I just finished a wonderful biography of my hero, D. L. Moody, the greatest American evangelist of the 19th century. This excerpt sums up the man:
Somewhere along the way, D. L. Moody, the boy who once seemed anything but a poet, became something like one. “Earth,” he used to say, “is the little isle; eternity the ocean round it.”
And he grew fond of quoting the greatest poet of his age: Alfred Lord Tennyson. He wove words Tennyson had written into one of his oft-repeated stories:
“The poet Tennyson once asked an old Christian woman if there was any news.
“‘Why, Mr. Tennyson,’ she said, ‘there’s only one piece of news that I know, and that is: Christ died for all men.’
“At this, Tennyson gave a reply that was one with the message Moody had been telling all his life. Tennyson told the aged saint: ‘That is old news, and good news, and new news.’"