The men decided that the best way to maintain the evangelistic momentum D.L. had built up in the city was to purchase a large tent. This gospel tent was eighty feet in diameter and could be pitched in various locations around the city. It would be manned around the clock by groups of assistants who would hold evangelism meetings in the tent and would be available for counsel any time of the day or night. The first location for the gospel tent was a notorious area of the city known as “Little Hell.” In the winter, when the biting Chicago weather made the tent impractical, the meetings would be held in churches.
After he returned to Northfield, D.L. continued to receive good reports about the work of the Chicago Evangelization Society. Not only were many people coming to Christ as a result of the gospel tent, but the volunteers who manned the tent were also getting thorough Bible training from talented pastors and teachers in what were being called Bible institutes.
In May 1889 D.L. was back in Chicago to speak at a conference. He also taught at one of the Chicago Evangelization Society’s Bible institutes that was now being held in the Chicago Avenue Church. D.L. had expected to find perhaps thirty people at the Bible institute, but when he arrived at the church, two hundred young people were eagerly awaiting his presentation. Immediately D.L. could see the need for a more established Bible institute in the city. Once again he approached his old friends for support, and the Chicago Bible Institute was formed.
Land and buildings next door to the Chicago Avenue Church were quickly purchased for the new institute. The existing buildings were fitted out as dormitories, and a three-story brick building was erected to provide classrooms and study rooms. The Chicago Bible Institute formally opened on September 26, 1889. The Reverend Reuben Archer (R. A.) Torrey was appointed superintendent of the new Bible institute. He was a graduate of Yale University and Seminary and was a practical Bible teacher. D.L. left Chicago confident that the new Chicago Bible Institute was in the hands of a very competent leader.
During the summer conference at Northfield in 1891, D.L. was presented with a very distinctive invitation to again visit Scotland. The invitation came in the form of a long scroll containing twenty-five hundred signatures, representing fifty Scottish cities and towns and all the churches in Scotland. D.L. was unsure when he could make a return visit to Scotland, since at that time he was planning a trip to India with his family and Ira.
The group set out for India in early November, but by the time they reached London, D.L. was not feeling particularly well. While in London, he consulted a doctor, who, along with a number of British friends, dissuaded him from going on to India. Because of the heat and disease in India, the doctor feared that D.L. might have a stroke. As it was, the doctor noted an irregularity in the function of D.L.’s heart and recommended that he see a specialist. Following the doctor’s advice, D.L. visited Sir Andrew Clarke, one of England’s foremost authorities on the heart. Sir Andrew confirmed the first doctor’s diagnosis and suggested that D.L. take things a little easier. When he inquired as to how many times D.L. preached, D.L. replied that he usually preached three times a day, five days a week, and four times on Sunday. Sir Andrew was flabbergasted at D.L.’s workload and suggested that he cut back significantly. “I take Saturday to rest,” was D.L.’s reply.
Since it was unwise for him to go on to India, and now that he was back in the British Isles, D.L. decided to take up the invitation to visit Scotland. He conferred with surprised clergymen in Edinburgh, and on November 23, 1891, he and Ira set out on a tour through Scotland, preaching and singing wherever they went. Despite being told of a heart condition and that he should slow down, D.L. set a furious pace. In ninety days in Scotland he and Ira visited and preached in ninety-nine places.
By the time the tour of Scotland was over, D.L. was ready for a rest, and what better place to rest than the Holy Land? D.L.’s Scottish friends, the McKinnons, invited D.L. and his family to join them on a tour of Palestine. The Moodys traveled overland across Europe to Rome, where they joined the McKinnons. From Rome they took a steamer to Egypt and then traveled on by train to Palestine.
From the start, D.L. enjoyed everything about the Holy Land. He was amazed while walking the streets of Jerusalem, which for so many years he had read about in his Bible. D.L.’s favorite places, though, were the small village of Bethany and the Mount of Olives, to which he returned repeatedly. Perhaps D.L.’s most moving experience in the Holy Land occurred on Easter Sunday, when he preached to a crowd of about three hundred people at Calvary. The experience was deeply emotional, and afterward D.L. thought that he had preached better that day than he had in thirty years.
Following the three-week vacation in the Holy Land, the Moodys returned to the British Isles, where D.L. and Ira picked up their evangelistic campaign again. They traveled around England, holding meetings, and then returned again to Scotland. They also crossed the Irish Sea and held meetings in Dublin and Belfast.
Meanwhile, Emma and young Paul returned to the United States ahead of D.L., leaving Will, now twenty-three years old, to travel home with his father. Will and D.L. set sail from Southampton bound for New York aboard the steamer SS Spree. The journey did not go well. As usual, D.L. suffered from seasickness, but two days into the journey the propeller shaft on the Spree broke, damaging the hull and causing water to flood the aft compartments of the vessel. The ship lay low in the water and was pounded by heavy seas. For a while it was unclear whether or not the vessel would sink, but by using pumps and closing watertight compartments, the captain and crew were able to keep the ship afloat. But the ship was adrift in the cold North Atlantic Ocean and slowly moving away from shipping lanes. The crew regularly fired flares, and after being adrift for three days, the Lake Huron, bound from Montreal to Liverpool, sighted one of the flares and came to the Spree’s rescue. The Lake Huron towed the Spree one thousand miles back across the Atlantic to Queenstown, Ireland.
D.L. was grateful when he once again felt dry land under his feet. In Queenstown D.L. and Will transferred to another ship, the Etruria, for the trip to New York. To D.L.’s great surprise, the experience of nearly sinking on the Spree had cured him of seasickness. He enjoyed the trip back to New York like no other sea voyage he had ever taken, although he was glad to be back in the United States when the Etruria docked in New York. He had quite a tale to tell everyone when he finally arrived in Northfield.
D.L. had no time to slow down. The World’s Colombian Exhibition was to be held in Chicago in five months. To coincide with it, D.L. was planning a large evangelism campaign. To help him prepare for the campaign, D.L. persuaded Percy Fitt, who was training to be a lawyer in Dublin, to give up a year of his university studies and come to the United States to be his personal assistant. When Percy arrived, D.L. kept him busy.
The World’s Colombian Exhibition would bring tens of thousands of people from all over the world to Chicago, and D.L. wanted to preach the gospel to as many of them as possible. He also wanted to reach out to the rest of Chicago. The plan called for public evangelism meetings to be held throughout the city, and many churches and missions in Chicago cooperated closely to make this happen.
When D.L. arrived in Chicago for the campaign, he was amazed by the exhibition complex, or the “White City,” as it was being called. The White City rose beside Lake Michigan on the site near the location of Camp Douglas during the Civil War. The site had changed much from the boggy camp D.L. had come to daily to minister to the troops. But D.L. wasn’t in Chicago to sightsee. He had come to evangelize, and evangelize he did. Day after day he moved around Chicago, preaching in various halls and tents, to which people flocked.
One of the more interesting places where D.L. preached during this time was in Forepaugh’s Circus tent. The tent could seat ten thousand people and was set up on the lakefront. The circus owner agreed to let D.L. rent the tent for Sunday morning meetings since the circus used it for shows in the afternoon and evening. Soon the circus manager had hung a huge banner on the front of the tent. The banner read, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Three Big Shows! Moody in the Morning! Forepaugh in the Afternoon and Evening!”
With the sound of circus animals in the background and with clowns and other circus performers and personnel darting around, D.L. preached to capacity crowds each Sunday morning.
When the World’s Colombian Exhibition wrapped up six months later, D.L. estimated that the message of the gospel had been preached to millions of people, and thousands had given their lives to Christ. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, he had preached multiple times every day except two, and on those two days he had been out of town preaching elsewhere. D.L. was ready to head to Northfield for a rest.
The World’s Colombian Exhibition did produce one very unexpected consequence—two new family members.
Chapter 16
Grandfather
Following the campaign during the World’s Colombian Exhibition, Percy Fitt did not return to his law studies in Dublin. Instead, he stayed on in the United States to marry D.L.’s daughter, Emma Moody. The two had fallen in love during the campaign and were married on May 16, 1894. The marriage ceremony was held in the Northfield church, decked with boughs of apple blossoms. D.L. was delighted to welcome the earnest young Irishman into his family. Percy and Emma’s marriage was followed three months later by a second wedding when Will Moody married May Whittle, the daughter of an old friend and supporter of D.L.’s.
Now that their two oldest children were married, D.L. and Emma looked forward to grandchildren.
Meanwhile, D.L. had plenty to keep him busy. In the fall of 1894 he headed to the West Coast to preach. While there, he decided to give away some Christian books. He called on a local bookstore, but it did not have a single Christian title in stock. When D.L. asked why this was, the bookstore owner told him that people did not buy religious books because they were too expensive. D.L. took that as a challenge. “The price must come down!” he declared.
As he thought about the situation, D.L. realized that the only way the price could be reduced was if Christian books were printed in large print runs. In conjunction with the Chicago Bible Institute, he organized the Colportage Association. D.L. was very selective about which books were mass-produced by the association. The books had to be written by well-known Christians, be strictly nondenominational, and be presented in a popular, readable style. Each physical book had to be well crafted and able to stand up to being handled and read many times. The books that were produced became wildly popular. Soon they spread around the world, and D.L. was obliged to print editions in German, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, and French.
In 1895 two grandchildren were born. Irene was the daughter of Will and May; and Emma IV, the daughter of Emma and Percy. D.L. loved both of his new granddaughters and especially enjoyed taking them for buggy rides through Northfield. He was a very proud grandfather.
Not long after the birth of D.L.’s granddaughters, D.L.’s mother died in February 1896. Betsy Moody had lived to be ninety years old. Although D.L. was sad at his mother’s passing, he thanked God for her strength and courage in bringing up nine children alone. D.L. spoke at Betsy’s funeral, saying, “Friends, it is not a time of mourning. I want you to understand we do not mourn. We are proud that we had such a mother. We have a wonderful legacy left us. What more can I say? You have lived with her, and you know about her. I want to give you one verse, her creed. It was very short.…When everything went against her, this was her stay: ‘My trust is in God.’”
