D.L. smiled as he listened to the kind words. Yes, it was time to go home, but he was glad that he had stayed in England long enough to meet and work with so many wonderful Christian men and women. His first impression of the English as an uninspiring people living in a dreary place had been turned around. While D.L. was quite sure that he would never return to England, he knew that the country would always hold a special place in his heart.
Chapter 10
A Partner
As the train steamed into the Chicago station, D.L. let out a whoop of excitement. He was home again, and waiting on the platform were his mother-in-law and little Emma. His daughter had grown in the nearly six months they were away, yet she still recognized him as he stepped from the train.
Not only was it ideal for D.L. to be back in Chicago, but a wonderful surprise also awaited him and Emma. John Farwell had built a row of fashionable townhouses on State Street and had quietly set one of them aside for D.L. and Emma to live in. While the Moodys were away in England, John had organized with D.L. and Emma’s close friends and supporters to furnish the house from basement to attic. When D.L. walked into the new home for the first time, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Everything imaginable was in the house, from plush carpeting to beds with sheets and blankets, a beautiful dining room table and crockery, silverware and napkins, and a kitchen filled with pots and pans and utensils. Nothing had been overlooked. There were even two life-size portraits hanging on the wall: one of D.L. and the other of Emma. D.L. was speechless. As he walked around the house, he was deeply touched by the generosity of his friends. He tried to offer a few sentences of thanks, but his speech was halting, and tears streamed down his face.
The new house had three bedrooms, one for D.L. and Emma, one for young Emma, and one for Emma’s brother, Fleming, who had asked to board with them while he completed his apprenticeship as a printer.
Things at the Illinois Street Church seemed to have gone well during D.L.’s absence. While D.L. retained the role of superintendent of the church, J. H. Harwood, a student from Chicago Theological Seminary, had been appointed the church’s first full-time pastor the year before, in 1866. As far as D.L. was concerned, J.H. had done an admirable job in keeping the ministry running and growing.
When D.L. returned to Chicago, the new YMCA building on Madison Street was nearing completion. It was the first building to be erected solely for YMCA use in the United States. D.L. made daily inspections of the cavernous five-story structure, encouraging the workers to completion. In his imagination the building had been grand, but in reality it was more than D.L. could take in. The building contained five shops at street level that would be rented out; the largest auditorium in Chicago; a large prayer room that could seat one thousand people; a reading room and library; a forty-two-bed dormitory; and plenty of office space, some of which was to be leased by the Chicago Police and Fire Departments.
Since D.L. had been the driving force behind the building project, it was decided during his absence in England to call the new building Moody Hall. D.L., though, had other ideas.
On September 29, 1867, the new building was officially opened and dedicated. The three-thousand-seat auditorium was packed to capacity with people from all denominations and levels of society. As president of the Chicago YMCA, D.L. took to the podium to make a speech. In the course of his remarks, he challenged his audience:
And now, because we have obeyed Him and gone to work His way, Christ has helped us to build this hall.
But it seems to me the Association has just commenced its work. There are those, indeed, who say we have reached the limit of our power. But we must rally round the Cross; we must attack and capture the whole city for Christ.
When I see young men, by thousands, going in the way of death, I feel like falling at the feet of Jesus, and crying out to Him with prayers and tears to come and save them, and to help us bring them to Him.
His answer to our prayers and His blessing on our work give me faith to believe that a mighty influence is yet to go out from us, that shall extend through this county and every county in the State; through every State in the Union; and finally, crossing the waters, shall help to bring the whole world to God.
We have been on the defensive too long. It is time we went into the conflict with all our might: straight into the enemy’s camp.
Speeches from other dignitaries followed, including a speech by John Farwell, the YMCA vice president and chairman of the building committee, who detailed the cost of the building and how the money raised for it had been spent.
As the dedication service drew to a close, D.L. again took the podium. Raising his voice, he said, “It was the generous subscription of thirty thousand dollars by the chairman of our Building Committee, which purchased this land and gave us at the outset a good hope of all we see tonight. Now, by way of giving honor to whom honor is due, I propose that we name this building Farwell Hall. All in favor say, ‘Aye!’”
A hearty chorus of “ayes” went up from the audience as the new facility came to be called Farwell Hall.
The new facility was put to good use. The midday prayer meeting continued, and sometimes so many people showed up for it that they had to abandon the thousand-seat prayer room for the larger auditorium. Various meetings were also held in the auditorium in the evenings.
Four months later, on January 7, 1868, things took a turn for the worse. Just before the start of the midday prayer meeting, fire broke out in Farwell Hall. It was a blustery day, and a stiff breeze blowing off Lake Michigan fanned the flames. It wasn’t long before the whole building was engulfed in fire. As alarm bells clanged, firemen and bystanders managed to rescue most of the furniture from the building, along with the YMCA records and five hundred books from the library. Even as the fire blazed, D.L. had his mind on rebuilding. As he rushed from the building, he noticed David Borrell, one of the young boarders, heaving a trunk onto his shoulders. “Put it down, Borrell. Throw it away and help me. We want to have a prayer meeting in the Methodist church,” D.L. yelled as he ran past David.
David did as D.L. instructed. Soon the midday prayer meeting had convened at the nearby church. As Farwell Hall burned to the ground, the gathered group, many of them weeping, prayed fervently. Before the meeting was over, participants had pledged thousands of dollars to build a new hall. After the prayer meeting, while firemen doused the smoldering ruins, D.L. began going from business to business to raise more money for the replacement hall. The sympathy of the city flowed freely, and in no time at all, enough money had been pledged to build a replacement Farwell Hall on the foundation of the old one.
Several weeks after the fire at Farwell Hall, D.L. received a letter from Harry Moorehouse saying that he was in New York City and wanted to speak at D.L.’s church. D.L. was surprised, even a little annoyed, to hear from the young man. He hadn’t expected him to come all the way from the British Isles. In response to the letter, he wrote a note to Harry telling him it was good to hear that he was in America and that if he came west, he should pay D.L. a visit. He did not, however, directly invite the Lancashire preacher to speak at the church.
D.L. soon learned how persistent the young man was. Two weeks later he received another letter from Harry, giving the exact dates he would be in Chicago. Because the dates coincided with a convention D.L. was to attend, D.L. told the elders of the church that Harry would be coming during his absence and that they should judge the man. If they thought he was a suitable person to address the church, they should let him address the congregation at the Thursday night meeting. If Harry failed, D.L. would take him off their hands when he got back.
D.L. set off by train to St. Louis for the Missouri Christian Convention. The purpose of the convention was to bring together men and women from all denominations and from opposing sides in the Civil War to build Christian unity among them. When he arrived at the convention, D.L. was nominated to be the chairman of the event. He was kept so busy speaking and leading meetings that he hardly had time to think about what was going on in Chicago.
When he arrived home a week later, D.L. was anxious to find out how Harry Moorehouse had done. After greeting Emma he asked, “How was Moorehouse’s preaching? How do the people like him?”
“They like him very much,” Emma replied.
“Did you hear him?” D.L. inquired.
“Yes. I’ve heard him preach two sermons from John 3:16. As he preaches, he tells sinners that God loves them.”
“Well,” D.L. said, “he is wrong.”
“I think you will agree with him when you hear him,” Emma replied. “He backs up everything he says with the Word of God. You think if a man doesn’t preach as you do, he is wrong.”
“That’s not exactly true,” D.L. wanted to reply, but he decided not to. The problem was not the preaching style but the message. As far as D.L. was concerned, God hated sinners; sinners were bound for hell. God loves those who do His will. And now someone was preaching the opposite in his church.
D.L. accompanied Emma to the service on Saturday night. As the congregation filed in, D.L. noticed something odd—the people were all carrying Bibles. This was something he had never insisted upon.
Harry rose to speak, looking gangly and awkward as he told the congregation to open their Bibles to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Starting with the book of Genesis and ending in Revelation, he directed the congregation to scripture after scripture that illustrated that God loved sinners.
As D.L. sat and listened, he was moved in a way he had never been moved before. Tears welled in his eyes as he listened to Harry explain God’s love for the world. By the end of the sermon, D.L. knew that Harry was right and he was wrong. God didn’t hate sinners; He loved them. Harry had proved it through Scripture. It was a moment of great revelation, one that D.L. knew was a turning point in his life.
The other thing about Harry was that he didn’t preach sermons in the way D.L. was used to. Harry started with a verse, and then moving through his Bible, he used other verses to elaborate on that verse. In short, Harry used the Bible to explain the Bible. D.L.’s method of preaching was a lot more hit and miss. D.L. found a verse he liked, linked it to a good story or two, and then preached.
When Harry had finished speaking, D.L. jumped to the pulpit and announced that Harry would be speaking every night that week. Each night, D.L. was there to listen and marvel at the love of God and the effective way Harry got the message across to his audience.
Over the week D.L. got to know more about Harry. Even though Harry looked only seventeen and was known as the “Boy Preacher,” he was, in fact, twenty-seven years old. He had even less education than D.L. and was an ex-convict and pickpocket. D.L. had to laugh when Harry explained how after he became a Christian he had worn boxing gloves in the street to help him break his pickpocket habit. After his conversion Harry joined the Plymouth Brethren, a denomination known for studying the Bible methodically.
D.L. asked Harry to help him study the Bible and preach as he preached. Day after day Harry sat with D.L. and showed him how to study the Bible, how to follow a theme from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. For D.L. the Bible had always been a textbook, a collection of proof texts from which to construct sermons and harangue sinners. Because he tended to use his Bible in this manner, D.L. had big gaps in his Bible knowledge—gaps that Harry helped him to fill. “It is the Word of God, not our comment upon it, that saves souls,” Harry told him.
