Young Farm Boy Seeks Employment
Dwight Lyman Moody arrived in Boston in 1854 as a seventeen-year-old farm boy seeking employment. His uncle gave him work at Holton's Shoe Store on one condition: he must attend Mount Vernon Congregational Church. The young Moody found church boring and understood little of what was preached.
Sunday School Teacher's Bold Decision
But there was a Sunday School teacher named Edward Kimball who took notice of the rough young clerk. Kimball later recalled wrestling with whether to approach Moody at work, wondering if it was appropriate. "I determined to speak to him about Christ and about his soul," Kimball wrote, "and I started toward the store. When I got almost to the door I began to wonder whether I ought to go just then, during business hours."
D.L. Moody's Shoe Store Conversion
On Saturday, April 21, 1855, Kimball pushed through his hesitation and walked into the shoe store. He found young Moody in the back, wrapping shoes. Without elaborate preparation, Kimball simply told Moody "how much Christ loved him."
The effect was immediate and transforming. "I was in a new world," Moody later testified. "The birds sang sweeter, the sun shone brighter. I'd never known such peace."
Yet Moody's understanding was so basic that when he applied for church membership, the examining committee was unconvinced of his conversion. They made him wait an entire year before admitting him. But that humble beginning in a shoe store launched one of the most remarkable evangelistic ministries in Christian history.
From Shoe Clerk to World Evangelist
D.L. Moody would go on to preach to more than 100 million people over his lifetime - an extraordinary number for the pre-radio age. He founded the Moody Bible Institute, Moody Church in Chicago, and a publishing house that continues today. All because one Sunday School teacher decided to walk into a shoe store and simply tell a young man how much Christ loved him.
