1873-1875 Britain’s Revival Preparation
– how D. L. Moody provided Revival Preparation for the 20th Century Revival
Dwight. L. Moody
The Unlikely Revivalist: How D.L. Moody’s British Campaign Reshaped the Church
In the annals of church history, Dwight Lyman Moody is almost universally remembered as America’s greatest evangelist.
A whirlwind of energy and plain-spoken passion, he is celebrated for winning countless souls to Christ through his mass campaigns. Yet, this label, while accurate, is critically incomplete. By focusing solely on his evangelistic success, many historians, particularly those documenting great spiritual awakenings, have overlooked his more profound identity: that of a revivalist.
He rarely appears in the classic literature of revival, which often prioritizes spontaneous, ecstatic, and seemingly leaderless outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Moody’s work was organized, strategic, and meticulously planned—qualities seemingly at odds with the traditional image of revival.
This oversight is a significant historical misjudgement. The true genius and lasting impact of Moody’s ministry, especially during his pivotal British campaign from 1873 to 1875, was not merely in the conversion of the lost, but in the revitalization of the saved.
He set the existing Church ablaze with a renewed passion for souls, producing thousands of missionaries, evangelists, and pastors who would carry the torch of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. His work was not an isolated event but the crucial preparatory ground-paving for the worldwide revivals of the early 20th century, including the famous Welsh Revival of 1904-1905.
To understand Moody as only an evangelist is to see the harvest but ignore the farmer who cultivated the soil, sowed the seed, and trained an army of harvesters. His British campaign was a revival of the church for the evangelization of the world, making his connection to revival history far more relevant and foundational than has been formerly acknowledged.
The Setting: A Nation in Doubt, A Church in Need
To appreciate the seismic impact of Moody’s arrival, one must understand the spiritual and intellectual climate of Victorian Britain in the early 1870s. The nation was at the apex of its imperial power, yet it was a society wrestling with profound anxieties.
Intellectually, the foundations of faith were being shaken. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) had unleashed a storm of controversy, challenging the literal interpretation of Genesis and, for many, the very authority of the Bible.
From German universities, the wave of “higher criticism” was crashing onto British shores, subjecting the scriptures to literary and historical analysis that sowed seeds of doubt about their divine origin. The intellectual elite were increasingly embracing agnosticism, and the Church often seemed ill-equipped to provide convincing answers.
Socially, the Industrial Revolution had created a society of stark contrasts. Unprecedented wealth existed alongside unimaginable urban squalor. Cities like London, Manchester, and Glasgow were teeming with a vast, unchurched working class, often living in poverty and despair, largely untouched by the formal, middle-class piety of the established Church of England and the various Nonconformist denominations.
The class divide was a chasm that the institutional church struggled to cross.
Spiritually, the Church itself was often formal and cold. While possessing a rich heritage of theology and liturgy, many congregations had lost their evangelistic fire. Services could be dry, intellectual affairs, lacking the warmth and direct appeal necessary to reach the common person.
There was a palpable hunger for a more authentic, heartfelt expression of faith, but a unifying and dynamic force was conspicuously absent. It was into this complex environment of intellectual doubt, social stratification, and spiritual lethargy that two unlikely Americans stepped ashore in 1873.
The Man and His Method: A Revolution in Spiritual Strategy
D.L. Moody was, by all accounts, an improbable candidate to stir the British Isles. He was not a polished, Oxford-educated theologian. He was a former shoe salesman from Chicago with a rudimentary education, a thick American accent, and a grammar that often made academics cringe.
He was blunt, direct, and possessed a businessman’s pragmatic approach to ministry. Accompanying him was his partner, Ira D. Sankey, a gentle soul with a powerful baritone voice and a small reed organ. He was the “sweet singer of the Gospel,” whose hymns would become as instrumental to their success as Moody’s sermons.
Their campaign did not begin auspiciously. The two British pastors who had invited them had both died before their arrival. They landed in Liverpool with no sponsors and few scheduled meetings. Yet, from their humble start in a small chapel in York, a spiritual fire began to spread, fuelled by a methodology that was nothing short of revolutionary. Moody’s genius lay not just in his preaching, but in his organization.
Interdenominational Cooperation
Moody’s first and most unshakeable principle was unity. He refused to conduct a campaign in any city unless he had the public support and active cooperation of the vast majority of local Protestant ministers, from the most formal Anglicans to the most fervent Baptists and Methodists. This was a radical concept in a nation where denominational rivalries were often fierce.
By forcing churches to work together—to form joint committees, pray together, and share resources—he broke down centuries-old walls of suspicion. This unified front presented a powerful witness to the public and created a sense of shared ownership in the campaign.
Meticulous Preparation
Moody believed that while the results were in God’s hands, the preparation was in his. He was a master planner. Months before arriving in a city, an advance team would be dispatched to organize prayer meetings across the region. He insisted on a foundation of prayer, believing it was essential to prepare the spiritual soil.
He meticulously planned every detail, from the construction of massive, temporary halls (or “tabernacles”) to ensure no single church could claim credit, to the training of thousands of local volunteers to serve as ushers, choir members, and, most importantly, personal counsellors.
The Inquiry Room: The Engine of Discipleship
Perhaps Moody’s most significant and lasting innovation was the inquiry room. He was not content with stirring emotions and leaving the results to chance. After every sermon, he would invite those who were moved by the message and wanted to make a decision for Christ to retire to a separate room or hall. There, they would be met by a trained Christian counselor of the same gender.
This accomplished several crucial things:
- Solidified Decisions: It moved individuals from a passive emotional response to an active, verbal commitment.
- Provided Immediate Counsel: It allowed for personal questions to be answered and biblical assurance of salvation to be given on the spot.
- Prevented “Spurious Conversions”: The one-on-one interaction helped filter out those who were merely caught up in the emotion of the moment.
- Connected Converts to Churches: Counsellors would take the name and address of the new convert and ensure they were followed up by a local pastor from a church in their neighborhood.
The inquiry room was the bridge between a public declaration and integration into a local church. It ensured that the “fruit” of the campaign was not left to wither on the vine but was immediately nurtured. This systematic approach to discipleship was a hallmark of his revivalist, rather than purely evangelistic, focus. He wasn’t just collecting decisions; he was building the Church.
The Power of Music and Laity
Ira Sankey’s role cannot be overstated. His solos, sung with simple, heartfelt emotion, prepared the hearts of the vast congregations. Sankey popularized a new style of “gospel song”—simple melodies with deeply personal and theological lyrics. Hymns like “The Ninety and Nine” and “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” became the anthems of the revival.
The congregational singing, led by a massive volunteer choir, created an atmosphere of corporate worship and participation that was profoundly moving and broke through British reserve. By mobilizing thousands of laypeople as singers and counselors, Moody gave ordinary Christians a vital role in the work of the Gospel, reviving their own sense of purpose and ministry.
The Message: The Old, Old Story, Simply Told
In an age of sophisticated scepticism, Moody’s message was startlingly simple and direct. He had no time for ornate rhetoric or philosophical speculation. He preached what he called the “Three R’s”: Ruin by Sin, Redemption by Christ, and Regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
His sermons were filled with anecdotes, illustrations from daily life, and a passionate earnestness that was impossible to ignore. He preached with a Bible in his hand, often thumping it for emphasis, deriving his authority not from a seminary degree but from the sacred text itself.
While he did not shy away from the reality of hell, the overwhelming theme of his preaching was the breathtaking love of God. He would often weep as he spoke of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
This emphasis on love was a soothing balm to a generation accustomed to a stern, distant image of God. He made the Gospel intensely personal.
The question was not about joining a church or adhering to a creed, but about a personal relationship with a living Savior. His sermons almost always concluded with a direct, piercing question: “What shall you do, then, with Jesus who is called the Christ?” He called for an immediate decision, pressing the urgency of the moment upon every listener.
This simple, authoritative, Bible-centered, and love-drenched message cut through class and educational barriers, appealing to university students and factory workers alike.
The Legacy: A Revived Church and a World in View
The immediate results of the 1873-1875 campaign were staggering. For two full years, Moody and Sankey moved through the major cities of the British Isles—Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and London. Shops closed, businesses shut down, and daily life was reoriented around the campaign meetings.
The largest halls and stadiums were filled to overflowing, with crowds estimated in the millions over the entire period. Newspapers, initially cynical, began to report on the phenomenon with awe. Tens of thousands registered decisions for Christ in the inquiry rooms.
But the true revival was seen in the long-term impact on the church. This is where Moody’s role as a revivalist shines brightest.
- A New Generation of Leaders: The campaign electrified university campuses. At Cambridge University, Moody’s ministry was instrumental in the conversion of the famous “Cambridge Seven.” These were seven of the university’s top students and athletes, including the captain of the cricket team and a celebrated oarsman, who renounced promising careers to become missionaries to China.
Their public declaration sent shockwaves through British society and inspired a student missionary movement (the Student Volunteer Movement) that would send over 20,000 young people into global missions over the next few decades.
- Spiritual Awakening in the Church: Pastors and laypeople who participated in the campaigns returned to their home churches on fire. Prayer meetings, moribund for years, were suddenly packed. Churches started their own evangelistic outreaches, modelling them on Moody’s methods. He had not just added members to the Church; he had infused the existing Church with a new heart for the lost.
- The Birth of Institutions: The spiritual energy uncorked by Moody’s campaign led directly to the founding of new institutions aimed at training laypeople for ministry and promoting deeper spiritual life.
The Keswick Convention, a major centre for spiritual teaching that has influenced evangelicalism worldwide, grew directly out of the soil prepared by the Moody-Sankey campaigns. Bible colleges and missionary training centres proliferated.
- Paving the Way for Future Revivals: The thousands of pastors, evangelists, and missionaries who were converted or revitalized under Moody’s ministry became the leaders and foot soldiers of the next generation.
It is no exaggeration to say that when the great Welsh Revival erupted in 1904, it broke out in a spiritual landscape that had been profoundly shaped by Moody’s work three decades earlier. He had rekindled the expectation that God could and would move in power, and he had equipped the church with the passion and methods to cooperate with such a move.
Conclusion: Beyond the Evangelist
To label D.L. Moody as merely an evangelist is to miss the forest for the trees. While he was a master soul-winner, his work in Britain from 1873-1875 was a masterclass in revival. He revived a lethargic church, broke down denominational barriers, mobilized the laity, and inspired a generation to take the Gospel to the world.
He demonstrated that revival need not always be a mysterious, spontaneous flash, but could also be the result of prayerful, consecrated, and strategic organization blessed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
His legacy is not just in the souls that were saved, but in the saviors who were sent. By reviving the British church, he unleashed a wave of evangelistic and missionary fervour that washed over the entire globe and continued to swell for decades. The great revivals of the early 20th century did not appear in a vacuum.
They erupted from ground that was ploughed, seeded, and watered by the tireless work of a former shoe salesman from Chicago, the man who was so much more than an evangelist: he was God’s chosen revivalist for his generation who prepared the soil for the worldwide awakening that was already being prepared.
For further research
How Moody Changed Revivalism | Christian History Magazine, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/how-moody-changed-revivalism
Dwight L. Moody | EBSCO Research Starters, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/dwight-l-moody
The Life and Theology of D. L. Moody (with particular emphasis on his British Campaigns), accessed on September 2, 2025, https://cprc.co.uk/articles/moody/
D L Moody Revival 1873-5 – UK Wells, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://ukwells.org/revivalists/d-l-moody-revival-1873-5
Moody, D[wight] L[yman] (1837-1899) | History of Missiology – Boston University, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/l-m/moody-dwight-lyman-1837-1899/
D.L. Moody’s Story, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://www.moody.edu/about/our-bold-legacy/d-l-moody/
Moody and Sankey in Great Britain, The Gospel Awakening, Dwight …, accessed on September 2, 2025, https://www.biblestudytools.com/classics/moody-gospel-awakening/moody-and-sankey-in-great-britain.html
‘A Goodly Heritage’ (43): Revival with Moody and Sankey (Part 2) | Believer’s Magazine, accessed on September 2, 2025, http://www.believersmagazine.com/bm.php?i=20160803
D. L. Moody – Wikipedia