A plainspoken follower of Jesus, Dwight L. Moody embodies passionate, unflinching obedience to God. It’s 1860, the eve of America’s Gilded Age. A man in a gray, woolen suit stands in a dilapidated building in Chicago’s “Little Hell,” a slum forgotten by the world. He is surrounded by grimy children, attentive and watchful in this makeshift school Moody established just for them.

They are waiting for Abraham Lincoln to speak. Why America’s greatest president and one of America’s most celebrated spiritual giants are among the poorest of the poor is just the beginning of D.L. Moody, a biography with a novel-like narrative style that unveils the eternal power one life can have.

This book reintroduces the unlikely accomplishments of a man desperate to obey God’s call and shows how one committed heart can impact the kingdom of God and the spiritual heritage of a nation.

We learn about life through the lives of others. Their experiences, their trials, their adventures become our schools, our chapels, our playgrounds. Christian Encounters, a series of biographies from Thomas Nelson Publishers, highlights important lives from all ages and areas of the Church through prose as accessible and concise as it is personal and engaging. Some are familiar faces. Others are unexpected guests. Whether the person is D.L. Moody, Sergeant York, Saint Nicholas, John Bunyan, or William F. Buckley, we are now living in the world that they created and understand both it and ourselves better in the light of their lives. Their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires uniquely illuminate our shared experience.