The London Revival
THE LONDON REVIVAL
"If I come to London," Mr. Moody had said, "you will need to raise £5,000 for expenses of halls, advertising, etc." "We have £10,000 already," was the reply. This shows the spirit in which the efforts of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey in the Metropolis of the world were anticipated. The work of preparation had been carried on by able committees. Preliminary daily prayer meetings were crowded.
It was decided to attack the city in the four quarters. The meetings began in the north and were held in the great Agricultural Hall. The congregations in this immense structure averaged during the first week about 18,000 persons, but it was impossible to make so large a number hear the preaching, and the size was reduced, by means of temporary partitions, to the capacity of about 14,000, and even then it was constantly overcrowded. The inquiry meetings were held in St. Mary's Hall, but so great was the curious crowd, which blocked the adjacent streets, that it was found advisable to remove these meetings to one of the galleries of the Agricultural Hall itself.
The services were managed by a committee, with the assistance of seventy or eighty ushers. Interest increased weekly. Sometimes 400 or 500 persons at one time would be conversing in the inquirers galleries about the salvation of their souls. As in other places, the work began with the better classes, and was afterward extended to the slums.
The campaign in the East End, which began five weeks after the meetings in the North End, centred in Bow Road Hall, built especially for the services, and designed to hold an audience of 10,000 persons. Overflow meetings were held in a large tent near the building.
In the West End the services were held in the Royal Opera House, where many thousands thronged the three or four different meetings which were held each day. For several weeks Mr. Moody divided his attention between the Opera House and the Bow Road Hall.
It was at this time that the controversy arose regarding the meetings at Eton. The patrons of the famous college which is situated in that little town, did not wish their sons subjected to irregular religious influence, and the matter was even taken up by the House of Lords. The evangelists had been invited by a large majority of the students in the college, but pressure in high quarters made it inadvisable to accept the invitation in its full intent. A meeting was held in the private grounds of a gentleman at Eton, and there Mr. Moody preached to about two hundred of the college boys, and two or three times as many citizens of the town.
In conducting the meetings in South London, a new hail, erected for them near Camberwell Green, was occupied by the evangelists. This structure seated about 8,000 persons. Here the chief interest centred in the inquiry room, where the spirit was as earnest and as deep as it had been in the other quarters of the city. When Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey discontinued services in one of the four quarters of the city, the meetings were continued by others, and the fire which God had permitted the two evangelists to kindle was not suffered to die out. The final service was held July 12th, the evangelists having conducted 285 meetings in London, and having addressed fully 2,500,000 persons. Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey hastily withdrew at the conclusion of this last service, rather than face the ordeal of parting with so many dear friends. This was ever Mr. Moody's custom.
The last meeting in England was held in Liverpool, and on October 6th, attended by many loving prayers, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey set sail toward the West, arriving in New York eight days later.
CAN WE MEASURE THE RESULTS?
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.
Chapter 11
Evangelistic Work in the United States
On his return from Great Britain, Mr. Moody went to Northfield, there to spend some little time resting at his old home and enjoying the companionship of his relatives. It was be readily understood that although he had gone from the United States two years before known to very few, .the wonderful results of his labors in Great Britain had made his name a household word, and his fellow-countrymen awaited his active work in this country not only with curiosity (which it must be admitted was felt by a large body of unbelievers and indifferent ones) but also, many of them, with a deep conviction that the Lord had raised him up to lead the people in a great religious awakening.