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Matthew Simpson was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1852 and based mostly in Philadelphia.
Background
Simpson was born on June 21, 1811, in Cadiz, Ohio, the son of James Simpson, who at the time of Matthew's birth was manufacturing weaver's reeds and running a store in town, and of which he had been one of the first settlers. His widowed mother had migrated with her family from Ireland to the United States in 1793 and settled in Huntington County, Pennsylvania, whence her sons later moved westward. James died when Matthew, the youngest of three children, was a year old, and the latter was brought up by his mother, Sarah, a native of New Jersey, daughter of Jeremiah Tingley.
Education
Simpson had little schooling, but, naturally inclined to books, mastered with practically no other aid the ordinary school subjects, German, and Latin; acquired some knowledge of Greek during a summer term at an academy in Cadiz; and spent two months at Madison College, Unionville, Pennsylvania, being unable financially to stay longer. He also learned something of the printing business in the office of an uncle who was editor of the county paper, of the law by frequenting the court of which another uncle, Matthew Simpson, was a judge, and of public affairs from the same uncle, who was for ten years a member of the Ohio Senate. In 1830 he began the study of medicine under Dr. James McBean of Cadiz and after three years qualified as a practitioner.
Career
Simpson supported himself by reed-making, by copying in the office of the county court, of which a third uncle was clerk, and by teaching. In the meantime, having been reared under strong Methodist influences, he had become active in religious work and had been licensed to preach. Deciding at length to devote himself to the ministry, he was received into the Pittsburgh Conference on trial in 1834, and in 1836 admitted into full connection.
On the Cadiz circuit, in the neighborhood where he had been reared, he began a career of swiftly increasing responsibility and prominence which culminated in his being the best known and most influential Methodist of his day in the United States, a counselor of statesmen, and a public speaker of international reputation. His promise was soon recognized and after a year on the Cadiz circuit he was stationed at Pittsburgh (1835-1836), and then at Williamsport (Monongahela). Elected professor of natural sciences in Allegheny College in 1837, he entered the educational field and in 1839 became president of Indiana Asbury University, now De Pauw, Greencastle, Indiana, chartered in 1837. During the nine years he served in this capacity he did valuable pioneer work in the development of the institution. Invitations to the presidency of Northwestern University, Dickinson College, and Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, were later declined.
As a member of the General Conferences of 1844 and 1848 Simpson became prominent in the deliberations of his denomination. The General Conference of 1848 elected him editor of the Western Christian Advocate. Both his knowledge and his oratorical powers were employed in behalf of the Union, and his address on "The Future of Our Country, " delivered in many places, had great effect on large audiences. His episcopal residence was first Pittsburgh, later Evanston, Illinois, and finally Philadelphia, but his duties carried him all over the United States, to Mexico, Canada, and Europe.
In 1857 Simpson was a delegate to the British Wesleyan Conference, Liverpool, attended the Conference of the Evangelical Alliance at Berlin, and visited the Holy Land. In 1870 and again in 1875 he made official visits to Europe, and in 1881 he delivered the opening sermon at the Ecumenical Methodist Conference, London. His address in Exeter Hall at a meeting in commemoration of President Garfield, presided over by James Russell Lowell, evoked an unusual response from an audience of three thousand, the most of whom were English.
Judged by the effect upon the hearers, few public speakers of the day were his equal. Such was his power over them that frequently large numbers rose to their feet, clapped their hands, laughed, or wept. Too busy with many things for much literary work, he nevertheless wrote A Hundred Years of Methodism (1876) and edited the Cyclopædia of Methodism (1878). His Lectures on Preaching Delivered before the Theological Department of Yale College was published in 1879. After his death on June 18, 1884, Sermons (1885), from shorthand reports by G. R. Crooks, appeared.
While remaining strictly orthodox, Simpson was sympathetic toward science and in general progressive. He early favored higher education for Methodist ministers, and was influential in the movement to secure lay representation in the General Conference.
Politics
Through this medium his frank and forceful utterances on public questions, especially those relating to slavery, attracted wide attention and brought Simpson to the favorable notice of Salmon P. Chase. A delegate to the General Conference of 1852, he was by that body elected bishop. His patriotism was as deep and sincere as his religious convictions and during the Civil War he was a tower of strength for the Union cause.
Already known to Secretary Chase, he soon stood high in the esteem of Secretary Stanton, and was consulted by both Stanton and Lincoln. He preached a notable sermon in the House of Representatives the day after Lincoln's second inauguration and delivered the eulogy at his burial in Springfield, Illinois.
Personality
Simpson is described as a tall, plain-faced, somewhat ungainly and diffident young man. The high place which he held both officially and in popular esteem was due to the character of the man himself, to a well balanced if not brilliant endowment, and particularly to his extraordinary power over audiences. He was not preeminent as a theologian, as a scholar, or as an innovator, but he was well informed and combined conservatism, open-mindedness, practical wisdom, ability to discern the adjustment conditions called for, and unadulterated religious devotion in an exceptional degree.
Having remarkable facility of expression and an imagination of wide sweep, he took great subjects and portrayed them on a big canvas with a fervid evangelical earnestness. His aim was not to instruct but to persuade. Thoroughly sincere, he felt profoundly the truths which he expounded, so that his preaching had in it the note of testimony. People believed in him and surrendered themselves to him.
Connections
On November 3, 1833 Simpson married Ellen Holmes Verner, daughter of James Verner of Pittsburgh.