Lessons from the life and death of D.L. Moody

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Lessons from
Life and Death o

D. L. MOODY

BY

Rev. R. a. .ITORREY

Superintendent of the Bible Institute
Chicago

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

Publishers of Evangelical Literature

Copyright, igoo

BY

Fleming H. Revell Company.

Lessons From the Life and Death of
D. L. Moody

" By the grace of God I am what I am : and His
grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain ;
but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet
not I, but the grace of God which was with me." —
I Cor. XV. lo.

This passage of Scripture sums up the
life of the Apostle Paul in a single sen-
tence. It also sums up, describes, ex-
plains and interprets the life of D. L.
Moody. Mr. Moody differed in many
notable respects from any other man of
the century. This verse explains wherein
he differed and why he differed. He has
labored more than we all, and accom-
plished more than we all; but it was al-
together the grace of God that made him
to differ. The grace of God bestowed
upon him "was not in vain." He let
grace have its perfect work. The grace
bestowed upon us is often in vain. We
will not accept it in its fullness and let it
work out its glorious consummation.
3

4 Lessons From the Life

The life and death of Mr. Moody are
full of lessons. Lessons that it would
take volumes to fully recount. We must
confine ourselves to some of those that
are most striking and fundamental.

I. The first lesson is the great possi-
bilities that are open through the grace of
God, to a poor, uneducated, and spiritu-
ally unpromising boy. His parents were
poor; his father a country stone mason
with seven children. All his property
consisted of a plain little house, with one
or two acres of poor land, and this mort-
gaged. When the oldest child was but
thirteen and Dwight only four, the father
suddenly died. The widow was left
with seven children to support, and the
mortgaged home. A month after the fa-
ther's death, two more children were
born. It was a life of hard toil and little
promise that D. L. Moody faced from
early boyhood. He had meagre oppor-
tunities for education, and did not take

and Death of D. L. Moody 5

to what little he had. Furthermore he
was not a spiritually minded boy. When
he offered himself for church member-
ship in Boston at eighteen years of age,
he was refused immediate admission to
the church. The pastor and church have
been criticised and laughed at for this,
but the pastor and church were right, for
he knew so little about salvation, that
when the question was put to him
"What has Christ done for us all, for
you, which entitles Him to our love," his
reply was "I do not know. I think
Christ has done a good deal for us, but I
do not think of anything particular as I
know of." But the church while hold-
ing him back, did not cast him off nor
neglect him. It appointed a committee
of two to watch over him with kindness
and teach him the way of God more per-
fectly. But this poor boy, poorly edu-
cated, poor in spiritual promise, became
the mightiest religious leader of the cen-

6 Lessons From the Life

tury; and I think it may be added the
greatest man of the century; for when
the fame and influence of our great gen-
erals, great statesmen, great authors, and
great scholars have been forgotten, his
fame and influence, and thank God his
influence more than his fame, will not be
^forgotten, but will live on.

2. The second lesson is the impor-
tance of personal work. Young Moody
was not converted by a great sermon,
but by the quiet personal work of a lay-
man— his Sunday-school teacher. Have
many sermons been preached in this cen-
tury that have wrought so much, if we
look at ultimate results, as the personal
dealing of this Sunday-school teacher ?
Let Sunday-school teachers take courage.

The importance of personal work is
taught not only by Mr. Moody's conver-
sion, but also by his life work. It was
by untiring effort as a personal tvorker,
on the street, in the store, in hotels, in

and Death of D. L. Moody 7

saloons, on the cars, everywhere, that
Mr. Moody learned to be a mighty worker
for Christ.

3. The third lesson that we should
learn from the life of Mr. Moody is the
power of persistence. As we have al-
ready seen, Mr. Moody had little promise
when he started, but he had one thing
that always has large promise in it. He
had the habit of keeping at anything
he undertook, until he accomplished it.
Nothing ever discouraged him. At the
outset everything was against him as a
public speaker. His grammar was very
bad; his sentences were hard to under-
stand. He had not much to say that
was worth listening to. But he was
sure that God had called him to speak,
and so, though people of good sense ad-
vised him to keep still, he kept on talk-
ing until he could get more hearers, and
more deeply interested hearers, and more
responsive hearers than any man of his

8 Lessons From the Life

day. During the last meetings of his
life, he spoke to an audience of 12,000
people, and many thousands were turned
away who could not get in. In the
truest sense, he was without question
the greatest orator of our day.

His persistence was shown also in his
getting a place for himself in Sunday-
school work. He was not wanted; but
he kept pegging away, until he not only
had a great Sunday-school himself, but
largely revolutionized the Sunday-school
methods of the world.

He had hard work to get recognition
among Christians. He was at one pe-
riod called "crazy Moody," later he was
the target of the most bare-faced and
outrageous falsehood. The first thing I
ever heard about Mr. Moody was a lie,
which I took for granted was true.
When he began his great work in
London, it was reported that he and
Sankey were sent there by a firm of

and Death of D. L. Moody 9

organ makers at a salary of five hundred
pounds per year. One of the leading
dailies in New York City stated in an
editorial, June 22d, 1875: "We are
credibly informed that Messrs. Moody
and Sankey were sent to England by
Mr. Barnum as a matter of speculation."
This lying never stopped. A number of
falsehoods have appeared in religious
and secular papers within a year. Some
of them since his death; of his great
wealth, and of the pecuniary demands
he made wherever he held meetings. I
know from positive personal knowledge,
these statements to be absolutely false.
But in spite of all this opposition and
falsehood, Mr. Moody went right on to
the goal without being embittered. He
said to me one day last summer, "We
will let others do the talking and try and
keep right with God and go ahead."

4. The fourth lesson from Mr.
Moody's life is the power of a consum-

id Lessons From the Life

ing passion for souls. Very soon after
his conversion, Mr. Moody became bur-
dened for the salvation of others, and in
season and out of season, gave himself up
to the work of bringing men to Christ.
He would speak to them in all sorts of
places and at all hours of the day and
night about their soul's interest. He was
often reproached for his indiscretion in
this matter, but not infrequently in the
very case where he was told that he
had done more harm than good, those
spoken to afterward accepted Christ, and
dated their conviction to Mr. Moody's
unseasonable importunities. He was at
it and always at it. He could not pass a
crowd of men without wishing to preach
to them the gospel. Riding through a
dense crowd with him in Chicago when
the mayor. Carter Harrison, lay in state in
the Court House, he turned suddenly to
me and said, "Torrey, this will not do,
we must preach to these men." One of

and Death of D. L. Moody 1 1

the opera houses across the way was
immediately secured, and all-day meet-
ings began.

Whoever came to speak to him in his
office, reporters, and strangers of all
kinds, were pretty sure to be approached
on the subject of their soul's salvation
before he got through with them.

There is nothing that has so stirred
my heart in reviewing the facts of his
life, and brought to me such condemna-
tion for neglect of opportunities, as this
constant overwhelming burden for souls
that always possessed Mr. Moody.

3. The fifth great lesson taught by
his life, is the power of the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Holy Spirit was illus-
trated in many ways in his life.

(i) The power of the Holy Spirit
was shown in his conversion. Mr.
Moody did not take naturally to religious
things or to orthodoxy. He went to an
orthodox Sunday-school and church be-

12 Lessons From the Life

cause his uncle demanded it as a condi-
tion of giving him a position. He dis-
liked the church and disliked the school.
But at last the Holy Spirit began to work
in his heart. How thorough was his
conversion, though it was slow. Who-
ever had an intenser and deeper love for
the Sunday-school and for the church
than he came to have ? It was the Holy
Spirit who wrought the change. His
Sunday-school teacher and Rev. Dr. Ed-
ward N. Kirk were only instruments
whom the Holy Spirit used.

(2) The power of the Holy Spirit was
shown again in the transformation of his
character, and in its development into
its present strength and beauty. Many
chapters could be written on Mr.
Moody's singular tender-heartedness,
abounding sympathy, unconquerable
charity, almost matchless humility, un-
daunted courage, absolute freedom from
the love of money and the praise of men,

and Death of D. L. Moody 13

Intense hatred of sham, consideration for
his fellow-men, consuming passion for
souls, overflowing joyfulness and hope,
and all the other elements of strength
and beauty in his many sided character.
None of these things were natural to Mr.
Moody; they were all the Holy Spirit's
work. They were the work of Him
whose fruit is " love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance."

(3) The power of the Spirit was seen
again in the Spiritual illumination that
came to him. We have seen that Mr.
Moody was not naturally bright, but
very dull in his spiritual perceptions; but
to what a clearness and depth of spir-
itual perception he attained. It was
wonderful. Oftentimes has he taken us
all with him as he described the beauties
and wonders and glories that he saw in
the word of God and in the Christ. It
was the Holy Spirit that taught him

14 Lessons From the Life

these things, — the same Holy Spirit who
is willing to be your teacher and mine.

(4) The power of the Spirit was seen
again in his effective service. " What is
the secret of that man's success," many
have asked me. One of the easiest ques-
tions that could be asked. He had power.
But where did he get that strange power
by which he swayed the affections and
wills of men ? He knew, and we may
all know. It was the Holy Ghost upon
him. It was Christ's own promise real-
ized,— **Ye shall receive power after that
the Holy Ghost is come upon you."
(Acts i. 18.) Mr. Moody did not always
have that power. It came at a definite
time in his life and in a definite way.
Two women came to him and said,
**We are praying for you." He was a
little vexed, and asked why they were
praying for him, why ihey did not pray
for the unsaved. They replied — **we
are praying that you may have the

and Death of D. L. Moody 15

power." These words sank deep into
his heart, and there came a time when
God interpreted the message. He went
to these women to pray with him and
fairly rolled on the floor in an agony of
desire and prayer. Then he went alone
with God, and shut himself in to wait
upon God, and after a very definite ex-
perience with the Holy Spirit, he entered
into the life of power. When you and I
have listened to his words, oftentimes
they have seemed quite ordinary, yet
they have impressed us as the words of
almost no other man. What did it
mean ? They were uttered in the power
of the Holy Ghost. The last public
words that Mr. Moody ever spoke in the
Bible Institute, were about this experi-
ence, and the possibility of every Chris-
tian having it, and our responsibility to
have it.

6. The sixth lesson from Mr. Moody's
life is the power of the Bible when fully

i6 Lessons From the Life

believed, patiently studied and faithfully
preached. What an unanswerable dem-
onstration of the power of the Bible there
was in the life, and in the death too, of
Mr. Moody!

We see demonstrated in him what a
power there is in the Bible to draw men.
There are those who fancy that one must
take up topics and truth outside the Bible
if he is to draw and hold the crowds. I
hear it constantly said, ** If you are going
to draw and hold the masses, you must
give them something beside the hack-
neyed truth; you must give them some-
thing fresh and new." But who else
in our day has drawn and held such
crowds to the very last as has Mr.
Moody. And these crowds were com-
posed of all classes; rich and poor,
scholars, men of science, statesmen,
noblemen, students, uneducated men and
women, thieves, harlots, murderers,
criminals of all sorts, absolutely all

and Death of D. L. Moody 17

classes, and what had he to give them ? —
absolutely nothing but the Bible. Noth-
ing else draws like that.

But we see demonstrated in him not
only the power of the Bible to draw men,
but something higher far; the power of
the Bible to save men. He not only drew
vast audiences to hear, but thousands,
ten of thousands, hundreds of thousands
have gone away from hearing him saved.
Saved by the power of this book. Some
wise, advanced, philosophical, and very
self-sufficient preachers have laughed
at Mr. Moody's narrowness and his
medisevalism; but let them point to
results one hundredth part as beneficent
as those that accompanied his "narrow
and antiquated preaching," or else keep
still, unless they are desirous of making
themselves the laughing stock of all men
of sense.

The Word of God had such power in
Mr. Moody's hands, first, because he thor-

i8 Lessons From the Life

oughly believed it from end to end. The
time other men spent in picking it to
pieces, he spent in feeding upon it. The
difference between Mr. Moody and many
a college and seminary bred preacher, is
the difference between the man who eats
a good dinner and the man who criticises
it, and tries to display his knowedge of
cookery.

(i) He not only believed the Bible;
he studied it. There are many who be-
lieve theoretically that the Bible is the
word of God, but they do not dig into it.
Mr. Moody did. It has been said that
Mr. Moody was not a student, but he
was a student, a student of one book,
and that book more worthy of study than
all other books put together — the Bible.
If he had not been a student of the Bible
he never would have become what he
was.

(2) But he not only believed the Bible
and studied the Bible, he preached it —

and Death of D. L. Moody 19

in season and out of season, on all pos-
sible occasions, to large crowds and to a
single hearer. He was ever pouring forth
Bible truth.

7. The seventh lesson from his life is
the power of prayer. Mr. Moody be-
lieved in a God who answers prayer; and
his life was a constant demonstration
that his faith was true. It was prayer
that made the obscure man noted.

After the Chicago fire he went to Lon-
don to rest, and to learn from the Bible
scholars there. He had no intention of
preaching. One Sunday morning he was
persuaded to preach in a church in Lon-
don. Everything about the service
dragged. He wished that he had never
consented to preach. There was a
woman in the city who had heard of Mr.
Moody's work in America, and had been
asking God to send him to London.
This woman was an invalid. Her sister
was present at the church that Sunday

20 Lessons From the Life

morning. When this hearer reached
home she asked her sister to guess who
had spoken for them that morning. She
made one guess after another of those
with whom her pastor was in the habit
of exchanging, and then gave it up. Her
sister said *'No, Mr. Moody from Chi-
cago." The sick woman turned pale and
said "This is an answer to my prayer,
(f I had known that he was to be at our
church, I should have eaten nothing this
morning, but waited on God in prayer.
Leave me alone this afternoon; do not
let any one come to see me; do not send
me anything to eat." All that afternoon
this woman gave herself to prayer. As
Mr. Moody preached that night, he soon
became conscious that there was a differ-
ent atmosphere in the church. "The
powers of an unseen world seemed to
fall" upon him and his hearers. As he
drew to a close he felt impressed to give
out an invitation, He asked for all who

and Death of D. L. Moody 2 1

would accept Christ to rise. Four or five
hundred people rose. He thought it
must be that they misunderstood him,
and put the question several ways that
there might be no mistake. But no, they
had understood. He then asked them to
go to an adjoining room. As they passed
out, he asked the pastor of the church
who these people were. He replied: "I
do not know." "Are they your peo-
ple.^" "Some of them." "Are they
Christians.^" "I do not think so." In
that adjoining room he put the question
very strongly, but still there were just as
many who rose. He told them to meet
their pastor the next night. Next day he
left for Dublin, but no sooner had he
reached there than he received a telegram
from the pastor saying that he must re-
turn and help him, as a great revival had
broken out and there were more out the
second night than the first. Hundreds
were added to the church at the time.

22 Lessons From the Life

That was the beginning of his work as
an international evangelist.

Few men have had so many people
praying for them, and to that fact much
of his success was due. Many are say-
ing, "We shall never have another
Moody"; but we shall, in everything
that is essential, if as many people take
to praying as earnestly for some other
man. The great Scotch, Irish and English
revivals under Mr. Moody in 1873, 1874,
and 1875, were due more to the remark-
able praying to which he moved men
than to the remarkable preaching which
he did himself.

It was by prayer he overcame difficul-
ties. When great and apparently unsur-
mountable difficulties rose in any path he
was pursuing, how often he would say,
" Let us take this to God in prayer." Then
how easily he led us all into God's very
presence and with what mighty power
of simplicity and faith he took hold upon

and Death of D. L. Moody 23

God. Then the difficulty was overcome.
Only last summer great obstacles rose to
projects that were dear to him and me.
One day he drove up to my house and
said, ** 1 want you to ride with me." As
we rode up " Lover's Retreat," we talked
all these things over, and when we
reached a quiet spot he laid down the
lines and said, "now pray." After that
he led in prayer — just took hold of God
in prayer in that way he had, and that
settled the difficulty. The work has
gone on all right. Thus he overcame ob-
stacles by an appeal to Him to whom
"nothing is too hard."

By prayer he got money for the Lord's
work. Some people have an idea that
Mr. Moody "hustled" for money, and
so he did; but his dependence was upon
God, and prayer. God heard him.
During the World's Fair he said one day
as the inner council of workers sat down
to dinner, "We need $7,000.00 for the

24 Lessons From the Life

work to-day, $1,000.00 has come in; I
do not know where the other $6,000.00
is to come from, but we must have it, let
us pray for it before we eat." In simple
trust in God he took the matter to Him
in prayer. We were long at the table
discussing the work. Before the dinner
was over, there came a knock at the door,
a telegram was handed to Mr. Moody
which he opened and read, and then
passed on to me to read to the group. It
read something like this : " D. L. Moody :
your friends have taken up at the close
of this morning's session an offering for
your work in Chicago. $6,000 has been
subscribed, more to follow.

"H. M. Moore."

Mr. Moore has since told me that as
that morning session drew to a close.
Dr. Gordon, who was presiding, said to
him, "I have a feeling that Mr. Moody
needs money for his work in Chicago,

and Death of D. L. Moody 25

what do you think of taking up a collec-
tion ?" He agreed, with the result men-
tioned. That opportune feeling must
have come to Dr. Gordon about the time
that we knelt in prayer in Chicago.

One day last summer Mr. Moody
found to his surprise that $20,000 was
needed at once for the schools in North-
field and Chicago. He told no one about
it, but went alone with God and prayed,
"Send me this $20,000, and send it in
such a way that I will know that it
comes from Thee." The manner of its
coming was so manifestly from God
that no person with any spiritual per-
ception could doubt for a moment who
sent it. Mr. Moody has received several
millions of dollars for one form of Chris-
tian work and another, and all in answer
to prayer.

8. The eighth lesson from Mr.
Moody's life is the power of faith. Mr.
Moody believed that there was nothing

26 Lessons From the Life

too hard for the Lord; that the Lord
could and would do great things, even
with him, and God did not disappoint
him. He never disappoints one whose
faith is really in Him and not in himself.
Mr. Moody's faith was daring, but the
realization fully met the faith.

9. The ninth lesson is the power of
humility. He loved to quote some one's
saying, *' Faith gets the most, love works
the most, and humility keeps the most."
His own life was a commentary upon
these words. He got much by faith, he
kept it by humility. It would have been
so easy for one rising by such marvellous
strides from utter obscurity to world-
wide renown to become puffed up, but he
never yielded to this temptation. When
I first became acquainted with him
twenty-one years ago, nothing so much
impressed me as his humility. He con-
stantly put himself in the background
and put others forward. So it was to

and Death of D. L. Moody 27

the end. He refused again and again to
speak at Northfield, because he wished
to sit as a learner at the feet of two
young men thirty-three years old. He
was constantly expecting to learn from
other people.

He would not allow his photograph to
be publicly sold, thinking that all this
picture business ministered to vanity, as
it doubtless does. When he held his
last meetings in this city, I noticed that a
student had Mr. Moody's pictures ex-
posed for sale. I knew he would not
like it and went and told him. **What! "
he said excitedly, "go get them away at
once."

He hated all that smacked of boasting.
I once spoke of my health. He stopped
me at once and said very earnestly,
*' Don't boast, don't boast, I never knew
anything but evil to come of it."

How many men whom God has led
out and greatly used in America have

28 Lessons From the Life

become puffed up, and God has had
to lay them aside; but Mr. Moody
was never laid aside. God used him to
the end. Mr. Moody kept low, and the
last four hours of his life were the
mightiest and most glorious of all. The
very gates of Heaven opened so wide for
him to enter, that we too got glimpses
of the beyond, as he passed in.

10. The tenth lesson is the power of
a wholly surrendered life. Mr. Moody
was wholly given up to God. 1 do not
mean that he was a perfect man. He
was not. I have never met a perfect
man, nor do 1 expect to until I see the
Christ. But while he was not perfect,
he was wholly God's. Once when we
were talking upon a subject upon which
we differed widely, he said, **Why,
Torrey, if 1 thought that God told me
to jump out that window, 1 would jump
right out of it at once." I believe he
would. He once said, "It yet remains

and Death of D. L. Moody 29

to be seen what God will do with a man
wholly given up to Him." I doubt if it
altogether remains to be seen. I think
we can see very much of it in Mr.
Moody himself.

II. The eleventh lesson from the life
and death of Mr. Moody is the reality
and nearness of the world beyond the
grave. About four hours before his final
falling asleep, Mr. Moody passed within
the gates, and then came back and spoke
a little of what he had seen. He said:
"Earth is receding; Heaven is opening;
God is calling." Later he added, " I have
been within the gates; I have seen the
children's faces." Others have had
similar experiences. Stephen had. Be-
fore he fell asleep he cried, " Behold! I
see the Heavens opened, and the Son of
Man standing on the right hand of God."
Paul also had, when he was "caught up
even to the third heaven," (perhaps when
he was drawn out as dead at Lystra) and

30 Lessons From the Life

"heard unspeakable words which it is
not lawful for a man to utter." Gilbert
Tennant also had, who seemed to die and
then came back and said he had seen
things *' not lawful to utter." The veil
between this world and the other is not
so very thick after all.

12. The last lesson is the power of
faith in God, in Christ, and in the Bible,
to banish all fear of death, and to trans-
form sorrow into rejoicing and triumph.

For four hours Mr. Moody faced death
without a tremor. Nay, he rejoiced in it
and welcomed it. Standing midway in
the stream he said, **No pain, no valley!
Is this death ? It is not bad. It is sweet.
It is bliss." Later he said, "This is glo-
rious. This is my coronation day, I have
long looked forward to it." Later still,
"Don't call me back; God is calling."

It is the testimony of those who were
privileged to stand around that bed, that
his last four hours took all the sting and

and Death of D. L. Moody 31

terror out of death, and that the room
was transformed from the place of
mourning to the chamber of triumph.
As his son Will knelt by his side as he
sank, he could not find it in his heart to
call him back. He afterward said to
me, "I did call him back once, but I
could not find it in my heart to do it
again."

And triumphant too, was the scene as
we sat two hours by that open casket in
which that beloved form reposed, and
then lowered it into the grave. O,
blessed gospel that conquers the last
great enemy — death. There is no longer
any enemy left to fear.

How different from the sad scene last
summer when wife and daughter sat
day by day in mute despair by the body
of the great agnostic. What a demon-
stration of the utter emptiness of scep-
ticism, and the all-sufficiency of the
gospel of Jesus Christ.

32 Lessons From the Lite

Shall we not believe in that old book as
we never have believed in it before; study
it as we have never studied it before; be-
lieve in the Holy Ghost as we have never
believed in Him before. Shall we not
pray as we have never prayed before, and
take up the work that Mr. Moody has
laid down, claiming the power that he
claimed, and working with every ounce
of strength that God gives us. until our
summons too shall come. God is saying
to us as He said to Israel when Moses
died : ' * Moody My senant is dead ; now
therefore arise, go into the land which I
do give thee. There shall not any man
be able to stand before thee all the days
of thy life. As I was with Moody so I
will be with thee ; I will not fail thee nor
forsake thee. Have not I commanded
thee ? Be strong and of a good courage.
Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed,
for the Lord thy God is with thee whith-
ersoever thou goest." — Josh, i.1-9.

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REVELL'S POPULAR RELIGIOUS SERIES

Published Weekly, $3.00 per Annum

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-class Matter

Number 245. March 31, 1900