Christ in Holton's Shoe Store

It never ceases to amaze yr humble correspondent what odd bits of history one stumbles upon while strolling the streets of Boston. Take, for instance, this plaque, which yr humble correspondent found along Court Street this morning:


Who was D. L. Moody, I hear my loyal readers ask? Why, none other than Dwight L. Moody — one of the great evangelists of the nineteenth century & the founder of the Moody Bible Institute, Moody Publishers, the Mount Hermon School & the Moody Church of Northfield. By the time of his death in 1899, it was said that he had won a million souls over to Christ.

Copious information about the life & times of Mr Moody can be found on-line, although yr humble correspondent is primarily concerned with the plaque on Court Street and the seemingly bizarre incident of the shoe store conversion.

Apparently the story goes that, while Moody was working at his uncle's shop one day, his Sunday school teacher (one Mr Edward Kimball) resolved to "speak to him about Christ & about his soul." He entered the shop & found Moody in back wrapping up shoes for delivery. Placing his hand's on the boy's shoulders, Kimball "told him of Christ's love for him & the love Christ wanted in return." Mr Kimball himself admitted that, afterwards, he though his message "very weak" — though apparently it did not matter, for from that moment onward Moody was a changed man. He relates how on the morning after his awakening he came out of his room to find that the "sun shone a good deal brighter than it ever had before — I thought that it was just smiling upon me; & as I walked out on Boston Common & heard the birds singing in the trees, I thought they were all singing a song to me." He was now, as one source put it, "running over with zeal & love for the Master."