D. L. Moody and his work

Front matter

GOPYRlGHT DfcPOSIT

I

D, L. MOODY

Introduction

Man, and thus brought them within range of our vision, our sympathy, and our faith.

The Bible is largely made up of biographies ; and men see the value of faith and righteousness by seeing the men who believed and obeyed. Abstractions are feeble ; but, when a man causes things to come to pass, by studying him we find out some great secret of power.

Truths need bodies ; therefore God puts them into men, that they may have feet to run, hands to strike, and elbows to crowd their way to the front. They must have personality, outline, experience ; then they reach and move us.

Religions which depend upon argument are failures. A religion, to be aggressive, must be experimental : men must be something and do something by means of it, which would be otherwise impossible ; then they become both rhetoric and logic — persuasion and proof.

D. L. Moody is one of the men who stand for great truths. The study of his life and work will help the world to believe in a Divine Redeemer, and in the supernatural power of saving grace.

May God give this book a million readers, and many converts to Christ !

C. H. Fowler.

Preface

THIS record of the life and work of D. L. Moody, the American evangelist, who, with his sweetvoiced companion, Mr. Sankey, has made such a deep impression upon "the Christian world, is a work b^th of love and duty.

It is almost entirely from original materials, obtained from first sources, by the author in person ; who was, for years, a neighbour of Mr. Moody in Chicago, both before and alter the great fire.

Learning the plan and purpose of this volume, some of his relatives, as well as many of his best friends both in America and Europe, have gladly adopted it as the medium through which to correct sundry wrong impressions ; and of publishing such information as, in their judgment, would least conflict with his desire to avoid mere personal notoriety ; at the same time, placing before the public such an account of his early life and work as might properly be demanded concerning a religious teacher so widely known and trusted.

PREFACE.

Having finished the record in America, the author took ship for England ; where, in the midst of the great London revival, the account of that signal work of grace has been prepared.

In order that this volume might be more complete, the author has made a tour of the chief cities where Messrs. Moody and Sankey have laboured ; with a view to learning, not only the facts concerning those wonderful services, but also the results which, thus far, have followed them.

It has been presumed that the Church and the world would like to know how these evangelists have been brought out and trained for their mission, by the providence and grace of God ; and what are the real sources of their power. A grouping of the leading facts and incidents of this great awakening, exhibiting it in some degree of unity, would, doubtless, also be acceptable. To meet these wants, and to add a helpful volume to the literature of Christian work, has been the author's prayerful and earnest endeavour.

If it is found to be somewhat out of the usual style of religious portraiture, let it also be kindly borne in mind, that the purpose has been to make it as nearly like its subject as a book can be like a man.

It should also be distinctly stated, that Mr. Moody is in no way responsible for the preparation of this book ; and that neither he, nor any of his family, have any interest whatever in its sale.

River Forest, Chicago, April 2%th, 1875 ; and W. H. Daniels. 14, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, July 12th, 1875.

Part I

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE BOY IS FATHER TO THE MAN .... 3

II. OUT INTO THE WORLD, AND UP INTO THE CHURGH l6

III. SMALL BEGINNINGS IN MISSIONARY WORK . . 28

IV. THE NORTH MARKET MISSION 41

V. INCIDENTS OF THE WORK AT THE NORTH MARKET

MISSION 56

VI. MOODY JOINS THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSO- CIATION.— THE END OF HIS BUSINESS CAREER . 76 VII. THE WAR COMMITTEE.— CAMP AND FIELD . .91

VIII. MR. MOODY'S CHURCH 103

IX. FARWELL HALL 121

X. MR. MOODY BECOMES THE APOSTLE OF THE YOUNG

MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION . . . . 1 34

XI. THE SECOND FARWELL HALI I47

XII. MR. MOODY'S CONVENTION WORK . . . . 1 59

XIII. BIBLE STUDY AND BIBLE WORK . . . . 1 74

XIV. THE HOME AND THE TABERNACLE . . . 196 XV. MOODY AND HIS CO-LABOURERS .... 208

Part II

I. EARLY HISTORY OF MR. SANKEY .... 229

II. MAKING A BEGINNING.— YORK AND SUNDERLAND . 240

III. THE BREAKING OF THE CLOUD. — NEWCASTLE . . 253

IV. MOODY AND SANKEY IN SCOTLAND . . . .266 V. THE WORK IN SCOTLAND CONTINUED . . . 280

CONTENTS.

PART II. — C07itinued.

CHAP. PAGE

VI. WORK IN SCOTLAND CONTINUED — GLASGOW AND

THE NORTH 292

VII. THE WORK OF GRACE IN IRELAND.— BELFAST, LON- DONDERRY, DUBLIN . . . . * .311 VIII. RETURN TO ENGLAND. — MANCHESTER, SHEFFIELD,

BIRMINGHAM, LIVERPOOL 329

IX. THE LONDON REVIVAL 353

X. GLIMPSES INTO THE WORD 382

XI. NEW STORIES FROM AN OLD BOOK .... 395 SERMONS : —

MR. MOODY'S ADDRESS ON THE PENITENT THIEF . 416 MR. MOODY'S SERMON ON "THE BLOOD". . . 424

THE PROPHET DANIEL, IN MR. MOODY'S VERSION . 448 WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED . . . .465

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PART I.

D. L. MOODY, PORTRAIT .

THE OLD FARMHOUSE AT NORTHFIELD VIEW FROM THE OLD HOMESTEAD .

THE OLD HOME IN 1 875 .

PAGE

Frontispiece.

To Face 3

SCHOLARS AND TEACHERS, NORTH MARKET MISSION SCHOOL 44

MR. MOODY'S MISSIONARY PONY 83

THE TABERNACLE. CHICAGO 202

MR. MOODY'S NEW CHURCH, CHICAGO .... 224

PART II.

IRA D. SANKEY, PORTRAIT ....

FREE CHURCH ASSEMBLY HALL, EDINBURGH . FAREWELL MEETING AT GLASGOW .

EXHIBITION HALL, DUBLIN ....

MEETING IN AGRICULTURAL HALL, ISLINGTON PREACHING IN THE OPERA HOUSE, HAYMARKET EXTERIOR OF CAMBERWELL HALL .

INTERIOR OF CAMBERWELL HALL .

229 268

305 316

PART I.

D. L. MOODY AND HIS WORK.

Chapter I. The Boy Is Father To The Man

A CERTAIN family Bible, in an old farm-house in Northneld, Massachusetts, has the following record : —

"Edwin Moody was born November 1st, 1800. Betsy Holton was born February 5th, 1805. Were married January 3rd, 1828."

Both the Moodys and the Holtons were old families in the little mountain town. The latter were among the first settlers of the " plantation of Northfield," which was purchased of the Indians in 167.3, and laid out by a committee of the General Court of Massachusetts, of which committee William Holton was a member. This man was of English descent, born in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and from him Betsy Holton is a lineal descendant of the fifth generation.

Of the nine children (seven sons and two daughters) born of this marriage, Dwight Lyman was the sixth, born on the 5th of February, 1837.

On the 28th of May, 1 841, his father died. In the morning of that day he was at his usual work — that of a mason ; but feeling a pain in his side, caused by over-exertion, he went home to rest At about one o'clock in the afternoon he felt the pain suddenly increasing, staggered to the bed, fell upon his knees beside it, and in this posture of prayer death seized upon him, before any one knew he was seriously ill.

All that was left to the widow for her support was the little home on the mountain side, with an acre or two of land ; and even this was encumbered with debt. Of her seven children the eldest was but thirteen years of age ; and a month after her husband's death another boy and girl were born.

Some of her worldly-wise neighbours advised her to give away or bind out her children, all except the twin babies; but this she was determined not to do. God had endowed her with unusual strength both of body and mind, and, trusting in Him, she bravely lifted her burden of poverty and toil, and carried it patiently, hopefully, and at length cheerfully, until the little ones were able to help her bear it, and at last to fill her hands with plenty as they had filled her heart with love and care.

Her brothers, in Boston, helped her to pay the interest of the mortgage on her home, the eldest boys helped to take care of the little farm, the mother took care of the house and the children, and God took care of them all.

The minister of the parish, Rev. Oliver Everett, was a faithful shepherd to this little flock. From the first he counselled the widow not to part with the children, but to keep them together as best she

DOCTRINES AND DOINGS.

could; to trust in God, and to bring them up for Him : promising to help her in their education, and, if need be, in their support.

Pastor Everett was a Unitarian. It must however be borne in mind that, in those days, the name had not become associated with all sorts of heresies, as at present. His differences with his orthodox neighbours were mostly concerning certain points of speculative theology. He believed in the Bible as the inspired word of God, in Jesus Christ as the saviour of all sinners who would try to save themselves, in the Sabbath, and in the Church and its sacraments.

The Apostles' creed would doubtless have been acceptable to him as a fair summary of the Gospel, if such a document had been known in his region at that time ; but that other creed, named after St. Athanasius, would probably have worried him a good deal, as indeed it does a great many other good people.

In those days sectarian controversy was the chief business of many of the clergy, and great doctors of divinity belabored one another with logical cudgels, attacking and defending extra-Scripture dogmas whose very existence has now been almost forgotten.

To Mrs. Moody these controversies were peculiarly distasteful. The pressing cares and heavy burdens of her life led her to seek for a Friend and Helper in the Lord, and not to speculate about His secret will. She was determined to do all she could to save her children in this life, and she insisted on believing in a God who would do the same for them in the life to come ; but this was not at all the manner of the orthodox theology of those days, which taught that God

D. L. MOODY AND HIS WORK.

had foreordained, for His own good pleasure, the destruction of a large portion of the human race, and that, without respect to their character. To some of her neighbours this seemed a wholesome doctrine, a warning to unbelievers, but a great comfort to the saints, who were thus assured of a small and select society in the great hereafter ; but to the widow it was the gall of bitterness.

Another theological invention of those times which had a considerable run was the duty of being willing to be damned if God in his secret will had so determined. Great stress was laid upon it in certain parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the orthodox neighbours of Mrs. Moody did not fail to exhort her to the attainment of this rather mournful state of mind. Against this the soul of the widow rebelled. She was not at all willing to be damned, and more especially was she unwilling that any of her little children should be. Her Calvinistic friends reproved her for her rebellion against the divine decrees ; but if there were any decrees which shut out any of her household from a fair chance of Heaven, she determined, at least, not to be tormented by them in prayers and sermons, and she placed herself and her family under the instructions of Pastor Everett, who was for giving all sinners the best possible chances of salvation ; and they were all baptized together, and received into the Unitarian Church of Northfield, after the fashion of those days.

The successor of Pastor Everett was of the worst rationalistic school, and Mr. Moody sometimes quotes one of his sayings with horror; but the widow held fast to the hand of the Lord, and brought up her chil-

PASTOR AND WIDOW.

dren to read the Bible and to believe in the grace of God whereby she hoped they would all be brought into His kingdom.

True to his promise, Pastor Everett used to help the widow in the care of her children. He would visit them betimes, cheer them up with some pleasant words, settle quarrels among the boys, give the little ones a* bright piece of silver all round, and bid the mother keep on praying, telling her God would never forget her labour of love. At one time he took little Dwight into his family to do errands and go to school — a work of charity which, by all accounts, must have sorely tried his patience. The good man was often perplexed what to do with the boy, being forced to laugh at his pranks in spite of himself, when he felt it his duty to be stern and severe.

But his chief instructor in religion, as well as in everything else, was his mother. Great sorrow and years of toil and privation had drawn her heart very close to the Saviour, and when the care of her great family of little children grew so heavy as almost to overwhelm her, she learned to cast her burden on the Lord. Sometimes, when the boys were quarrelsome and rebellious, and the household was in utter confusion, she would go away to her own room and pray for wisdom and patience. " And when I would come back," said she, "they would all be good children again."

As fast as they came to be old enough, they were sent to the Unitarian Church in the village — a little more than a mile away ; the elder boys, who were out at work, coming home on Saturday night, to go with their little brothers and sisters. They used to take their dinners and stay all day, hearing the two sermons, and attending the Sunday-school which was sandwiched between them ; and then they would all come home again for supper, before going to their places of work. Thus the mother kept her family together. In spite of the poverty which parted them during the week, the home life of the Sabbath preserved their unity.

After supper the mother would gather them all around her on an old settle in the porch, or under one of the great sugar-maple trees in the front yard, if it were summer time, and read to them out of the books which they brought home from the Sunday-school library.

It was no small wonder how these little books always knew so much about that particular family. If Dwight had been unusually proud and mischievous, or if George had been out of patience with him, or if anything had gone wrong in the household, the library book was sure to have some account of it, or of something wonderfully like it ; and also to contain just the sort of good advice adapted to each particular case. It was sometimes rather difficult for them to " find the place" afterwards; but they were none the less interested in the reading. And had not Mrs. Moody as good a right to revise and adapt the Sunday-school books as anybody else had to make them ? Surely the things she read out of her own heart for the good of her little flock were of just as high authority as if they had actually been printed between those little speckled covers with the red backs and corners, and

SUNDAY EVENING READINGS. 9

bearing the name of the famous old American Sunday- School Union.

At the table the mother would repeat a text of Scripture or a verse of a hymn, and the children would say it in chorus after her. That table, as may well be supposed, was not always very well supplied ; but the mother, though toiling day and night to feed and clothe her children, and not always knowing to-day where the food was to come from for to-morrow, kept up a brave heart and wore a cheerful face. The shadow of poverty and death was over them, but the love of the Great Father above, and of the godly mother below, kept the little ones from want and gloom, and made their home a happy one in spite of all their misfortunes.

But another sorrow fell upon that home on the mountain side. One of the elder sons, with a boyish ambition to make his fortune in the great world, suddenly disappeared.

For years no tidings of the lost boy reached the widowed mother. It seemed sometimes as if her heart would break for him. " Oh ! if I could only know he was dead, it would be better than this! Maybe Jje is sick and in want ! — maybe he has fallen in with wicked men, who will make him like themselves ! "

They would all sit in a semicircle about the fire of a stormy winter's night, and listen to stories of their dead father : what he did, what he said, how he looked, how he was kind to a friend and lost a great deal of money by him, and so their little home was mortgaged, and they were poor. But if by chance any io D. L. MOODY AND HIS WORK.

one spoke the name of the absent brother, a great silence fell upon them ; the tears would come into the eyes of the mother, and then they would steal away to bed, whispering their <l good-nights," and walking softly as they went ; for that name was like a sword-thrust to the mother's heart. Then they would lie awake listening to the roar of the wind among the mountains, thinking maybe he was out in the cold somewhere ; or, worse than that, perhaps he had gone to sea, and while they were snug in bed was keeping watch on a wave-beaten deck, or climbing a reeling mast in just such darkness and storm.

Now and then, between the gusts, a sound would be heard like the wail of the summer wind when it used to make harpstrings of the leaves and branches of the great maple trees in the yard : low and gentle now, and again rising into louder and stronger tones. Then they held their breath and listened. Mother was sitting up to pray for her lost boy.

Next morning perhaps she would send them down to the post-office in the village, a mile and a half away, to ask for a letter — a letter from him, though the mother never said so. But no letter ever came.

Long years after, when the widow was growing old, and her soft dark hair was turning white, one summer afternoon a tall, swarthy man, with heavy black beard, was seen coming in at the gate. He came up under the porch, and, the door being open, he stopped and looked in, with an eager, anxious face, as if he were afraid he might not find the one he was seeking, though he had stopped at the churchyard on his way through the village to see whether

THE PRODIGAL SON. u there were two graves instead of one where his father had been laid so many years ago. Surely his mother was not dead, but was she still at the old home ?

The widow came to the door to bid the stranger in. The eyes that had watched so long for his coming did not know him now. He was only a boy when he ran away ; years of hardship and exposure to sun and storm had made him strange even to his mother.

" Will you come in ? " said she, in her courteous and kindly way.

But the stranger did not move or speak. He stood there, humbly and penitently, in the presence of her whose love he had slighted, and whose heart he had broken ; and, as a sense of his ingratitude began to overwhelm him, the big tears began to find their way over his weather-beaten face.

By those tears the mother recognised her son. He had come at last ! There was so much of the old home in him that he could not always stay away. But he would not cross its threshold till he had confessed his sin against it, and heard from the same lips which had prayed for him so often and so long, the sweet assurance that he was forgiven.

" No ! no ! " said he ; "I cannot come in till my mother forgives me."

Weeping upon his neck, forgetting all the sorrow he had caused her in the joy of seeing him once more, she forgave him because he asked it, and because she loved him.

"And that is just the way," says Moody, — who sometimes tells the story to his great congregations,— "that is just the way God forgives all the prodigal sons who come back to Him. Do you think mother kept her long-lost boy out there in the porch till he had gone through with a string of apologies, and done a list of penances, and said ever-so-many prayers ? Not at all ! She took him to her heart at once. She made him come right in. She forgave him all, and rejoiced over his coming more than over all the other children. He had been lost, and now he was found ! "

A lovelier spot than that old homestead would be hard to find. It stands on the eastern slope of the valley of the Connecticut river, which here flows through narrow meadows, with grand hills on either side, rising here and there into peaks, which, if there were not so many of them in that part of the State, would be called mountains, and honoured with separate names. Whatever advantage there is in glorious natural scenery, the boy D wight enjoyed it in great perfection. Certain it is that in after life his manners came to be quite suggestive of bold peaks, mountain torrents, and hurricanes sweeping over woods and hills.

The air of that region is the very elixir of life. One of his Chicago friends went to visit him at his old home, being just ready to die of consumption; but in a little while he inhaled so much health from the breezes of the Northfield mountains, that he gave up his immediate prospects of heaven and went back to business once more.

Among the rich inheritances of this poor boy were a vigorous constitution, boundless ambition and animal spirits, and a will strong enough to break

BOY TRAITS. 13 down all opposition and drive him on to success. His pride was all the time leading him to undertake things far beyond his years. His mother says, " He used to think himself a man when he was only a boy." The fatherly authority was wanting, and he soon came to feel himself his own master. Anything was easier than submission.

He had little faith in prayer. Once when he was creeping under a heavy fence, it fell down upon him and caught him, so that he could not get away. He struggled till he was quite exhausted, and then began to cry for help ; but he was far from any house, and no one heard him. At last he got safely out; and this was the account he gave of his escape : —

" I tried and tried, and I couldn't lift them awful heavy rails ; then I hollered for help, but nobody came ; and then I began to think I should have to die away up there on the mountain all alone. But I happened to think that, maybe, God would help me, and so I asked Him. And after that I could lift the rails, just as easy ! "

During these years Dwight went through as many as a dozen terms at the little district schoolhouse ; but very little of the school ever went through him; in fact, the boy was so amazingly full, that there was really no room in him for the sciences and arts.

There were few things he would not do for his mother: at her urgent entreaty he would even do a little studying. He would usually obey her ; but she was the only person in all the world who ever was able to manage him. He was proud and wilful to the last degree, but full of generous impulses. He was ungovernable, partly because he was a natural leader himself. Still there was nothing vicious in his disposition. If he could be made to see that he had wronged any one, he was ready to beg his pardon for it, and do better in future.

His last term of school was in the winter of his seventeenth year. He was the leading spirit among the boys, and so much mischief did he lead them into that at length the teacher was in despair, and threatened to turn him out. At this his good mother was sorely grieved. She told him how much ashamed she should be to have one of her sons turned out of school, and directed him to go to the teacher, ask forgiveness for his bad conduct, and try to be a credit to his mother rather than a disgrace. This he did in all sincerity, and the rest of the term, for the first time in his life, applied himself faithfully to study.

But it was too late for him to become a scholar The time had come when he felt called to the hard work of life ; and, with such little learning as had accumulated in him, he hardly knew how, he must go out and boldly face the world.

Whatever religious impressions he had felt in childhood seem to have been covered out of sight, and he grew up to be a young man, or rather, a big boy, with no other piety in him than the love of his mother, and a sturdy determination to be an honest and successful man. He had muscles like steel, and the courage of a young lion. More than this, — he had the courage to take his place among educated people, in spite of his own deficiencies, though he sorely regretted the

LITERARY ECCENTRICITIES. 15 wasted opportunities of the years which would come again no more. He was determined to " make the best of it " now. Of course he would have to labour at a disadvantage all his life ; but then, he had always succeeded somehow, and this he always expected to do.

If he came to a hard word in reading, he did not stop at it, but made a rough guess what it might be, from the sense of the passage; or, if it was altogether out of his reach, he would invent a word which might sound something like it in the more prominent syllables, and drive on all the faster for the excitement caused by his desperate vocal spring.

So in emergencies of every kind. A bold push, aided by ready wit, carried him over many a difficulty before which a wiser but less courageous lad would have set himself down in despair. Like the eagle which springs from the mountain crag into the air above the abyss, safely trusting to its power of flight, young Moody plunged into many a desperate situation, strong in the sense of power which he felt within him, on which he seemed upborne like the eagle on its wings.

There was evidently " something in him," but that * something " seemed to be almost anything else rather than a preacher of the Gospel.

His mother still lives in the old home at Northfield, and to that cherished spot Mr. Moody hastened upon his arrival from England ; his name known and blessed throughout the whole civilized world. Surely that mother has met a great reward for her faithfulness and love ; — the bread she cast upon the waters years ago has been found again.

Chapter II. Out Into The World, And Up Into The Church

SOON after his seventeenth birthday, the winter school being over, young Moody started to seek his fortune in the great world. He went first to Clinton, where he had a brother, clerk in a store; but finding no business to his mind, he pushed on to Boston — then, as now, the Mecca of all Bay State boys ambitious of a business career.

His uncle, Samuel Holton, had visited the old home a little while before, and Dwight had asked him for a place in his boot and shoe store in Boston ; but learning what a wild young colt he was, he had refused, fearing to take him to a great city, where there seemed to be ninety-nine chances in a hundred that he would go straight to ruin. But the young man was determined to show his uncle that he could find or make a place for himself, without help from any one. Accordingly, much to that excellent man's surprise, his nephew one day made his appearance in his store, — not to ask for a place, oh no ! but just as a visitor acquainted with his sister in the country. Her younger brother Lemuel had a house in the city, and