A.E. Thompson - A.B. Simpson. His Life and Work

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A. B. Simpson: His Life and Work
ISBN: 978-1-60066-000-9
LOC Catalog Card Number: 2009939375
1960 by Christian Publications, Inc.

Previously published by Christian Publications, Inc.
First Christian Publications edition 1960
First WingSpread Publishers edition 2009
Originally published by the Christian Alliance Publishing Company in 1920 as The Life of A.B. Simpson

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible: King James Version.

T HE author of this book undertook a very difficult work in writing the lifes story of Dr. A. B. Simpson, one of the great spiritual leaders of the last century. To be merely factual would fall short of the readers expectations. Any attempt to rationalize would rob it of its spiritual impact and deny the supernatural in the life and work of this Christ-centered personality. We cannot overlook the influence of a good home, hard work, self-discipline, and divine providences. If this were done, some might be tempted to suspect the author of trying to glamorize and canonize our founder. But he has done neither. He has instead endeavored to show the hand of God in and upon a single life whose words and works have enriched the whole church in the whole world.

Dr. Simpson had a good beginning in life, being born into a Christian home where his life was directed by devout and godly parents. I would particularly commend the chapter, , to all parents and children. He was richly endowed with many natural qualities and gifts which were destined to make him a notable leader in the religious world.

However, the secret of his creative life was related to the spiritual crises into which he came. Aware of the fact that while he preached and taught the deeper things of the Word of God, his own heart had not experienced them until the day he took from the shelf and read from an old musty volume on the subject of the fuller Christian life. It was not a conclusion at which he arrived, but a revelation to his consciousness. His theology then became a fire in his heart.

With this unveiling came the burden for the spiritual life of the church of God and the evangelization of the lost. Many came to realize the fulness of their privileges in Christ and identified themselves with Dr. Simpson. His message was timely and transforming. Organizations were formed which ultimately became known as The Christian and Missionary Alliance. This was not a protest movement, but a fellowship with a distinctive message.

Spiritual personalities all over the world pay tribute to the influence of the spoken message and the written word of this man of God. His ministry turned tens of thousands toward the life that is Christs, world service that is sacrificial, and the hope that will sustain and strengthen until the day dawn and the shadows flee away.

He was a cultured Christian gentleman, a poet, a great pulpiteer, a wise counsellor, and a sympathetic friend. His forceful missionary sermons kindled a fire in the hearts of his hearers and changed viewpoints about world-wide evangelization. He was endowed with the unusual ability of taking Old and New Testament Scriptures and making one see Christ and His life as his personal privilege and possession.

Today, though dead, he speaks through his writings. Today transformed lives of men and women and the witness of pastors and missionaries all over the world are a testimony to the creativeness of Dr. Simpsons anointed ministry. We would to God that his mantle might fall upon another and this generation might hear the voice of a great spiritual leader that would change the course of church history.

DR. R. R. BROWN, Pastor

OMAHA GOSPEL TABERNACLE

OMAHA, NEBRASKA

Mounting up with wings as eagies,
Waiting on the Lord we rise;

Strength receiving, life renewing,
How our spirit heavenward flies!

Then our springing feet returning
To the pathway of the saint,

We shall run and not be weary,
We shall walk and never faint.

Oh, we need these heights of rapture
Where we mount on eagles wings;

Then returning to lifes duties,
All our heart exultant springs.

This our every burden lightens
Till, with sweet, divine constraint,

We can run and not be weary,
We can walk and never faint.

A. B. Simpson.

Portrait of A. B. Simpson at the age of Sixty-five

A LBERT B. SIMPSON came of generations of sturdy and upright stock and was reared in surroundings congenial to the development of noble and godly character. The Bonnie Highlands of Scotland is the home of a race as rugged as its rocky hills, yet as sensitive as its matchless lakes to the moods of wind and weather. Neither Roman legions nor Saxon knights ever subdued those haughty, crafty clansmen, and on every battlefield of modern nations the tartan and bonnet of The Kilties, marching to the weird skirl of the pibroch, have been in the hottest of the fray. As widely scattered, as easily recognized, and as successful as the sons of Jacob, some one has sung of them,

They thrive whereer they fall.

Oh, grasp the hardy thistle close,
Or grasp it not at all.

Nor need young Canada, his own much loved native land, be abashed even in the presence of the Highlands. As Dr. Simpson himself said in a lecture, delivered both in his native island and in the church where fifty years before he had been ordained, Every Canadian seems by his very attitude to be forever saying, I can. His life story will reveal many influences, all instrumental in the making of a life of rare completeness. But it would be a very faulty interpretation that overlooked the effects of his ancestry and early environment. For the seeds of character are the fruit of a family tree, and the home and the community are as soil and sunlight to the young life.

The Simpson family emigrated from Morayshire, Scotland, and settled in Prince Edward Island in 1774. James Simpson, the grandfather of Albert B. Simpson, was then a boy of five years. In after years he married a daughter of the island and reared a family of seven boys and four girls. The fourth boy, James, married Jane, the daughter of William Clark, who with his wife was also of Scottish ancestry, being descended from the Covenanters. He was a member of the legislature, and on his death, his son William, then only twenty-one years of age, was elected to his seat, which he carried in every election till he was eighty years old. The family is still widely known and greatly respected.

Jane Clarks maternal grandmother, Mrs. McEwan, a very godly woman, told her tales of the persecutions her people had suffered at the hands of Claverhouse and his dragoons; of their faithfulness to the truth amid the fiercest persecution; of Peden, the prophet, and other great preachers; of the secret conventicles among the hills where these godly folk worshiped at the risk of their lives; of miracles of deliverance, and of the final triumph of the Reformers in Scotland. No more thrilling chapter has been written in Church History, and the heart of this high-minded girl was stirred to a passion of devotion to the faith of her fathers and the God whom they worshiped.