Here it is!
Here is my new post I know it has been a long time so I would like to get back to it. I am writing an essay for my school essay contest and I would like your feed back on it this should be my Final Draft and if you like it I hope the judges will to! So here is my essay and hope you like it:
The Greatest
Evangelist of
the 19th
century
Dwight L.
Moody was a very strong willed and courageous man. During a time of inventors and
industrialization he stayed focused on his faith in God while trying to focus
others on God, too. During war, he
preached hope and turned men’s gaze to God.
He was a great evangelist and a great man in his day. Even when times got tough Moody stayed with
God.
Dwight L.
Moody was born February 5th 1837 in Northfield, Massachusetts. He had a large family of eight siblings, five
of which were older than him. His parents
were Edwin and Betsy Moody. His father
died when Dwight was four years old and that left his mother to take care of
all the children on her own. Nine
children was a lot for one mother to provide for so, some of the children had
to be sent to other families to work in exchange for their food and room. Dwight was one of the children that had to be
sent away but even in those tough times his mother made sure the children went
to their Unitarian Church. Because of
the poverty he experienced in childhood, Dwight dreamed of becoming a
successful businessman.
As Dwight got
older, he was turned down many times for jobs.
When he was seventeen he went to work in his uncle’s shoe shop in
Boston. However, his uncle held him to a
requirement that he would go to the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon. When Dwight was 18 he converted to
evangelical Christianity after realizing just how much God loved him. This started his evangelical career. By May of 1856 he was accepted as a member of
his church. His previous Sunday school teacher
stated:
"I
can truly say, and in saying it I magnify the infinite grace of God as bestowed
upon him, that I have seen few persons whose minds were spiritually darker than
was his when he came into my Sunday school class; and I think that the
committee of the Mount Vernon Church seldom met an applicant for membership
more unlikely ever to become a Christian of clear and decided views of Gospel
truth, still less to fill any extended sphere of public usefulness." [Wikipedia
Foundation]
Shortly after
gaining membership, Dwight moved to Chicago for better job opportunities. He was very successful but found that his
pull toward religious work was growing stronger. He began serving as a Sunday School teacher,
then later a superintendent of his church.
He became actively involved with the Chicago Young Men’s Christian
Association (YMCA). In 1861 he left his
business and became a fulltime missionary in Chicago. Dwight got married to Emma C. Revell on August
28, 1862. He had a daughter and two
sons. His daughter was named Emma and
his sons were named William and Paul.
During the
time of the civil war Dwight would not enlist in the army because it went
against his conscience. However, as a
missionary of the United States Christian Commission of the YMCA, he spoke to the
soldiers during and after many battles, giving them hope and inspiration. After the war, he returned to his family in
Chicago and continued his work with Sunday school and the YMCA. Dwight’s Sunday school got so big that he had
to build a larger church called The Illinois Street Church using funds from his
supporters.
In 1871
Dwight met Ira D. Sankey, a famous revivalist at that time, and they started
cooperating with each other. Sadly, four
months later in October his house and church were burned down in a terrible
accident. Dwight’s family got out fine but
all he saved was his Bible. After
fundraising, he rebuilt both a second time, only to be burned down again in
another accident a few years later. After the second fire he moved back to where
he had grown up and got a house and church there.
With his
family, and Ira Sankey, Dwight went to the United Kingdom to evangelize. There his reputation grew as a great evangelist
and revivalist. He filled stadiums with 2-4,000
people. He once preached to 15,000-20,000
people in the botanical gardens. Due to
the number of people he reached, he was thought to be the greatest evangelist
of the 19th century. He also
went to Scotland and Ireland, reaching similar numbers of people that he taught
in England. Even being urged to avoid
Ireland, due to the conflict there between Catholics and Protestants, Dwight
still wanted to preach there. A great
revival swept the country because Dwight didn’t care about denomination; he
preached the message of Christ to everyone.
Dwight held
evangelistic meetings that ranged from New York to Chicago and in the United
Kingdom. President Ulysses S. Grant and
some of his cabinet officials attended one of Dwight’s meetings. Even the famous Charles Spurgeon asked Moody
to come talk. When Moody preached in
England through 1873-1875 word got around from Swedish friends about Moody and
he became a well-known name in Sweden. Even though Moody had never been to
Sweden or anywhere in that country, his influence had a great effect and earned
a lot of respect for him in Scandinavian countries. That led to friendships with Swede’s during his
missions.
When Moody
was preaching a sermon on November 16, 1899 he broke down and had to return
home. Although he made it home he died about a month later on December 22. Nobody diagnosed what Moody had but he was
thought to have heart failure. When he
died he was 62 years old and surrounded by his family.
Dwight lived
during the time of the Second Industrial Revolution (or Technical Revolution)
in the United States [Wikipedia Foundation].
During this time, inventors like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, were
creating technology that no one had ever seen before. There was a growing interest in science and
technology to explain the unknown and to improve lives. The fact that Moody was instrumental in
massive revival across many countrys, illustrates why he is known as the
greatest evangelist of the 19th century. He was a very courageous man for what he did
and he should be remembered always.
Work Cited:
Hampton, Vinita, and David W. Bebbington. “Dwight L. Moody.” Christian History | Learn the
History of Christianity & the Church, Christianity Today,
www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/evangelistsandapologists/dwight-l-moody.html.
“D.L. MOODY'S STORY.” D.L. Moody | Moody Bible Institute, D.L. Moody Bible Institute, www.moody.edu/about/our-bold-legacy/d-l-moody/.
“Dwight L. Moody.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Jan. 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_L._Moody.
“Dwight Lyman Moody: Evangelist.” Dwight L. Moody American Evangelist - Christian Biography
Resources,
www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biomoody3.html.
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