Los Angeles daily herald., 1875-06-27
Moody and Sankey.

NsOV0y oIu SothCys
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AS these gentlemen are creating a
sensation in the religious and secular
world by their efforts as evangelists,
we may properly discuss their merits.
Of course they originated in the home
of fsensationalism-Chicago, and the
he progress of Moody from his position
among bankrupt merchants to his
claim of being an evangelist is worthy
of study. SANKEY is not so generally
known as MOODY, and perhaps he is
travelling as a kind of musical foil to
MOoDY's apostolic blows and knocks.
In one of the financial panics in Chi
cago prior to 1850, the firm of which
MOODY was member went down in
the general ruin. Finding himself a
financial and business failure, MOODY
seized the Gospel plank and comfort
ably floated to prominent place in
religious society, under the protecting
care of JOHN V. FARwELL, the A. 7.
STEWART of the dry goods trade OF
the Northwest. For years he did not
make ripple on the pious sea of Chi
cago, but by perseverance and free
use of printers ink MOODY at last be-
came the acknowledged leader of the
Young Mems Christian. Association,
the noon-day prayer meetings, the
Mission Schools, the Christian Com
mission, and the Sanitary Commits,
sion. For long time MooDYs life
was mystery to observant men in
Chicago. A bankrupt, with no capi-
tai, no occupation but talking, with.
out any visible means of support,
Chicago was worried until it discov-
cred that FARwELL was backing the
energetic eXhorter About this time
the Methodist Church Block was the
centre of the religious excitement.
Merchants, lawyers, clerks, politicians
and loafers crowded the lecture room
at noon daily to see brother MOODY
preside. The prayers were limited to
two minutes, and brother MOoDY's S
little bell became as noted as STAN
TONS. If brother SMITH, forgetting
earthly matters, knocked at the
heavenly door thirty seconds
too long, brother MOODY promptly
tapped the bell. A second,
third and fourth tap followed it. If
Brother SMITH failed to note MooDY's
ding-dong, or did the brother seem
oblivious TO all earthly things,
Brother MOODY would start
''Pm but pilgrim"
And then Brother SMITHS heavenly
pilgrimage was over and he sat down.
Taking warning from this, when the
Chairman asked Brother HAwLEY to
pray he would charge him to ''be brief,
brother, our time is limited" When
the hour had been crammed full of
religion of this character, Brother
MOODY would close with the doxolo-
gy, step down to AMBROSE & JACK
SONS restaurant and give about an
hour to their well-prepared cuisine.
In the evening, after supper at the
same fashionable resort, he would re-
pair to the purlieus of Bridgeport,
Blue Island avenue or Chicago ave-
nue. and tell those miserable, poorly
clad and half starved men, women and
children of their moral degradation
and spiritual condemnation, while he
was clad in broad-cloth and feasting
Oh lake bass and fried oysters. In the
mission school on the North side he
offered expensive premiums for new
scholars and great proficiency, and the
school became a kind of religious
race-course, where children from the
slums, novels and dead.falls recited
vast numbers of bible verses and then
returned to their degradation for six
days longer. Finally, by means Of
this mechanical system, the noon-day
prayer meetings in Methodist Church
Block became fam GUS for the brevity
of their prayers, and the Wells street
mission collected a ragged army of
vagrants who responded to MooDY's S
gospel call. Brothers SMITH, JONES
and HAwLEY, In the noon prayer
meetings, always prayed with theil
eyes open, to watch MooDY's little
bell, and when his unctuous hand
touched 1t, the supplication ended
simultaneously and, with a hurried
amen, the brother would drop into his
cold seat, with MooDY's eagle gaze
full on him, murmuring mental con.
gratulations that time had not been
called. At the mission chapel, at the
tap of the bell one thousand children
went through the MOODY drill with
the precision of veterans, and still