In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

4 inventor of legends miraculous National Reconciliation and Racial Segregation during America’s Third Great Awakening During the tumultuous spring of 1865, when the war had ended but the fate of the nationremainedundetermined,aninterdenominationalbodyofProtestantleaders in Missouri decided to hold their annual meeting in St. Louis. Reflecting the bitterness of much of the country, the city was rife with sectional antagonism. It “was divided between the friends of the Union and the friends of the late Confederacy,” noted one contemporary, “and every prominent religious man in the State was known as a partisan on one side or the other.” “This dangerous combination of fire and gunpowder,” observed one delegate, threatened to explode any chance of Christian cooperation. For religious unity, these men needed a presiding officer who could quickly quell any tensions. They needed a leader who would take their focus off of sectional hatreds. They needed an individual who would honor Christian solidarity above all other considerations.1 For these reasons, the delegates looked to Dwight Lyman Moody, a rising star in American Protestantism. They hoped that he could navigate them through the dangerous waters of sectional division. And he did not disappoint. While ministers throughout the North vigorously debated the national status of southern whites and freedpeople, Moody did everything in his power to raise the Cross above the flags of the Union and the Confederacy. When disputes arose and tempers flared, he tactfully changed the subject or had the members pray or sing hymns. This strategy was extremely successful, according to one of his first biographers, and “Mr. Moody seemed to hold the Union men by one hand and the ex-Confederates by the other, thus constituting himself a tie of Christian brotherhood between them.”2 For Moody, this Missouri convention was the first time he would help assuage sectional animosity and reconcile northern and southern whites. Indeed, this 1865 convention presaged what Moody would accomplish on a national scale in the mid-1870s—when he would unite Union men and former Confederates all over the nation. inventor of legends miraculous / 121 Born in 1837, Dwight Moody spent most of his childhood in a small town outside of Boston. After his father died early in Dwight’s youth, his mother found solace in the local Unitarian church and had Dwight baptized there at the age of five. She later enrolled him in the Northfield Academy for boys, but his academic abilities and interests proved limited. In 1854, he moved to Boston, where his uncle helped him get a job selling shoes. The footwear industry held great economic possibilities for young men like Moody. It was a booming part of the business sector, and,ashissonlaterremembered,itwasMoody’sambition“tobeworth$100,000— a fortune in those days.”3 When not peddling shoes, Moody came under the influence of Congregational minister and revivalist Edward N. Kirk. Moody joined Kirk’s Mount Vernon Church and “gave himself and his life to Christ.” He even exhibited some political awareness, siding with the forces of abolitionism. In May 1854, a runaway slave from Virginia, Anthony Burns, was caught and imprisoned in Boston. The city exploded with anger. While some Bostonians were dedicated to the cause of antislavery and desperately wanted to free Burns, many other whites were much more agitated by the new federal Fugitive Slave Act that compelled them to aid slave catchers in the apprehension of runaways. Along with hundreds of others, Moody attended public meetings to oppose the imminent return of Burns to his master. At one gathering, Moody recalled, “Wendell Phillips had spoken, and quite a number of others,” and they inflamed the audience with a passion to liberate Burns. When news came that some Bostonians were already breaking into the jail that held Burns, Moody was swept up with the crowd. They rushed to join the liberators . Alas, he lamented, “all of us couldn’t liberate that poor captive.” Federal marshals escorted Burns in chains back to his master’s southern plantation.4 Moody then went west in search of greater economic opportunity in Chicago. When he arrived in 1856, he had little idea that he would be transformed from a religiously tepid salesman into an evangelical firebrand. But the revivals of 1857–1858, which quickly became known as the “businessmen’s revivals,” led him to forsake the selling of shoes for the kingdom of souls. During the revivals, Moody participated in lunchtime prayer meetings, attended the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and heard...

Share