circular sanctuary with the pulpit in the center, and it accommodated twenty-

circular sanctuary with the pulpit in the center, and it accommodated twenty-

entire day in prayer in my stateroom, or walking the deck in intense agony, in view of the state of things. In fact I felt crushed with the burden that was on my soul. There was no one on board to whom I could open my mind, or say a word.

It was the spirit of prayer that was upon me; that which I had often before experienced in kind, but perhaps never before to such a degree, for so long a time. I besought the Lord to go on with His work, and to provide Himself with such instrumentalities as were necessary. It was a long summer day, in the early part of July. After a day of unspeakable wrestling and agony in my soul, just at night, the subject cleared up to my mind. The Spirit led me to believe that all would come out right, and that God had yet a work for me to do; that I might be at rest; that the Lord would go forward with His work and give me strength to take any part in it that He desired. But I had not the least idea what the course of His providence would be.421

Taking a Stand for Social Justice

Upon returning to New York, Charles found that the issue of slavery had captured the consciences of many there. Those opposed to slavery included Lewis Tappan and his brother, Arthur, who had founded the New York City Antislavery Society, later the American Antislavery Society, in that same year. Earlier, the Tappan brothers had urged Charles to allow African Americans to attend service at the Chatham Street Chapel, and he had agreed, even though whites and blacks sat in different sections.

Charles routinely denounced slavery from the pulpit, even going so far as to refuse Communion to slave owners. As a result of his stance and that of the Tappan brothers—both primary financiers of the new Broadway Tabernacle that was nearing completion as Charles's next church—a pro-slavery mob set fire to the building in protest, burning the roof off. The Tappan brothers ordered construction to recommence at once, and the building was finished in 1836. Charles had had significant input into the building's design. It had a circular sanctuary with the pulpit in the center, and it accommodated twentyfour hundred people. With two levels, it resembled two amphitheaters pushed together, and the sound carried remarkably well.

The New York Evangelist, a newspaper started by a group brave enough to publish responses to Finney's critics, took up the abolitionist cause and

subsequently lost subscribers. By this time, the Reverend Joshua Leavitt was the newspaper's editor. He went to Charles for help, and Charles told him he would pray about it. After considering it for a day or two, Charles suggested that he could preach a series of lectures on revival, and that the Evangelist could reprint them. Leavitt was pleased, and printing the lectures had the desired effect: readers subscribed to the Evangelist at a rate faster than that at which he had lost them. In this series of lectures, Charles taught that revival was not a miracle but a matter of human beings calling on God and obediently following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Once again, Charles shook the Calvinist foundations of New England orthodoxy and people's reliance on the sovereignty of God as an excuse for their own backslidden conditions.

Once these lectures were published in the newspaper, they were compiled in a book entitled Finney's Lectures on Revival, and the book sold almost as quickly as it could be printed. Copies were published and translated as needed in the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. Many people read the book and were converted as a result. Charles's impact on the communities of New England and New York was now spreading around the world. He saw this success as part of the answer to his prayers while at sea—God was using him even more mightily than before.

Charles Becomes a Professor

Revival continued to flow whenever Charles spoke in New York through the end of 1834 and into the winter of 1835. As a result, he was suddenly faced with a large number of young men who wanted to go into the ministry but had no proper place to be educated and ordained according to the Gospel as Charles Finney preached it. Soon, the requests for Charles to teach theology grew numerous enough that he agreed and began a lecture series.

Around this time, there was a controversy at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, that would soon take Charles's career as a theology instructor a step further. The seminary was composed largely of converted young people from New York's "Burned-over District" who firmly believed that owning slaves was a sin. Many of Lane Seminary's trustees owned slaves themselves, however, and they tried to silence the students. Asa Mahan, a trustee, took up the students' cause, and when the students left to start a new college in Oberlin,

Ohio, Mahan left with them. He became the first president of Oberlin College, and the students requested Charles Finney as their professor of theology. When the Tappan brothers offered to finance the professorship of Charles and seven others, he agreed to teach at Oberlin in the summer and return and pastor in New York City in the winter. The Finneys' first summer in Oberlin was in 1835.

Charles accepted the position at Oberlin on several conditions, one of which was that African-American students were to receive the same treatment as white students—there would be no discrimination or segregation based on color or gender. Oberlin was even a station for the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape the South to find freedom in Canada. While Oberlin's African-American population never exceeded 5 percent, it was still a symbol of all that abolitionists hoped for—a place of freedom, regardless of racial differences. Charles also believed strongly in the education of women, since they were the primary educators of children, and Oberlin created a women's department.

Oberlin College opened its doors to one hundred students when Charles began teaching there, and by 1840, five hundred students were enrolled. By the time Charles became the president of Oberlin in 1851, the college had more than one thousand students. Mary Jane Patterson, whose parents had been slaves, graduated from Oberlin in 1862 as the first African-American woman in the United States—probably in the world—to receive a bachelor's degree.422 She went on to become the principal of the first "preparatory high school for colored youth" in Washington, D.C. After Charles's death, U.S. President James Garfield affirmed to the student body of Oberlin "that no college in the land had more effectively touched the nerve centers of the national life and thought and ennobled them than did this institution to which Charles Finney devoted so many years of Christian service."423

A Change in Denominations

When an inconsistency arose in the rulings of the local presbytery concerning the discipling of transferring members, Charles took issue with the presbytery's lack of precedence—something that deeply offended his sense of justice from his days as a lawyer when precedence was as important as legislation. He decided to withdraw from the denomination. This was no easy

decision for a man who had been a Presbyterian since the start of his ministry, but he felt he must continue to answer God's call with a clear conscience and a pure heart. Thus, it was decided that Chatham Street Chapel would become a Congregational church and would occupy the new Tabernacle on Broadway that had been under construction for some time. On March 13, 1836, Charles resigned his pastorate of the Second Free Presbyterian Church and transferred his ordination to the Congregational church. He held a few more meetings at Chatham Street Chapel until the Broadway Tabernacle was finished; the first meeting in the Tabernacle was held on Sunday, April 10. That evening, Charles was installed as the Tabernacle's pastor.424

Moving to Oberlin

Charles split his years between Oberlin and New York City from the summer of 1835 until April 6, 1837, when he resigned as pastor of the Tabernacle and moved permanently to Oberlin. In that same year, the Finneys' fourth child, Julia Finney, was born on March 16. The previous year, when James Shipherd resigned as pastor of the Oberlin church due to ill health, Charles was asked to step in temporarily. With the Finneys moving to Oberlin to live year-round, this temporary pastorate became permanent in May 1837. Charles could now teach during the week and preach every Sunday. His primary calling would always be that of an evangelist—it was something from which he could never stray too far. The church prospered under his leadership, as did the university; the First Church of Oberlin grew so rapidly that, in 1844, another church that could seat two thousand people was completed for Charles. This church would be the largest building west of the Appalachian Mountains for many years to come.

Still a revivalist at heart, Charles now established himself as a social reformer, as well. Since Rochester, he had learned that the Gospel could not only change hearts—if given the chance, it could transform society. Besides the abolitionist cause, Charles's work at Oberlin would touch other social reforms, such as the temperance movement, Sabbath keeping, and the participation of women in the church. Charles always put the winning of souls first and foremost, however—a message not all of his students at Oberlin took to heart. Many who later attended Oberlin lost their way, getting caught up only with causes they supported and thereby missing God's perfect will for their lives in the process. Their rebellious nature overpowered their love and

faithfulness.

Charles remained mostly in Oberlin until 1842, when he returned to Boston, Providence, New York City, and Rochester to hold meetings. God had not yet finished using him, and revival again sprang up everywhere he preached. He now had formulaic methods: "The measures were simply preaching the Gospel, and abundant prayer, in private, in social circles, and in public prayer meetings; much stress being always laid upon prayer as an essential means of promoting the revival."425 When Charles Finney was joined by those around him in prayer, God certainly answered.

A Deeper Baptism of the Holy Spirit

During his first years in Oberlin, Charles was troubled by the fact that some of those who had been converted during his revivals had since backslidden, or fallen away, from the faith. He began to think that Christians needed a deeper conversion, or "second blessing" beyond conversion, if they were going to live wholly sanctified lives on this earth. He came to believe that a further work of the Holy Spirit would allow Christians to live in holiness, thereby following Jesus' exhortation in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:48 to "be ye perfect." This belief would bring more criticism on Oberlin, an institution that many people came to see as a den of extremists—chief among them, Charles and Mahan. The Second Blessing was a theme that Charles developed in his lectures at Oberlin, which would eventually be published as the two-volume Lectures on Systematic Theology. Charles would not experience anything along these lines in his own life, however, until the winter of 1843–1844.

In the fall of 1843, Charles was invited to Boston again, and he answered the call. Boston had been seduced by Universalism and Unitarianism to the point that Charles found many people in the following spiritual condition:

The mass of the people in Boston, are more unsettled in their religious convictions, than in any other place that I have ever labored in....It is extremely difficult to make religious truths lodge in their minds, because the influence of Unitarian teaching has been, to lead them to call in question all the principal doctrines of the Bible. Their system is one of denials. Their theology is negative. They deny almost everything, and affirm almost nothing. In such a field, error finds the ears of the people open; and the most irrational views, on religious subjects, come to be held by a great many people.426

Charles went on to describe the change that occurred within him as he prayed over the problems in Boston and how to address them. (This passage is somewhat lengthy, but the insight herein is so deep I felt it better served to present it in Finney's own words.)

During this winter, the Lord gave my own soul a very thorough overhauling, and a fresh baptism of his Spirit....My mind was greatly drawn out in prayer, for a long time; as indeed it always has been, when I have labored in Boston....This winter, in particular, my mind was exceedingly exercised on the question of personal holiness; and in respect to the state of the church, their want of power with God; the weakness of the orthodox churches in Boston, the weakness of their faith, and their want of power in the midst of such a community. The fact that they were making little or no progress in overcoming the errors of the city, greatly affected my mind.

I gave myself to a great deal of prayer. After my evening services, I would retire as early as I well could; but rose at four o'clock in the morning, because I could sleep no longer, and immediately went to the study, and engaged in prayer....I frequently continued from the time I arose, at four o'clock, till the gong called to breakfast, at eight o'clock. My days were spent, so far as I could get time, in searching the Scriptures. I read nothing else, all that winter, but my Bible; and a great deal of it seemed new to me. Again the Lord took me, as it were, from Genesis to Revelation....The whole Scripture seemed to me all ablaze with light, and not only light, but it seemed as if God's Word was instinct with the very life of God....

I labored that winter mostly for a revival of religion among Christians. The Lord prepared me to do so, by the great work He wrought in my own soul....

In this place, there is a larger number of persons, by far, that understand me, and devour that class of truths, than I have found elsewhere; but even here, the majority of professors of religion, do not understandingly embrace those truths. They do not object, they do not oppose; and so far as they understand, they are convinced. But as a matter of experience, they are ignorant of the power of the highest and most precious truths of the Gospel of salvation, in Christ Jesus....

I felt very confident that, unless the foundations could be relayed in some sense, and that unless the Christians in Boston took on a higher type of Christian living, they never could prevail against Unitarianism. I knew that the

orthodox ministers had been preaching orthodoxy, as opposed to Unitarianism, for many years; and that all that could be accomplished by discussion, had been accomplished. But I felt that what Unitarians needed, was to see Christians live out the pure Gospel of Christ. They needed to hear them say, and prove what they said by their lives, that Jesus Christ was a divine Savior, and able to save them from all sin. Their professions of faith in Christ, did not accord with their experiences. They could not say that they found Christ in their experience, what they preached Him to be. There is needed the testimony of God's living witnesses, the testimony of experience, to convince the Unitarians; and mere reasonings and arguments, however conclusive, will never overcome their errors and their prejudices.

The orthodox churches there, are too formal; they are in bondage to certain ways; they are afraid of measures, afraid to launch forth in all freedom, in the use of means to save souls. They have always seemed to me, to be in bondage in their prayers, in so much that what I call the spirit of prayer, I have seldom witnessed in Boston. The ministers and deacons of the churches, though good men, are afraid of what the Unitarians will say, if, in their measures to promote religion, they launch out in such a way as to wake the people up. Everything must be done in a certain way. The Holy Spirit is grieved by their yielding to such a bondage.

I have labored in Boston in five powerful revivals of religion; and I must express it as my sincere conviction, that the greatest difficulty in the way of overcoming Unitarianism, and all the forms of error there, is the timidity of Christians and churches.427

Charles's Most Challenging Setback

Back in Oberlin, Lydia Finney had grown more and more frail, something that was not helped by the pregnancy and birth of her fifth child, Sarah Finney, in 1841. Sarah fell deathly ill early in 1843 and died on March 9. The Finneys' sixth and final child, Delia Finney, was born in 1844 but would live only eight years, dying from illness on September 1, 1852.

Lydia had supported Charles faithfully throughout her adult life and contributed a good deal to his ministry. Being the wife of Charles Finney couldn't have been easy for someone as humble and retiring as Lydia, but she stood the test well, even during her husband's months-long absences. She was

the model of what Charles thought women should be—faithful in prayer and diligent to see to the education and salvation of their children. On her deathbed, Lydia summoned her children to her side and prayed one last time with each of them, only weeks before she passed away. She then told her husband that "her work was done with and for them. She had had her last prayer meeting with them and had said all she had to say. She had given them her last advice."428 Lydia Finney died on December 17, 1847, and her death was one of the lowest points in Charles's life. Had it not been for the deep blessing he had experienced in Boston, he might not have endured her loss.

Charles was left with five children: Helen, nineteen, who had married an Oberlin professor, William Cochran; Charles, seventeen; Fredrick, fifteen; Julia, thirteen; and Delia, who was three at the time. The burden of work for his revivals and the busyness of his teaching schedule made it difficult if not impossible for Charles to remain a single parent. It was a tough decision to remarry, but on November 13, 1848, Asa Mahan, then president of Oberlin College, officiated at the marriage of Charles and Elizabeth Ford Atkinson, a widow from Rochester. She and her late husband, William Atkinson, had been ardent supporters of Charles after the 1830 revival in Rochester. Elizabeth had lost her husband and two daughters to an epidemic of typhoid fever in 1843. Though the marriage of Charles and Elizabeth may have been more of a matter of convenience than of love, Elizabeth proved an able mother to Charles's children, and Charles came to love and admire her over time as she became a positive influence on his ministry and family throughout their years together.

Finney's Final Years

Acceding to many requests, Charles and his wife traveled to Great Britain in the fall of 1849 to minister there. Charles again found success with the methods he had come to rely on in the United States, and Elizabeth found success holding meetings for women—a greater empowerment of women's involvement in ministry was started under her husband's leadership.

In 1851, Charles became the president of Oberlin College, but he continued to travel and lead revivals as his duties would allow him. Between 1851 and 1857, he would travel and preach in Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Hartford, Connecticut; and Rochester, New York. In 1859, he returned to England and pushed north to preach in Scotland. It was this last trip to the

British Isles that taxed his health to its limits; after returning to the United States in 1860 at the beginning of the Civil War, Charles would not leave Oberlin again. On November 27, 1863, Elizabeth passed away. The following year, Charles married for the third time. His new wife, Rebecca Allen Rayl, was the assistant principal of Oberlin's women's department.

Though he continued to teach and preach in Oberlin for the rest of his days, Charles resigned from his position as college president in 1866. At the request of friends and colleagues, he would finish his Memoirs in 1868, even though they wouldn't be published until a year after his death.

Two weeks short of his eighty-third birthday, Charles Finney passed away as the first hints of autumn hung in the morning air of August 16, 1875.

A Legacy of a Nation Revived

Charles Finney's life spanned nearly the entire first century of U.S. presidents—from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant—and no single individual had more influence in the United States' coming to be considered "A Christian Nation" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Finney's revivals sparked the Second Great Awakening and unified the country around the Bible and the power of prayer, while his moral stances for social justice laid the foundations for everything from abolition to temperance to the civil rights movement. His teachings on Christian perfectionism inspired the holiness movement of the latter half of the nineteenth century—a movement that laid the groundwork for the Pentecostal and charismatic movements in the twentieth century. Finney's evangelistic style and methods are still used in revivals throughout the world today. These include prayer meetings before and during the event, nightly meetings for weeks at a time, altar calls, and pushing for decisions before listeners leave the auditorium—aspects that influenced everyone from Dwight L. Moody to Billy Graham. Finney's example in lifestyle, ministry, and doctrine has yielded much that is good in American Christianity today. We will need more people like Charles Finney if the church is to impact our world in the twenty-first century as God is calling us to do in the decades to come.

371 Basil Miller, Charles Finney: He Prayed Down Revivals (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1951), 10.

372 Ibid., 13.

373 Charles Finney, Memoirs of Charles Finney (New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1876), 5.

374 Ibid., 6.

375 Finney, Memoirs, 8–9.

376 Ibid., 10.

377 Finney, Memoirs, 11.

378 Ibid., 14.

379 Finney, Memoirs, 14.

380 Ibid., 15.

381 Ibid., 16.

382 Ibid.

383 At this time in New England, it was the habit to eat the largest meal of the day (dinner) in the early afternoon and a lighter "supper" in the evening hours.

384 Finney, Memoirs, 19–21.

385 Finney, Memoirs, 22.

386 Ibid., 23.

387 Ibid.

388 Finney, Memoirs, 24–25.

389 Ibid., 29.

390 Finney, Memoirs, 35–36.

391 Ibid., 36.

392 Finney, Memoirs, 36.

393 Ibid., 55–56.

394 Finney, Memoirs, 92.

395 Miller, Charles Finney: He Prayed Down Revivals, 33–34.

396 Finney, Memoirs, 83.

397 Ibid., 62–63.

398 Ibid., 63–64.

399 Ibid., 65.

400 A deterioration of internal tissues, usually tuberculosis.

401 Paul Reno, Daniel Nash: Prevailing Prince of Prayer (Asheville, NC: Revival Literature, 1989), 7.

402 Finney, Memoirs, 122–123.

403 Miller, Charles Finney: He Prayed Down Revivals, 65.

404 Finney, Memoirs, 183–184.

405 Reno, Daniel Nash: Prevailing Prince of Prayer, 13.

406 Finney, Memoirs, 193.

407 Finney, Memoirs, 142–143.

408 Reno, Daniel Nash: Prevailing Prince of Prayer, 15.

409 Finney, Memoirs, 301.

410 Finney, Memoirs, 300–301.

411 The presbytery is a local council that oversees the churches of a region in Presbyterian Church governance.

412 Finney, Memoirs, 142–143.

413 V. Raymond Edman, Finney Lives On (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1971), 68, quoted in Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic History, 137.

414 Reno, Daniel Nash: Prevailing Prince of Prayer, 12.

415 Finney, Memoirs, 297.

416 Charles Finney, "Prevailing Prayer," Lectures on Revival (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1988), 43.

417 Finney, Memoirs, 288–289.

418 Charles Howley, The History of the Presbyterian Church, Auburn, New York (Auburn: Daily Advertiser and Weekly Journal Stoan Book Print, 1876), 49–51, quoted in Lewis Drummond, A Fresh Look at the Life and Ministry of Charles G. Finney (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1985), 146–147.

419 Finney, Memoirs, 318.

420 Finney, Memoirs, 322.

421 Ibid., 328–329.

422 "God's College and Radical Change," Christian History 7, no. 4 [Issue 20] (1988): 27.

423 Miller, Charles Finney: He Prayed Down Revivals, 96–97.

424 Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney: 1792–1875 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 311, 313.

425 Finney, Memoirs, 363.

426 Finney, Memoirs, 372.

427 Finney, Memoirs, 373–374, 380, 384.

428 Charles G. Finney, "Last Sickness and Death of Mrs. Finney," Oberlin Evangelist, January 5, 1848,

http://www.gospeltruth.net/1848OE/48_lets_art/480105_art_mrs_finney.htm.

Chapter Eight

Dwight L. Moody

"The Greatest Layman"

The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in and

by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him....I will try my utmost

to be that man.

Why don't you turn your life over to Christ? He can do more with it than you

can. —Dwight L. Moody

Of all the revivalists discussed in this book, none did so much with so little as Dwight L. Moody. Nor would any of them vault so quickly from obscurity to international fame. Moody was also unique in that his success as an evangelist would start in a nation that was not his own. He would go from being a simple, uneducated layman—never having more than a fourth-grade education—to starting a college, Moody Bible Institute; establishing two major publishing companies, Moody Press and Fleming H. Revell; and preaching to more people than anyone except Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. Moody himself said, "If God calls a man to work, He will be with him in that work, and he will succeed no matter what the obstacles may be." Moody proved this truth in his own life through dogged determination, God's anointing to preach, and the combined power of prayer and publicity, to create revival.

In his lifetime, he would see the greatest setbacks of any of the revivalists— the Civil War nearly tore his nation in two; he nearly drowned at sea; he would see the fruits of his labor burn to the ground. Yet, even with these adversities, D. L. Moody would become the most influential American evangelist of the nineteenth century.

No Father and Eight Brothers and Sisters

The sixth child of Edwin and Betsy Moody, Dwight Lyman Moody was born on February 7, 1837, in Northfield, Massachusetts. In the next four years, his parents would have three more children, the last two a set of twins. Tragically, on the morning of May 28, 1841, Edwin Moody would experience a deep pain

in his side while working, return home at midday only to have it grow worse, and collapse in front of his wife, dying before either of them could understand the severity of his condition. Betsy was eight months pregnant with the twins when her husband died.

The Moodys were not a wealthy family. Edwin had been a brick and stone mason, and their property was under mortgage when he died. Dower rights— the laws that kept creditors from seizing the homes and livelihoods of new widows—protected Betsy's right to the house. But upon her husband's death, creditors descended on the property and took their horse, buggy, cow, and everything else of value, except for Edwin's masonry tools and a calf that Betsy and her oldest son, Isaiah, managed to conceal before the creditors arrived. The creditors even took the pile of firewood and kindling in their shed. Even so, Betsy was responsible for the mortgage payments—a tough time for a mother of seven with two more on the way in a month. With the help of her brothers and some neighbors, and with a pile of determination and Yankee grit, Betsy would retain the homestead and keep her family together. Of this accomplishment, Dwight later revealed in a sermon about the Good Samaritan,

It brings the tears to my eyes every time I think of it. My father died before I can remember. There was a large family of us. The little twins came after his death—nine of us in all. He died bankrupt, and the creditors came in and took everything as far as the law allowed. We had a hard struggle. Thank God for my mother! She never lost hope. She told me some years later after that she kept bright and sunny all through the day and cried herself to sleep at night. We didn't know that as it would have broken our hearts.429

It was cold the morning after the creditors came, and the family awoke to a dark hearth, but Betsy's brothers soon changed that. In Dwight's own words, even though he was only about four at the time,

I remember just as vividly as if it were yesterday, how I heard the sound of chips flying, and I knew some one was chopping wood in our wood-shed, and that we should soon have a fire. I shall never forget Uncle Cyrus coming with what seemed to me the biggest pile of wood I ever saw in my life.430

Another person who stepped in to help the family was the Reverend Oliver Everett, a pastor of the Northfield Unitarian Church. Reverend Everett was an unusual Unitarian in that, according to biographer W. H. Daniels, "he believed

in the Bible as the inspired word of God, [and] in Jesus Christ as the savior."431 In the next eighteen months, the entire Moody family would become members of the church, and Rev. Everett supplied for the family materially and in person when neither Betsy's brothers nor her neighbors could. He encouraged her to keep the family together when others suggested dividing the children among various homes. Rev. Everett also urged his flock to comb the suburbs of Northfield and invite stray children to Sunday school. Years later, when Dwight was running a Sunday school of his own in Chicago, he would use the same tactic to fill his classrooms. Unfortunately, Rev. Everett would eventually be replaced by a younger minister who had been educated in the worst traditions of the rationalistic school, and the family quickly lost interest in attending his services.

Dwight's pain in losing his father was later compounded when his oldest brother, Isaiah, left the house without a word when Dwight was seven. Isaiah was fifteen at the time, and no one would see or hear from him again for thirteen years. Dwight's feelings of abandonment and neglect must have been intense. When Dwight was ten, he began spending the winters away from home helping other families with their chores in exchange for room and board. The first winter, he had gotten so homesick that he nearly returned home. But one day, walking with his brother, Luther, Dwight chanced upon an old man who took away his homesickness with a story that would impact his life forever. Dwight described the incident as follows:

And the old man put his trembling hand on my head and looked down upon me. He got hold of my heart, and as he held my hand he told me that God had an only Son in Heaven, and that He loved this world so much He died for it. He went on talking about Heaven, and told how the Father loved me, and how my father on earth was lifted up, and how I had a Saviour up there, and he told me that story of the Cross in about five minutes. Then he put his hand in his pocket, and he gave me a brand new cent. I had never seen such a bright and beautiful cent before, and I almost thought it was gold. He put it in my hand, and I never felt as I did then before or since. That act of kindness took the "homesickness" out of me. I felt that from that hour that I had a friend. I thought that man was God, almost.432

Dwight did not respond decisively to the Gospel at this time, but his heart was surely touched.

For the next seven years, if Betsy Moody and her children were in close enough proximity to one another, she gathered her children to attend church and eat Sunday dinner together. These times spent with his mother, brothers, and sisters would provide precious memories for Dwight.

The whole of Dwight's formal education was complete by the time he was ten, and it spanned a period of less than four years. Afterward, he was deemed fit to work to support himself and contribute to his family's finances. At seventeen, he decided it was time to strike out on his own. So, in April 1854, he headed to Boston to see what he could make of himself.

A Little Fish in a Big Pond

Samuel and Lemuel Holton, two of Dwight's uncles who had taken such good care of the Moody family over the years, had left the Northfield area a few years earlier for Boston, where they had two prosperous shoe and boot stores. Young Dwight decided to follow them to the big city. For a teenager who had never seen a town more populous than one thousand, Boston's population of 150,000 must have been daunting. The 1850s were a time of rapid change in the United States. At the beginning of the decade, there were a mere 8,571 miles of railroad in the U.S., but by 1860, there were nearly 30,000. The railroad had reached only as far as Northfield in 1848, and stories of what lay at the other end of the track must have beckoned to Dwight. He spent the only money he had on a train ticket to Boston. It was an inauspicious beginning for a man who would one day be known around the world.

By all accounts, Dwight was a self-assured, direct young man with a stubborn streak that tended to put him at odds with others. Fearing that Dwight's brashness and lack of refinement would only get him into trouble, his uncle Samuel had advised him to avoid Boston. Nevertheless, Dwight showed up on his doorstep only four months after this warning, hoping to stay with him and work in his store. When his uncle did not make an immediate offer, Dwight boasted about plans to find a job on his own, and left. Turning his back proved more of a challenge than he had expected, however. Several days later, he showed up at his uncle Lemuel's, where he announced he would walk to New York to find work. Lemuel asked Dwight whether he had asked his uncle Samuel for work, knowing Samuel to be in a better position than he to give Dwight a job. When Dwight said that he had not, and that his other uncle

"knows I am looking for a place, and he may help or not, just as he pleases,"433 Lemuel advised him to show a little humility, be willing to be governed by his elders, and go ask. Dwight, cap in hand, was soon back at his uncle Samuel's, who told him,

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 when ever 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.434

But Dwight didn't need that much time. He agreed on the spot, and he went to work for his uncle straightaway as a sales clerk. His uncle also found him a room to rent from some Christians, showed him a place where he could get his meals, and pointed him to the Mount Vernon Congregational Church.

In the next few years, Dwight grew up quickly, enjoying the opportunities to attend lectures and ball games, meet people of various ethnic backgrounds, and check out books at the local Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), where he had become a member. In three months, he became his uncle's best salesman and was soon prosperous enough to buy new shoes for his mother and siblings back home.

He also became the family provider. His extended family—uncles, aunts, and cousins—welcomed Dwight as part of their immediate family, which provided a healthy support system for him. Following his uncle's instructions, he also attended Mount Vernon Church, but services interested him little; it was not uncommon to find him sleeping through the sermons, fatigued from the long hours he worked.

Moody Meets Jesus

Dwight's Sunday school class was run by Edward Kimball, a devout middle-aged man who took some interest in the eighteen-year-old shoe clerk. On Saturday, May 21, 1855, Edward felt compelled to check on the state of Dwight's soul rather than do his daily devotions. Along the way, however, he had second thoughts about the impulse, and by the time he reached the shoe

store, he had all but talked himself out of it. He was afraid of embarrassing Dwight in front of his fellow associates or of being a mere nuisance while he tried to work. A wary Edward walked right past the store, but he soon returned, entered, and proceeded with his errand. He found Dwight alone in the back of the store, wrapping and shelving shoes.

Dwight had a solid admiration for Edward Kimball because of his kindness displayed on the first day of class. He had asked his students to open to the book of John, and Dwight, unfamiliar with the Holy Book, began searching through it, page by page. Seeing this, Edward saved his student embarrassment by handing Dwight his own Bible, which was open to the correct spot, in exchange for the one Dwight had been using.

Dwight later remembered this of Kimball's visit to the shoe store:

I used to attend a Sunday school class, and one day I recollect my teacher came around behind the counter of the shop I was at work in, and put his hand upon my shoulder, and talked to me about Christ and my soul. I had not felt that I had a soul till then. I said to myself, "This is a very strange thing. Here is a man who never saw me till lately, and he is weeping over my sins, and I never shed a tear about them." But I understand it now, and know what it is to have a passion for men's souls and weep over their sins. I don't remember what he said, but I can feel the power of that man's hand on my shoulder to-night. It was not long after that I was brought into the Kingdom of God.435

Forty years after Kimball's visit, Dwight would speak of how his life had changed after coming to Christ:

I remember the morning on which I came out of my room after I had first trusted Christ. I thought the old sun shone a good deal brighter than it ever had before—I thought that it was just smiling upon me; and as I walked out upon Boston Common and heard the birds singing in the trees I thought they were all singing a song to me. Do you know, I fell in love with the birds. I had never cared for them before. It seemed to me that I was in love with all creation. I had not a bitter feeling against any man, and I was ready to take all men to my heart. If a man has not the love of God shed abroad in his heart, he has never been regenerated. If you hear a person get up in the prayer-meeting and he begins to find fault with every body, you may doubt whether his is a genuine conversion; it may be counterfeit. It has not the right ring, because the impulse

of a converted soul is to love, and not to be getting up and complaining of every one else and finding fault.436

Dwight Denied Church Membership

Three and a half weeks later, on Wednesday, May 16, 1855, Dwight sought membership at the Mount Vernon Congregational Church. He testified that he had been saved, but since he knew too little of the tenets of their faith, he was rejected by the deacons who interviewed him. For example, when asked, "What has Christ done for you, and for us all, that especially entitles Him to our love and obedience?" Dwight replied, "I think He has done a great deal for us all, but I don't know of anything He has done in particular."437 Despite the fact that Edward Kimball was on the panel of interviewers, they felt that Dwight's testimony lacked solid evidence of his conversion. Dwight's application for membership was deferred, and he was put under the mentorship of Edward Kimball and two other deacons.

Kimball and the two deacons encouraged and coached Dwight for his next interview, scheduled for nearly a year later. The minutes of this interview read as follows:

No. 1,131. March 12, 1856. Mr. Moody thinks he has made some progress since he was here before at least in knowledge. Has maintained his habits of prayer and reading the Bible. Believes God will hear his prayers, and reads the Bible. Is fully determined to adhere to the cause of Christ always. Feels that it would be very bad if he should join the church and then turn. Must repent and ask forgiveness, for Christ's sake. Will never give up his hope, or love Christ less, whether admitted to the church or not. His prevailing intention is to give up his will to God.438

This time, even though little seemed to have changed in his life since the first interview, Dwight's willingness to remain under the mentorship of Kimball and the two deacons, paired with his sincere desire to repent, swayed the group in his favor, and Dwight was admitted as a Congregationalist. He would sign the church registry on May 3. Dwight would later testify frequently, "I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856."439 According to Dwight's son, in The Life of Dwight L. Moody,

The action of the examining committee in refusing admission to young

Moody on this occasion has been criticised by others, but the wisdom of the decision was always felt by Mr. Moody himself, who in later years laid great emphasis upon a young convert's being ready to give a reason for the hope that was in him.440

Heading West: Dwight Moves to Chicago

Around this time, Dwight had a falling out with his uncle for a reason no one in the family could truly discern. When his cousin, Frank Holton, told him he was going West, Dwight decided to join him until he found a place to settle.

When Dwight returned from his trip, his strong, impulsive personality began to resurface. He was outspoken during prayer meetings at church; he tried to lead and teach when others felt he should be listening and learning from those more experienced in the faith. Finally, the elders and deacons told him he needed to sit quietly and all but barred him from speaking in these meetings. Yet Dwight's zeal was irrepressible, so he soon developed a reputation as a troublemaker in the eyes of the church leaders.

Dwight's future in his uncle Samuel Holton's shoe selling business also looked dim. His coworkers found him to be more and more of a nuisance. Even though Dwight was a successful salesman, he was still brash in asserting opinions, and he lacked tact when dealing with other people. Dwight later confided to a friend that he "felt like a caged bird. The settled and finished condition of everything around him was a constant constraint. There seemed to be no room for him anywhere."441 Dwight found Boston too small and stifling, oddly enough. Betsy Moody believed that the solution for her son would be for him to return home and assume leadership of the family, but home was an even more confining environment than the city of Boston. That fall, Dwight acted on impulse and moved west to Chicago without even a word to his mother.

Chicago offered Dwight the opportunities and elbow room he was looking for. It was a burgeoning city in 1850: the population was 29,963; by the end of the decade, it had nearly quadrupled—to more than 112,000. It became the shipping center for the rapidly growing Western grain belt—both by water and by rail—and immigrants from Europe were moving there in droves to meet the demands for workmen. Of course, like any young city full of young people far removed from the moral jurisdiction of their families, Chicago was also rife with saloons, brothels, and gambling dens. That the young Dwight sought out a

church and prayer meeting within the first week of arriving in Chicago—not falling prey to any of the popular vices—is evidence that his conversion was more authentic than the deacons at Mount Vernon had recognized.

Dwight also found his faith to be a boon for business—his integrity and friendliness made a great combination for salesmanship. Within two days of his arrival in Chicago, Dwight had secured another job selling shoes through yet another Holton uncle, Calvin. Young Dwight set his eyes on saving $100,000—an ambitious amount in a time when few workers earned more than a dollar a day in wages. One of Dwight's new employers said of him, "His ambition made him anxious to lay up money. His personal habits were exact and economical. As a salesman he was...[a] zealous and tireless worker."442 Dwight soon proved that he could earn the same amount in a week in Chicago that he could in a month in Boston. Chicago also offered great opportunities for loaning money and profiting from real estate, two other enterprises in which Dwight began to speculate rather successfully. By 1860, Dwight would amass between $7,000 and $12,000 toward his goal, while also giving generously to his family back home. Yet something besides the desire to earn money burned within him—the desire to save souls. Dwight was convinced that Jesus was the answer to everything that plagued the human heart, and he felt he was called to apply that cure to as many hearts as he could.

Dwight's Rent-a-Pew

Dwight transferred his membership from Mount Vernon to Chicago's Plymouth Congregational Church, where, because of his growing affluence, he rented a pew of his own. Dwight took a different view of pew rentals than most, however—he did this not for prestige but because it was now his pew to fill every Sunday!

According to his son's biography,

He would hail young men on the street corners, or visit their boardinghouses, or even call them out of saloons to share his pew. Whether the novelty of the invitation or the irresistible earnestness and cordiality of the young man induced a large number to attend, the object was at any rate attained, and before long he was renting four pews, which he filled every Sunday with his strangely assorted guests.443

One church did not seem sufficient for Dwight. Before long, he was attending meetings at three churches: Plymouth Congregational Church, the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and the First Baptist Church. Every evening after work, Dwight would find a prayer meeting to attend. It was at the First Baptist Church that he would meet "Mother" H. Phillips, who would take him under her wing as a spiritual son, as well as Emma Revell, the future Mrs. Dwight Moody. By 1857, Dwight was rooming and taking meals at Mother Phillips's house, and every meeting together became a chance for her to encourage him in prayer and solidify his faith. She also taught him the importance of Bible study and Scripture memorization, as well as ministering to children and discipling converts. A revival of sorts broke out in Chicago in 1858, and Mother Phillips was near its epicenter. Urban missions began to spring up to reach the derelicts of the city, most of whom were alcoholics, opium addicts, or prostitutes.

Just as Mother Phillips was Dwight's spiritual mother, J. B. Stillson was his spiritual father. Stillson worked among the sailors along the Chicago River, and when he met Dwight, the two found kindred spirits in one another. Stillson would take him to minister in places women dared not go. It was Stillson who loaned Dwight a copy of George Mueller's A Life of Trust, a book that would influence him significantly for years to come.

Yet, for all of this spiritual mentoring, Dwight's faith was still young and rather legalistic. For him, Christianity was more about what not to do than what to do; it emphasized the Ten Commandments and the taboos of drinking, dancing, and card playing over the Sermon on the Mount and the law of love. His zeal was irrepressible, but its focus was not always correct. One time after a prayer meeting, he came upon two friends playing an innocent game of checkers, and he acted as if he were Jesus among the moneychangers. He seized the board, dashed it to pieces, and dropped to his knees in prayer— presumably on behalf of his friends stuck in such idle pursuits, not for his own self-righteousness and uncontrolled anger. It would be some time before he came to the conviction that it was God's goodness, not His wrath, that leads people to repentance. When his tenacity came under the anointing of the Holy Spirit later in his life, together they would prove an explosive mixture for revival wherever he ministered.

Dwight's First Congregation:

Little Rascals

While missions and Sunday schools were popping up all over Chicago, Dwight noted a void. No one was reaching out to the children who were orphaned or who lived in homes broken by alcoholism or poverty. As these children tended to be unruly and difficult to handle in a standard sit-and-listen Sunday school environment, they were expelled more than pursued directly. However, Dwight's heart went out to them, and he decided to act on his empathy.

Dwight started a Sunday school in "The Sands," the worst slum of Chicago, an area that many referred to as "Little Hell." The Sands was inhabited mostly by single-parent families, and it was not uncommon for the single parent to be an alcohol or opium addict. The children who lived there were more likely to be sent to work to earn a living for their families than to attend school. They were also frequently abused—physically and sexually—malnourished, and exposed to constant vice, filth, and disease. While the word in Chicago was to avoid The Sands, Dwight followed his impulses and rented a vacant saloon in the heart of the area, where he established a "Sabbath School." Children would sit on the floor and listen to Dwight preach from his "pulpit": an old, discarded barrel. An early visitor described the scene:

When I came to the little old shanty and entered the door, the first thing I saw by the light of the few candles, was a man standing up, holding in his arms a Negro boy, to whom he was trying to read the story of the Prodigal Son. A great many words the reader could not make out and was obliged to skip. My thought was, "If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honour and glory it will astonish me!" When the meeting was over, Mr. Moody said to me, "I have got only one talent. I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for Him." I have watched him since, and have come to know him thoroughly, and for consistent walk and conversation I have never met a man equal to him.444

Touching the lives of these "Little Arabs," as they were not so affectionately called, become Dwight's passion, and he was willing to throw convention out the window to do it. Probably remembering the shiny penny he had been given by the old man when he was ten, Dwight loaded his pockets with pennies and pieces of maple sugar candy to offer children in exchange for coming to his

school. Dwight would join in their games, teaching them to follow the rules and to understand the power of teamwork. He learned to alternate five minutes of listening time with five minutes of playtime—five minutes that looked more like a bar brawl than a game of tag. Dwight also seemed to believe the old adage, "Music calms the savage beast," and so he followed this playtime with five minutes of music before returning to the lesson. This would go on for roughly two hours, until the meetings were called to a close.

Because he was willing to pay attention to these children as no one else did, however, the school attracted more and more students, and the urchins gradually tolerated longer periods of teaching and singing between periods of roughhousing. Dwight earned the nickname "Crazy Moody" for his efforts. After all, why would anyone in his right mind set up a Sunday school in Little Hell? Yet Dwight reveled in the chaos. These little hellions were as dear to him as if they were his own children. The first summer, in a fit of inspiration, Dwight told fourteen boys he would give them new suits of clothing for Christmas if they showed good behavior and regular attendance at the meetings. All but one met the challenge. Charles Dickens, author of Oliver Twist, could not have generated a better list of characters to live with the Artful Dodger than this lot of Dwight's, who went by the names Red Eye, Smikes, Madden the Butcher, Jackey Candles, Giberick, Billy Blucannon, Darby the Cob[b]ler, Butcher Lilray, Greenhorn, Indian, Black Stove Pipe, Old Man, and Rag-breeches Cadet. The group well could have been the model for the later movie serial, The Little Rascals, and it was unusual in its time for its racial diversity—it included African-American and Native American members. Dwight posed for two pictures with the boys after he had given them their new clothes. One of them, pictured on the previous page, was captioned, "Will it pay?" The group became known as "Moody's Bodyguard," and Dwight used it for years as an example of what could be done in the poorest of neighborhoods if people were simply willing to put forth the effort.

Sometime in 1858, Dwight was asked to speak to one of the adult Sunday school classes about his work in The Sands. His inspired speech won him a new helper at the mission: Miss Emma Charlotte Revell. Emma and Dwight would grow closer, not only because of their work at the Sunday school, but also because Emma volunteered to tutor Dwight for one hour each day. Under her instruction, Dwight's spelling and overall comportment became more refined and presentable, though his pronunciation still required work.

From the Methodists, Dwight won another compatriot who would serve faithfully with him for many years to come: John V. Farwell. Farwell's sixfoot-four-inch frame cut an impressive figure with the children, giving him an immediate air of authority. When Dwight later opened a second Sunday school in the North Market area, Dwight had Farwell attend one of the meetings, at which he gave him the podium momentarily near the end. After venturing a few words, he heard "himself nominated by Moody as superintendent of the North Market Mission Sunday School! Before he had time to object, the school had elected him with a deafening hurrah."445

President Lincoln Comes to See

Dwight's Work

By 1860, the Sabbath schools had grown to roughly 1,500 participants a week under Dwight's leadership. President-elect Abraham Lincoln even visited the school on his first visit to Chicago after the election in November to recognize the good work the school was doing. Lincoln had said that he would attend only if he was not asked to speak. Farwell agreed to this condition, but Moody's impetuousness would not be repressed. When it appeared that the President-elect was preparing to leave, Moody announced, "If Mr. Lincoln desires to say a word, as he goes out, of course all ears will be open." Lincoln walked to the center of the room as if ready to decline the offer, but "he suddenly stopped, and made a most appropriate Sunday School address, in which he referred to his own humble origin."446

His final words to the group were, "With close attention to your teachers, and hard work to put into practice what you learn from them, some one of you may also become president of the United States in due time like myself, as you have had better opportunities than I have had."447 A few months later, when President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to save the Union, seventy-five who had heard him that day were among the first to enlist.

Stepping Out into Full-time Ministry

As the Civil War erupted, Dwight entered into a struggle of his own. He now felt the call to leave business in order to dedicate himself to full-time ministry. Years later, he would speak of this time and other times when he felt God was calling him to do more:

Whenever God has been calling me to higher service, there has always been a conflict with my will. I have fought against it, but God's will has been done instead of mine. When I came to Jesus Christ, I had a terrible battle to surrender my will, and to take God's will. When I gave up business, I had another battle for three months; I fought against it. It was a terrible battle. But oh! how many times I have thanked God that I gave up my will and took God's will.448

When the battle was won and Dwight had decided to go into full-time mission work, he did so quickly and quietly. He gave notice at work and informed his landlady that he would be moving out. He began living as meagerly as possible to make his savings go as far as possible, keeping his sparse living conditions secret so that no one might pity him. When Farwell learned that Dwight slept on some chairs he had pushed together at the local YMCA, where he was also doing some janitorial work, he vowed his friend would never want for support again—as long as he was able to provide it. Dwight feared that his extremism and lack of income might have repelled Emma Revell, but they did just the opposite. She "promised to cast her lot with his,"449 which warmed his heart greatly, as he had gradually fallen for Emma and hoped to make her his wife one day.

Stepping out as he did was all the more remarkable for the twenty-fouryear-old Dwight, because in doing so, he sought no ordination or pulpit other than the ministry he had already established in The Sands. In fact, in all his years of ministry, he would never be ordained. He was not looking for a fulltime position in a church that could pay his bills. His seminary training would consist of hearing the Bible taught wherever he could and approaching various ministers he respected to ask, again and again, "What does this mean?" and "How do you interpret this verse?" He was ever eager and humble to seek out help where he could from ministers more experienced than he.

In his heart, Dwight determined to serve wherever he could, and among the first places where he identified a need was the local Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The organization quickly named him its city missionary and librarian, and allowed him to be its unofficial custodian and administrator. Though the organization had no money with which to compensate him for his work—he would not have accepted the money anyway—it did lend Dwight a new level of credibility when, in 1861, it adopted his Sabbath School and his

North Market Hall Mission as part of its outreaches. The YMCA also provided Dwight with a place to sleep, saving him precious rent money that he would have had to draw from his now dwindling savings.

Civil War

While Dwight was going though these initial adjustments to full-time ministry, the United States was undergoing significant changes as well. Abraham Lincoln had drawn a line in the sand by being elected on a platform of forbidding any new territory from becoming a slave state. Even before he even took the oath of office, seven states seceded from the Union. This series of secessions was quickly followed by four more shortly after his inauguration. There was talk of a diplomatic settlement, but when the newly formed Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the executive response from President Lincoln was to put down the rebellion. Lincoln called for 75,000 three-month volunteers, hoping that the show of force would put a quick end to the insurrection. Instead, four additional states that had been wavering over secession decided to go through with it. The Confederacy prepared to fight its own war for independence against the "invading" North. Each side thought that it could earn a quick victory, and no one was prepared for the brutality and long duration of the fight the United States had before it.

The state of Illinois quickly answered President Lincoln's call for soldiers. The YMCA helped to facilitate mobilization. It hosted large meetings and rallies to raise the money needed for supplies such as horses, food, and equipment. From these meetings, five companies of roughly 150 men each assembled. These companies joined together with other companies formed by the Board of Trade and Mercantile Association as the 72nd Illinois Volunteer Regiment, and they were stationed at Camp Douglas, which had been thrown together quickly just three miles north of Chicago. Dwight, along with B. F. Jacobs and John Farwell, were put in charge of the YMCA's efforts to minister to the spiritual needs of these soldiers. Dwight ordered 3,500 hymnals to be printed with the American flag on the cover to distribute to the soldiers, and he set out to establish a YMCA tent for every regiment gathered. Every day, Dwight held between eight and ten services for the soldiers, and the association handed out thousands of tracts and religious literature. This would be Dwight's first organizational success, as he recruited 150 people to run these tents and minister to the soldiers of Camp Douglas. Hundreds were

converted, and numbers several times greater than that rededicated their lives to Christ.

At this time, the volunteers' biggest fear was that the war would be over before they had a chance to fight. A confident 30,000 soldiers descended from around Washington, D.C., toward Richmond, Virginia, in July 1861, and many thought that this would be the end of the Confederacy. In the initial hours of the battle, the Union troops pushed forward until they met the reinforcements of General Thomas J. Jackson, who stopped the North's forces so abruptly that he earned the nickname "Stonewall." The Union lines were broken, and when a retreat was sounded, the battle turned into a rout for the South. This first Battle of Bull Run immediately changed the complexion of the war—it showed President Lincoln and his army commanders that their forces required better training and leadership, and it boosted the confidence of the Southerners, who felt that the Union had neither the ability nor the resolve to defeat them.

Moody on the Battlefields

The YMCAs decided to coordinate their efforts in a Christian Commission dedicated to ministering to the Union soldiers. Dwight was selected as the Chicago delegate. He would be the first official delegate of thousands sent to minister to the troops. His first post was in October 1861 in Kentucky, where he raised money to fund the building of a wood-framed chapel, all the while managing his missions work in Chicago and his work at Camp Douglas. By 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant was setting up a major Union stronghold in Cairo, Illinois, at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, with plans to both protect the state's vital railways from Confederate attack and launch Union attacks down the Mississippi to cut the South in half. Early in the war, the Commission had recognized Cairo as another important outreach, and Dwight assumed leadership for turning it into a command post for the Commission, as well.

He was getting a crash course in the practices of mass evangelism—an outreach that quickly added ministering to the sick, wounded, and dying. Soon, as a detachment of Confederate soldiers was put under lock and key at Camp Douglas, Dwight added ministering to the prisoners of war to his to-do list. He would travel to the front lines nine different times with General Grant's forces to minister in the makeshift hospitals there. Years later, Dwight would be

among the first Northerners to enter Richmond when it fell to the Union forces. Somehow, in the midst of all of this, he still found the time to marry Emma on August 28, 1862. Before the Civil War drew to an end, Dwight and Emma would also have their first child—a daughter, named Emma after her mother and grandmother—born on October 24, 1864.

The war was also a hands-on training ground for tapping into the power of prayer. One night, in the wake of a battle that had left the field pockmarked with craters and casualties, it was up to the Christian workers to search for the living among those who had been left on the battlefield. Hundreds of wounded soldiers, hungry and thirsty, were left in their care. They located a stream from which to draw water, but no food was to be found. The band of Christians knelt and asked God to provide bread, but many of them later admitted that they had prayed without much hope of an answer. Even so, as the sun rose the next morning, a wagon pulled into view—packed to the roof with loaves of bread. The driver told the following story:

When I went to bed last night, I knew the army was gone and I could not sleep for thinking of the poor fellows who were wounded and would have to stay behind. Something seemed to whisper in my ear, "What will those poor fellows do for something to eat?" I could not get rid of this voice.450

Unable to get back to sleep, the man had awakened his wife and asked her to begin baking as much bread as possible. He went and prepared his wagon, calling on his neighbors to gather more food. He told the workers, "Some hours later when I reached home my wagon was full, but my wife succeeded in piling her baking on top, and then I hastened to bring the bread to the boys, feeling just as if I was being sent by our Lord Himself."451

Ministry to the Wounded and Dying

It must have been a heart-wrenching time for Dwight, not yet twenty-five, as he had to minister time and again at the bedsides of those near death. In a sermon years later, he would tell the following story of one deathbed account:

After the battle of Pittsburgh Landing I was in a hospital at Murfreesboro. In the middle of the night I was aroused and told that a man in one of the wards wanted to see me. I went to him and he called me "chaplain"—I was not the chaplain—and said he wanted me to help him die. And I said, "I would take

you right up in my arms and carry you into the kingdom of God if I could; but I cannot do it. I cannot help you die!" And he said, "Who can?" I said, "The Lord Jesus Christ can—He came for that purpose." He shook his head, and said, "He cannot save me; I have sinned all my life." And I said, "But He came to save sinners." I thought of his mother in the north, and I was sure that she was anxious that he should die in peace; so I resolved I would stay with him. I prayed two or three times, and repeated all the promises I could; for it was evident that in a few hours he would be gone.

I said I wanted to read him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes were riveted on me; and when I came to the 14th and 15th verses—the passage before us—he caught up the words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He stopped me and said, "Is that there?" I said "Yes." He asked me to read it again; and I did so. He leaned his elbows on the cot, and clasping his hands together, said, "That's good; won't you read it again?" I read it the third time; and then went on with the rest of the chapter. When I had finished, his eyes were closed, his hands were folded, and there was a smile on his face. Oh, how it was lit up! What a change had come over it! I saw his lips quivering, and leaning over him I heard in a faint whisper, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He opened his eyes and said, "That's enough; don't read any more." He lingered a few hours, pillowing his head on those two verses; and then went up in one of Christ's chariots to take his seat in the Kingdom of God.452

During the war, the work in Chicago had continued to thrive. Dwight's first Sunday school students were growing into adulthood, and as the missions flourished, other adults began attending as well. While Dwight had always tried his best to get along with the pastors in town and to feed his Sunday school children into their churches, his converts never really felt comfortable or welcome in these more established, traditional worship services. So, as the war was drawing to a close, on December 30, 1864, the Illinois Street Mission Sunday school became the Illinois Street Church, an independent evangelical church with an assertive outreach program. The Congregationalists offered to ordain Dwight; he felt unqualified, and declined, holding true to his desire to

remain impartial to—and equally friendly with—all denominations.

The Civil War created a pressing mind-set in Dwight that would never leave him. While the War Between the States came to a bloody conclusion in 1865, the war against the forces of darkness for the souls of men would not. Dwight seemed to apply wartime urgency to all of his preaching endeavors thereafter, treating each engagement as if it were the last time he would be able to preach the Gospel to someone, and doing everything in his power to see that the people received it then and there. He also developed a rather practical view of the essentials of the gospel message—a view to which he would cling for the remainder of his ministry. Salvation was the doctrine around which every denomination could rally, and this concept gave him an ecumenical key to working among churches wherever he went. He also learned that he needed no formal training or title to be effective in his work for God, and for the rest of his ministry, he was constantly reminding people that his name was "Mr. Moody," not "Reverend."

When the Civil War came to an end, America entered the period of Reconstruction (technically spanning from 1865 to 1877) and the period of economic growth and social reform that would be dubbed the Gilded Age (from 1865 to 1893). This time of economic growth was a second industrial age for the United States, as the country put itself back together after the war and expanded westward. It was also a time of tremendous immigration, and cities nationwide grew rapidly. Based on Andrew Carnegie's book of the same name, the "gospel of wealth" became predominant, as many entrepreneurs flourishing in industry felt compelled to make charitable and philanthropic contributions to their communities. In this atmosphere, organizations such as the YMCA greatly benefited because of their focus on reaching the poor.

The war had also revealed the YMCA to be an ecumenical organization that could be trusted with leadership, and through Dwight's efforts, the Chicago YMCA was distinguished among all the YMCAs in the U.S. Soon, Dwight would become the president of the Chicago YMCA, a position he would hold from 1865 to 1870. This was a platform of influence and respectability. Chicago itself would experience a "Golden Age of Religion" under Dwight's influence within five years after the war's end.

The First Trip to England

In 1867, Emma Revell Moody was in poor health—she suffered from asthma and had trouble keeping up with her husband, who was ministering at a maddening pace. The couple decided to take a cruise to England so that Emma could rest and recover, as well as visit relatives in England whom she had not seen since her immigration to the United States eighteen years earlier. Dwight also wanted to make time to meet with Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA, who lived in London. In addition, he hoped to meet George Mueller, whose testimony had so inspired him, and to hear Charles Haddon Spurgeon preach. The Moodys also planned to attend an international Sunday school convention being held in London. All of these plans eased Dwight's conscience enough that he was able to leave his work in Chicago in the capable hands of others. He and his wife left three-year-old Emma in the care of Dwight's mother in Northfield, Illinois.

With his characteristically uncouth yet honest candor, Dwight made an immediate impression on the English in his first public address. He was asked to come forward at the Sunday-school convention to give a word about his work in America, and according to one witness,

the vice-chairman announced that they were glad to welcome their "American cousin, the Reverend Mr. Moody, of Chicago," who would now move a vote of thanks to the noble Earl who had presided on this occasion. With refreshing frankness and an utter disregard for conventionalities and mere compliments, Mr. Moody burst upon the audience with the bold announcement:

"The chairman has made two mistakes. To begin with, I'm not the 'Reverend' Mr. Moody at all. I'm plain Dwight L. Moody, a Sabbath-school worker. And then I'm not your 'American cousin'! By the grace of God I'm your brother, who is interested with you in our Father's work for His children.

"And now about this vote of thanks to 'the noble Earl' for being our chairman this evening. I don't see why we should thank him, any more than he should thank us. When at one time they offered to thank our Mr. Lincoln for presiding over a meeting in Illinois, he stopped it. He said he'd tried to do his duty, and they'd tried to do theirs. He thought it was an even thing all round."

That opening fairly took the breath away from Mr. Moody's hearers. Such talk could not be gauged by any standard. Its novelty was delightful, and Mr. Moody carried his English hearers from that time on.453

The Moodys would spend four and a half months in the British Isles, and, as was usual for Dwight, they accomplished everything that they had set out to do. He managed to hear Charles Spurgeon speak on several occasions, and even met with him, leaving with high hopes of getting Spurgeon to come to America to preach.

The Moodys also traveled to Bristol to meet with George Mueller, of whom Dwight wrote to Farwell, "He has 1,150 children in his house but never asks a man for a cent of money to support them. He calls on God and God sends the money to him. It is wonderful to see what God can do with a man of prayer."454

Dwight was also greatly influenced by Mueller's doctrinal leanings. Mueller was part of the Plymouth Brethren church, which had an immovable commitment to the integrity and inspiration of the Scriptures. The Plymouth Brethren preached conversion as a powerful, life-altering event, and they believed in the premillennial return of Christ. Dwight would cling to these two doctrines in later ministry. It may be that these Brethren had an impact on him similar to the Moravians' impact on John Wesley. More than any other group's doctrine, theirs seemed to form the cornerstone of Dwight's theology.

For his part, Dwight would make an equally significant impact on England. A sixteen-year-old John Kenneth MacKenzie heard Dwight speak in Bristol on May 10; he would go on to become a famous medical missionary to China. While in Liverpool, Dwight would inspire the Reverend Charles Garrett to open an inexpensive restaurant as an alternative to the town's bars and brothels. Another man started a noonday prayer meeting in London, modeled after that of the Chicago YMCA, and he would lead it for the next forty-one years.

Dwight would also inspire a young pickpocket-turned-preacher, Henry Moorehouse, to leave England to hear him speak in Ireland. Reaching no higher than Dwight's shoulder, this "boy preacher" was only a few years younger than Dwight, and he convinced the Moodys to invite him to speak in Chicago, were he ever to visit America. Little did they know at the time how providential this meeting would be for Dwight's ministry.

On July 1, a farewell reception was arranged for the Moodys at London's Aldersgate YMCA. At this event, one of the speakers said of Dwight,

Few men who have visited a foreign shore have endeared themselves to so many hearts in so short a time, or with an unknown name and without letters of commendation won their way so deeply into the affections of a multitude of Christian brethren as had Mr. Moody. Few had ever heard of him before, but having talked with him or heard him speak of Jesus, asked for no other warrant to yield him a large measure of their love.455

Dwight was given a gold watch to remember his trip and an envelope containing a good-sized honorarium.

The Moodys soon left for home, thinking fondly of this wonderful adventure they never expected to repeat. It was a trip that had influenced Dwight immeasurably, for it came at a time when he was very open to learning more about God and how to minister to others. He little suspected that his education from this trip was far from over, much less that he would return in just a few years to be an even greater blessing to the United Kingdom than it had been to him.

Moorehouse's John 3:16 Sermons

Several weeks after returning to Chicago, Dwight received a letter from Harry Moorehouse to say that he was stateside, and asking whether the invitation to speak was still standing. Dwight answered casually, thinking he would never hear from him again. But he did. Much to the chagrin of Dwight's staff members, who were suspicious of the outsider, Dwight agreed to let him speak a few weeks later, while he would be out of town. Moorehouse spoke on but one text each of the two nights that Dwight was away: John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." When Dwight returned, he heard this testimony of what had happened:

When I got back Saturday morning I was anxious to know how he got on. The first thing I said to my wife when I got in the house was, "How is the young Englishman coming along? How do the people like him?"

"They like him very much."

"Did you hear him?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you like him?"

"Yes, I liked him very much. He has preached two sermons from that verse of John, 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,' and I think you will like him, although he preaches a little differently from you."

"How is that?"

"Well, he tells the worst sinners that God loves them."

"Then," said I, "he is wrong."

"I think you will agree with him when you hear him," said she, "because he backs up everything he says with the Bible."

Sunday came, and as I went to the church I noticed that every one brought his Bible. The morning address was to Christians. I had never heard anything quite like it. He gave chapter and verse to prove every statement he made. When night came the church was packed. "Now, beloved friends," said the preacher, "if you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse, you will find my text." He preached the most extraordinary sermon from that verse. He did not divide the text into secondly and thirdly and fourthly; he just took the whole verse, and then went through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation to prove that in all ages God loved the world. God had sent prophets and patriarchs and holy men to warn us, and then He sent His Son, and after they killed Him, He sent the Holy Ghost. I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out; I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country: I just drank it in. So did the crowded congregation. I tell you there is one thing that draws above everything else in this world, and that is love. A man that has no one to love him, no mother, no wife, no children, no brother, no sister, belongs to the class that commits suicide.

It's pretty hard to get a crowd out in Chicago on a Monday night, but the people came. They brought their Bibles, and Moorehouse began, "Beloved friends, if you will turn to the third chapter of John, and the sixteenth verse, you will find my text," and again he showed on another line, from Genesis to Revelation, that God loved us. He could turn to almost any part of the Bible

and prove it. Well, I thought that was better than the other one; he struck a higher note than ever, and it was sweet to my soul to hear it. He just beat that truth down into my heart, and I have never doubted it since. I used to preach that God was behind the sinner with a double-edged sword ready to hew him down. I have got done with that. I preach now that God is behind him with love, and he is running away from the God of love.456

In the end, Harry Moorehouse spoke for seven consecutive nights on John 3:16. And every night, the truth of this passage and Moorehouse's message struck a deeper cord in Dwight's heart. He would experience a total transformation in his life and the way he preached.

Dwight and Emma would have two more children—both sons—in the coming years. William Revell Moody was born on March 25, 1869, in Chicago, and their youngest, Paul, would be born during Dwight's extended Baltimore campaign, more than a decade later, on April 11, 1879. The Baltimore campaign would be an interim in which Dwight's ministry would again drastically change—yet he required one more important element before that would happen.

Empowered by the Spirit of God

While the concept of transformation by the love of God was perhaps the most important revelation of God's truth to Dwight, it was not everything he needed to be the evangelist he would become in a few short years. Dwight still operated largely on his own strength of will, skill with people, and seemingly unquenchable ambition to increase whatever he set his hand to. Emma watched as her husband drove himself in his pursuits—dogged by an ever present feeling of inadequacy—to provide for his family, expand the influence of the Chicago YMCA, and reach a world filled with people who needed to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yet, all along, God had been trying to reach Dwight to let him know where his true power would come from—a message of His love that He tried to convey to humankind throughout the entire Bible: the importance of God's Spirit living within and empowering His children. Dwight just needed to put the pieces together.

Years later, he would describe how this puzzle started coming together for

him, and how first pieces had appeared soon after he was saved:

I remember once when I was first converted I spoke in a Sabbath school, and there seemed to be a great deal of interest, and quite a number rose for prayer, and I remember I went out quite rejoiced; but an old man followed me out. I have never seen him since. I never had seen him before, and don't even know his name—but he caught hold of my hand and gave me a little bit of advice. I didn't know what he meant at the time, but he said: "Young man, when you speak again, honor the Holy Ghost." I was hastening off to another church to speak, and all the way over it kept ringing in my ears—"Honor the Holy Ghost." And I said to myself, "I wonder what the old man means."457

Years later, Dwight would have a similar experience with two women at a series of encounters he found equally perplexing. Each time he spoke with them, they would tell him, "We are praying for you." One night when he was especially weary, he lost his patience with them and pointedly asked, "Why are you praying for me? Why don't you pray for the unsaved?" They told him, "We are praying that you may get the power." Since Dwight asked no further questions, they said nothing more of this but stayed resolute in their quest. In the fall of 1871, Moody crossed paths with these two women again; this time, he asked more pointedly about what they had meant. According to R. A. Torrey, the first superintendent of Moody Bible Institute, to whom Dwight later recounted these events, "They told him about the definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. Then he asked that he might pray with them and not they merely pray for him."458 Thus, they agreed to meet in Farwell Hall (a YMCA building named after Dwight's friend, John V. Farwell) every Friday afternoon for prayer.

Dwight learned that the leader of the two women was Sarah Cooke, a devout Methodist who had moved with her husband to Chicago in 1868 and had received a burden from the Lord that Dwight might be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In the following weeks, they met on Fridays, as planned, whenever Dwight had the time to attend. And on Friday, October 6, 1871, they seemed to have a breakthrough. Cooke would later write, "At every meeting each of us prayed aloud in turn, but at this meeting Mr. Moody's agony was so great that he rolled on the floor and in the midst of many tears and groans cried to God to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire."459 Dwight, however, reported that he left this meeting unchanged. He felt near his breaking

point.

The Great Chicago Fire

Things would get worse before they would get better. That Sunday night, October 8, a fire burned roughly four square miles of Chicago, destroying the Illinois Street Church where Moody presided, a newly constructed YMCA building, for which Dwight had only recently finished raising funds, and the Moody home. The family moved in with Emma's sister, and Dwight hit the road again to start raising new capital to rebuild the destroyed edifices.

It was some months later, while walking the streets of New York, that Dwight finally experienced the breakthrough for which he and Sarah Cooke had been praying together. It was shortly before his second and most important trip to England. R. A. Torrey had this to say about this significant advance in Dwight's life:

Not long after, one day on his way to England, he was walking up Wall Street in New York; (Mr. Moody very seldom told this and I almost hesitate to tell it) and in the midst of the bustle and hurry of that city his prayer was answered; the power of God fell upon him as he walked up the street and he had to hurry off to the house of a friend and ask that he might have a room by himself, and in that room he stayed alone for hours; and the Holy Ghost came upon him, filling his soul with such joy that at last he had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot from very joy. He went out from that place with the power of the Holy Ghost upon him, and when he got to London (partly through the prayers of a bedridden saint in Mr. Lessey's church), the power of God wrought through him mightily in North London, and hundreds were added to the churches; and that was what led to his being invited over to the wonderful campaign that followed in later years.460

Dwight described the experience in this way:

I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not

different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be as the small dust of the balance.461

The experience heightened Dwight's hunger for the knowledge of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, for a time, he and Emma moved their family back to his mother's home in Northfield to distance themselves from the demands and busyness of the bustling city, believing that this would enable them to hear the Holy Spirit's direction more clearly. As a result, Dwight felt an unquenchable desire to return to England. He felt he needed to sit again at the feet of the teachers he had met there. However, it appeared that God had different plans.

D. L. Moody's Great Awakening

Dwight set sail for London in June 1872 and slipped quietly into the country. In no time, he found some meetings to attend, and he would sit in the back to take notes. Thus began his religious retreat. Then, one night at a prayer meeting at the Old Bailey—the building that formerly housed London's central criminal court—the Reverend John Lessey saw Dwight and begged him to speak at his church the following Sunday. Reluctantly, Dwight agreed. That particular Sunday morning passed uneventfully, but Sunday night was a different story altogether.

At the next service, which was at half-past six in the evening, it seemed, while he was preaching, as if the very atmosphere was charged with the Spirit of God. There came a hush upon all the people, and a quick response to his words, though he had not been much in prayer that day, and could not understand it.

When he had finished preaching he asked all who would like to become Christians to rise, that he might pray for them. People rose all over the house until it seemed as if the whole audience was getting up.

Mr. Moody said to himself: "These people don't understand me. They don't know what I mean when I ask them to rise." He had never seen such results before, and did not know what to make of it, so he put the test again.

"Now," he said, "all of you who want to become Christians just step into the inquiry-room."

They went in, and crowded the room so that they had to take in extra chairs to seat them all. The minister was surprised, and so was Mr. Moody. Neither had expected such a blessing. They had not realized that God can save by hundreds and thousands as well as by ones and twos.

When Mr. Moody again asked those that really wanted to become Christians to rise, the whole audience got up. He did not even then know what to do, so he told all who were really in earnest to meet the pastor there the next night.

The next day he went over to Dublin, but on Tuesday morning received a despatch urging him to return, saying there were more inquirers on Monday than on Sunday. He went back and held meetings for ten days, and four hundred were taken into that church.462

The Cause of Revival

Dwight was no less perplexed than other people by these results, but he later found out what had caused the revival. It appeared that there were two sisters who belonged to this church, and one of them was bedridden with illness. One day, while feeling sorry for herself, it occurred to her that if she could do nothing else, she could at least pray. So, day and night, she began a vigil of praying for revival in her church. Then one day, she came across a newspaper article about a meeting Dwight had organized in the United States, and she was so impressed by what she read that she kept the article under her pillow and began praying that God would send him across the sea to preach at their church.

Then that Sunday morning, the healthy sister came home to ask her sister,

"Whom do you think preached this morning?"

She suggested the names of several with whom her pastor was in the habit of exchanging.

Finally her sister told her, "It was Mr. Moody, from America."

"I know what that means," cried the sick woman; "God has heard my

prayers!"463

Years later, G. Campbell Morgan met this woman, Marianne Adlard, when he took over the pastorate of Lessey's New Court Congregational Church. In Morgan's book, The Practice of Prayer, he told her side of the story:

When in 1901 I was leaving England for America I went to see her. She said to me, "I want you to reach that birthday book." I did so and turning to February 5 I saw in the handwriting I knew so well, "D. L. Moody, Psalm xci." Then Marianne Adlard said to me, "He wrote that for me when he came to see me in 1872, and I prayed for him every day until he went home." Continuing, she said, "Now, will you write your name on your birthday page, and let me pray for you until either you or I go home." I shall never forget writing my name in that book. To me the room was full of the Presence. I have often thought of that hour in the rush of my busy life, in the place of toil and strain, and even yet by God's good grace I know that Marianne Adlard is praying for me, and it is for this reason that to her in sincere love and admiration I have dedicated this book. There are the labourers of force in the fields of God. It is the heroes and heroines who are out of sight, and who labour in prayer, who make it possible for those who are in sight to do their work and win. The force of it to such as are called upon to exercise the ministry can never be measured.464

Dwight sensed that God wanted him to do more in England than just take notes. When he received similar results after preaching at Chelsea Chapel at the invitation of an Anglican priest, he concluded that God did want him to minister in Great Britain, but he also felt he should do so properly. So, he decided to return to the United States, find a singer to accompany him, solicit support for an extended campaign, collect his family, and return to Great Britain as quickly as he could. But before he could even book a ticket home, money to cover his expenses had already been volunteered from Dublin, as well as from a wealthy Methodist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Another confirmation came before he returned to the U.S. When Dwight attended a conference sponsored by the Reverend William Pennefather at Mildmay Park in northern London, he immediately felt at home, and he sensed a kindred spirit in Pennefather during his opening sermon. Pennefather then convinced Dwight to speak, and again the reception was phenomenal. In

response, Pennefather announced from the podium, "Mr. Moody was one for whom God had prepared a great work," and those prophetic words would be fulfilled in the months to come.

Just before his return to the States, Dwight struck a deal in Dublin. He agreed to purchase tracts and booklets for the price of the paper they were printed on, ordered thousands of them, arranged for their free transport to Chicago, and then made preparations for their reception and purchase as soon as he arrived stateside again, in September 1872. He had Chicago Yokefellows set up racks to display the tracts in passenger depots and hotels. On each rack was a sign indicating that the tracts were complimentary. Dwight then wrote to forty businessmen, asking them each to give $25 to cover the cost of the project, which was $1,000. The Yokefellows would then check the racks three times a week and replenish them as needed.

Dwight had also been inspired by William Pennefather's training program, which created deaconesses for the Church of England who would serve the community under the auspices of the Church. Upon his return to the States, Dwight wanted to create an institution that would do something similar, and he soon found just the person to lead it. A former college professor, Emma Dryer had been healed miraculously of typhoid fever and an eye disorder, and she felt called to the ministry. While Dwight never believed in divine healing as Dryer did, he was thrilled by her premillennialist teachings—she believed that Jesus would return before the millennium, rather than in the midst of it or afterward, to reign on the earth. Many people still believe this today. Dwight also knew that she had leadership abilities, given her positions as head of the Chicago Women's Aid Society and superintendent of the Women's Auxiliary of the YMCA. Dwight convinced her to start a school to train women in home and foreign missions and evangelistic work. This school would eventually welcome male students, as well. It was the beginning of what would become the Moody Bible Institute.

Dwight Finds a Psalmist

Dwight now set himself to the matter of finding a singer to accompany him back to England. He approached two men, Philip Phillips and P. P. Bliss, but both were unable to commit. So Dwight turned to Ira D. Sankey, his song leader in Chicago, and asked him. He had not wanted to do this, as he felt Ira

was too important to his congregation in Chicago, but his skills as a soloist and song leader were unparalleled. Dwight had met Ira at a conference in Indianapolis in 1871, just before his previous trip to Great Britain. Ira had come to hear Dwight speak, but instead, when Ira had stepped in to lead a song at the request of one of his other Pennsylvania delegates, it was Ira who had impressed Dwight. Dwight knew the importance of a good song leader and how difficult it was to find one, so when the two were introduced, Dwight used the full force of his persuasive skills as a salesman to convince Ira to come to Chicago to work with him.

At the close of the service Mr. Sankey was introduced by his friend, and was immediately recognized by Moody as the leader of the singing. A few inquiries regarding Mr. Sankey's family ties and occupation followed; then the evangelist announced in his determined fashion, "Well, you'll have to give that up! You are the man I have been looking for, and I want you to come to Chicago and help me in my work."465

According to Sankey's autobiography, when he told Dwight that he could not join him, Dwight retorted, "You must; I have been looking for you for the last eight years."466

Sankey was unsure at first, and the fact that he had started a promising career with the Treasury Department did little to help. Once he had the chance to visit with Dwight and Emma in Chicago and see the work they were doing there, however, he was convinced that it was his calling. So when Dwight asked him to come with him to England to minister there for eight to ten months, he agreed. The Moody and Sankey families boarded a ship for Liverpool on June 7, 1873.

The British Revival

Ten days later, Liverpool welcomed them with stunning news. Pennefather, the man who had promised support from Dublin, and the Methodist supporter from Newcastle-upon-Tyne had both died. The entirety of Dwight's promised income had evaporated before he had even left the U.S. The two families set to prayer. Ira and Fanny Sankey found accommodations with Harry Moorehouse in Manchester, and the Moodys and their children stayed with Emma's sister in London. Hearing of their arrival, George Bennett, head of the YMCA in York, invited Dwight to speak there. When Dwight told Ira about the invitation, he

said, "Here is a door which is partly open, and we will go there and begin our work."467

What happened next was phenomenal. Dwight and Ira had arrived in Great Britain without anyone to meet them at the dock, yet in two years, they would depart to the fanfare of the world. The work in York started slowly—only fifty people attended the first meeting, and six came to the prayer meeting the first midday—but interest grew quickly as local pastors began to throw their support to the thirty-six-year-old evangelist. Dwight's to-the-point, American style and anointing from God struck a cord with the British public, who were accustomed to sermons that sounded more like history lessons or philosophy lectures. As a rule, Dwight also limited his preaching to half an hour or less, believing it was better to leave an audience wanting more than to overstay his welcome. As one listener put it,

He is a master in his work: he aims at one thing, viz.; getting people to consider their state before God, and he brings everything to bear on the one object—to accept Jesus, as offered to us in the Gospel. From this aim he is never for a moment diverted. His simplest illustrations, his most touching stories, his most pathetic appeals, his gentlest persuasiveness, his most passionate declamation, his most direct home thrusts, his (almost unfair) reference to people and places, all are used, and unsparingly, unfearingly, used, for the one purpose of touching the heart, that Jesus and the Father may come in and abide there.468

Dwight's preaching style, honed in the slums of Chicago to hold the attention of the most uneducated, grabbed the hearts of even the most educated. He loved to tell stories, and he told them well. His illustrations of biblical truths were always concise and to the point. One minister who had heard Dwight speak several times summed up his appeal in this way:

He had learned to preach simply,—let us rather say he had not learned to preach otherwise; and in the unaffected language of nature, uncorrupted by the fastidious culture of the schools, he spoke face to face with men; and they heard him. Sprightly and vivacious, with a touch of humor as well as pathos, direct and pointed in his appeals, urging to an immediate decision, and feeling his dependence of the Spirit of God, he compelled all classes to acknowledge that he was a man of power. And yet God gave him the grace to be humble; not

to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to feel that he was himself nothing and that God was all.469

In York, roughly two hundred people joined the churches as a result of Dwight and Ira's meetings, and Baptist pastor Arthur A. Rees invited them to come to Sunderland. There, churches began to overflow, and to avoid the appearance of favoring one denomination over another, the meetings were moved to a public hall. As Dwight began to draw more attention, closer scrutiny was applied, and criticism of his motives began to arise among people who had never met him or attended one of his meetings.

Newcastle Burns Bright

Things wouldn't really start to take off, though, until Dwight and Ira arrived in Newcastle:

At Newcastle the fire was kindled which was to mightily move Great Britain. Ministerial opposition was overcome, five of the principal chapels of the town being offered for the services. Mr. Moody accepted the use of the Rye Hill Baptist Chapel, a large edifice, and within a fortnight crowds were turned away for want of room. All the neighbouring towns and villages felt the spiritual impulse, and in response to requests hundreds of meetings were held outside the city by multiplying assistants of the evangelist.

Mr. Moody, in order to prevent the exclusion of the unconverted by the crowds of Christians who attended the meetings, now began to divide his congregations into classes, giving tickets of admission to the various services. Meetings for merchants were held in the Assembly Hall; meetings for mechanics were held at the Tyne Theatre, and in each instance the size of the crowds usually necessitated three or four overflow meetings.

The name and residence of every inquirer was made a matter of record, and in order that assistants in the inquiry room should be more fitted to the purpose, tickets were issued to clergymen and other men of practical experience in Christian work, that they might help in the great work of leading souls to Christ. At first most of the conversions were among the educated classes, but afterward the work became more general. The noon prayer meetings which had been commenced previous to the arrival of Mr. Moody, by way of preparation had grown to remarkable proportions, while Mr. Moody's afternoon Bible

readings drew even from the ranks of busy merchants and professional men. Two whole-day meetings or conferences were held....

As a result of this month's work, hundreds of converts were received into the churches, and the whole North of England was aroused. Scores of Christian workers were sent out to carry the good tidings to the remoter districts, and the stimulus to the various churches proved unprecedented.470

Next, Dwight ministered in Edinburgh, where three thousand members were added to the churches, and by the beginning of 1854, he was in Dundee, then Glasgow. They had scheduled meetings in the Botanical Gardens, which could accommodate between five and six thousand, but a few nights into the "campaign"—a term Dwight had picked up from his time with Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War—he couldn't get through the crowd to enter the auditorium. Undaunted, Dwight preached from the top of his carriage—there were more people outside the Botanical Gardens than inside, anyway! The crowd numbered an estimated twenty to thirty thousand people. One witness later wrote,

We thought of the days of Whitefield, of such a scene as that mentioned in his life, when, in 1753 at Glasgow, twenty thousand souls hung on his lips as he bade them farewell. Here there were thirty thousand eager hearers, for by this time the thousands within the Crystal Palace had come out, though their numbers quietly melting into the main body did not make a very perceptible addition to the crowd; and many onlookers who knew something of such gatherings were inclined to estimate the number much higher.471

The tour would continue on to Ireland, then return to England in November 1874, to continually overflowing crowds.

A Formula That Worked

Soon after the campaigns began, Dwight deduced a formula for the meetings that would make up the campaign. Those attending prayer meetings held at noon would pray over the concerns and souls of those who would attend that evening. Not long into the revival, the attendance at these noontime meetings grew into the thousands. Following the prayer meeting, a "question-drawer" meeting would be held. People were asked to write their questions on sheets of paper, which were collected and addressed at random from the podium by

Dwight and at least two other pastors. Then, after a break for lunch and a bit of a rest, a Bible reading meeting would take place, where portions of Scripture were read and then explained. These were the most popular of the afternoon meetings. As they grew larger, several of these meetings would be held at one time in order to give proper attention to everyone in attendance. Dwight circulated among these concurrent meetings, putting in an appearance at each one. All of these meetings always started and ended exactly on time. Evening services would then follow as scheduled.

Dwight also started something quite novel for his day: children's services. Echoing his work among the youth in The Sands, Dwight started meetings for children and created even more techniques to preach the Gospel to children in particular. Among these techniques was the Wordless Book—a large booklet with four leaves of black (sin), red (blood of Christ), white (cleansing from sin), and gold (heaven)—which he used as a prop while asking his audience a series of questions leading them to understand their need for a Savior. Many of these meetings resulted in permanent Sunday schools being established as the locals answered Dwight's challenge to reach the youth of their communities.

Another change Dwight implemented was exchanging Finney's "anxious seat" for the "inquiry room." He felt that the anxious seat put the penitent on display and was abused by those who were more interested in making a spectacle of themselves than in pursuing salvation. Instead, those "inquiring" about salvation would be taken aside to another room, where they met with counselors who would answer their questions as best they could from Scripture and pray with them. This seemed, however, to take the "fear and trembling" out of conversion. The struggle for assurance within a person's heart that he or she was saved no longer seemed necessary. Salvation became more an assurance of the words of the counselor than a revelation of the heart. In addition, with the tight focus on conversion, there seemed little room for other works of the Spirit. There was no more "crying out for the touch of God," but rather, quiet prayers away from the crowds. Thus, Dwight's meetings would never see the manifestations of the Spirit that happened at Cane Ridge or in the meetings of John Wesley, or even those that took place as William Booth ministered at roughly this same time, elsewhere in London.

In 1875, Dwight and Ira returned to London for the final months of the campaign. When asked to come, Dwight said, "You will need to raise £5,000

for expenses of halls, advertising, etc." The reply came almost immediately: "We have £10,000 already." The city was divided into four quarters, and each was addressed individually. A portable hall was created that could hold five to six thousand people. The final service was held on July 12, 1875. In London alone, the evangelists had conducted 285 meetings and addressed 2,500,000 people.472

In his closing address, Dwight finished with this appeal:

For two years and three weeks we have been trying to labor for Christ among you, and now it is time to close. This is the last time I shall have the privilege of preaching the Gospel in this country at this time. I want to say that these have been the best years of my life. I have sought to bring Christ before you and to tell you of His beauty. It is true I have done it with stammering tongue. I have never spoken of Him as I would like to. I have done the best I could, and at this closing hour I want once more to press Him upon your acceptance. I do not want to close this meeting until I see you all in the ark of refuge. How many are willing to stand up before God to-night and say by that act that they will join us in our journey to Heaven? You that are willing to take Christ now, will you not rise?473

At that, many did stand, and Dwight was able to escape the podium with the emphasis on God rather than in celebration of all that had taken place as a result of his ministry in the British Isles over a period of twenty-five months.

One author summed up Dwight's effects on Great Britain in this way:

Lecky, the historian, calmly and dispassionately asserts that the evangelistic labors of John Wesley and his co-workers, by lifting the moral tone of the common people, saved England from a revolution. Mr. Moody may not have served as an instrument for the accomplishment of so deep an economic purpose, but it is certain that the regenerating springs of spiritual life, which God used him to draw from the rock of indifference, refreshed and revived a people fast tending to religious numbness. And nothing is so dangerous as this apathetic numbness; it has done more to hinder the progress of salvation than all the active forces of the devil put together.

I am not prepared to deny that many who were awakened or converted during Mr. Moody's labours in Great Britain went back to their former walks

soon after the immediate presence of the evangelists ceased to be felt; nor will I deny that much of the work inspired by his efforts crystallised into conventional and narrow forms; but I believe from the bottom of my heart that the movement blessed Britain as she had not before been blessed for one hundred years, and I know that tens of thousands of persons became better men and women for the effect of Mr. Moody's words upon them. Through this man God led men to read their Bibles, to live honestly, to rid themselves of besetting sins, and to place their faith in Christ as a personal Saviour.474

The Moodys and Sankeys would head back to New York on August 4. When they arrived there on August 14, the change was evident. They were no longer simple Christian missionaries serving their Lord in whatever capacity they felt led; rather, they were now international celebrities, welcomed back to America with the fanfare usually reserved for the rich or famous.

Dwight's Strengths

In the years to come, Dwight would prove that he could hold meetings as no one else had in the history of the world. For most, a lack of education limits what a person can do, but it seemed the opposite with Dwight—he was not limited to conventional thinking, and therefore thought to do things in a way no one else ever had. It seems that the word cannot was never part of his experience. In the years to come, he would master his use of the press to promote his meetings. Many of the ministries of the day criticized this tactic, but he obtained results none of them ever would. He embraced new opportunities rather than worrying that they would dilute his focus, and organizations and schools emerged from Chicago to Northfield with the Moody imprint on them. His schools would never be held back for lack of credentials in the same way that not being ordained never kept him from becoming a minister. It would not keep the crowds away, either.

Dwight Moody had a drive that few other men possessed. There was no questioning his passion to see people come to Christ. Wherever he preached, he attracted the curious, and many of them left as believers. No detail seemed too small to merit his attention or to increase the effectiveness of his campaigns—a trait the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association would fully adopt. Prayer was ever a foundation of these campaigns as well. The noonhour prayer meetings remained an important part of all of his campaigns.

Phenomenal testimonies followed of how people came to the Lord after hearing Dwight preach. Here are two such stories:

One great feature of Mr. Moody's work had always been the singing, the wisdom of which may be seen in the following: While he was holding services in the Monument Street M. E. Church, a man addicted to drink and with no thought of God attended one of the meetings. He was much impressed with the singing, particularly with one hymn, "Come, O, Come to Me." He heard the announcement for the day meetings, and he determined to attend. As he entered the church Mr. Bliss was singing the hymn above mentioned. The man bought a hymn book that he might read the hymn for himself, and testified that he had no peace. Finally he burned the book, but he could not burn the impression that had been made by the Spirit. He then drank the harder, but could not drown the impression. Time passed on; one night he wandered into the Methodist Church, and as he did so he heard them singing again, "Come, O, Come to Me," and there that night he obeyed the call and accepted Christ. The hymn was number eighty-eight (88) in Gospel Hymns, No. 3. Mr. Moody always spoke of him after that as No. 88.

During the meetings at Broadway M. E. Church, a pickpocket entered the meeting for the purpose of relieving some one of his gold watch, which he was not long in doing; after procuring his prize, he started to leave the church but was unable to do so, for those who were in had to remain, and those who were out could not get in; he was therefore led to listen, was much impressed with the sermon, and stayed for the inquiry meeting, where he accepted Christ as his personal Saviour. The next day the door bell of the parsonage was rung, and when the servant answered, she found no one, but tied to the knob of the door was a package. This when opened was found to contain a gold watch and chain, and with it a note stating the facts, and asking that it be returned to the owner, which was done. The repentant thief gave his name and address, but asked that he might be forgiven, as God had forgiven him.475

Perhaps Dwight's greatest year of was 1876—America's Centennial. In January of that year, 210 meetings attended by more than a million people were held in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Freight Depot. In New York, Dwight rented the Hippodrome, which had formerly housed the Barnum Circus. They filled the 14,000-seat building to overflowing for ten consecutive weeks. Years later, in 1883, when Barnum's Circus finished at Madison Square

Garden, Dwight secured that venue for a series of meetings.

In the following decades, Dwight's meetings would continue to touch hearts. Back in England in the spring of 1884, Dwight was speaking in London when a young medical student named Wilfred Thomason Grenfell slipped in at the back of one of his meetings. He was a student at Queens College, Oxford, and came from a well-to-do family. As he entered, he heard a man praying in a rather sanctimonious tone, and he was ready to turn on his heels and leave, seeing nothing about this meeting that appeared different. Yet, at that moment, according to Grenfell, "a vivacious person jumped up and shouted: 'Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer.'" He was astounded, as "unconventionality, common sense, or humor in anything 'religious' was new to me." When he found out that it was the man who would speak that evening, he decided to stay and hear him out. Dwight preached that night about a life of service being the call of every Christian, stating, "Why don't you turn your life over to Christ? He can do more with it than you can." As he left the meeting, Grenfell took one of Dwight's How to Read the Bible booklets and later studied it. Eventually, he ended up spending forty years in Labrador, Canada, building clinics and hospitals, as well as attending to the physical and spiritual needs of the Native Americans, Eskimos, and whites.476

Just a few years before this instance, Dwight spoke at Cambridge and similarly inspired seven young athletes there to become missionaries under Hudson Taylor in China. They were known as the "Cambridge Seven" and included C. T. Studd, M. Beauchamp, S. P. Smith, A. T. Polhill-Turner, D. E. Hoste, C. H. Polhill-Turner, and W. W. Cassels.

"The Boat Is Sinking"

In 1892, after ministering again in Great Britain, a fatigued Dwight finally saw a physician about his health. The doctor told him that his heart was weakening from the strain of his hectic schedule, and if he wanted to live much longer, he would need to slow his pace. As Dwight boarded the Spree, which would take him home, he was already making plans for how he might let up a good deal in his work, but his voyage home would change that.

I was on the steamer Spree, and when the announcement was made that the steamer was sinking, and we were there in a helpless condition in mid-ocean, no one on earth knows what I passed through as I thought that my work was

finished, and that I should never again have the privilege of preaching the Gospel of the Son of God. And on that dark night, the first night of the accident, I made a vow that if God would spare my life and bring me back to America, I would come to Chicago, and at the World's Fair preach the Gospel with all the power that He would give me.477

On the third morning of the voyage, the Spree's drift shaft shattered, sending two large fragments through the hull. The ship was taking in water so quickly that the pumps could not expel it at a sufficient rate. For two days, it drifted on seas so rough that the lifeboats capsized almost as soon as they were dropped into the water. On the second evening, Dwight started prayer services, at which he read from Psalms 91 and 107:20–31. The ship's bow was high in the air, and the stern was sinking deeper as the sun went down. The passengers and crew sat in total darkness—the generators were out—and the captain announced that all was lost. He was mistaken, however, and Dwight's prayers for rescue were answered. The Canadian freighter, Lake Huron, happened upon them and towed the Spree back to Ireland. All 750 people on board were saved.

Dwight kept his word. He would preach at the World's Fair with all the force God would give him. Having come so close to forfeiting his life at sea, he viewed all of his remaining days as bonuses. He would give them all to the Lord without complaint. When other ministers threatened to boycott the World's Fair because it was scheduled to be open on Sundays, Dwight just planned more services. He said, "Let us open so many preaching places and present the Gospel so attractively that the people will want to come and hear it."478 The fair provided another great opportunity to preach the Gospel. In his closing remarks, Dwight noted,

We have to-day everything to encourage us, and nothing to discourage us. This has been by far the best week we have had. The Gospel has through this agency been brought to 150,000 people during the week. I have never seen greater eagerness to hear the word of God. The largest halls are too small for the crowds that come to many of the services. One night, for instance, on my way to the Fair Grounds, I beheld one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen on earth. It was a wonderful display of fireworks and illuminations, tens of thousands of people gazing on the scene. It seemed useless to expect any one to come away from that scene and sit down in a tabernacle to hear the Gospel;

but the house was filled, and we had a blessed meeting. The following nights though cold and rainy, with a damp, uncomfortable room, the people crowded in until every inch of space was occupied. I thank God that I am living in Chicago to-day; these have been the happiest moments of my life; what a work He has given us to-day; what encouragements He has given us; how He has blessed us. Perhaps never in your life will some of you have an opportunity to do as much for Christ as now.479

Dwight's final campaign would begin on November 12, 1899, in Kansas City, Missouri. His last sermon would be on November 16, after which he would retire, exhausted, and hear his physician's charge to get more rest. He returned to Northfield by train, but would not recover; nor would he see the twentieth century. According to his son's biography, on Dwight's last day,

about six o'clock he quieted down, and soon fell into a natural sleep, from which he awoke in about an hour. Suddenly he was heard speaking in slow and measured words. He was saying: "Earth recedes; Heaven opens before me." The first impulse was to try to arouse him from what appeared to be a dream. "No, this is no dream, Will," he replied. "It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go."480

Following this vision, he had time to call his family to him and speak with them awhile. Then, quieting, he fell asleep—and never woke up. The date was December 22, 1899. Dwight was only sixty-three. Emma survived him, and she died four years later, in 1903.

Of his own death, Dwight had stated earlier,

Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal; a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.481

One of Dwight's critics may have best summed up his life when he admitted,

In his rage to save souls he traveled more than a million miles, addressed more than a hundred million people, and personally prayed and pleaded with seven hundred and fifty thousand sinners. All in all, it is very probable, as his admirers claim, that he reduced the population of hell by a million souls.482

Dwight's ministry and name traveled even farther than he did, as this story published in The Youth's Companion illustrates:

A young missionary far in the interior of China received for baptism a little child. The name given was Moo Dee, so unusual a combination that the minister asked its origin. "I have heard of your man of God, Moo Dee," was the reply. "In our dialect Moo means 'love,' and Dee, 'God.' I would have my child, too, love God." Mr. Moody knew no Chinese, but his name alone told in that language the secret of his life.483

Dwight would have been quite happy knowing hell would be that much less populous for his having lived. It is a worthy goal for us all.

429 Charles F. Goss, Echoes from the Pulpit and Platform (Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington, 1900), 490–495, quoted in Lyle W. Dorsett, A Passion for Souls: The Life of D. L. Moody (Chicago: Moody Press, 1997), 34.

430 William R. Moody, The Life of Dwight L. Moody (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1900), 20.

431 W. H. Daniels, D. L. Moody and His Work (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1875), 5.

432 Goss, Echoes from the Pulpit and Platform, 490–495, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 35.

433 Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 43.

434 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 37.

435 J. Wilbur Chapman, The Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody (Philadelphia: American Bible House, 1900), http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/05.html.

436 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 42.

437 Ibid., 44.

438 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 44.

439 Ibid., 555.

440 Ibid., 44.

441 Daniels, D. L. Moody and His Work, 27.

442 Daniels, D. L. Moody and His Work, 28–29.

443 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 47.

444 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody, http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/06.html.

445 Daniels, D. L. Moody and His Work, 40–41.

446 John V. Farwell, Early Recollections of D. L. Moody (Chicago: Winona Publishing Company, 1907), quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 74.

447 Ibid.

448 Joseph B. Bowles, Moody the Evangelist: A Character Sketch with Original Sayings (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1926), 17.

449 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 76.

450 Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 95.

451 Ibid., 96.

452 Dwight L. Moody, The Way to God and How to Find It, http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/Moody.The.Way.to.GOD.html.

453 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 132.

454 Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 135.

455 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 136.

456 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 138–139.

457 M. Laird Simons, Holding the Fort: comprising sermons and addresses at the Great Revival meetings conducted by Moody and Sankey…lives and labors of Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey, and P. P. Bliss (Norwich, CT: Henry Bill Publishing Co., 1877), quoted in "Dwight Lyman Moody," Christian Biography Resources, http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biomoody.html.

458 R. A. Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody, sermon delivered in 1923 (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord Publishers), http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/Why.God.Used.D.L.Moody.html.

459 Sarah A. Cooke, The Handmaiden of the Lord, or Wayside Sketches (Chicago: T. B. Arnold, 1896), 362.

460 Torrey, Why God Used D. L. Moody.

461 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 149.

462 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 152–153.

463 Ibid., 153–154.

464 G. Campbell Morgan, The Practice of Prayer (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1906), 124–127.

465 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 125.

466 Ira Sankey, My Life and the Story of Gospel Hymns (New York: Harper, 1907), 19, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 175.

467 Sankey, My Life, 38–39, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 177.

468 Jane MacKinnon, "Journal of Mrs. Jane MacKinnon," 61, 95, Yale Archives, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 185.

469 Arthur T. Pierson, Evangelistic Work in Principle and Practice (New York: Baker and Taylor, 1887), 253, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 185.

470 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody,

http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/10.html.

471 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 199.

472 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody, http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/10.html.

473 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 247.

474 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody, http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/10.html.

475 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody, http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/11.html.

476 See Wilfred Grenfell, A Labrador Doctor (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1927); Forty Years for Labrador (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932); and What Christ Means to Me (London: Pilgrim Press, 1927), 21–27.

477 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 410, 413.

478 Ibid., 413.

479 Chapman, Life and Work of Dwight Lyman Moody, http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/17.html.

480 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 552.

481 Ibid., 554–555.

482 Robert L. Dufus, "The Hound of Heaven," American Mercury 5, April 1925, 424–425, quoted in Gamaliel Bradford, D. L. Moody: A Worker in Souls (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran, and Company, 1928), 16, quoted in Dorsett, Passion for Souls, 21.

483 Moody, Life of Dwight L. Moody, 529.

Chapter Nine

William & Catherine Booth

"Through Blood and Fire"

The chief danger of the twentieth century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation

without regeneration, politics without God, and Heaven without Hell.

—William Booth

We want men who are set on soul-saving; who are not ashamed to let every one

know that this is the one aim and object of their life and that they make

everything secondary to this.

—Catherine Booth

In the mid-1800s, England was in the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, a time etched into our minds by authors such as Charles Dickens, in his stories Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, among others. The power of industrial efficiency had driven many middle-class craftsmen into the streets as paupers. Factory conditions were often untenable, child labor was rampant, and England might have been well on her way to a civil war between the classes—reminiscent of the French Revolution—had it not been for the sweep of revival and social reform initiated by William and Catherine Booth. In a matter of a few decades, the movement they began went from transforming England with renewed hope to encircling the globe with new missions. The Salvation Army undertook to seek out each nation's distressed, indebted, and discontented, and to bring them the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. It became a movement—an army of "Salvationists"—determined to set captives free through the blood of the Lamb and the fire of the Holy Spirit.

"Willful Will"

William Booth was born on April 10, 1829, in Nottingham (in central England), the only son of Samuel and Mary Booth. He and his three sisters grew up in their parents' redbrick terrace home in Sneinton, a small village that was eventually swallowed by Nottingham, a burgeoning hub of industry. Samuel had started working as a nail-maker, but the occupation soon became

obsolete as the Industrial Revolution raged on. So, he became an architect, and, for some time, he was successful building houses in cities and towns that grew to overflowing.

The Booth family professed membership in the Church of England, but William's father rarely darkened the doorstep of a chapel. It was a time in England when the Church relegated those who could not afford the fees for pew rentals to the rear galleries, segregating rich and poor in much the same way that the races were segregated for so many years in the American South.

Mary Booth was Samuel's second wife. His first, Sarah Lockitt, had died of unspecified causes on January 13, 1819, at the age of fifty-three. Samuel and Sarah had had at least one son together, William Adcock (or Hadcock), but he died of consumption at the age of twenty-four. Our William—the one would go on to found the Salvation Army—was named after this deceased stepbrother he never knew.

Samuel met Mary Moss during the summer of his son's death, and after a short courtship, they married on November 2, 1824. Samuel, still an aspiring businessman, was nearing fifty, and Mary was thirty-three. The reason for a short courtship was likely that this was a marriage of convenience. Samuel was seeking comfort and hoping to secure an heir as he grew older, and Mary did not want to end up a spinster. Together, Samuel and Mary had five children: Henry, born January 6, 1826 (died January 6, 1828); Ann, birth date unknown, but baptized April 1, 1827; William, born April 10, 1829; Emma, born January 21, 1831, who would be an invalid her entire life; and Mary, born September 16, 1832.

For William and his sisters, life was much more comfortable than it was for most. Unlike many other children, they did not have to toil twelve hours a day in the factories to help put bread on the table and coal in the fireplace. William began attending the academy of Nottingham at the age of six, quickly becoming a standout among his peers for his strength of will, leadership abilities, and impulsive chicanery. These traits earned him the nicknames "Willful Will" and "Wellington," after the Duke of Wellington, who was famous for his military victories, most notably his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. William earned this latter title because he was a master at sport. As with the young Charles Finney, if you wanted to win, then you made sure Booth was on your team—

↑ Back to top