As a business man he brought
to his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executive
ability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of the
Bible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregarded
form, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelming
and undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was in
a kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to
be effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking,
so that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature is
spoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:
"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not by
its balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquence
of the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals,
and rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos
of a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealing
tenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, not
unseldom, almost to sublimity.
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