Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 – December 22, 1899)
Worked in Boston, at age of 18 went to Chicago, where he preached, married and built a mission church, his home, and the YMCA. Emma Moody (1842 - 1903) Born in London England, in 1842, daughter of Fleming Revell and Emma (Manning) Revell. Emma Revell Moody was raised a Baptist and emigrated with her family to Chicago in 1849. She was teaching Sunday School by age 15 and public school by age 17. She met her future husband Dwight L. Moody while taking a class at a mission school where he worked, and soon became a volunteer in his Congregational evangelical organization. They were married in August 1862. Emma accompanied her husband as he traveled and preached (frequently backed by an organist) throughout the country, they had no permanent home until their last years. They had three children Emma Reynolds Moody Fitt (1864-1942). Emma married Arthur Fitt, an associate, in 1894. William Revell Moody (1869-1933) Paul Dwight Moody (1879–1947) In June 1871 at an International Sunday School Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, Dwight Moody met Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908), a gospel singer. Moody was instantly impressed as Sankey demonstrated his ability to enliven an audience rendered soporific by inactivity and overlong prayers by giving an impromptu rendering of the hymn "There is a fountain filled with blood". In October 1871, at the age of 34 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed that mission church, his home, and the YMCA. Moody then travelled to England for meetings in the spring of 1872. Back in the US in October 1872, he linked up in Chicago with Sankey, who by now had moved there. Between 1873 and the summer of 1875, the two of them conducted crusades throughout Great Britain. During the crusades, Moody pioneered many techniques of evangelism: a house-to-house canvass of residents prior to a crusade; an ecumenical approach enlisting cooperation from all local churches and evangelical lay leaders regardless of denominational affiliations; philanthropic support by the business community; the rental of a large, central building; the showcasing of a gospel soloist; and the use of an inquiry room for those wanting to repent. Back in the USA in 1875, he bought the farm and house in Northfield, Massachusetts where his mother and sisters were living. Then, beginning with a rally in his home town, revival meetings were held during the following years in towns and cities the length and breadth of the United States, with excursions over the borders into Canada and Mexico. Meetings in the southern states were subject to racial segregation. Concerning a meeting in Meridian, Mississippi, Sankey noted: "we have one side of the [tabernacle] for blacks. D.L. has them sing alone, sometimes just to show the white people how to sing". With the support of businessmen friends, especially in Boston and other cities in New England, Moody purchased land adjoining his home in Northfield and opened the Northfield Seminary for girls in 1879. Across the nearby Connecticut River he established Mt. Hermon School for boys in 1881. The two secondary academies quickly became known as “The Northfield Schools,” which has remained their formal title to this day. Moody and Sankey visited England again in 1881, and in 1891, both times Sankey overstrained his voice, and had to return to the US. He bought a house in Brooklyn, New York. In 1898, accompanied by family and friends, Sankey traveled to Egypt and Palestine on an extended trip which, on the return journey, included visits to Constantinople, Athens and Rome. In Jerusalem, Sankey ascended the Tower of David, where he sang Psalm 121 to a bemused Ottoman guard. In 1900, following Moody's death, he embarked on his final visit to Britain and addressed a meeting of 20,000 in London, but as the tour progressed his health failed him and he returned to his home in Brooklyn. He managed to complete a book of memoirs, My Life and Sacred Songs, which was published in 1906. Sankey died at Brooklyn on August 13, 1908.
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