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It was as a successful evangelist in Britain—among (according to The New York Observer) “men who are not emotional or enthusiastic, who are the furthest removed from religious fanaticism”—that D.L. Moody first achieved fame. With his campaigns in 1873 and succeeding years, he was catapulted into the foremost place in the transatlantic revivalist world.

It was an opportune time, for society was changing in broadly parallel ways on the two sides of the Atlantic. Industrialization was gathering force; by 1880 nearly half the American and well over half the British workforces were employed in industry. The ups and downs of the business cycle meant that unemployment, with its attendant misery and discontent, was a serious threat. More strikingly, however, industry had brought prosperity. In both countries real wages roughly doubled between 1860 and 1890. With increased leisure time and improved transport, working people had money to spend on entertainment—in saloons and music halls, billiard parlors and sports grounds. And more of them lived in urban areas—by 1870 a quarter of the American population and already more than half the people of Britain. Chicago and Glasgow—the two cities Moody knew best—experienced a mushroom growth and felt proud of their modernity. Could evangelical religion flourish in the new urban-industrial age as it had in the less-developed past?

It was Moody’s achievement to help ensure the future of evangelicalism by adaptation. Already, before Moody’s rise to prominence, revivalism had been altering its character. Moody observed the direction of change, identified himself with it, organized it, and accelerated it.

Moody’s impact was felt in six key ways.

In the previous generation the greatest revivalists, such as Methodist James Caughey, had commonly confined their ministry to a single denomination. Now the trend was toward interdenominational work. The Young Men’s Christian Association, whose work markedly expanded during the Civil War, existed to combine Christians of different traditions for special forms of mission, particularly in the burgeoning cities. Moody’s early training came from the YMCA, and later on his outreach scrupulously avoided giving offense to any Christian body. In Scotland combined support for Moody’s missions helped to heal the wounds inflicted by forty years of sharp intra-Presbyterian rivalry. It is no exaggeration to see Moody’s work as one of the roots of the ecumenical movement. Men in his circle, of whom John R. Mott is probably the most famous, went on to promote rapprochement between the churches in the twentieth century.

A second trend was toward greater lay participation and leadership—from all social strata—in revivalist activities. Moody was a layman and reinforced the unclerical tone of his campaigns by using halls and theaters rather than churches. Businessmen such as John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia pioneer of department stores, gave him generous support. Higher social groups were penetrated in Britain, where weekends at the home of Lady Ashburton were remembered for Moody’s “energetic croquet.” Yet Moody did not buckle to his superiors. He stubbornly refused to alter his London preaching place even at the request of the redoubtable Lord Shaftesbury. The respectability of Moody’s campaigns—he dropped, for instance, the “anxious seat” for isolating awakened sinners—was as much a matter of his choice as of his patrons’ preferences. Perhaps some working people, whom Moody eagerly wanted to reach, were deterred from attending by the preacher’s association with the elite. Yet Moody was successful in inducing the wealthy to help promote the interests of the gospel.

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