Moody In Process Of Development

My first knowledge of Mr. Moody was as a Sunday school worker. Even as such, he was essentially an evangelist as he was in every other line of Christian activity. He never addressed a Sunday school, or convention, or a mass meeting of young people, but that his one object and effort was to lead the unconverted to Christ, and Christians to faithfulness, especially in securing conversions; and there was an intensity about him that secured his ends.

The next form of effort was in conventions—Sunday school conventions. He was called everywhere. He was full of incidents of Sunday school experiences, and that was what told in such gatherings. He was easily the most popular speaker in such conventions in the United States; and those were the days of Ralph Wells, Pardee, Vincent, and Stephen Paxson. His addresses were unlike those of any other speaker. His were of conversions and faithful Christian work. The others were of Sunday school experience and theories.

The next work was Christian convention work. That phase of effort was wholly of Mr. Moody’s originating. He said he had enlarged his borders and his plans. He had great gatherings and great interest, but he had no ally and has had no successor in them. It was a phase of work that was wholly his.

These gatherings made a profound impression. He held them in every large city in this country, and in London, and other places in England, and that led, naturally, to the fourth and great kind of effort that characterized his life, namely that of the evangelist, in which he surpassed almost every other man who ever lived. This part of his life is familiar to everybody.

Then followed his educational and colportage lines of work. All these phases of his activity run into each other, but there is a distinct development of his efforts, a splendid evolution of his life, manifested in these several different forms of labor for Christ. But he was always for Christ and all for Christ. No one can recall his memory and life without experiencing some uplift and inspiration towards a strenuous Christian service.

(Rev. J.H. Harwood was the first Senior Pastor of The Moody Church.)