Trends

"Consecrated Common Sense."

In TIME, July 16, appeared a notice about four great conferences held in various parts of the country. The unprecedented attendance at the Christian Workers' Conference, which opened in East Northfield, Mass., last week, draws attention to the fountainhead of the conference movement in the U. S. This annual conference was started by Dwight L. Moody. It has grown quietly from year to year, until this year over 100 are on the waiting list for accommodations, and the thousand-odd who make up the delegations that pack the auditorium come from the ends of the earth. The Rev. John Hutton, of London, is the most popular preacher this Summer. (Mr. Moody's first successes as an evangelist came in England and Scotland.)

As a boy Moody had been brought up a Unitarian. When he went to Boston, to work in his uncle's shoe store, he got the job only on the condition that he attend a Congregational Church and Sunday school. Even after a year's attendance he was refused admission into this Church because his theology was judged unsound , but later th deacons admitted "the shoe clerk." In 1856 Moody went to Chicago, and became a great success as a traveling shoe salesman. He accumulated $7,000 of the $100,000 on which he had set his heart. Not forgetting his religion, however, he first taught Sunday school, then became superintendent of a small school, which he increased to a membership of 1,500, and which later became the Illinois St. Church in Chicago. After the Civil War he went to England for his wife's health, and there in 1873- 1875 his revivals were attended by unprecedented crowds. His ability to phrase the thoughts of the common man, and to give imaginary conversations between Bible characters and God, created uncommon interest. With all his popularity went deep spirituality, which made him one of the greatest preachers of all time. On his return to the United States, money and gifts showered upon him, and upon his hymn writer, Ira D. Sankey, whose book netted millions . In the use of money Moody showed his famous " consecrated common sense." Himself a man of small education he founded Northfield Seminary for girls and the neighboring school for boys, Mt.Hermon. Both the boys' and the girls' schools give education at half its cost, and provide their students with means of working on the school farms or in their dormitories. Not content to let the school plants lie idle through the Summer, Mr. Moody started the conferences for college students, who meet there in June and July, and for ministers and other Christian workers, who are now holding sessions which are full to overflowing.