1875-1878 Revival Preparations – US

The Forgotten Revivalist: D.L. Moody and the Engine of 20th-Century Revivals

When historians and theologians compile the great literature of spiritual revival, the name Dwight Lyman Moody is often conspicuously absent.

He is universally acclaimed, of course, but neatly filed under a different category: evangelist. In the popular imagination, Moody is the peerless soul-winner, the plain-spoken preacher who, alongside his song-leader Ira D. Sankey, drew unprecedented crowds and saw tens of thousands make professions of faith. This portrait is accurate yet critically incomplete.

To categorize Moody merely as an evangelist is to see the lightning flash but miss the profound, ground-soaking rain that follows. It is to misunderstand the man and, more importantly, to overlook his monumental role in preparing the soil for the worldwide revivals of the early 20th century.

The common distinction posits that an evangelist focuses on the conversion of the individual, while a revivalist is an agent of corporate spiritual awakening that transforms communities and alters the course of church history. By this definition, Moody’s critics place him in the former camp. Yet, a closer examination of his most intensive period of American ministry, the great urban campaigns from 1875 to 1878, reveals a different story.

Moody was not just collecting decisions; he was building an army. His genius lay not only in the sermon but in the system—a meticulously designed machinery of mobilization, discipleship, and deployment. The thousands of missionaries, evangelists, and pastors who emerged from his influence, filled with a burning passion for the lost, became the very catalysts for the revivals in Wales, Korea, and beyond.

This article will argue that D.L. Moody was, in fact, one of modern history’s most effective revivalists, not because of the momentary fervour he created, but because of the lasting human infrastructure he built – 1000’s of missionaries, evangelists and pastors who caught the fire and passionately employed their lives to fill the earth with the Gospel of our Saviour. It was this that paved the way for the global expansion of evangelical Christianity through the revival that exploded in the early twentieth century..

A Nation in Flux, A Man Transformed

To understand the explosive impact of Moody’s 1875 return to the United States, one must first appreciate the context. He was returning not as a successful Chicago preacher, but as a transatlantic phenomenon.

His two-year campaign across the British Isles (1873-1875) had been a staggering success, shaking the religious establishments of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He came home a spiritual celebrity, his name known in households from New York to San Francisco.

He returned to an America grappling with its own identity. The Gilded Age was in full swing. A decade removed from the Civil War, the nation was experiencing frantic industrialization, massive immigration, and rapid urbanization. With this progress came deep social dislocation: burgeoning slums, rampant political corruption, and a chasm between the new class of industrial magnates and the labouring poor.

The established Protestant churches, often stately and formal, struggled to connect with the masses and address the palpable spiritual hunger of a society in turmoil.

It was into this volatile mix that Moody arrived, armed with a refined methodology and an unimpeachable reputation. The America he set out to evangelize was not the America he had left. It was larger, richer, more complex, and more desperate.

The Blueprint for Mass Evangelism and Revival Preparations

Moody’s campaigns were not spontaneous outpourings; they were masterpieces of strategic planning and logistical precision. His success was not accidental but the result of a replicable blueprint that blended spiritual fervor with organizational genius. This methodology had four essential pillars.

1. Unprecedented Organization

Moody refused to enter a city unless he was invited by a united front of its evangelical pastors. He understood that denominational rivalry was the enemy of city-wide impact.

• Advance Teams: Months before his arrival, teams would organize city-wide prayer meetings, form choirs numbering in the hundreds, and establish committees for finance, publicity, and logistics.

• Neutral Ground: Moody insisted on holding meetings in large, neutral venues rather than churches. In Brooklyn, it was a skating rink; in Philadelphia, a converted freight depot; in New York, P.T. Barnum’s Hippodrome. This removed denominational barriers and made the unchurched feel more welcome. These purpose-built “tabernacles,” often constructed of simple timber, became a hallmark of his campaigns.

• Financial Transparency: In an age of hucksters and spiritual charlatans, Moody was fastidious about finances. He refused personal royalties from the widely popular Sankey hymnbooks, directing all profits to a charitable trust. All campaign finances were handled by a committee of respected local businessmen and were publicly audited, building immense trust.

2. The Power of Song: Moody and Sankey

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Ira D. Sankey to the ministry. The partnership was a perfect fusion of proclamation and pathos. Moody, a man of simple, forceful, and unadorned speech, delivered the sermon. Sankey, with his melodious baritone and portable reed organ, tilled the soil of the heart.

Sankey did not merely lead singing; he told stories through music. His solos, often performed just before Moody’s appeal, were emotionally resonant narratives that encapsulated the Gospel message.

Hymns like “The Ninety and Nine” or “Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By” were, in effect, miniature sermons set to music. The Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs compilations, which he and Philip Bliss edited, became international best-sellers, embedding the theology of the campaigns into the popular culture of the church for generations.

The music prepared the listeners, reinforced the message, and gave them a tangible piece of the experience to take home.

3. The Message: Simple, Direct, and Urgent

Moody’s preaching was a radical departure from the sophisticated, theological oratory of the day. He had only a rudimentary education and spoke with a common man’s grammar and accentBut what he lacked in polish, he made up for in earnestness and clarity. His message was stripped to its essential core, famously summarized as “the three R’s”: Ruin by Sin, Redemption by Christ, and Regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

He rarely preached “hellfire and damnation” in the mold of earlier revivalists. Instead, his central theme was the boundless, pursuing love of God. His sermons were filled with anecdotes and simple illustrations, making the Gospel accessible to children, laborers, and academics alike.

Crucially, every sermon ended with a direct, urgent appeal for an immediate decision. He implored his listeners not to leave the building without settling the matter of their eternal destiny.

4. The Inquiry Room: The Engine of Lasting Change

This was arguably Moody’s greatest innovation and the key to his revivalist legacy. He was deeply unsatisfied with mere emotional responses or a simple show of hands. He knew that a momentary decision could easily fade.

After the main service, those who had been moved by the message were invited to a separate area known as the “inquiry room.” Here, they were met one-on-one by trained personal workers—laypeople from local churches—who would sit down with them, open the scriptures, answer their questions, and pray with them to ensure a genuine understanding and commitment.

This was the critical transition point from anonymous member of a crowd to an individual confessing faith. It provided immediate personal discipleship and, just as importantly, connected the new convert to a local church for ongoing support.

It was in the training and mobilization of these thousands of lay counselors that the seeds of future revival were sown. Moody was teaching ordinary people—shopkeepers, mothers, clerks—that they too could be soul-winners. He was democratizing the Great Commission, turning passive spectators into active participants.

The Great American Campaigns (1875-1878)

Armed with this powerful methodology, Moody and Sankey launched a series of campaigns that would captivate the nation.

• Brooklyn & Philadelphia (1875-1876): Beginning in October 1875, the Brooklyn campaign drew an estimated one million people over three months. The meetings then ran concurrently in Philadelphia, headquartered in a massive temporary structure built on land owned by department store magnate John Wanamaker. The combined attendance was staggering, and the daily press devoted pages to the sermons and stories of conversion.

• New York City (February-April 1876): Taking on the nation’s largest and most cynical city was the ultimate test. They leased the Hippodrome at Madison Avenue and 26th Street, which seated over 10,000. For 65 consecutive days, the building was filled.

The city’s powerful newspapers, including the New York Herald and the New York Tribune, printed his sermons in their entirety, broadcasting his message to millions beyond the reach of his voice.

• Chicago (October 1876-January 1877): This was a deeply personal campaign for Moody. He was returning to the city where he had made his fortune and started his ministry, a city still rebuilding from the Great Fire of 1871. The meetings here were marked by a profound sense of civic and spiritual renewal, consolidating his status as Chicago’s most famous citizen.

• Boston (January-May 1877): The intellectual and Unitarian capital of America presented a different challenge. Here, Moody faced skepticism from the academic and literary elite. Yet, his simple earnestness and clear, Bible-based preaching won over many. Harvard students and faculty attended the meetings, and F. B. Meyer, a prominent British pastor, noted that Moody’s visit “did more to break down the divisive walls of sectarianism than any other single event.”

Smaller but equally impactful campaigns followed in cities like Baltimore, St. Louis, and San Francisco, cementing the movement as a truly national phenomenon. By the end of this period, Moody was arguably the most famous and influential religious figure in the world.

The True Harvest: From Converts to Catalysts

Had Moody’s work ended with the close of these campaigns, he would still be remembered as a great evangelist. But his true, long-term impact—his revivalist legacy—was only just beginning. He was not content with the “sawdust trail.” He was obsessed with the question: “What happens next?” His answer to that question would change the world.

The energy and momentum from the 1875-1878 campaigns were channelled directly into creating institutions designed to train and deploy Christian workers. Moody saw a critical gap: thousands of passionate new converts eager to serve, but with no formal theological education and no pathway into traditional ministry. He decided to create the pathway himself.

• The Northfield Schools: In 1879, he founded the Northfield Seminary for Young Women, followed by the Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1881. His vision was to provide a quality Christian education for underprivileged youth, instilling in them a passion for service.

• The Moody Bible Institute: In 1886, he established the Chicago Bible Institute (later renamed the Moody Bible Institute), a revolutionary concept designed to give laypeople a deep, practical knowledge of the English Bible and train them for all forms of Christian ministry in a fraction of the time of a traditional seminary. MBI became a veritable factory for producing pastors, evangelists, and missionaries with a “Moody-esque” passion and pragmatism.

• The Northfield Conferences: Beginning in the 1880s, Moody hosted summer Bible conferences at his Northfield home, drawing Christian leaders from around the world. It was at a student conference here in 1886 that a pivotal event occurred. Following an impassioned plea for world missions, one hundred university students pledged themselves to serve as foreign missionaries. This group, known as the “Mount Hermon Hundred,” became the nucleus for the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions (SVM).

The SVM swept through college campuses across North America and Europe with the electrifying watchword: “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” Over the next few decades, the SVM would be responsible for sending out over 20,000 career missionaries, arguably the single greatest missionary mobilization in Christian history.

These were the very people who would be on the ground, leading and participating in the great global revivals of the early 20th century. When revival broke out in Korea in 1907, it was SVM missionaries who fanned the flames. When the foundations of the modern Chinese church were laid, it was by those inspired and trained through the movement Moody sparked.

Conclusion: An Architect of Awakening

The evidence compels a re-evaluation of D.L. Moody. He was more than a man who drew crowds; he was a man who built movements. His evangelism was the starting point, not the endgame. The true fruit of his 1875-1878 campaigns was not just the list of converts, but the army of workers he inspired, trained, and unleashed upon the world.

He pioneered a form of revivalism suited for the modern, industrial age—one that was highly organized, interdenominational, lay-driven, and focused on creating permanent structures for discipleship and training. He understood that a true awakening could not be sustained by emotion alone; it required an infrastructure of education and mobilization.

The thousands of graduates from his schools and the tens of thousands of missionaries from the Student Volunteer Movement were the enduring legacy of his ministry. They carried his passion for the lost to every corner of the globe, planting the seeds for spiritual awakenings far from the timber tabernacles where their journey began.

Therefore, to leave D.L. Moody out of the annals of revival is to miss the crucial link between the urban campaigns of the 19th century and the global revivals of the 20th. He was not just a harvester of souls; he was the architect of the harvest. He was the forgotten revivalist whose ministry must be see as ‘Revival Preparations’ for the early 20th century revivals.

For further research

1. Dwight L. Moody – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_L._Moody
2. L. Moody Chronology of Events – Christian Biography Resource. https://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biomoody11.html
3. Dwight L. Moody Was Converted – Church – Christianity.com. https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/dwight-l-moody-was-converted-11630499.html
4. Moody, D[wight] L[yman] (1837-1899) | History of Missiology – Boston University. https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/l-m/moody-dwight-lyman-1837-1899/
5. L. Moody & Boston’s Revival – HIST 530. https://cschonta.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/d-l-moody-bostons-revival/
6. Dwight L. Moody – Christian History Institute. https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/uploaded/50cf79ab726927.41671672.pdf
7. D L Moody Revival 1873-5 – UK Wells. https://ukwells.org/revivalists/d-l-moody-revival-1873-5
8. L. Moody 1837-1899 – Revival Library. https://revival-library.org/heroes/d-l-moody/
9. The Ministry of D.L. Moody. https://www.zionchristianministry.com/publications/books-by-shawn/the-ministry-of-d-l-moody/
10. The Life & Times of D. L. Moody | Christian History Magazine. https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/life-and-times-of-moody
11. Meet Mr. Moody Part 2 – 2ProphetU. https://2prophetu.com/meet-mr-moody-part-2/
12. Revival in New York 1871. https://revival-library.org/histories/1871-revival-in-new-york/
13. Christian History Timeline: Dwight L. Moody and His World. https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/moody-timeline
14. Ira D. Sankey – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_D._Sankey
15. How Moody Changed Revivalism | Christian History Magazine. https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/how-moody-changed-revivalism
16. The Great Moody Boston Evangelistic Campaign The Great Moody …. https://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/inserts/moodybos.pdf
17. February 7 DL Moody’s famous NYC revival starts. https://nycreligion.info/february-7-dl-moodys-famous-nyc-revival-starts-3/
18. The “Ancient” Inquiry Room (Enquiry Room and Praying Through …. https://thegirdedmind.org/2015/07/14/the-ancient-inquiry-room-enquiry-room-and-praying-through/
19. The Enquiry Room by George Soltau – The Inquiry Room. http://inquiryroom.com/the_inquiry_room_by_george_soltau.htm