The Story of Dwight L. Moody

Dwight L. Moody, raised in Northfield, Massachusetts, was related to Jonathan Edwards, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, President Grover Cleveland and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But there was little to suggest in Moody's boyhood days that he too would become a man of fame. When Moody was still young, his father died, leaving him with six brothers, two sisters and a broken hearted mother struggling against unrelenting poverty. At 17, Moody moved to Boston, working in his uncle's shoe store. While in Boston, Moody attended Mount Vernon Congregational Church. Here a man named Kimball helped bring Jesus Christ and D. L. Moody together... a meeting that would change Moody's life forever.

In 1856, Moody, without telling his family, left for Chicago. After he arrived, he dashed off a quick note to his family, "God is the same here as in Boston." A boot store hired Moody, but selling shoes was no longer his only purpose. He now told people about the Lord. He rented a pew in Plymouth Church and went into the streets and filled not only one pew but four with children. Moody could relate to the man in the street and to those in the top ranks of Chicago's social class. As the work grew, he searched for larger quarters, renting a grimy beer hall on North Market Street in an area known as "Little Hell." Moody filled it with more than 500 each Sunday. The word of Moody's success reached Abraham Lincoln and the president-elect dropped in to see Moody on his way from Springfield to Washington, D.C. for his first inauguration. As he was leaving, Lincoln told the Sunday School children, "put into practice what you learn from your teachers, some of you may also become president of the United States." Moody proved to be the primary catalyst for a movement that soon became know as the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), of which for a time he was president. The rise of the movement in Great Britain as well as an eventual parallel organization, the YWCA, are also attributed to D.L. Moody.

By 1860 the winds of war were blowing, but Moody couldn't bear to "shoot down a fellow human being." So he conducted missionary services among Union soldiers and eventually became a volunteer chaplain heading south to Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, and he was among the first to enter Richmond. He visited the battle-front several different times. During the war Moody fell in love, and in 1862 he married Emma Revell. After the war, the YMCA and the Sunday School took much of his attention. As his converts grew, Moody realized he would have to build an edifice where spiritual growth could be nourished. So in 1864, with 12 charter members, Moody opened the Illinois Street Independent Church, with an auditorium that could serve 1,500. The church called J.H. Harwood as its pastor and Moody served as one of its deacons. This event marked the birth of what is today the Moody Church.

Following the Chicago fire in October, 1871, which destroyed the YMCA, the church and D.L. Moody's home, he sprang into action and within a few weeks rebuilt a new building, the Northside Tabernacle, and turned it into a relief center to help feed and clothe the thousands who had lost their homes.

Moody then took the gospel to Great Britain along with his talented soloist, Ira Sankey, a former internal revenue agent. The combination proved a spectacular success. At first the Britons were not used to Moody's informal style of preaching, his accent and his occasional poor English, but the spirit of God began to work. His campaign extended into weeks, then months. Government leaders, including British Prime Minister Gladstone, complimented and endorsed Moody. Moody and Sankey moved into Scotland, and one day he addressed an estimated 50,000 people outdoors from a buggy. The pair moved to Ireland, preaching in Belfast, then back to London. This was to be his greatest triumph where crowds exceeded 2.5 million. Neither Moody nor Sankey let the success of the British Isles campaign spool them. they clearly understood the source of the spiritual power that had swept Great Britain. If it could happen there, it could happen in America. Moody began to outline an American revival. The nation needed it. The Civil War, like all wars, had disrupted social morality. People chased after easy wealth. Corruption penetrated high political office. Moody's target cities were New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. In October, 1875, poor and rich poured in and thousands came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. In Philadelphia, President Grant and members of his cabinet sat on the platform with Moody. Campaigns followed in Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Richmond, Denver, Colorado Springs, St. Louis, and San Francisco. With more time Moody could also have included Canada and Mexico. They wanted him too.

When Moody's life on earth ended, America and Europe, even the world, mourned, though it was a godly sorrow. God has used this humble, common man to change millions of lives and leave a spiritual legacy that continues to impact the world this very hour. The stocky man with broad shoulders left his indelible imprint upon Carl Sandburg's "city of broad shoulders," where he founded both the Moody Church and the Moody Bible Institute. Chicago, at one time claimed this mighty preacher, but by the time he died the world claimed him. On a cloudy day in December, 1899, just before the turn of the century, they buried D.L. Moody on the top of a round knoll only a few hundred yards from the site of his Northfield, Massachusetts birthplace. But in those intervening 65 years upon earth, Moody had traveled thousands of miles for the sake of his Savior and preached to millions of people.

The world has never been quite the same.

For more information, visit this website: www.moodychurch.org/church/