How Moody Influenced the Cowmans

D. L. Moody influenced the Cowmans long before they founded the Oriental Missionary Society

As I wrote Lettie Cowman’s biography, Overflowing Faith, I ran into Moody’s influence in several places.

On Lettie and Charles, for sure, but also on one of the most influencial men in their lives: Juji Nakada.

Mostly, though, it was the ministry of his church and hymnal.

First through a hymnal

Lettie and Charles Cowman moved to Chicago in 1892 when Charles took a managerial job at Western Union.

A fashionable Lettie 1892. (OMS Archives)

The year of the Chicago World’s Fair was an exciting time in the windy city, and the fashionable young Cowmans thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

While the hard working ambitious Charles worked long hours overseeing the line between Chicago and New York, Lettie enjoyed taking piano lessons, attending teas, lecturures, and dress fitting. She played the roll of a wealthy young matron without batting an eye.

The Cowmans loved opera, and one fall day, a postcard arrived in the mail advertising a former opera singer giving a “chalk talk.”

Intrigued, the musical Lettie attended–and there heard the Gospel for the first time.

She returned night after night until she realized her need for a Savior and joined others at the altar rail.

To the horror and consternation of her husband, Lettie returned home to report, “I have found the Lord tonight. From now on, I’m going to serve the Lord.”

(You can read more about Charles’ reponse here).

Within weeks, Lettie threw away all her secular piano music and all her novels. As she wrote:

“A Moody and Sankey hymnal took its new place on the piano; the autobiographies of Finney, Hester Ann Rogers, Wesley’s Sermons, Plain Account, and such books took their new places in our library.”

From then on, Lettie played and sang hymns and Christian music, opera no longer.

The Moody Church

The Cowmans lived a dozen blocks from Moody’s 600-member Chicago Avenue Church, and Lettie promptly joined. (It was renamed the Moody Church after Dwight L. Moody’s 1899 death).

Impressed by what she learned, Lettie soon began to spend hours in prayer and in studying her Bible.

The Moody Church often featured well-known international speakers, and both Cowmans loved the services.

Chicago’s Moody Church circa 1890 (Wikimedia Commons)

All those men influenced Lettie’s faith and she quoted them in her devotional Streams in the Desert. (The numbers of times quoted are listed after their names in paranetheses).

Among the guest speakers were F. B. Meyer (20), Andrew Murray (4 times), A. B. Simpson (29), and the church’s pastor at the time, R. A. Torrey. (For the record, the other frequently quoted writer in Streams in the Desert is Charles Spurgeon–at 28 mentions).

Their faith grew under the teachings of many wise preachers and it was there on an 1897 Sunday, that they introduced themselves to a Japanese man sitting in front of them: Juji Nakada.

The Moody Bible Institute and Juji Nakada

Earlier that year, Nakada wrote to D. L. Moody himself, asking for spiritual guidance as he sought a deeper relationship with God.

Moody wrote back, inviting him to attend the Moody Bible Institute–which is why he met the Cowmans.

The Cowmans and the Chicago Telegrapher Band supported Nakada during his training.

And from that year of taking classes, Nakada formed a deep friendship eventually leading to the 1901 founding of the Oriental Missionary Society.

Did they know D. L. Moody?

It’s hard to say.

Lettie and Charles attended the church he founded and also the Moody Bible institute.

From that church, their spiritual lives exploded and they learned much about the Bible, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Certainly Nakada corresponded with him–and traveled halfway around the world to learn more.

D. L. Moody died not long after Nakada traveled to Chicago, and two years before the Cowmans went to Japan.

All three took away ideas from the Moody Bible Institute.

And all three later turned up (along with Oswald Chambers) at God’s Bible School in Cincinatti.

Moody’s influence, along with others, propelled them to found the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS).

It’s still going strong today.

Well done, D. L. Moody.

Tweetables

D. L. Moody and his influence on one international mission. Click to Tweet

How D. L. Moody inspired a mission in Japan–and around the world. Click to Tweet

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