“The greatest struggle I ever had in my life was when I gave up business,” said Mr. Moody. In 1860 he was working for Buell, Hill, and Granger, in Chicago, and had saved seven thousand dollars toward the one hundred thousand dollars which had been his early ambition. In one single year he made by special commissions in addition to his regular salary over five thousand dollars, and he was in direct line to become one of the wealthy men of the country. Up to this time he had looked upon his religious activities only from the standpoint of numbers. If his Sunday-school fell below a thousand pupils he was worried, and if it ran to twelve or fifteen hundred he was elated. But none of them were being saved, and no effort was being made to save them. Now there was a reawakening in his soul, and he began to feel his call to active religious work. Finally all ambitions for wealth were sacrificed, after a severe struggle of three months, and he surrendered his own plans for his Father’s. About this time the teacher of a class of frivolous girls, none of whom were saved, became ill one Sunday. This work of teaching the class was undertaken at the request of the teacher, who was in the last stages of tuberculosis and was compelled to leave the
Chicago climate. Before he left Moody and the teacher visited one of the members. Moody was asked to pray. He said, “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.” As a result of this effort and further visitation, every member of that class was saved. Mr. Moody’s beliefs were orthodox, but his critics sometimes questioned his position. In later years, while in London, one clergyman asked Mr. Moody to print his creed. “My creed is in print,” Mr. Moody replied. “Where?” was the general inquiry, as many people reached for their note-books. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah,” was the reply.. His orthodoxy was not further questioned. Mr. Moody was not an ordained minister, always refusing ordination because he had not taken the required seminary course. But this did not hinder him in his preaching. He had a direct call from God; he had faith in his mission and message. He had left a salary of five thousand dollars a year, at the age of twenty-four; he had no “board” back of him and no guaranteed support. Just at this time, Miss Emma C. Revell, whom he had met two years before, now a girl of seventeen, promised to cast in her lot with his—a promise fulfilled two years later by their marriage in 1862. His giving up of worldly ambitions and launching into what his friends called a “wild undertaking” was frowned upon by practically all his friends. But this young girl had faith in him and his future. She had a better education than he and became his most able assistant in every undertaking. No trial was so severe, no burden so
heavy that he could not find in her one whose fellowship afforded the warmest sympathy. Her faith and self-sacrifice could be counted upon. In many ways she served to balance his impetuous nature, and he often acknowledged the helpful service her judgment had made possible. Mr. Moody frankly acknowledged that he made mistakes and that he was at times discouraged. Speaking of one fatal mistake he said, “It was in Chicago, during the hot summer. We had been wondering what to talk about to hold the interest of the people in such a season. I decided upon ‘Bible Characters.’ ” He preached a series of sermons about Adam, Enoch, and others. On the fifth Sunday night on the study of Christ he preached from the text, “What then shall I do with Jesus which is called Christ?” After preaching he said to the audience—the largest he had ever addressed in that city: “I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the cross, and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.” “What a mistake!” he said later; “I have never dared to give an audience a week to think of their salvation since. If they were lost they might rise up in judgment against me. I remember Mr. Sankey’s singing, and how his voice rang when he came to that pleading verse: “ ‘Today the Savior calls, For refuge fly! The storm of Justice falls, And death is nigh!’ “I have never seen that congregation since. I have hard work to keep back the tears today... I would rather have that right hand cut off than to give an audience now a week to decide what to do with
Jesus. I have often been criticized; people have said, ‘Moody, you seem to be trying to get people to decide all at once: Why do you not give them time to consider?’ “I have asked God many times to forgive me for telling people that night to take a week to think it over, and if he spares my life, I will never do it again.” This incident took place on the day of the great Chicago fire, Oct. 8, 1871. On the matter of discouragement Mr. Moody gives one experience that should be particularly helpful to all of us. One Sunday he had preached and there did not seem to be any result. On Monday he was very much cast down. He was sitting in his study brooding over his apparent failure, when a young Bible-class teacher came in. “What kind of a day did you have yesterday?” he inquired of Mr. Moody. “Very poor; I had no success, and I feel quite cast down. How did you get on?” “Oh, grandly. I never had a better day.” “What was your subject?” “I had the life and character of Noah. Did you ever preach on Noah? Did you ever study up his life?” “Well, no,” Moody responded. “If you never studied it before you had better do it now,” said he. “It will do you good. Noah was a wonderful character.” When the young man had gone Mr. Moody got out his Bible and read all he could find about Noah. Here was a man who had toiled on for a hundred and twenty years and never had a single
convert outside his own family. Yet he did not get discouraged. He closed his Bible; the cloud had gone. He started out to a noon prayer-meeting. In a little while after he was at the meeting a man who sat behind him stood up and asked for prayers that he might become a Christian. Moody thought, “I wonder what Noah would have given if he had heard that! He never heard a single soul asking God for mercy, and yet he did not get discouraged.” Mr. Moody said, I have never hung my harp on the willows since that day. Let us ask God to take away the clouds and unbelief; let us get out of Doubting Castle; let us move forward courageously in the name of our God and expect to see results.”