'Nearness to Christ':

The American evangelists D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey’s famed 1882 missions to Cambridge and Oxford have often been remembered for the reception they received.

At Cambridge they were warmly welcomed, while at Oxford they were heckled by a group of undergraduates. Subsequent historical accounts have perpetuated the narrative that Moody was more successful at Cambridge than at Oxford. But was this really the case?

Fifty years later, E. A. Knox, the formidable Bishop of Manchester who had supported Moody’s mission while a young Oxford don, recalled, ‘I discovered many years afterwards that even in Oxford God had made use of this simple Evangelist.’ At the time of the mission, Alfred Christopher, the longstanding rector of St Aldate’s, was glowing in his review of the events, ‘Oxford city and University were never so stirred before. I have seen nothing like this in my twenty-three years in Oxford.’

 Aside from Moody’s evening talks, there were smaller meetings throughout each day of the mission week. Though the Church press lamented that the majority of Oxford fellows were boycotting the mission, R. B. Girdlestone, principal of Wycliffe Hall, Francis Chavasse, rector of St Peter-le-Bailey (a future principal of Wycliffe Hall and Bishop of Liverpool), and Harry Grey, rector of Holy Trinity (another future principal of Wycliffe Hall), joined Christopher and Knox in supporting the mission.

However, after Moody’s first talk on 1 John 4:16, ‘God is Love’, it was the evangelical philanthropist Catherine Marsh who led a gathering ‘chiefly of University men’ at Wycliffe Hall on Tuesday afternoon. Like Moody, Marsh had recently journeyed from Cambridge where she had helped answer ‘enquirers’ after Moody’s evangelistic message to 3,000 people. Now at Wycliffe Hall, she gave an address entitled ‘Nearness to Christ’, urging ‘those who had been moved during the Mission to live consistently and work faithfully for their Master.’ The broader press, more concerned with how Moody dealt with outbursts during his talks, buried Marsh’s activity.

Over the course of the week in Oxford, Moody preached to thousands of people. On Friday evening he followed up on Marsh’s very subject in his talk on ‘Confessing Christ’. Christopher testified that at the after-meeting, two rows of undergraduates were ‘kneeling before the platform in prayer that Jesus would save them, or rather for faith to let Him save them; whilst on both sides large bodies of Christian undergraduates were earnestly praying for them.’ Despite the heckling Moody received, the mission stimulated many in the city to consider their spiritual lives.

While Christopher thanked Girdlestone and Knox for their ‘courage and decision’ for standing by Moody and Sankey, Marsh received little credit. Although later hailed by Archbishop Randall Davidson in 1912 as the ‘pioneer of women’s Evangelistic forces in the England of today’, she has been neglected by historians. Marsh’s mission talk at Wycliffe Hall was just one episode out of a busy life filled with humanitarian and evangelistic endeavour, but it displays an important moment where Victorian evangelical men and women came together to proclaim the gospel and to urge the students and citizens of Oxford to follow Christ.