The Secret Place of Dwight L. Moody

Dwight Lyman Moody was born on February 5, 1837 in Northfield, Massachusetts, the sixth of nine children. His father died when Dwight was four, leaving the family in want and forcing the children to learn thrift and industry early. As a teenager he left home for Boston to work in his uncle's shoe store. He attended church by agreement with his uncle, but his heart was still unawakened until a quiet Sunday school teacher named Edward Kimball sought him out at the shop. Kimball spoke gently of Christ's love, and in the back room of that store Moody surrendered to the Savior. The new life that began in that simple scene never ceased to expand. He quickly turned his energy to bringing others to Jesus, first among boys in the poorest wards of Boston and then in the fast growing city of Chicago.

When Moody moved to Chicago he discovered that a city can be an open Bible for those who will read its need in prayer. He gathered children from the streets and railroad yards and created a Sunday school where warmth and order replaced neglect and noise. Businessmen and civic leaders came to see this holy experiment and stayed to help. Soon a congregation formed, the Chicago Avenue Church that later took his name. He led city missions, visited prisons, and helped the Young Men's Christian Association reclaim its purpose as a place of prayer and Scripture. During the war he visited soldiers in camps and hospitals and learned to speak the gospel with plain words that reached wounded bodies and weary souls. He had not yet found the full note of power that would mark his later years, but he had found the path that leads to it. It is the path of prayer joined to love for people, especially the poor.

Two quiet women in his congregation began to pray that the Spirit of God would clothe their pastor with power from on high. Moody at first asked them to pray for conversions in his meetings. They said they were praying for him. Their burden unsettled him. He withdrew to seek God with fresh hunger. In 1871 he passed through a deep visitation in which the love of God overwhelmed him and left him with a new tenderness toward the lost and a new liberty in preaching. He spoke afterward of a fresh anointing rather than a new doctrine. Soon after, the Great Chicago Fire swept away his home and his halls. Out of the ashes he resolved never to close a service without calling for immediate decision. He would preach Christ crucified with all his strength and then invite men and women to come while the Spirit strove with their conscience.

In 1873 Moody crossed the Atlantic with the singer and song leader Ira D Sankey. Scotland, Ireland, and England opened their doors and their hearts. Crowds packed halls and theaters. Newspapers recorded the sobering effects on public life. Drunkards sought sobriety. Homes were reconciled. Churches discovered that unity at the prayer meeting is not a luxury but a necessity. The partnership of preacher and singer became a model for a generation. Moody's message was simple and scriptural. Sankey's songs carried biblical truth into memory. When Moody returned to America he brought the same pattern to the largest cities and found the same results. The burden of his heart never changed. He believed that God would visit any city that would humble itself in prayer, magnify Christ in preaching, and gather the churches into a single labor of love.

Back home in Northfield he shaped the remainder of his life around three kindred works that sprang from the same secret place. He founded schools in Northfield and Mount Hermon to give young people a sound education under the Word of God. He launched summer conferences at Northfield that gathered pastors, students, missionaries, and lay workers for prayer, Bible exposition, and the call to global mission. At one of these gatherings in 1886 a band of collegians yielded to the cry that the world must be evangelized in their own generation, a spark that helped ignite the Student Volunteer Movement. And in Chicago he set in motion a training ministry that became the Chicago Evangelization Society and later Moody Bible Institute, a school dedicated to raising workers who love Scripture, evangelize the lost, and serve the church with practical skill and holy zeal.