April 19, 1876
The last day of evangelist Dwight L. Moody’s “The Great Campaign “ in New York City at Gilmore’s Concert Garden (previously Barnum’s Hippodrome). Overflow crowds of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, people in the streets, 1200 singers.
Although the New York Sun declared that Moody would encounter “stony soil” in “the wickedest city in the nation,” on this day, between 3000-4000 New Yorkers announced their conversions to Jesus Christ.
One 19th Century writer observed, ““Perhaps, the most important [evangelism event] ever conducted by Mr. Moody. In moving New York, God moved the country, and the voice of evangelists was heard throughout the land.”
Bernard Peters, the German-born editor at the Brooklyn Daily Times and a Unitarian, was inspired by the first week of meetings to declare that “a city that won’t obey the word of God will soon go to pieces.”
The evangelical wave cascaded overseas, particularly in Korea, setting up a chain reaction that circled back to New York with the arrival of the new immigrant wave in the late Twentieth Century. The Korean churches in New York, for example, could be said to be the outcome of 1876. Korean Christians call Pastor Kim Ik Du the “Moody of Korea” for the powerful effect of his evangelism meetings.
