Eventually Harry moved on, but he had left an indelible mark on D.L.’s heart and life. D.L. marveled at how wrong he had been in his initial assessment of Harry when they first met in Ireland. Now D.L. spent at least two hours each day, not so much studying the Bible as a collection of texts, but reading it as he would read a regular book, letting the words wash over his heart and mind. His knowledge of the Bible grew, as did the way he preached. Like Harry, he used Scripture to explain Scripture. A constant theme began to run through his sermons—God loves sinners.
In early 1869 the new Farwell Hall was completed, and D.L. thought it better than the original hall. A capacity crowd gathered in the new auditorium for the dedication service and to hear D.L. preach.
Shortly afterward, on March 25, 1869, Emma gave birth to a son, whom they named William Revell Moody. William was tiny, and D.L. was unsure whether he would live, but with careful nursing from Emma and her mother, William began to grow.
In June 1870 D.L. traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, to attend the International Convention of the YMCA. At the convention he was asked to lead the early morning prayer meeting, which he enjoyed, apart from the singing. No one had been assigned to lead the singing at the meeting, which normally was the role of the leader. Since D.L. was partially tone-deaf, he had others lead the singing for him. As the prayer meeting began, someone struck up a hymn. It was a particularly slow hymn, and everyone dragged through it. This bothered D.L. a great deal. In England he had seen the power of singing to move the soul and how effectively singing could be used in partnership with prayer and preaching. But that day the hymn had been sung so badly it moved nothing.
Someone near the front of the group prayed aloud, and then an amazing thing happened. A baritone voice rose in song from the back of the church:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
The words of the hymn rang through the building. D.L. waited for the rest of the gathered crowd to join in the singing, but no one sang a note. This one single voice was mesmerizing. And so the singer finished the hymn alone:
Redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die.
As the prayer meeting continued, D.L. was preoccupied with one thought: That man with the golden baritone voice has to be my partner.
At the end of the prayer meeting, one of the other delegates, the Reverend McMillen, came to the front with the singer. The man was impeccably dressed, with mutton-chop sideburns. “D.L., I would like to introduce Mr. Ira Sankey, who greatly enriched our singing this morning.”
D.L. shook the singer’s hand vigorously. “Where do you come from?” he asked.
“Pennsylvania,” Ira Sankey replied.
D.L. quickly learned that Ira was three years younger than he, was married with one son and another on the way, and was a government official connected with the Internal Revenue Service.
“You will have to give your job up. I’ve been looking for you for eight years!” D.L. blurted.
Ira opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. He tried again. “What do you mean by that?”
“You will have to give up your government position and come with me to Chicago. You’re just the man I’ve been looking for. I want you to come with me. You can do the singing, and I will do the talking,” D.L. explained.
“I’m honored by your proposal, sir, but it’s not something I can accept. I did not come here looking for a change of work. I am well employed by God in my own church, leading the singing and special meetings at the YMCA.”
“But you must come,” D.L. pressed. “You have a gift that the world needs.”
Ira looked flustered. “I will consider the matter if you insist,” he said. “And though I do not think it at all likely, I am willing to pray about it.”
D.L. smiled. “Then the matter is as much as settled,” he said.
As both men left the prayer meeting, D.L. could hardly contain his excitement. He was sure he had finally found a partner. A year or so before, he had worked with a promising young song leader named Phillip Bliss, but Phillip had taken a job at the First Congregational Church and was no longer available to help at the meetings at Farwell Hall.
The following night D.L. held an impromptu street meeting. He sent an invitation for Ira to join him, and at six o’clock that night, Ira showed up with several friends. D.L. borrowed a box from a nearby dry-goods store and pushed it out to the curb. Then he beckoned to Ira. “Come, stand on this and sing something.”
Without hesitating, Ira stepped forward, climbed onto the box, and began singing:
Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb,
And shall I fear to own his cause,
Or blush to speak his name?
As Ira sang, a crowd of workmen on their way home from nearby mills and factories began to gather. When the song ended, D.L. took Ira’s place on the box and preached about not being ashamed to be called a Christian.
The crowd grew so large around the box that it blocked the street. Because D.L. wanted to say more, he invited the listeners to follow him and Ira to the Academy of Music, where the convention was being held. Arm in arm with Ira, D.L. marched down the street singing hymns. For the first time, he felt he was following in the steps of William Booth and his Salvation Army, and he liked the feeling. The crowd followed close behind.
At the Academy of Music, D.L. spoke and prayed first, and Ira finished by singing the hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River?”
At the end of the meeting Ira said to D.L., “I’m deeply affected by the power of your inspiring message, but I have not made up my mind whether I shall join you in Chicago. I will write to you when I have spoken with my wife.”
“Have you ever been to Chicago?” D.L. asked.
“No,” came the reply.
“Then I propose that you come next month and spend a week there with me. We can visit saloons and drinking dens, and together we will bring light to the discouraged and sinful. Then we shall pray and see what God wants you to do.”
Not long after the YMCA convention in Indianapolis, Ira sent word that he was coming to Chicago. He and D.L. worked well together. During this time D.L. learned that Ira was the son of David Sankey, who had been elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1843 and to the U.S. Senate in 1847. Ira’s father was also on the Senate Board of Equalization, was president of the Bank of New Castle, and was the Collector of Internal Revenue for the Twenty-fourth Congressional District. Despite the fact that their upbringings were worlds apart, D.L. was amazed at how well he and Ira understood each other and flowed together.
After his week in Chicago, Ira returned to Pennsylvania. D.L. continued to pray that Ira would join him in ministry. Six months after their initial meeting, Ira quit his job and moved to Chicago. He temporarily left his wife and son in Pennsylvania and took up residence in the new Farwell Hall. The D. L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey partnership had been born.
The two men were soon in high demand. Although they were based in Chicago, D.L. and Ira traveled to meetings all over the country, going as far as California and Maine. In early October 1871 D.L. began a series of Sunday night meetings on the life of Christ. On October 8 Farwell Hall was overflowing with listeners as D.L. preached on the text, “What shall we do with Jesus which is called Christ?”
Normally at the end of a meeting, D.L. would urge listeners to accept Christ on the spot, but this night he concluded his sermon with an unusual challenge: “I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds for a week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the Cross and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.”
As Ira went to the organ for the closing hymn, D.L. had no idea that by next Sunday everything would be different.
Chapter 11
Fire
From his seat on the platform, D.L. watched Ira play the organ and sing the final hymn solo:
Today the Savior calls:
O listen now!
Within these sacred walls
To Jesus bow.
Today the Savior calls:
For refuge fly;
The storm of justice falls,
And death is nigh.
As Ira sang the last verse, his voice was partially drowned out by the commotion drifting in from outside. Fire bells were clanging in the distance, and the hooves of galloping horses beat against the street as they pulled fire engines and pumps past Farwell Hall. Then the great city bell began to toll. D.L. looked at the congregation in front of him. The people were whispering among themselves, and some stood and hurried toward the main doors. As soon as Ira finished singing the closing hymn, D.L. dismissed the meeting. As people streamed out of the building, he and Ira went to the back entrance of the hall, which gave them a good view of the city. The sky to the southwest was glowing red.
“I’ll go and see what can be done,” Ira said, nodding in the direction of the fire.
D.L. reached out and shook Ira’s hand. “Yes, I would love to come with you, but Emma and the children will need me. I fear things will not go well tonight.”
D.L. ran through the dark toward the bridge over the Chicago River. Soon D.L. was holding his hat and squinting against the dust that was being kicked up. He saw sparks flying in the wind and shuddered at the dangerous sight. Before he reached the bridge, he encountered people streaming from their homes into the street, yelling, crying, and staring as house roofs suddenly caught fire.
D.L. raced on. Crossing the bridge, he headed up State Street toward his house and found Emma waiting for him at the door. “The city is doomed, I fear,” he told her. “Nothing will save it now in the face of this wind.”
“What about us? Should I wake the children?” Emma asked.
D.L. shook his head. “Thankfully, we have the river between us. I doubt the fire will cross over. You stay here. I’m going to see what will become of the church. And lock the doors. There will be looters out tonight.”
With that, D.L. hugged his wife and waited until she was safely locked in the house. He set out westward to the church on Illinois Street. As he neared the building, the wind carried thick smoke overhead and the air was hot. The church was still standing. Inside, his secretary, Katherine Abbott, was throwing files into a large canvas bag. D.L. began to help her. When they had packed all of the important papers, D.L. headed back toward his house. Crowds of panicking people pushed past him: men with wheelbarrows filled with books; children screaming and clinging to their mothers; and old couples carried along by the throng. They were all headed out of the city.
Back on State Street, D.L. was relieved to find his house unscathed. The north side of the river appeared to be untouched by the fire to the south. As D.L. approached his house, a policeman assured him that the place was not in danger and expressed the hope that the firefighters were getting the fire under control.
Given the policeman’s assurance that they were in no immediate danger, the Moodys decided to stay put, that is, until the early hours of the morning. D.L. heard a loud knock, hurried downstairs, and opened the front door. Standing before him was another policeman. “Time to go, sir,” he said. “The fire’s out of control and headed this way. Be as quick as you can. The wind is whipping things up.”
D.L. closed the door and raced upstairs to warn Emma. They woke the children, and Emma hurriedly dressed them in two sets of clothing. As D.L. grabbed the old baby carriage and threw some books and family papers into it, he could hear his two-and-a-half-year-old son Willie talking excitedly.
Emma came running down the stairs carrying a pile of clothes. “Get your portrait. We can’t leave that behind!” she said, throwing the clothes into the baby carriage.
Despite the situation, D.L. laughed. “We can’t do that, Emma. Just think. What if I met some of my congregation and they saw me? It wouldn’t do if the only thing I thought worth saving was a portrait of myself!”
“Please,” Emma begged.
