“Expecting a Blessing of Unusual Magnitude”

Abstract

Tributes Mother Teresa at her death in September 1997 described her ambivalent feelings about press. Sitting for interviews felt like crucifixion. But she acknowledged that public attention her work with poor of Calcutta aided that work. Dwight L. Moody, bestknown evangelist of nineteenth century, shared her ambivalence. When a New York Herald reporter clamored aboard steamship Spain in early morning of August 14, 1875, with assignment of penning a picture of exhorter following his spectacular success in British he found Moody uninterested in answering personal questions about his voyage or health. Moody emphasized that he was not story; God was. When interrogator, thus chastened, asked Moody where he might minister next, Moody was very glad answer. A conversation followed, with Moody insisting that he was not revivalist who led revivals, despite what press on both sides of Atlantic was now saying. Holy Ghost alone had power revive, Moody told his interviewer, and it was very erroneous report otherwise.' Two days later, Moody arrived at his home in Northfield, Massachusetts, news that Charles Finney had died. The New York Times eulogized 82-year-old ex-president of Oberlin College as the Moody of his day because of great revivals that followed his efforts.2 As living link between Great Awakening of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, Finney was a transitional figure in growing nineteenth-century reliance on man-made spiritually excite slothful. Where Edwards and Whitefield and their contemporaries would have expected God's lead in stirring dry bones of indifferent congregations, Finney, from 1824 onward, preached proper use of all available means in bringing men and women repentance.3 For Moody that meant bringing a businessman's sense of organization and marketing bear on Gilded Age audiences who otherwise might be unmoved by gospel. That strategy, first in evidence during Great British Revival of 1873-1875, made felicitous use of mass media in promoting civic spectacles and citywide crusades that socially sanctioned his purposes in evangelism. The publicity that Moody so assiduously sought for God's work helped transform former shoe salesman with a fourth-grade education into God's man for Gilded Age. In attempting draw attention the work of spirit in bringing revival, he also attracted press attention himself, becoming a celebrity evangelist, perhaps nation's first, but certainly not its last.4 This article analyzes techniques of Moody's mass-mediated revival work in Britain and consequences that flowed from it. Moody's recognition that engine of mass communication could be used in service of Christ's coming kingdom makes him an important subject for journalism historians. This examination of links of media and mass evangelism offers a new area of inquiry for historians who have recently begun examining cultural and social significance of religious reporting in daily press.5 Moody's unexpected celebrity placed him at center of Gilded Age's media gaze and anticipates twentiethcentury tendency look human agency in reporting what Moody would have recognized as moving of spirit. Moody saw crowds and anxious inquirers as a sacred assembly and a certain sign of God's favor on his labors. The secular press would read Moody's success quite differently, attributing his powers of persuasion long lines of those eager be in his presence. The excitement could hardly have been anticipated by anyone who knew largely anonymous layman as he embarked on his solemn mission to win ten thousand British souls for Christ.6 By time he returned New York, he was afforded celebrity status by dockside reporters who pressed in chronicle man's coming, cite his many sayings, and promote his tales of past triumphs and plans for future adventures. …