t:^ 
 
 gj^k- g as&rag Kh^i:L>-S^A-T*^: 
 
 OiifllitLfllooDij 
 
 h 
 
 m^3^ 
 
 oTm mcOomell 
 
 Ofr-a. -\S~JAL^?4! J^^^J.^K^J.^^ 
 
tihvavy of Che theological ^tminaxy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Delavan^L^ Pierson 
 BV 3785 .M7 M3x 1915 
 McDowell, John, 1870- 
 Dwight L. Moody 
 

 J^^'^z^'^fy^t.^ 
 
 ^^W ^ 
 
 ^^^y 
 
DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
y ^ 
 
 Dwight L. Moody 
 
 The Discoverer of Men and 
 The Maker of Movements 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN Mcdowell 
 
 Pastor of Park Presbyterian Church, 
 Newark, N. J. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1915* ^y 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
Dedicated to 
 all who loved him 
 
Preface 
 
 WE cannot too frequently remind 
 ourselves that the best the world 
 has to offer of literature, of art, or 
 of music, is, after all, but a partial revelation 
 of the inner riches of great lives. All great 
 values, indeed, may be similarly appraised. 
 Back of every institution aiming at the bet- 
 terment and uplifting of the race there is 
 always discoverable some one individual 
 who, in the hour of its inception and early 
 development, fired it with his enthusiasm, 
 suffused it with his spirit, and poured his 
 love, and even life, into the furtherance of its 
 aims. Peculiarly is this true of educational 
 establishments. Schools live, and move, and 
 have their being in the personalities of their 
 founders ; and none in a greater degree than 
 those founded by the late Dwight L. Moody 
 at Northfield. These schools are the product 
 of one who loved and gave himself for them 
 in unremitting service and boundless sacri- 
 fice. They stand with other of his founda- 
 tions, as monuments reared to the memory 
 of a great and noble man. 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 It is now more than fifteen years since 
 Moody went home to God, and yet it seems 
 but as yesterday that those who knew him 
 looked into his kindly face, and listened to 
 his words of love and inspiration. The flow- 
 ers have long since grown on his grave, yet 
 his place in memory, the vast place which he 
 has left in the heart and thought of the world, 
 is as great as it was on the morrow of his 
 death. Nay, it is greater. For as justice to 
 the real height of a lofty mountain is done 
 only when we have left it in the distance and 
 survey it across a larger foreground of vales 
 and hills, so it is with the contemplation of 
 the true greatness of a man, whose posthu- 
 mous ministry increases mightily as the days 
 go by. 
 
 When great men have been among us — 
 men whose hands have penned, and tongues 
 have uttered wisdom — we lose some of God's 
 most striking lessons if we neglect to learn 
 the truths, and the examples, which they be- 
 queath to us at their departure. No life 
 was ever richer in inspiration, or will better 
 repay a close and prayerful study, than that 
 of Mr. Moody. We are beginning to see 
 him more nearly in his true proportions, as 
 we gradually leave him in the distant past. 
 We are slowly but surely learning to do him 
 
PKEFACE 7 
 
 justice, as we find how vital and far-reaching 
 was his influence, how powerful and perma- 
 nent was his place in the Kingdom of God, 
 which is left still unfilled. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this little volume to 
 review exhaustively Mr. Moody's life and 
 work ; that has already been well done in the 
 authorized biography written by his son. It 
 is meant to serve only as an introduction to 
 the careful study of his career, and will con- 
 cern itself with three things only, which the 
 life of the great evangelist suggests : I. The 
 influence of his life ; II. The secret of his 
 life ; III. The appeal which his life makes to 
 mankind. And it will conclude with a selec- 
 tion from the several hundred notable testi- 
 monies on record in which this appeal has 
 been expressed. 
 
 J. McD. 
 
 Newark y N. J. , February 5, -rp/J*. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. The Influence of Mr. Moody's Life i i 
 
 II. The Secret of Mr. Moody's Life . 25 
 
 III. The Appeal of Mr. Moody's Life . 37 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF MR. MOODY'S LIFE 
 
 INFLUENCE is a difficult thing to esti- 
 mate. There are no scales by which 
 we can weigh it, no measuring rods by 
 which we can count it. Yet it is neverthe- 
 less true that, *' By their fruits ye shall know 
 them." Said The Outlook : " The story of 
 the outward life of Mr. Moody can be told 
 after a fashion in a book, but the ramifica- 
 tions of his influence no pen can ever de- 
 scribe or imagination conceive." His pro- 
 found solicitude for the welfare of his fellow- 
 men found expression in so many ways that 
 it is quite impossible to describe or estimate 
 it by the ordinary standards. If, however, 
 history is a *' book of God's and men's lives 
 are its chapters," we may justly say that the 
 chapter with which we are now concerned is 
 one of the greatest in the book. 
 
 In attempting an estimate of Mr. Moody's 
 influence we will think first of his influence 
 on Men, and then of his influence on Move- 
 ments. It is generally conceded that no 
 
 XI 
 
12 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 other man ever spoke to so many people 
 directly as did he. Other preachers have 
 spoken to crowds one day in seven for a few 
 years, but here was a man who held and 
 swayed multitudes six days in the week, for 
 nearly thirty years. He never lost his draw- 
 ing power. The very last series of meetings 
 which he held — the series in which he was 
 stricken down in Kansas City — was a con- 
 vincing pi oof that his drawing power never 
 waned, and was just as great in the closing 
 years of the century as it was in the seventies. 
 But Mr. Moody not only drew the multi- 
 tudes, he moved them, as did no other man of 
 the last century. His influence was vital and 
 transforming ; it changed natures, and made 
 for holy living. He drew men and women, 
 not to himself, but to Christ, and evidence of 
 this fact is to be found in nearly every part 
 of the world to-day, in the lives of those who 
 were brought under his message. His influ- 
 ence went even farther than this : he not only 
 influenced men to come to Christ, but he in- 
 spired them to work for Christ, and when he 
 discovered, as he did early in his evangelistic 
 work, the need of trained men, he at once 
 established and equipped schools in which to 
 provide opportunity for proper training. His 
 motto was : ** It is better to put ten men to 
 
HIS INFUENCE 13 
 
 work, than to try to do the work of ten men." 
 To this motto he steadfastly adhered, and he 
 may rightly be called one of the greatest dis- 
 coverers and developers of lay workers the 
 Christian Church has ever known. 
 
 In a larger measure than any other relig- 
 ious worker of his day Mr. Moody, in all his 
 later years, possessed and held the confidence 
 of all classes of society. He had the love of 
 the poor, the respect of the learned, the con- 
 fidence of the wealthy. There is no finer tes- 
 timony to his influence than that to be found 
 in the large number of wealthy and influential 
 men, in Great Britain and the United States, 
 who were glad to be associated with him in 
 his many forms of work. For more than 
 thirty years this masterful man had only to 
 make his desires known to responsible men 
 of wealth and position — men like John V. 
 Farwell, of Chicago ; John H. Converse and 
 John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia ; William 
 E. Dodge and D. Willis James, of New York, 
 and many others — and they responded with 
 alacrity and delight to his call for money and 
 service. 
 
 In many ways, Mr. Moody's largest realm 
 of influence was among the students whose 
 lives he has touched. Think of the thousands 
 of college men who felt the power of his in- 
 
14 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 fluence — the men who have heard him in the 
 colleges and the many others who heard him 
 in the summer conferences ! Indeed, it is 
 not too much to say that the general quicken- 
 ing of the religious life of our American 
 colleges began in Dwight L. Moody. 
 
 But even when this is said, the great evan- 
 gelist's influence is best seen in the lives of 
 upwards of ten thousand young women and 
 men who have enjoyed high privileges as a 
 direct result of his life and work. Sons and 
 daughters of his spirit have gone out to the 
 ends of the earth, to continue his influence 
 and carry on his work. It is true and will 
 continue to be true that Moody still lives — 
 was never more alive than at the present 
 hour. 
 
 Think also of Mr. Moody's influence as it 
 is seen in the great movements with which 
 he was connected. It can never be ade- 
 quately estimated how many of the great 
 movements for the uplift of humanity which 
 marked the latter half of the nineteenth 
 century were the outgrowth of his vision 
 and service. Recall, first of all, his influence 
 on evangelistic work. For more than thirty 
 years he stood before the world as the em- 
 bodiment of all that was wise and most effect- 
 ive in Evangelism. His large ballast of 
 
HIS INFLUENCE 15 
 
 common sense kept him from the emotional 
 excesses of some evangelists of other days, 
 and his splendid executive power enabled 
 him so to organize the work of the inquiry- 
 room that each individual seeker was care- 
 fully dealt with by trained workers. In these 
 days when there is such a strong tendency 
 in evangelism to tabulate results — often long 
 before the results are definitely known — it is 
 refreshing and reassuring to know that one 
 of the greatest evangelists since the Apostles 
 never counted tangible results. Mr. Moody 
 was perhaps the best public exponent the 
 nineteenth century produced of first century 
 Christianity, both in doctrine and practice. 
 It is becoming more and more evident that 
 he deserves a place in the first rank, after the 
 Apostles, with Luther, Knox, Wesley, White- 
 field, Finney, and a few belonging to the 
 early Church. 
 
 In all his evangelism, Mr. Moody aimed 
 not at surface, but at solid work. This was 
 the impression those who were nearest to him 
 in his work received. Possibly no man knew 
 Mr. Moody better than did Henry Drummond. 
 ** He, above all popular preachers," says 
 Drummond, ** worked for solid results." 
 Even the mere harvesting, his own special 
 department, was a secondary thing with him 
 
16 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 when compared with the garnering of the 
 fruits by the Church, and their subsequent 
 growth to larger fruitfulness. " Time," says 
 Drummond, ** has only deepened the impres- 
 sion, not only of the magnitude of the results 
 immediately secured, but equally of the per- 
 manence of the after-effects upon every field 
 of social, philanthropic and religious activity." 
 '* It is not too much to say," he continues, 
 '* that Scotland would not be the same to-day 
 but for the visit of Mr. Moody, and that so 
 far-reaching was, and is, the influence of his 
 work that any one who knows the inner re- 
 ligious history of the country must regard 
 this time as nothing short of a national 
 epoch." 
 
 Testimony like this could be given from 
 every field in which Mr. Moody ever worked. 
 There is no better evidence of the sterling 
 quality of his evangelistic work than that 
 which is to be found in the fact that, time 
 and time again, he was urgently invited to 
 return to cities where he had conducted 
 services. Cities on both sides of the seas 
 were always sorry to have him leave, and 
 glad to have him return. Great Britain was 
 continually inviting him, notwithstanding the 
 fact that three times he had gone through 
 the Islands, each time with increasing power. 
 
HIS INFLUENCE 17 
 
 " D. L. Moody/' said the late Dr. Dale, of 
 Birmingham, England, ** is the only evangel- 
 ist that I ever felt had the right to speak of 
 a lost soul, because he never spoke of the 
 possibility of a man being lost without tears 
 in his voice." 
 
 By his spiritual motives and sane methods, 
 which were void of sensationalism and clap- 
 trap, Mr. Moody not only won the hearty 
 cooperation of all spiritually-minded people 
 and secured the conversion of multitudes of 
 the ungodly, but more completely than any 
 other man he impressed upon the Christian 
 Church her direct responsibility for the lost 
 — her inescapable obligation to be always 
 and everywhere evangelistic. The Review 
 of Reviews sums up his influence in this con- 
 nection in these words : ** Mr. Moody's value 
 to the spiritual life of the times in which he 
 lived transcends that of any other preacher 
 of the Gospel." 
 
 Then there was Mr. Moody's influence 
 on education. The world at large already 
 knows him as the greatest evangelist of his 
 time, but it will yet come to know him 
 equally well as one of the greatest educators 
 of his age. Without an academic education 
 himself, he realized the vital and imperative 
 necessity of education as did few men of his 
 
18 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 day. Nothing shows Mr. Moody's appre- 
 ciation of education better than his reply to 
 Mr. Gladstone. When the men first met, 
 Gladstone said : " Mr. Moody, I wish I had 
 your shoulders." To which Moody replied : 
 " Mr. Gladstone, I wish I had your head." 
 
 Gladstone might well have coveted some 
 of Moody's head and been none the worse 
 for it — a head of which a certain writer, who 
 had met every great contemporary thinker, 
 from Carlyle downward, said, '* In sheer brain 
 size — in the raw material of intellect — Moody 
 stands among the first three or four great 
 men I have ever known." 
 
 The founding of Northfield Seminary for 
 young women, and Mount Hermon School 
 for young men, marked an epoch in Moody's 
 life and work. '' There is no stronger proof 
 of Mr. Moody's breadth of mind," says 
 Drummond, " than that the greatest evangel- 
 ist of his day, not when his powers were fail- 
 ing, but in the prime of life and in the 
 zenith of his success, should divert so great a 
 measure of his strength into educational 
 channels. Mr. Moody realized the value of 
 character, of a sound mind and disciplined 
 judgment. He found the converts without 
 these weak-kneed and useless, and as Chris- 
 tian workers inefficient, if not dangerous. 
 
HIS INFLUENCE 19 
 
 Mr. Moody saw that the primary pur- 
 pose of Christianity was to make good men 
 and good women, who would serve their 
 God and their country, not only with all their 
 hearts, but with all their minds and all their 
 strength." Out of this conviction grew the 
 Northfield educational institutions, which in 
 the last twenty-five years have offered more 
 than ten thousand young women and young 
 men a chance to become useful, educated 
 and God-fearing. 
 
 Mr. Moody was preeminently a man who 
 sought to direct and control the movements 
 which were vital to life. He was keenly 
 alive to the fact that education was a primary 
 factor in the making of an individual, and 
 that the character of the nation would ulti- 
 mately be determined by the type of educa- 
 tion which dominated it. Hence his untiring 
 effort to make education distinctively Chris- 
 tian or, according to his conception of it, edu- 
 cation in which the aim is Christlike char- 
 acter. The primary aim of every institution 
 which Mr. Moody founded was to make 
 Christians, not critics ; servants, not scholars. 
 
 He sought, not simply to educate, but to 
 educate for a definite service — the service of 
 Jesus Christ. Dr. Pierson has well said ; 
 " As Arnold made Rugby a nursery of a pe- 
 
20 DWIGHT L. MOODY v 
 
 culiar type of British men of culture, Moody 
 made Northfield and Mt. Hermon nurseries 
 of Christian character and service." Chris- 
 tian education is not distinguished by any 
 peculiarity of method, nor by any peculiarity 
 of means ; it is distinguished entirely by its 
 aim. Mr. Moody grasped this fact, and dedi- 
 cated these institutions to the making of 
 Christian men and women. 
 
 It may not be out of place here to observe 
 that Mr. Moody was years ahead of most 
 educators, in at least two respects. First, in 
 his recognition of the vital place the Bible 
 should have in education. Long before any 
 of our institutions made the Bible a regular 
 subject of study, Mr. Moody had insisted that 
 it should have the first place in his schools. 
 To-day, there is scarcely a first-class school 
 which has not come, practically, to his posi- 
 tion. Second, Mr. Moody anticipated the 
 modern movement for some restriction in 
 athletics. He was alive to the situation, and 
 suggested and put into operation the very 
 plan which some of our leading educators 
 are just now seriously considering, namely, 
 that of confining contests to home grounds 
 among the classes. Consideration of space 
 will not permit of a more extended reference 
 to the educational value of Mr. Moody's other 
 
HIS INFLUENCE 21 
 
 lines of work, otherwise such institutions as 
 the Chicago schools and the Northfield Sum- 
 mer Conferences might be passed in review. 
 
 We come now to Mr. Moody's influence 
 on the greatest religious and moral move- 
 ments of the last fifty years, such as the 
 Young Men's Christian Association, the 
 Young Women's Christian Association, the 
 world-wide uprising of Christian students, 
 the Sunday-School Movement, the Young 
 People's Movement, Rescue Missions, Sum- 
 mer Tent-Work, Bible Study, Missionary, 
 and Interdenominational Movements. To 
 all of these, and many others, Mr. Moody 
 gave himself with all the power of his heart 
 and strength. No man did more than he to 
 forward the interests of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association ; no man of his time 
 did so much to break down the old denomi- 
 national barriers, and bring the different com- 
 munions together in united service. 
 
 As an administrator, as an agent for men 
 of wealth, as a transmuter of money into 
 bricks, stones, books and tracts. Moody 
 ranks as one of the greatest men of any 
 time. Scotland, Ireland, England and the 
 United States are dotted with Young Men's 
 Christian Association buildings, Bible Insti- 
 tutes, Halls, Homes and Churches, which owe 
 
22 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 their existence to his direct influence. Chris- 
 tian philanthropy, too, owes much to Mr, 
 Moody's influence. Such institutions as 
 " The British Workman Company Limited," 
 of Liverpool, is only one of the many organi- 
 zations which he inspired to relieve need and 
 help men. 
 
 But possibly no movement shows Mr. 
 Moody's far-reaching and abiding influence 
 more than that movement which is coming 
 to the front so rapidly and with such great 
 power just now, namely, the Laymen's 
 Movement. Men's clubs and brotherhoods 
 are the most striking features of the Twen- 
 tieth Century Church. The layman is be- 
 ginning to find his place in the work of the 
 Kingdom. In many ways Mr. Moody may 
 be rightly credited with being the discoverer 
 in this country of the laymen for the Church. 
 More than any other man of our times, 
 D wight L. Moody vindicated the rights, 
 duties and privileges of the layman in car- 
 rying the Gospel to the world, as opposed 
 to the exclusive prerogatives of an ordained 
 clergy. He did this without in the least be- 
 littling the function of a ministry that is 
 academically trained and ecclesiastically or- 
 dained. Mr. Moody found John H. Con- 
 verse, and through Mr. Converse has largely 
 
HIS INFLUENCE 23 
 
 come the summer evangelism of our day, the 
 EvangeHstic Committees with their large 
 campaigns, the Brotherhoods and Foreign 
 Mission Forward Movements. To be sure 
 the Christian Church has always believed in 
 the laymen having a right to work, but it 
 waited for Mr. Moody, the unordained, but 
 foreordained man of God, to put the layman 
 in America to work for Christ. Mr. Moody 
 believed that every Christian was foreor- 
 dained to service ; by his own example and 
 his untiring effort he did all he could to help 
 Christians realize their divine call. 
 
 Think, if you will, of some of the laymen 
 whom Mr. Moody discovered, and did much 
 to develop. Among the many names which 
 might be mentioned, we refer only to a few. 
 Such men as Henry Drummond, Wilfred 
 Grenfell, C. K. Studd, John H. Converse, 
 John Wanamaker, John R. Mott and Robert 
 E. Speer. It is not too much to say that no 
 other man ever did so much to lead laymen 
 into the service of Christ. Mr. Moody was 
 preeminently a discoverer and developer of 
 men. Measured by whatsoever standard you 
 please, whether by his influence on men or 
 on movements, or both, he stands out as one 
 of the world's greatest men in the power and 
 preeminence of his influence. 
 
24: DWIGHT L. MOODY / 
 
 If a visitor to St. Paul's Cathedral, London, 
 will cast his eye over the northern doorway, 
 he will see a slab of marble on which is in- 
 scribed the name of the architect, Chris- 
 topher Wren. Beneath the name is written : 
 ** If you would see his monument, look 
 around you." So to-day, if one would see 
 the influence of Dwight L. Moody let him 
 look around and see the multitude of men 
 whom this great man touched with the holy 
 fire of his own life and the mighty move- 
 ments he inaugurated and furthered. 
 
II 
 
 THE SECRET OF MR. MOODY'S LIFE 
 
 WE cannot come in touch with such 
 a helpful and uplifting life without 
 asking : Where were the hidings 
 of this man's power ? What was the secret 
 of his inspiring influence ? 
 
 Emerson says : ** Men are not quite so anx- 
 ious to know what you do as what makes you 
 do it." In Moody's case, one is desirous of 
 knowing both — what he did, and what made 
 him do it. It has been said that great men 
 influence the world in three ways — by what 
 they say, by what they do, and by what they 
 are. Mr. Moody's influence was rich in all 
 three characteristics. He influenced the 
 world by his teaching, by his action, by his 
 character. One would desire to enlarge on 
 each one of these channels of influence, but 
 must rest content with a search for the secret 
 of it all. Kaftan, in his lectures at the Uni- 
 versity of Berlin, is in the habit of saying 
 that the greatest problem of life is the prob- 
 lem of an appreciative understanding of the 
 great personalities of history. When one is 
 
 25 
 
26 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 dealing with D. L. Moody he is dealing with 
 one of these great personalities. 
 
 If asked for the secret of it all, this man, 
 who has left the world such a marvellous rec- 
 ord of self-improvement, of self-control, of self- 
 abandonment to the service of humanity, of 
 distinguished and durable achievement, would 
 unhesitatingly answer just one word — Christ. 
 Looking back over the record of his life and 
 work, we are constrained to believe that 
 Christ was the source of his life, the law of 
 his life, the power of his life, the plan of his 
 life, the glory of his life. His life found its 
 stimulus, its substance, its end in Christ. No 
 career of modern times is a better commen- 
 tary on the high motto of the apostle Paul, 
 "For me to live is Christ," than that of 
 Dwight L. Moody. 
 
 Looking up by faith into the Glory Land, 
 we ask him to-day to tell us the secret of his 
 life and influence, and I think I hear him 
 say in the old familiar voice: "Sons and 
 daughters of my spirit, the secret of my life 
 was Christ. Christ was my creed ; Christ 
 was my deepest conviction ; Christ was the 
 pattern of my conduct ; Christ was the spring 
 of my character ; the inspiration of my labours ; 
 the source of my love." As a direct result of 
 enthroning Christ in his life, Mr. Moody was 
 
HIS SECRET 27 
 
 a man whose life was marked by many Christ- 
 like qualities. Of some of these qualities I 
 wish to speak briefly. 
 
 (i) He was a man of unfaltering faith. 
 If character and worth are the evidences 
 of faith, we may truthfully say : '* Oh, man, 
 great was thy faith 1 '* Mr. Moody's faith 
 was real to him, and he made it real to others. 
 It was the active, rather than the passive 
 type ; it was intensely practical. Its nature is 
 splendidly set forth in a reply he once made 
 in the author's hearing when asked why he 
 did not run his schools on faith. ** I do," he 
 quickly responded, " I always have and always 
 will. As an evidence of it, if you will tell 
 me of any Christian man who has money, to 
 whom I have not written, or on whom I have 
 not called, I will do so at once. I show my 
 faith when I go to men, and ask them to give 
 to God's work." 
 
 Within an hour of making this statement, 
 the mail arrived. Among his letters was one 
 from a business man, to whom he had written 
 asking for $10,000 towards the running ex- 
 penses of his schools. The letter was a long 
 one, offering many excuses for not complying 
 with the request and closed by reminding 
 Mr. Moody of the promise : " My God shall 
 supply all your need in Christ Jesus." 
 
28 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 " Of course He will," commented Mr. 
 Moody in his most natural way. The next 
 letter he opened was from Scotland, and in 
 it was a draft for two thousand pounds from 
 an old friend who desired to express his ap- 
 preciation of the Service the evangelist had 
 rendered to the Scotsman's native land I 
 
 Mr. Moody's faith evinced itself in two 
 ways : First, in his capacity to believe God's 
 Word. Having satisfied himself that the 
 Bible is God's word to man, he accepted it 
 with all his heart. He never discounted any 
 portion of it. He claimed every promise in 
 it for himself, his friends, and his fellow-men. 
 Second, his faith evinced itself in his power 
 to do things. The man of thought is the 
 brain of the community, the man of feeling 
 is its heart, the man of deeds is its hand. 
 Mr. Moody was all three. His large concep- 
 tions were realized and his aspirations were 
 translated into facts by an executive ability 
 of the first order. Mr. Moody had a tre- 
 mendous capacity for work, and for setting 
 others to work. Everything he undertook 
 was a success. His faith is accurately de- 
 scribed in the words of the apostle Paul as 
 " Faith which worketh by love." 
 
 (2) He was a man of singleness of purpose. 
 His heart was in everything he did. As a 
 
HIS SECRET 29 
 
 salesman in the shoe-store, a teacher in the 
 Sunday-school, a preacher of the Gospel, a 
 leader of men and movements, he showed 
 that his life was dominated by one great pur- 
 pose. His was not only a consecrated life, it 
 was a concentrated life. He realized that the 
 secret of all moral force, all spiritual success, 
 all reality, is concentration. 
 
 Mr. Moody engaged in many forms of 
 work during his lifetime, but all his work was 
 inspired by one purpose — the glory of Christ 
 in the salvation of men. From this purpose 
 he never swerved. To it he gave himself 
 with unlimited devotion and whole-souled 
 loyalty. No man ever followed more faith- 
 fully the motto of Jonathan Edwards, *' I will 
 live with all my might, while I live.'' Few 
 men ever lived such a life of purpose and 
 deed. He had no inordinate love of self in 
 any shape, of pleasure, of gold, of fame. All 
 these things were absorbed in the bending 
 and blending of his will to God's. 
 
 (3) He was a man of sterling sincerity, 
 " It is refreshing at all times, and especially 
 in this superficial and artificial age," wrote the 
 editor of The Catholic World of Mr. Moody 
 at his death, " to come into contact with such 
 a genuine soul, a nature so sincere, so simple 
 that it seems a mirror of nature itself." 
 
30 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 The transparency of Moody's character 
 and the sincerity of his acts were so marked 
 that none who knew him could ever forget 
 them. Between his pulpit utterances and 
 his private life there was no gulf fixed, nor 
 was there any between his Monday warfare 
 and his Sunday worship. He had a passion 
 for sincerity, for '* the clean heart," for ** truth 
 in the inward parts." He was never guilty 
 of sacrificing sincerity for success. He had 
 an inborn dislike of all sham and deception. 
 For a man to say what he really thinks, and 
 to be, outwardly, what he really is in his 
 heart, requires heroism of no mean type. 
 This heroism Mr. Moody possessed in a 
 most remarkable degree. His very presence 
 killed insincerity and inspired sincerity. He 
 was a hero to his own children and to his 
 best friends. 
 
 (4) He was a man of genuine humility, 
 A truly sincere man is always humble. He 
 feels like a child amid God's infinite mys- 
 teries, longs for a nobler music, cries in his 
 heart, ** Light, light, more light," till God, in 
 His own way, leads him there. Such a man 
 was Dwight L. Moody. He willingly sat at 
 the feet of other men to learn. Drummond 
 says that the way he turned aside from 
 applause in England struck multitudes with 
 
HIS SECRET 31 
 
 wonder. To be courted was to him not 
 merely a thing to be discouraged on general 
 principles, it simply made him miserable. 
 At the close of a great meeting when crowds, 
 not of the base but of the worthy, thronged 
 the platform to press his hand he always 
 somehow disappeared. When they followed 
 him to his hotel, his doors were barred. 
 This man would not be praised. The criti- 
 cism which sours, and the adulation which 
 spoils, left untouched the man who ** forgot 
 himself into immortality." 
 
 (5) He was a man of large wisdom. By 
 wisdom, the power of discerning what is true 
 and right, is meant ; the power of discerning 
 what is conducive to the highest interest of 
 humanity, the discernment of the real char- 
 acteristics and relations of conduct. If " wis- 
 dom is knowledge made our own and ap- 
 plied to life," then to Mr. Moody must be 
 credited large and unusual wisdom. If, as 
 Dr. Shedd says, " education is not a dead 
 mass of accumulated terms but power to 
 work with the brain," then Mr. Moody was 
 one of the best educated men of his day. 
 " If," says Dr. Pierson, " the mark of an edu- 
 cated man is found in the union of capacity 
 and sagacity, innate mental vigour and prac- 
 tical ability to use it for a purpose, we come 
 
32 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 to say that Mr. Moody was no common 
 specimen of a man of education in the best 
 sense." If, as Emerson says, " The foun- 
 dation of culture as of character is at the last 
 moral sentiment/* no man of his day sur- 
 passed Mr. Moody in genuine culture, for 
 few men equalled him in moral sentiment. 
 
 (6) He was a ma7i of prayer. Here we 
 touch the inner source of this man's match- 
 less power. To Mr. Moody God was not a 
 mere law, nor an abstraction. To him God 
 was a Person who feels and thinks, a Father 
 who rules and loves, and is concerned with 
 everything which affects His children. With 
 such a conception of God we are not sur- 
 prised to find Mr. Moody leading a life of 
 ceaseless communion with Him out of which 
 grew a life of overcoming strength. There 
 was a correspondence between Mr. Moody's 
 life and his prayers. Both were massive, 
 and on a grand scale. Prayer was the real 
 working power of Moody's life. 
 
 I am grateful to-day for all the prayers of 
 this great man, but there are three which will 
 never fade from my memory nor cease to 
 live in my life. Of each of them I desire to 
 say just a word because they illustrate the 
 reality and scope of Mr. Moody's prayer-life. 
 The first was offered on a memorable night 
 
HIS SECRET 33 
 
 in June, 1890, as we stood under the old oak 
 tree near Revell Cottage, at Northfield. It 
 was a prayer for Mt. Hermon School. I can- 
 not recall it all, but I well remember how Mr. 
 Moody sobbed as he prayed for his boys and 
 committed to God the care of the school, and 
 asked Him to guide to it the man who would 
 direct it to His glory. 
 
 The second prayer was one offered in Park 
 Avenue Hotel, New York. Mr. Moody had 
 written to several men asking them to con- 
 tribute generously to a fund for an evangel- 
 istic campaign in Chicago during the hold- 
 ing of the World's Fair. He had asked 
 them to address him at Park Avenue Hotel. 
 When he arrived and asked for his mail, 
 there was none. We went to a room and as 
 soon as the door was shut he said, " Let us 
 pray," and then and there he poured out his 
 soul to God for the opportunity offered by 
 the fair about to be held in Chicago. I well 
 remember his saying in that prayer : ** If you 
 want me to carry on the work in Chicago, 
 open the way ; raise up friends who will 
 provide the funds. Forbid that the oppor- 
 tunity of preaching the Gospel to thousands 
 should be lost by lack of interest on the part 
 of Christians." Here was the man of God, 
 burdened for the unsaved, every one of whom 
 
34 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 was dear to him, because, for them, Christ 
 had died. 
 
 The last prayer of the three, and the last 
 which I ever heard from his lips (indeed, 
 the last words I ever heard from him), was 
 offered as I walked home with him from 
 a service he had conducted in Harrisburg. 
 We had reached the house where he was 
 staying and were about to separate, when he 
 put his hand on my shoulder and bowed his 
 head in prayer. It was a short prayer, but 
 it reached the Throne of Grace and my heart : 
 *' O God, bless Mac in his life, and work, and 
 use him mightily for Thy glory." Here was 
 the servant of God praying for the individ- 
 ual, just as earnestly as for the school, and 
 the unsaved. 
 
 (7) He was preeminently a man of deep 
 and strong love. This love manifested itself 
 in innumerable ways. It was often seen in 
 the tenderness and gentleness of the man. 
 No nature was ever more generous and more 
 considerate of the interests and welfare of 
 others. When urged by supporters of his 
 schools to raise the tuition from $100.00 per 
 year to $200.00, with the suggestion that 
 those who could not pay the extra $100.00 
 should secure some friend to do it, Mr. 
 Moody replied : — " I want to be that friend 
 
HIS SECRET 35 
 
 to every student who enters these schools." 
 His interest in his students never ceased. 
 They were on his heart day and night as 
 the following letter shows : 
 
 " London^ July <?, i8g2, 
 ** My dear McDowell : 
 
 " I was glad to get so good a report from Prince- 
 ton, and am glad the boys are all doing so well, es- 
 pecially . I have written him a letter to- 
 day. // cheers me to hear that the boys who have 
 gone out from us are doing all they can to hold up 
 Christ. I do not see why Mount Hermon should not 
 become a blessing to all of the colleges in the course 
 of time. Give my warmest love to all the boys, and 
 tell them that I am glad to get so good a report from 
 them. Write me often and let me know how things 
 go at Northfield this summer. 
 
 *' Yours truly, 
 
 *' D. L. Moody." 
 
 " He embodied," says Dr. Pierson, ** the 
 genius of goodness." In his Bible he carried 
 those words of John Wesley : 
 
 *' Do all the good you can 
 To all the people you can 
 In all the ways you can 
 And as long as you can." 
 
 This motto was not only printed in his 
 Bible, it was lived out in his daily life. Love 
 
36 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 was the master law of his life, the essence of 
 his religion. Christianity, to Mr. Moody, was 
 a method of life by which men and women are 
 taught and inspired to love as Jesus loved, 
 and to live loving and lovable lives. Mr. 
 Moody's love was inclusive ; it embraced 
 everything which was wholesome and 
 healthy. Sitting on the porch of his home 
 on a summer evening, watching one of those 
 glorious sunsets, he said : " Oh, life is sweet 
 — life is sweet — because God is love." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE APPEAL OF MR. MOODY'S LIFE 
 
 THE memory of a man who exerted 
 such an influence and lived such a 
 life as D wight L. Moody, cannot 
 die. We do not wonder that Drummond, 
 a close student of human character and an 
 expert in spiritual diagnosis, should say five 
 years before Mr. Moody's death : ** Whether 
 estimated by the moral qualities which go to 
 the making up of his personal character or 
 the extent to which he impressed them upon 
 whole communities of men on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, there is perhaps no more truly 
 great man living than Dwight L. Moody. 
 America possesses at this moment no more 
 extraordinary personage ; not even among 
 the most brilliant of her sons has any ren- 
 dered more stupendous or more enduring 
 service to his country or its life." The fol- 
 lowing testimonies show the depth and ex- 
 tent of the appeal of Mr. Moody's life and 
 work. 
 
 37 
 
38 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 A Word from the President 
 Mr. Wilson's Tribute to Mr, Moody 
 The Editor of the Congregationalist^ not long ago, 
 found in the files of an old newspaper an incident re- 
 cording President Wilson's appreciation of Mr. Moody. 
 In order to be sure of its authenticity Dr. Bridgman 
 wrote to President Wilson asking him whether or not 
 the incident was a legend. His response was as 
 kindly as it was prompt. It is printed herewith, 
 together with the incident, which the President 
 fittingly calls **an evangelistic service in a barber 
 
 shop." 
 
 *' October 26, igi4. 
 " The White House, 
 
 Washington. 
 " My dear Doctor Bridgman : 
 
 ** No, this is not a legend ; it is a fact, and I 
 am perfectly willing that you should publish it. My 
 admiration and esteem for Mr. Moody was very deep 
 
 indeed. 
 
 ** Cordially and sincerely yours, 
 
 <' WooDROw Wilson." 
 
 ** I was in a very plebeian place. I was in a barber's 
 shop, sitting in a chair, when I became aware that a 
 personality had entered the room. A man had come 
 quietly in upon the same errand as myself and sat in 
 the next chair to me. Every word he uttered, though 
 it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal and 
 vital interest in the man who was serving him ; and 
 before I got through with what was being done to me, 
 I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic serv- 
 ice, because Mr. Moody was in the next chair. I 
 
HIS APPEAL 39 
 
 purposely lingered in the room after he left and noted 
 the singular effect his visit had upon the barbers in 
 that shop. They talked in undertones. They did 
 not know his name, but they knew that something 
 had elevated their thought. And I felt that I left 
 that place as I should have left a place of worship." 
 
 His Message of Service 
 
 David J. Brewery late Associate Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States 
 
 "The rounded fullness of DwightL. Moody's life is 
 an answer to the oft-repeated question, Is life worth 
 living? It is not worth Hving if livedlfor self; it is if 
 lived for others. And, when I think of the countless 
 many who have been lifted to higher things by his 
 earnest words and self-denying life, I am sure that his 
 life was worth living. Only the recording angel can 
 tell the number of those who, when the news of his 
 death was telegraphed, responded with the expression, 
 unrecorded on earth, * Thank God for Dwight L. 
 Moody's life.' His end was peace. His message to 
 all is service. * Whosoever will be chief among you 
 let him be your servant.' " 
 
 One of the World's Greatest Leaders 
 Dr. Lyman Abbott, Editor of " The Outlook " 
 "Moody's name and good works are known and 
 loved throughout the civilized world. By his death 
 the world lost one of its greatest leaders. His marvel- 
 lous energy and kindly spirit made friends for religion 
 by the tens of thousands." 
 
40 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 A Successful Life 
 Dr. Pat ton, Ex-President Princeton University 
 
 *' By the death of Mr. Moody the world lost a man 
 who, although he had no academic education, was one 
 of the greatest powers for winning souls to Christ and 
 uplifting his fellow-men. Talk of a successful life ! 
 Take any man who has achieved honour on the battle- 
 field, fame in statesmanship or in whatever way he 
 has attracted the world's attention, and how does that 
 life compare with the life of Dwight L. Moody? " 
 
 America's Most Extraordinary Preacher of 
 THE Century 
 
 Xhe late Theodore L, Cuyler, D, D. 
 
 "Dwight L. Moody was undeniably the most ex- 
 traordinary gospel preacher that America has produced 
 in this century, as Spurgeon was the most extraordinary 
 that Britain has produced. Both had all Christendom 
 for their congregations. I am glad that, like Abraham 
 Lincoln, he never went to any college ; both form their 
 own racy Saxon styles for themselves. 
 
 ** With my beloved Brother Moody I had much 
 personal intimacy for twenty-eight years. He de- 
 livered his first Bible-readings in our little mission 
 chapel in the winter of 1872. A few months later 
 when I was in London, he came into my room one 
 day and said : * They want me to stay and preach 
 here; what shall I do?' My quick answer was 
 ' Come.'' He went, and thus began his world-wide 
 career in Britain. 
 
HIS APPEAL 41 
 
 **One of his last sermons was delivered from my 
 old pulpit. I said to him, *Last night you were 
 at your best ; you were not talking to Christians, but 
 calling the unconverted to Jesus ; stick to that as 
 long as you live." 
 
 His Love for His Fellow-Men 
 
 Hon. John Wanamaker 
 
 " My acquaintance with Mr. Moody runs back 
 forty years or more. . . . Stretching over the 
 years that intervened, up to a month before his death, 
 I enjoyed the inspiration of his life. The freshest 
 memory I have of him is the night of November 13, 
 1900, when he got off the Pennsylvania Railroad train 
 to keep an appointment he had made with me by 
 telegraph, to spend a short time between trains on his 
 way to Kansas City for his last meetings. I remarked 
 that same night, after he had left me, how heavy a 
 burden seemed to rest upon his heart as he said again 
 and again : * I wish that I might be moved of God to 
 move one large Eastern city. For I think if one 
 Eastern city could be thoroughly revived, the others 
 would feel the influence and be stirred Hkewise.' As 
 I looked into the face of the man, whose eyes and 
 voice were full of tears, it seemed as if a prophet like 
 unto Elijah had come back again. He left behind 
 him that night his comfortable home at Northfieldand 
 the hospitality which so many friends would have been 
 glad to give him ; laid himself down in a sleeping- 
 berth of a Pullman car, rattling over a thousand miles 
 to Kansas City ; and rose with a heavy load of concern 
 
42 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 for the kingdom of his Master, and under the weight 
 of it he staggered into his grave. 
 
 ** In summing up the distinctly great things of this 
 great century no man stands out more prominently 
 who has spent so many continuous years in superhuman 
 labour for the public good as Dwight L. Moody, the 
 Christian American layman. Uncrowned, without 
 title of any kind, he wears the first honours among the 
 men who loved their fellow-men." 
 
 The Missions in London ; Their Rich and 
 Enduring Fruitage 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Kinnaird 
 
 ** As 1 look back over fifty years of evangelistic 
 work I recall that during forty of these years I was 
 constantly in contact with that prince of evangehsts, 
 Mr. D. L. Moody. With pleasure and thankfulness I 
 remember his wonderful life-work and I realize more 
 and more what a mighty force he was, and how im- 
 mensely his labours were used to help thousands in my 
 own country. There are to-day very many serving 
 God whole-heartedly who were brought to a saving 
 knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus by means of the 
 remarkable revival which was granted as the result 
 of the Missions throughout London and elsewhere 
 conducted by Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey. 
 
 " I had the great privilege of very close association 
 with him during all his evangelistic campaigns in our 
 land. When he first came as an unknown visitor and 
 during the mission conducted in Rev. Frank White's 
 Chapel at Chelsea, Mr. and Mrs. Moody were the 
 
HIS APPEAL 43 
 
 guests of our mutual friends, Mr. and Mrs. Quintin 
 Hogg. There we first got to know them well and to 
 love them. I have never known any one whose faith 
 was so real and abounding ; no difficulty could daunt 
 him, no perplexity could cloud his faith in God or 
 dim his calm belief that all would be well. 
 
 " His memory still remains and his work lives on. 
 We see an example of this in the Y. M. C. A. He 
 strenuously sought to stir up our Associations; and 
 now during these dark days through which my country 
 is passing, the Y. M. C. A. is doing most important 
 work among our soldiers and sailors." 
 
 Mr. Moody's Appreciation of Education 
 H, F. Cutler, Principal of Mt. Herman School 
 
 ** Mr. Moody was not popularly known during his 
 lifetime as an educator nor as an educated man. He 
 really was both. The great schools which he founded 
 entitled him to a place among educators, and his skill 
 in the selection of courses and of teachers proved his 
 right there. 
 
 " Soon after his conversion he came more and more 
 into the companionship of educated men, and this 
 seemed always to spur him on to get information for 
 himself He could not attend school. He was too 
 old. In those years he formed the habit of rising 
 early in the morning to read and study, and this cus- 
 tom he kept up to the very end of his life. For years 
 he had several persons reading for him. These read- 
 ers made outlines of books and marked passages which 
 
44: DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 he ought to see and read. In this way Mr. Moody 
 became a widely read man. 
 
 *' His contact with students and professors in the 
 universities of Great Britain and in the colleges of this 
 country made him alert to acquaint himself with their 
 learning and their problems. His great desire was to 
 get at facts in all their simplicity. He insisted on 
 fundamentals. He told me again and again to teach 
 the Hermon boys to spell and write. Sham and slip- 
 shod work he despised and could tolerate neither in 
 himself nor in others. This all worked to make of 
 him in the best sense of the word the educated man 
 that he was. He was never at a loss in the discussion 
 of any topic theological or philosophical, and he was 
 well informed along scientific lines. 
 
 ** He believed in higher education as is shown by 
 the number of boys and girls he sent to college and 
 by his desire to emphasize the courses in his own 
 schools leading to university work. For him an edu- 
 cated man meant a great new added power in the 
 world, and if to this greatness he could add goodness, 
 his ideal man was complete. He used to say, * There 
 are great men in the world ; there are good men in the 
 world ; but there are few who are both great and good.' 
 
 ** The foundation of all his educational work was 
 the Bible. His prayer at the laying of the corner-stone 
 of one of the buildings was that God would wipe the 
 school from the face of the earth if anything was 
 taught here contrary to the Word of God. He had 
 caught the meaning of true education, and he lived as 
 the exponent of the great Teacher at whose feet he 
 himself had learned." 
 
HIS APPEAL 45 
 
 The Possibilities of a Consecrated Life 
 
 The late William Earl Dodge 
 
 " The great lesson in Mr. Moody's life is the in- 
 finite and magnificent possibility for service which can 
 come to one that puts himself absolutely in God's 
 hands to be used. Mr. Moody did this more unre- 
 servedly and completely than any man I ever knew. 
 He believed in every fibre of his being all that God 
 promised. He gloried in the full message of life 
 which Christ came to bring, and wondered with a 
 great astonishment that any could turn from this offer 
 of eternal happiness. 
 
 ** His duty was clear and direct to preach this mes- 
 sage to all men, and with loving entreaty to urge them 
 to accept. His intense belief gave him power. His 
 simple, strong Anglo-Saxon speech, caught from the 
 Bible he loved and believed in, won him a hearing. 
 His clear common sense, his knowledge of men, and 
 his kind but masterful strength, gave him an immense 
 influence. He was absolutely unselfish and modest, 
 and only wondered why God should use so feeble an 
 instrument for so great results." 
 
 Mr. Moody s Sound Educational Policies 
 Charles E. Dickerson, Principal of Northjield Seminary 
 " During Mr. Moody's lifetime those closely asso- 
 ciated with him in the work of the Northfield schools 
 were first won to his educational ideals by the force of his 
 wonderful personality, the greatness of his vision and 
 the compelling contagion of his consecration to the pur- 
 pose of helping needy boys and girls to get an education. 
 
46 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 ** Since his death, fifteen years of further connection 
 with his schools have brought a continually increasing 
 admiration for his sound educational policies and a 
 deepening conviction of the greatness of the man who 
 thirty-five years ago had what some educators are 
 still seeking after, that conception of education which 
 should maintain a proper balance between physical, in- 
 tellectual and moral training and should make a pupil 
 an efficient and reliable citizen, able to do something 
 towards self-support and capable not only of steering a 
 straight course through intellectual problems, but with 
 a moral and religious training which should make him 
 or her safe amid the continually changing winds of 
 temptation and evil which must inevitably be met. 
 He held that an education without this latter training 
 only * sharpens tools for the adversary, ' and surely 
 his contention cannot be denied. 
 
 " His clear vision of athletics as a means not an 
 end, his insistence upon many teams among the dor- 
 mitories bringing a large proportion of the five or six 
 hundred students at Mt. Hermon into training, in- 
 stead of the interscholastic games which concentrate 
 all interest upon the training of a score or two of 
 students playing at great expense with other school 
 teams, has established a healthy athletic spirit in the 
 school and saved it from the evils attendant upon 
 modern school and college athletics. That he should 
 have seen and insisted upon this position twenty years 
 ago when the whole spirit of the school and college 
 world was setting the other way is but one illustration 
 of his wisdom and foresight. 
 
 " Of his wonderful reliance upon God, his unflinch- 
 
HIS APPEAL 47 
 
 ing loyalty to God's claims upon him, his conviction 
 that if these claims were met, results beyond human 
 thought or power would surely follow, all the world 
 has heard. I would add my testimony of gratitude 
 for the privilege of living for twenty-five years so close 
 to his work as to see daily and hourly the proof of his 
 wisdom in all secular matters and the fruit of his faith 
 wrought out both in structures of wood and stone and 
 in the far more precious building of character in the 
 lives of thousands of young people to whom his 
 schools have offered their one door of opportunity." 
 
 Preaching in Camp 
 The late Gen, O. O. Howard 
 
 ** Moody and I met for the first time in Cleveland, 
 East Tennessee. It was about the middle of April, 
 1864. I was bringing together my Fourth Army 
 Corps. Two divisions had already arrived, and were 
 encamped in and near the village. Moody was then 
 fresh and hearty, full of enthusiasm for the Master's 
 work. Our soldiers were just about to set out on what 
 we all felt promised a hard and bloody campaign, and 
 I think were especially desirous of strong preaching. 
 Crowds and crowds turned out to hear the glad tid- 
 ings from Moody's lips. He showed them how a 
 soldier would give his heart to God. His preaching 
 was direct and effective, and multitudes responded 
 with a confession and promise to follow Christ. 
 
 " From that time on throughout his useful career I 
 have had association with him. On the steamer Spree, 
 during our remarkable wreck and rescue, I was with 
 
48 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 him. Who could have held up Christ with more fear- 
 lessness and fidelity than he did then to over seven 
 hundred passengers, a company including agnostics, 
 atheists, Jews, sceptics and formal believers of all 
 kinds. 
 
 *' In Chicago he acted as a general, and I became 
 his subordinate during the World's Fair. Thousands 
 upon thousands crowded the theatres, tents, halls, 
 churches, and other public buildings, by his provi- 
 sion, to hear the simple Gospel. 
 
 " His work, again, in our war with Spain, by send- 
 ing evangelical speakers to the front, whom he knew 
 the soldiers would heed and hear, will never be meas- 
 ured by us who were mere helpers. He planned, 
 selected his messengers, and sent them, and raised 
 funds to give to our soldiers the bread of life." 
 
 A Tribute from a Great Scottish Critic 
 Prof. George Adam Smith 
 
 " We met first at Yale, where I discovered for the 
 first time what a hold Moody had on the respectful 
 attention, I think I can say admiration, of American 
 students. He asked me to speak at the commence- 
 ment exercises of the Northfield schools, and at the 
 American students' conference there. I hesitated, 
 pleading on how many points I differed from the 
 Northfield teaching about Scripture. His answer was, 
 * Come and say what you like,' and I felt at once the 
 inspiration of his trust. At Northfield we had several 
 conversations on Old Testament criticism, some alone, 
 some with others. I shall never forget his patience, 
 
HIS APPEAL 49 
 
 the openness of his mind, his desire to get at the real 
 facts of criticism, or the shrewdness and humour with 
 which he combated them. It was then that he finished 
 one talk with the words : ' Look here, what's the use of 
 telling the people there's two Isaiahs when most of them 
 don't know that there's one ? ' But most beautiful was 
 his anxiety about the effect of criticism upon piety and 
 preaching ; he had on his heart not only some congre- 
 gations which had suffered many things from criticism 
 in the pulpit, but the divisions in the churches which 
 were due to critical views. But he was very fair, and 
 said that these divisions were probably due not only 
 to the new opinions about Scripture, but to the temper 
 in which they had been met by the other side. One 
 of the discussions with several friends concluded with 
 prayer from him, so earnest that I shall ever look back 
 upon it as one of the greatest moments of ray life." 
 
 A Torrent of Love and Power 
 Robert £. Speer 
 
 '* Of Mr. Moody's many great qualities the one 
 which perhaps impressed young men most when they 
 first met him was his sincere directness of interest and 
 action. He did not pretend to see you. He did not 
 just take you in as a part of the whole, with other parts 
 of which he was more concerned. He went straight 
 for you, had real dealings with you and then went on 
 his way. 
 
 *' He seemed all energy and action as you watched 
 him. There appeared never to be any hesitation or 
 doubt. He had a work to do. He knew what it was 
 
50 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 and that it must be done and he was busy with it. 
 But there was no one who was such a Hstener as he. 
 He caught every point or asked about it if he didn't 
 catch it. And so far from being dictatorial or head- 
 strong, he was eager to get Ught on his way and to have 
 wise counsel even from those who had no experience 
 to be matched with his. And the mixture of docility, 
 of honest humility, twinkling shrewdness, of unshak- 
 able mental honesty and of deadly detection of sham 
 in him was a marvel. 
 
 "His brusque, forceful manner cloaked the most 
 gentle, eager and tender-hearted kindness. There was 
 no sentimentality or softness or rhetorical tearfulness 
 about him and yet he was like Paul in the yearning 
 with which he loved Christ and men and sought to bring 
 men to Christ and Christ to men. And his interest in 
 people was not momentary. As he found men he 
 cared for and could work with he held to them. 
 Their names and faces did not slip from his memory 
 and he opened doors before them and went both be- 
 fore and after. In the summer conferences he was al- 
 ways stepping back and putting them forward. One 
 year in the Students' Conference the college men pro- 
 tested at his retirement and, taking the close of one 
 of his meetings out of his hands, demanded that he 
 should speak more to them. He chuckled and agreed 
 and named six o'clock in the morning as the hour 
 when he would do it. He came at that hour and so 
 did they. 
 
 ** Professor Drummond quoted approvingly the say- 
 ing of a great man about Mr. Moody to the effect that 
 he was * the greatest human ' he had ever met. That 
 
HIS APPEAL 51 
 
 judgment covers about as much as can be said of a 
 man, but Mr. Moody deserved it. He was a combi- 
 nation of General Grant and John B. Gough and 
 Abraham Lincoln and William E. Dodge and Mr. 
 Spurgeon and a few more. But he was not any of 
 them. He was just his own great self, a torrent of 
 love and power set to sweep men home upon God." 
 
 Mr. Moody in the Pulpit 
 Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D. 
 
 "I heard Dwight L. Moody preach in all six times. 
 I heard him preach three times during the famous 
 evangelistic campaign in Boston in 1876 in the great 
 tabernacle built by the business men of the city for 
 Mr. Moody's service. 
 
 " At each one of the three services that I attended 
 I recall the impression made upon me by this preacher. 
 It was that of a profoundly earnest man to whom God 
 was an absolute reality, to whom also the perils and 
 the possibilities of human life were of tremendous 
 moment. 
 
 "I heard Mr. Moody twice in the Old South 
 Church in Boston during a week of services in which 
 the Old South was associated with the First Baptist 
 Church. Mr. Moody's preaching had changed some- 
 what in the interval. Humour was more abundant ; 
 the strain of seriousness was relieved by striking 
 anecdotes. The purpose of the man, however, was 
 the same, his spiritual life even more abundant and 
 surer of itself. 
 
52 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 ** The last occasion on which I heard Mr. Moody 
 preach was in Tremont Temple. His subject was, 
 The Good Samaritan. One winged sentence I shall 
 never forget — ' That humane Samaritan who nursed 
 back to life the Jew who had unlimited contempt for 
 him knocked more sectarianism and class-feeling out 
 of the world by his deeds than was ever done before 
 or since in the same length of time.' Another witty 
 remark I recall in Mr. Moody's sermon on Excuses. 
 The text was, * I have married a wife and cannot 
 come.' * The flimsiness of this excuse,' said Mr. 
 Moody, < is apparent to all. Who ever heard of a 
 bride, with all her new dresses, refusing to go to a 
 party ? ' 
 
 " As I look back upon the career of Mr. Moody he 
 stands out preeminent among the evangelists whom I 
 have known." 
 
 Moody's Power with College Men 
 John R. Mott 
 
 *' My knowledge of Moody was confined largely to 
 observing at first hand his work among the college 
 men of North America and to studying the results of 
 his activities among the students of Great Britain. 
 Judged by the testimony of undergraduates and gradu- 
 ates, he exerted a greater influence upon them than 
 did any other Christian worker of his day, with the 
 single exception of that exercised by Henry Drum- 
 mond among students in Edinburgh. Wherein lay 
 the secret ? 
 
 ** It was the note of reality in Moody's preaching 
 
HIS APPEAL 63 
 
 that appealed strongly to college men. They were 
 impressed by his downright honesty and transparent 
 sincerity. He was absolutely devoid of sham and 
 affectation. He never appealed to the gallery. He 
 was tremendously frank and direct. He was wholly 
 unconventional and never flattered or paid compliments. 
 He was bold as a lion in exposing hypocrisy and in 
 attacking individual and social sins. The students 
 saw that he practiced what he preached and accepted 
 him as a true prophet. 
 
 ** To a host of college men he brought religion out 
 of the clouds and made it a present-day and every-day 
 personal and practical relationship and experience. 
 No college man who ever heard his incisive comments 
 on the Ten Commandments and his pointed applica- 
 tions to modern life will ever forget them. They cut 
 like a mighty plowshare through the sins of college 
 life and of society. His attractive and telling portrayal 
 of the elemental virtues and homely loyalties made the 
 conferences which he conducted generating and prop- 
 agating centres of a Christianity profoundly ethical 
 and workable. There was a poise and sanity which 
 put him in a class by himself. 
 
 " His wonderful heart power went far to explain 
 the wide range of his influence. He won men by his 
 kindness as well as persuaded them by the truth. It 
 is said that Christ ' was numbered among the trans- 
 gressors,' and this, among other reasons, not only 
 that He might know them but also that they might 
 know that He knew them. So it was with this great 
 man. The students recognized that he had a master 
 knowledge of human nature — that he knew them 
 
54 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 through and through. Above all, they felt that he 
 had a heart interest in them — that he sympathized 
 deeply with them in their soul-struggles and in their 
 body-struggles with temptation as well as in their 
 sorrows. I shall never forget his overflowing sympathy 
 and kindness during one of the earUer conferences, 
 when a member of my own college delegation was 
 drowned in the Connecticut. Moreover, he manifested 
 as natural and as enthusiastic an interest in sports and 
 in the famous student Fourth of July celebration as 
 did any schoolboy. 
 
 **His enormous influence with college men cannot 
 be explained apart from his unaffected humility. The 
 great teacher must ever remain a disciple. Nothing 
 was more impressive at the student conferences than 
 to see Moody, after introducing a speaker, go down 
 from the platform and take a seat at his feet and from 
 time to time jot down notes of what was being said. 
 It was this openness to new ideas and responsiveness 
 to new plans which did much to give him such a 
 strong hold on growing, studying, ambitious young 
 men. His willingness to receive criticism and to con- 
 fess faults revealed genuine greatness of soul. Although 
 he was one of the most masterful of men and one of 
 the strongest personalities of his generation, he was 
 modest and self-effacing to a marked degree." 
 
 My Debt to D. L. Moody 
 
 Wilfred T. Grenfelh M. D. 
 " Personally I only once spoke to D. L. Moody. But 
 I am proud always that a man of that type was the 
 
HIS APPEAL 65 
 
 turning point in my life, and I love his memory better 
 than many whose talk I have heard far oftener. 
 
 *' Every time I give an anaesthesia I acknowledge 
 my debt to Morton and Simpson. At every major 
 operation I rejoice for the blessed life-work of the 
 great Lister. It is the same with D. L. Moody. But 
 in what did his great contribution to my life consist ? 
 Not in the scholarship of 'current science,' or the the- 
 ology of seminaries and churches, or in physical at- 
 tainments or eccentricities. It surely was just the 
 wonderful portion of his Master's spirit. I had never 
 considered religious folk as quite human. I needed 
 D. L. Moody to believe that a man could be * a man 
 for a' that.' 
 
 *' It did not seem necessary to intrude a personal 
 acquaintance on the man. He gave me the impres- 
 sion always that what he longed for was that every 
 one should become personally acquainted with his 
 Master. 
 
 *' Paul, standing on the deck of the doomed ship, 
 cool, confident, inspiring others, drew himself up to 
 the full height of his manhood when he claimed for 
 the Christ the credit for anything he accomplished. 
 That lovely unselfishness appeals always to the best in 
 every man. D. L. Moody always stood on the plat- 
 form of ' whose I am and whom I serve. ' 
 
 " Fourteen years after my conversion, when we 
 both happened to be in Boston, I called for the first 
 time on this man. He did not know me from Adam. 
 I realized my debt to him, however, and wanted just 
 to say thank you. He listened to all I had to say, 
 carefully avoided, I ought to say naturally avoided. 
 
56 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 any conventional phrases or sentimental remarks. 
 Just as one real ordinary man to another, treat- 
 ing religion as the Lord's business should be, as 
 naturally as we treat calomel or ipecac or anything 
 else that is any use to accomplish things, he said, 
 ' Good. What have you been doing since? ' That's 
 the kind of man he was. Any real man couldn't help 
 being tickled to death with that kind of answer. * Do- 
 ing ? Well, Tve been living and working among 
 fishermen from the Bay of Biscay to the Coast of 
 Labrador, instead of staying in London.' 'Regret 
 it?' < No, sir, I should rather say not.' 'Could 
 you come and tell them at the afternoon service in 
 the Tremont Temple in three minutes ? * I could not 
 help smiling. 'I can try.' 'Then I'll be grateful 
 if you'll do so. Side door at three-thirty. Good- 
 bye. Ever so many thanks for dropping in.* 
 
 "If not the exact actual words used, yet that is the 
 impression left in my mind since that interview, and 
 I loved the man for it. There was no unctuousness, 
 no snobbery, no cant ; and yet again he had moved 
 my heart to want to do things more than ever. He 
 left such imprint also of ' things done ' — such beau- 
 tiful memorials as the Northfield and Hermon schools. 
 
 " You asked me if I had any photographs of him. 
 No, not one. And, moreover, I don't want one. I 
 shall recognize him again when I meet him. He 
 wasn't much of a sitter for photographs, I believe, 
 anyhow. And my love and respect for him have 
 nothing to do with his physical form. Did any pic- 
 tures that you ever saw of the Master make you either 
 remem.ber Him better or love Him more ? Somehow 
 
HIS APPEAL 57 
 
 I feel like that, even after all these years, towards 
 D. L. Moody. To me he reflected the spirit of the 
 Master; that is not definable." 
 
 Incidents in the Inquiry-Room 
 
 Washington Gladden, D. D, 
 
 *< In the early months of 1878 Mr. Moody came to 
 Springfield, Mass. I remember very well his prelimi- 
 nary meeting with the ministers at the Massasoit House 
 and the directness and practical sense which he ex- 
 hibited in the arrangements made. The financial 
 provision was a small matter ; no large expense was 
 to be incurred ; the meetings were to be held in the 
 City Hall, our largest assembly-room, and the inquiry 
 meetings, following each service, in the First Congre- 
 gational Church, near by. 
 
 " It was in these familiar and informal meetings 
 that I came to know Mr. Moody best. It was in a 
 day when men of my way of thinking were suspects 
 in the Congregational fellowship; some pretty per- 
 sistent attempts had been made to drive us out. Mr. 
 Moody had been warned that I was a heretic, but he 
 did not seem to be afraid of me ; on the contrary, he 
 used me very freely in the inquiry meeting. One 
 evening as I was standing in the broad aisle I heard 
 his voice from a side aisle opposite. * Here, Mr. 
 Gladden, I want you I ' I made my way to him 
 and he led me to a pew in which three women were 
 sitting. * Talk to these women!' he said. *They 
 are atheists. They don't believe in God nor the 
 
68 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 Bible, nor the future life. They don't believe any- 
 thing. Here ! * he said quickly to a young girl who 
 sat at the head of the pew. * You go with me. I 
 don't want you to hear what these women are saying.' 
 And he led her away. 
 
 ** It was all in perfect good nature. I sat down in 
 front of the women, saying : * Well, this is a queer 
 introduction. What have you to say for yourselves ? ' 
 * It's all right,' said one of them. * He has told you 
 the truth.' 
 
 "What I said to them is no part of the story; I 
 have told it to show Moody's frank and fearless way 
 of dealing with people. The experience of those in- 
 quiry meetings is one of the high lights of memory. 
 
 " Above all, the spirit of the man was so sweet, so 
 tolerant, so kindly that he drew all hearts towards 
 him. He had no bitter or censorious words to speak 
 about those who differed with him ; he kindled no 
 suspicions or hatreds in human hearts ; he hurled no 
 maledictions. 
 
 ** I shall bear with me to my grave, and beyond, a 
 grateful recollection of this clear-headed, broad- 
 minded, great-hearted man." 
 
 A Glimpse of the Earlier Days 
 
 Daniel W. Mc Williams 
 
 "It is with gratitude that I record some facts about 
 him, to whom I am indebted for some of the most 
 sacred and helpful experiences of my life. Beginning 
 a residence in Peoria, 111., in March, 1861, a few days 
 before the opening of the Civil War, we soon began 
 
HIS APPEAL 69 
 
 to hear of the consecration and intensely practical 
 earnestness in which Mr. Moody was conducting 
 Christian work in Chicago. 
 
 ** The war was upon us. The mind of the whole 
 nation was tense. Many turned to God in prayer. 
 Christian leadership was soon to have an enlargement 
 unequalled in the history of the world. A new Chris- 
 tian nation was to be born. Devoted ministers (one 
 of them the father of Rev. Dr. Hibben, President of 
 Princeton University) and earnest laymen were en- 
 listed in Peoria and there were tokens of blessing. 
 Visitors went to Chicago and brought back accounts 
 of Mr. Moody's methods. A Peoria banker invited 
 some ministers and laymen to his house to meet Mr. 
 Moody at dinner. Mr. Moody was late in appearing 
 — the delay was caused by a private interview up-stairs 
 sought by Mr. Moody in an endeavour to lead a well- 
 known unconverted man to accept Jesus Christ as his 
 personal Saviour. The two great impressions con- 
 cerning Mr. Moody, made that day upon every per- 
 son present (and only one had ever before met Mr. 
 Moody), was his earnestness in seeking to lead per- 
 sons to the Saviour and his intense thirst for the 
 knowledge of the Bible, for the entire dinner time 
 was taken by Mr. Moody in quoting verses and in 
 asking the ministers to tell him, * What does this 
 verse mean ? ' It was a dinner-exposition of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 " In the winter after the Chicago fire, Mr. Moody 
 and his family visited Brooklyn, N. Y. The Lafay- 
 ette Avenue Presbyterian Church (Rev. Theodore L. 
 Cuyler, D. D., pastor) had raised ^40,000 as its por- 
 
60 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 tion of the Memorial Fund of ;^3, 000,000 of the 
 Presbyterian Church to signalize its thanksgiving for 
 the reuniting of the old and new school branches of 
 that denomination. On visiting the chapel, nearing 
 completion, he said that he would like to preach there, 
 and the meetings began. Services were held twice 
 each day and proved most instructive and attractive. 
 A woman of large spiritual discernment told Mr. 
 Moody : * In Brooklyn we have the best of preachers. 
 Such men as Dr. Cuyler, Dr. Storrs, Mr. Beecher and 
 others like them. Mr. Moody, it is not more preach- 
 ing which we want but knowledge of the Bible — that is 
 what people need.' " 
 
 A Man with a Calling 
 Bishop John H. Vincenty D. /)., LL. D, 
 
 " I knew Mr. Moody first in 1857. I knew him in 
 Chicago, in California, in London, in Dublin. I knew 
 him in the Sunday-school work, in the Y. M. C. A., 
 in the Christian Commission, and slightly in actual 
 evangelistic services. I knew him on the street, on 
 the railroad, in the parlour, on the public platform, in 
 the sacred silence and service of prayer and Christian 
 fellowship. He was always and everywhere the same 
 straightforward, positive, simple-hearted, loyal and 
 enthusiastic follower of Christ ; courageous, spiritually 
 minded, guileless, consecrated, and indefatigable. I 
 don't wonder that when * earth receded ' heaven 
 * opened,' or that at the last he heard ' God calling' 
 him. He heard God ' call ' long, long ago ; and he 
 loved to obey and follow. Rest, noble servant of the 
 
HIS APPEAL 61 
 
 Most High, rest in the eternal life of communion with 
 thy God." 
 
 Mr. Moody and Students 
 Prof, James Stalker y D. Z)., Aberdeen University 
 
 " Well do I remember the very first meetings of Mr. 
 Moody in Scotland. At the very first evening meeting 
 I attended, Mr. Moody requested me and a companion, 
 who had been pointed out to him as divinity students, 
 to wait and assist at the inquiry meeting ; but we de- 
 clined, having had no experience in such work. On 
 the way home, however, we talked it over and we 
 returned next night to offer our services. After that 
 we assisted regularly. My companion, Mr. Skene, is 
 now professor of Hebrew in the Presbyterian College 
 at Melbourne, Australia. 
 
 " Most of the students of divinity had been going 
 through similar experiences, and before the end of the 
 session they were ready to serve the movement in 
 any way they could. They were sent to many parts 
 of the country to speak of what was happening in 
 Edinburgh, and either prepare for Mr. Moody's coming 
 or visit places to which he was unable to go. The tie 
 binding together those who were thus engaged has 
 survived to the present day. This spring I met in 
 Princeton a Philadelphia minister who had been study- 
 ing in Edinburgh that winter and had taken part in 
 the movement ; since then I had not seen him but 
 once ; but his memories of that marvellous time were 
 as vivid and tender as ever. 
 
 ** Before the college session ended, it became mani- 
 fest that a wide-spread spirit of interest and decision 
 
62 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 among young men was to be one of the features of the 
 revival. Mr. Moody took five of the New College 
 students with him to Glasgow to the first of the great 
 meetings for young men, and he put them all on to 
 speak, while controlling the meeting himself. After 
 the session was over such meetings were multiplied in 
 all directions, the students becoming expert in con- 
 ducting them; and several of the students followed 
 Mr. Moody, with the same object, to Ireland and 
 England. I had soon to give this up through having 
 accepted a call to a church ; but Henry Drummond 
 went on with the work for two years ; and this was the 
 commencement of his world-wide labours as an evangel- 
 ist to young men, especially students. 
 
 ** It was not, I think, by Mr. Moody's intellectual 
 power or his speaking power that students were thus 
 attracted. Prone as students are to criticize, Mr. 
 Moody was even to them above criticism; he was so 
 obviously the servant and instrument of a movement 
 felt to be divine. But students are extremely suscep- 
 tible to the influence of personality ; and this certainly 
 told on them. They felt unconsciously the spiritual 
 stature of the man and the singleness of his purpose. " 
 
 His Enduring Fame 
 Hon, James A. Mount, Ex-Governor of Indiana 
 
 ** Mr. Moody did not preach to please the ear, but 
 to save the soul, yet he moved thousands to repentance 
 by the fervour of his eloquence and the earnestness of 
 his appeal. He had a message from the Holy Spirit 
 to dying men, and with love to God and love to men 
 
HIS APPEAL 63 
 
 he delivered that message. More enduring than if 
 
 perpetuated by marble shaft will be the name of 
 
 Moody, for it is embalmed in the memory of loving 
 
 hearts whom he led out of darkness into light, and 
 
 from the power of sin to salvation through faith in 
 
 Christ." 
 
 ** He being dead yet speaketh." 
 
 So genuine was Mr. Moody's goodness 
 and greatness that even men who disagreed 
 with him in his teaching were constrained to 
 acknowledge the colossal proportions of the 
 man. Thus, The Catholic World said at the 
 time of his death : ** His prevailing qualities 
 were tireless energy, amazing common sense, 
 unquestioning faith, and a human sympathy 
 rarely equalled. These qualities on fire with 
 enthusiasm and marshalled with the brain of 
 a military general made him a powerful leader 
 of men. Protestantism has lost its best 
 apostle and in the death of Mr. Moody there 
 is a conscious halt in its forces." The Out- 
 look summed up Mr. Moody's Hfe thus : " It 
 would be difficult to name any man in the 
 present century who has done so much to 
 give the power of spiritual vision to men who 
 having eyes saw not, having ears heard not, 
 to give hope to men who were living in dull 
 despair or even more fatally, dull self-content, 
 
64 DWIGHT L. MOODY 
 
 and to give that love which is righteousness 
 and that righteousness which is love to man." 
 Neither God nor man will let such a life 
 die. It lives in the appeal which it makes, 
 and will continue to make, in all the years 
 which are to come. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
Princeton Theoloqical Seminary Libraries 
 
 1 1012 01206 0408 
 
 Date Due 
 
>