it right, and if you’ll be willing to ask whenever you don’t know, and if you promise to go to church and Sunday-school, and if you will not go anywhere that you wouldn’t want your mother to know about, we’ll see how we can get along. You can have till Monday to think it over.” “I don’t want till Monday,” was the prompt reply. “I’ll promise now.” It was soon evident that he was by natural wit and brightness one of the best of salesmen; He was not satisfied with the ordinary methods of the salesmen, but cried his wares before the door and went out into the street to persuade uninterested passers that they wanted to buy. This tendency shown in his selling methods of carrying his wares to the people rather than waiting for them to come for them was turned to good advantage later in the ministry when he went into the highways and byways where men in sin congregate and brought them to Jesus. This was one of the dominant factors that made D. L. Moody the powerful preacher that he was. According to the agreement made with his uncle, Moody became a regular attendant of the Mount Vernon Congregational Church. He was also enrolled as a member of the Sunday-school and was assigned to a young men’s Bible class taught by Mr. Edward Kimball. From the beginning he took a keen interest in Bible study. As a result of his early training Moody was religious, but he had never been regenerated. His Sunday-school teacher gradually led the young student to a fuller knowledge of God’s plan of salvation. Mr. Kimball laid his plans carefully and prayerfully for a personal
interview with young Moody, which finally came in the store where Moody was working. Speaking of this Mr. Kimball said: “I thought that possibly my call might embarrass the boy, and that when I went away the other clerks would ask who I was, and taunt him with my efforts in trying to make him a good boy. In the meantime I had passed the store, and, discovering this, I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found Moody in the back part of the building wrapping up shoes. I went up to him at once, and putting my hand on his shoulder, I made what I afterwards felt was a very weak plea for Christ. I don’t know just what words I used, nor could Mr. Moody tell. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was. It seemed the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, and there, in the back of that store in Boston, he gave himself and his life to Christ.” Mr. Kimball little knew that through his personal efforts and his work in the Sunday-school class he had plucked a brand from the burning and had been instrumental in saving the soul of a boy who was afterward to electrify the world. From the moment that Moody accepted Christ his whole life changed. He said afterward, “Before my conversion I worked towards the cross, but since then I have worked from the cross; then I worked to be saved, now I work because I am saved.” Mr. Kimball received a blessing in his own household seventeen years later in the saving through Mr. Moody’s efforts of Mr. Kimball’s son. After a service young Kimball introduced himself to Mr. Moody as the son of his old Bible-class teacher. “What! Are you the son of Mr. Edward Kimball, of Boston? What is your name?” “Henry.”
“I am glad to see you. Henry, are you a Christian?” “No sir, I don’t think I am.” “How old are you?” “I am seventeen.” Other conversation followed, and Mr. Moody asked the young man if he did not want to become a Christian, to which he replied, “Yes sir, I think I do.” In a few minutes the young man was soundly converted.