A Great Evangelist

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 39, 16 February 1937, Page 3

A Great Evangelist

CENTENARY OF DWIGHT MOODY REFERENCE FROM FEILDING PULPIT The life of tho great American evangelist, Dwight Lyman Moody, was tho subject of a sermon delivered at the Feilding Methodist Church on Sunday by Rev. J. H. Allen, in commemoration of tho centenary of this vigorous unconventional speaker whose name later became indelibly associated with that •of Ira David Bankey, another outstanding evangelist. Moody was born at Northfield, Massachusetts, on February 5, 1837, and died on December 22, 1899. Taking as his text the words, ‘‘And they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as tho stars for ever and ever,” from tho book of Daniel, Rev {Alien said that Moody was a man with I a wonderful voice and of extraordinary energy. Because ho addressed so many ■ millions of peoplo his personality ling 'cred, and it really seemed as though ho was a man of yesterday, although it was in 1899 that ho died. More remarkable still was his achievement when it was remembered that he had no mark of knowledge about him —nothing but tho equipment of nature and grace. His father was a stono-mason and lived in tho State of Massachusetts, and it was hero that his son grew up and developed in early years. The father died early, leaving his wife with uinv children, tho eldest of whom was only 13. Dwight Moody, it seemed, had inherited his mother’s courage and strength of character and at an early ago he showed a proud determinalTon towards independence. When he was a mero boy he took pride, in the fact of thinking that ho was a man, and thus ho aided his mother. In Boston, Moody first was attracted to Sunday school work, and later, when ho sought entry into the church membership, he was twico refused before being accepted, as it appeared that ho had more zeal than doctrino. Branching out of church membership days he started to build a mission school. It was at this juncture of his life that he gave himself wholly to God, and this was the secret of his life, which led to tho starting of a wonderful ministry. When the civil war broke out ho entered Y.M.C.A. work, and such was hi-j mastery of men that for four years ho was leader of 100 ministers. Moody was undoubtedly an inapirer of souls, for ho held complete sway over gatherings of 10,000 or 12,000, which wus a gift givou to few. It was strange that this man with fuudamon tal ideas should have been tho bosom triend of Henry Drummond, a scientist whose views wero modern and alien to those of Moody; in fact many held , that Drummond wus a hcritic. Yet Moody and Drummond worked with one another in perfect harmony, which ! showed the remarkably fino spirit of judgment and tho deep love of Jesus Christ possessed by this great man. Concluding, Rev. Alien road the following quotation from a book by a present-day American preacher, John R. I Mott, who received inspiration from the life of Moody himself: “Moody moved the greatest universities and the metropolitan world as never befoie in the cause of Christ. If Moody was great iu life, then ho was greater majestically in death, lor I am constrained to believe his work will live in the years to follow.”