In A Passion for Soul, Lyle Dorsett ¹ combines an artful writing style and exhaustive research with a genuine admiration of his subject to create an inspiring and informative historical biography of Dwight L. Moody. Dorsett shows how growing up fatherless and poor molded Moody, giving him an early desire to succeed in business and forging within him a lifelong concern for the underprivileged. Dorsett enables his reader to view the personal side of Moody as he is converted and later struggles to relinquish his own ambitions for material success in favor of the uncertainty of full-time Christian service.

Moody’s love for Christ elicited in him a genuine love for people, which became the motivation for ministry that drove him and shaped his direction. The Sabbath school he began in “the Sands” (64) district of Chicago is an example which shows Moody’s ministry was motivated by love. Moved by compassion on those he saw unaffected by the church of his day, and possibly because of his own childhood, he had an affinity for the “street urchins” others ignored. The success of his Sabbath school was one of those happy accidents which occurs when individual Christians see a need and respond with Christ’s love. Similarly, Moody responded to the spiritual needs he perceived of the soldiers during the early part of the Civil War (87-92). The soldiers needed to be told of the salvation of Christ, and so, once more, Moody reached out to minister and organized and planned as he went. In both instances his methods changed in response to his increasing understanding of the need and what would work practically. His over-arching goal of sharing Christ’s love with children others had forgotten, and soldiers without hope never subsided.

Dorsett displays the struggle between Dwight Moody’s personality and strong will and the discipling influences of the Holy Spirit. The role of the Holy Spirit in Moody’s life and ministry could easily be overlooked by many modern evangelicals in order to gloss over modern distinctions. Dorsett, however, shows the full range of Moody’s thought and experience with regard to the third person of the Trinity. Moody’s willingness to grow and experience all that he perceived God willed for him is inspiring. Many Christian men today would have allowed their position to prevent them from admitting any personal spiritual need so humbly or so publicly. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, Moody traveled to England without funds or advanced preparations. This campaign changed Moody from a regional figure known in Chicago and national Sunday school circles into an international evangelistic force.

Dorsett’s work has numerous strengths. Among these are the author’s voluntary declaration of his own personal biases, the devotional style with which he approaches his subject, and his careful attention to the eventual methodologies employed by Moody in his work.

The manner in which the writer declares his own biases and points of view in the introduction, earns him credibility with his reader from the outset. By proclaiming forthrightly, “I like Dwight L. Moody” (25), Dorsett shows confidence in his reader’s ability to understand that true objectivity is a constant goal but never a present reality. Also, when Dorsett plainly states that he will examine the role of the “Holy Spirit in Moody’s life” (25), once again he is demonstrating confidence in the ability of his reader to take the story of Dwight L. Moody in its historic religious context, without having Moody artificially removed from the tenor of the time in which he lived.

Secondly, Dorsett writes with a devotional style which leads his reader to reflect upon his or her own personal relationship with Christ. As one views Moody’s struggle with the personal aspects of living out his life for Christ, one must pause and reflect on similar struggles in one’s own life. The reader is motivated over and over again reading how Moody freely gave his own money, attention, and encouragement to others in spite of his often less than hopeful circumstances. Tears well up in the reader’s eye as Moody’s genuine concern for souls comes through page after page. Moody’s desire to have a religious service on the sinking Spree typifies to his selfless concern for the souls of others, as does his determination to preach his final meeting in Kansas City even after it was obvious that his health was failing. Both of these occurrences simply demonstrate the manner which he lived, constantly placing the welfare of others before his own.

A third strength of this work is the attention Dorsett gives to the various methods which Moody employed in his ministerial work. Dorsett points out that Moody was unusually able to see needs and then to adapt his methods to the realities present around him. He demonstrated this skill in his Sabbath school, his organization of evangelistic campaigns, his utilization of Christian books and publications to spread “the work,” and in creating and maintaining Christian schools.

In his Sabbath school Moody gathered the rowdy children, many of which he had bribed with a piece of “maple-sugar candy” (67) or the gift of a shiny cent, into a large group. Gradually, he exposed the children to the discipline of sitting and listening for increasing periods of time. He also utilized music to “calm their spirits” (73), and he allowed a minute of free time. He was able, over time, to break the children into smaller groups where more serious teaching could occur. Moody believed that, “if we make Bible truths interesting — break them up in some shape so that the children can get at them, they will begin to enjoy them” (121-22). Moody’s Sunday school methods proved ingenious.

He also showed his methodological savvy in the manner in which he organized his evangelistic campaigns. Moody made certain that each segment of society was touched while he was campaigning in a city. Through his noontime prayer meetings the community was directed to seek God’s blessing on the meetings. Then, through a question and answer meeting referred to as the “question-drawer” (188), he could listen and come to understand the spiritual concerns of the community. He took great pains to make certain that his meetings maintained a “spirit of nonsectarianism” (191), and he always had sessions which were devoted to encouraging men and women who were exploring the call to Christian service. When he saw needs in a community, Moody would address them. In this way many orphanages and other ministries to the poor were begun. The gospel meeting itself would always include Ira Sankey’s solos and congregational singing with Moody giving a message tailored to non-Christians. The inquiry room was a method Moody utilized with great success. Moody was interested in the care of souls, therefore he took great care in insuring that those who were responding to Christ were given one-on-one attention and counseled without being hurried so that “the Holy Spirit’s nudging’s” (193) could be obeyed in each instance. Southern Baptists have recently begun encouraging the use of counseling rooms during invitations showing, once again, how this method was ahead of its time like so many others of this uneducated, untrained, unordained man.

Another area of Moody’s methodology which Dorsett uncovers is his keen insight into the need for Christian publishing. Although initially reluctant, Moody changed his mind after unauthorized publications appeared, revealing to the evangelist enormous need. Through his brother-in-law Fleming Revell, Dwight Moody began to publish books containing his methods and sermons (331). When he discovered that these works were too expensive to reach the poor, he risked his relationship with Revell and insisted that his books be published in the manner of the dime novels of the time (339) so that the poor could read of the way of salvation. Moody’s vision in getting the word to the masses continues to be one of his greatest achievements.

Finally, Dorsett shows the maturing of Moody’s methods and motivation in his desire, which became more prominent in his later life, to get trained men and women into the work of evangelism in the urban areas of America. Moody saw that the cities were increasingly populated with poor newcomers who did not fit into society at large. The church seemed less and less able (or willing) to reach out to these people. He devised a strategy to “equip people who were not far removed from the lowest economic level themselves for city mission work” (265-66). This desire led him to develop four schools, one in Chicago and three in Northfield. Through these schools he hoped to “get into the field 2 to 3,000 splendid workers” (268).

A final strength of this work is the attention Dorsett gives to Moody’s flaws. He allows the reader to see that often Moody, especially in his youth, assumed that every opportunity was ordained of God. This led him to drive himself, and others, too hard. Ultimately, he was overwhelmed by his own schedule and guilt. Later Moody confessed that “‘pride and selfish ambition’ . . . were the root cause of the malady” (149). These feelings of despair were, for the most part, removed after an encounter with the Holy Spirit in late 1871 (156). However, Dorsett continues to show that, even after this experience, Moody was not perfect. He possessed a “need to control—perhaps a bent toward authoritarianism” (270), with regards to the Chicago church, his schools and boards, and, in some instances, individuals.

This book is a fine example of a religious, historical biography. Ministers and others who are interested in the field of evangelism will find it profitable. Through his manner of life, Dwight L. Moody challenges each of us to aspire, as he did, to be Christians through whom the world can see what God would do with, for, through, in, and by those who are fully and “wholly consecrated to him” (141).

End Notes

1. Dorsett, Lyle W.  A Passion for Souls: The Life of D.L. Moody. Chicago: Moody Press, 1997.  481 pp.