The Portland daily press., 1894-05-22
q W n B9 ! 6sas4 -EZ
D. |. MOODY'S MONEY.
The Great Evangelist Derives Enormous
Royalties from the Gospel Hymns-The
First Publishers Visited Would Have
Nothing to Do With 1t.

"Mr. Moody's money. Where does il
come from?" Some people have asked in
connection with his mission work and
his pushing of the Northfield schools.
Fabulous sums have been made by
successful authors through the publi-
cation of their work, but the individual
profits OF the greatest writer or novelist
who ever achieved fame and fortune
would be insignificant to what has been
derived from a little six-by-four book
called Gospel Hymns and Sacred
Songs" by d. MOODY, 2. Bliss and
Ira D. .Sankey. Millions of hands have
turned the. pages,of these little volumes
and millions Of voices have rendered
praise from it. The book has been so
universally used that it has become e
part of the sacred literature of many
countries.
Schools, colleges, churches, homes and
missionary stations have been built
from the royalty receipts of the book,
and still the good work goes on. Pub
fishing firms both in Egland and the
United States have made magnificent
fortunes from the sale of the work, and
the receipts grow larger every year.
The enormous sum of over 81, $50, 600
cash has been paid in royalties to the
interests represented by Mr.. Moody since
the book was first ublished 20 years
ago. The sale Of the hymns is said to
have reached the wonderful total of 90,
000,000 volumes. The price of these
books has ranged from tive cents up to
S1.2 20. but, whatever may be the selling
price, Mr.. Moody has received the uni
torn royalty of 20 per cent. So careful
has he been of his own honor in this
respect that he has always insisted upon
board of trustees handling the money,
and every dollar withdrawn must be
approved and audited. The mem bers of
this board have generally been men of
national note for philanthropy and
Christian integrity.
The history of the building Of Moody
and Sankey's hymn book contains much
that borders upon the idealistlc. 1t is
the story ofthe dream of an enthusiast and
visionary being realized. When Mr..
Moody first associated himself with Mr..
Sankey, % years ago, it was his prayer
night and day that he might find the
means to carry on grand non-sectarian
Christian work by which young men OF
enabled to educate themselves for mis-
sionary evangelical labors.
Mr.. Moody at that time, however, was
himself only struggling and unrecog-
nized worker in the evangelical field,
aud his dream was 80 far from reali-
zation and SO imaginary even to himself
that he spoke of it only to his most inti-
| matd friends. Mr.. .Sankey even declined
to enthuse over the subject, and main
tanned that the most they could hope
to do was to earn fair living. So the
dream, for the time being, was laid a.
way upon the SHELF, where it gathered
cobwebs for several years.
One day, after an unusually crowded
meeting, at which the lack of song fa-
cilitles was decidedly manifest, Mr.. Moody
remarked to MIR. Sankey that he intend
ed to have the hymns collected into a
little book and published. 90, we are
getting along we'll enough" replied
Sankey. ] don't believe that we can get
any publisher to take hold of them,
and we haven't got the money ourselves
to do anything with them."
"Well there is nothing like trying"
| answered Mr.. Moody, and try he he did
Buttoning his coat determinedly Mr..
Moody went forth into big London town
poor, unknown and comparatively friend
less. He was on the greates5 journey of
his life but he didn't know it. Mr.
Moody made the weary rounds OF the
big and successful publishing houses,
but they would have none of his scheme.