A.B. Simpson and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism 9780228000129

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A. B. Simps on and th e maki ng of mo d e r n eva nge lica li sm

McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of reliGion

Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. series one: G.A. rAwlyk, editor 1 Small Differences Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922 An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson 2 Two Worlds The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario William Westfall 3 An Evangelical Mind Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839–1918 Marguerite Van Die 4 The Dévotes Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France Elizabeth Rapley 5 The Evangelical Century College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression Michael Gauvreau 6 The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer 7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918–1939 Robert Wright 8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 Rosemary R. Gagan 10 God’s Peoples Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster Donald Harman Akenson

11 Creed and Culture The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750–1930 Edited by Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz 12 Piety and Nationalism Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 Brian P. Clarke 13 Amazing Grace Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States Edited by George Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll 14 Children of Peace W. John McIntyre 15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal’s Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall 16 Padres in No Man’s Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar 17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis P. Travis Kroeker 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw 19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 Sharon Cook 20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844–1994 Brian J. Fraser

21 The Lord’s Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple 22 A Full-Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau 23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen

24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827– 1905 Eldon Hay 25 Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 Johanne Selles 26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

series two in MeMory of GeorGe rAwlyk donAld hArMAn Akenson, editor 1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640–1665 Patricia Simpson 2 Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk 3 Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill 4 The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A. Rawlyk 5 Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850–1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna 6 The Waning of the Green Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887–1922 Mark G. McGowan 7 Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 John-Paul Himka 8 Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870–1918 James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston 9 The Theology of the Oral Torah Revealing the Justice of God Jacob Neusner

10 Gentle Eminence A Life of Cardinal Flahiff P. Wallace Platt 11 Culture, Religion, and Demographic Behaviour Catholics and Lutherans in Alsace, 1750–1870 Kevin McQuillan 12 Between Damnation and Starvation Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 John P. Greene 13 Martin Luther, German Saviour German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917–1933 James M. Stayer 14 Modernity and the Dilemma of North American Anglican Identities, 1880–1950 William H. Katerberg 15 The Methodist Church on the Prairies, 1896–1914 George Emery 16 Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel Paul Charles Merkley 17 A Social History of the Cloister Daily Life in the Teaching Monasteries of the Old Regime Elizabeth Rapley 18 Households of Faith Family, Gender, and Community in Canada, 1760–1969 Edited by Nancy Christie

19 Blood Ground Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 Elizabeth Elbourne 20 A History of Canadian Catholics Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism Terence J. Fay 21 The View from Rome Archbishop Stagni’s 1915 Reports on the Ontario Bilingual Schools Question Edited and translated by John Zucchi 22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College William Westfall 23 The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches Haim Genizi 24 Governing Charities Church and State in Toronto’s Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950 Paula Maurutto 25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection Richard W. Vaudry 26 Evangelicals and the Continental Divide The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States Sam Reimer 27 Christians in a Secular World The Canadian Experience Kurt Bowen 28 Anatomy of a Seance A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada Stan McMullin 29 With Skilful Hand The Story of King David David T. Barnard 30 Faithful Intellect Samuel S. Nelles and Victoria University Neil Semple 31 W. Stanford Reid An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy Donald MacLeod

32 A Long Eclipse The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 Catherine Gidney 33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 Kyla Madden 34 For Canada’s Sake Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s Gary R. Miedema 35 Revival in the City The Impact of American Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914 Eric R. Crouse 36 The Lord for the Body Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 James Opp 37 Six Hundred Years of Reform Bishops and the French Church, 1190–1789 J. Michael Hayden and Malcolm R. Greenshields 38 The Missionary Oblate Sisters Vision and Mission Rosa Bruno-Jofré 39 Religion, Family, and Community in Victorian Canada The Colbys of Carrollcroft Marguerite Van Die 40 Michael Power The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier Mark G. McGowan 41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 1931–1970 Michael Gauvreau 42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Congregation of Notre Dame, 1665–1700 Patricia Simpson 43 To Heal a Fractured World The Ethics of Responsibility Jonathan Sacks 44 Revivalists Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957 Kevin Kee

45 The Churches and Social Order in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Canada Edited by Michael Gauvreau and Ollivier Hubert 46 Political Ecumenism Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in De Gaulle’s Free France, 1940–1945 Geoffrey Adams 47 From Quaker to Upper Canadian Faith and Community among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850 Robynne Rogers Healey 48 The Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Superiors, and the Paradox of Power, 1693–1796 Colleen Gray 49 Canadian Pentecostalism Transition and Transformation Edited by Michael Wilkinson 50 A War with a Silver Lining Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War, 1899–1902 Gordon L. Heath 51 In the Aftermath of Catastrophe Founding Judaism, 70 to 640 Jacob Neusner 52 Imagining Holiness Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times Justin Jaron Lewis 53 Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy The Growth of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1774–1874 Calvin Hollett 54 Into Deep Waters Evangelical Spirituality and Maritime Calvinist Baptist Ministers, 1790–1855 Daniel C. Goodwin 55 Vanguard of the New Age The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891–1945 Gillian McCann 56 A Commerce of Taste Church Architecture in Canada, 1867–1914 Barry Magrill 57 The Big Picture The Antigonish Movement of Eastern Nova Scotia Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta

58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You A Biography of Archbishop John Walsh John P. Comiskey 59 The Covenanters in Canada Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 Eldon Hay 60 The Guardianship of Best Interests Institutional Care for the Children of the Poor in Halifax, 1850–1960 Renée N. Lafferty 61 In Defence of the Faith Joaquim Marques de Araújo, a Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline James E. Wadsworth 62 Contesting the Moral High Ground Popular Moralists in Mid-TwentiethCentury Britain Paul T. Phillips 63 The Catholicisms of Coutances Varieties of Religion in Early Modern France, 1350–1789 J. Michael Hayden 64 After Evangelicalism The Sixties and the United Church of Canada Kevin N. Flatt 65 The Return of Ancestral Gods Modern Ukrainian Paganism as an Alternative Vision for a Nation Mariya Lesiv 66 Transatlantic Methodists British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec Todd Webb 67 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 68 Fighting over God A Legal and Political History of Religious Freedom in Canada Janet Epp Buckingham 69 From India to Israel Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality Joseph Hodes

70 Becoming Holy in Early Canada Timothy Pearson 71 The Cistercian Arts From the 12th to the 21st Century Edited by Terryl N. Kinder and Roberto Cassanelli 72 The Canny Scot Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish Peter Ludlow 73 Religion and Greater Ireland Christianity and Irish Global Networks, 1750–1950 Edited by Colin Barr and Hilary M. Carey 74 The Invisible Irish Finding Protestants in the NineteenthCentury Migrations to America Rankin Sherling 75 Beating against the Wind Popular Opposition to Bishop Feild and Tractarianism in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1844–1876 Calvin Hollett 76 The Body or the Soul? Religion and Culture in a Quebec Parish, 1736–1901 Frank A. Abbott 77 Saving Germany North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974 James C. Enns 78 The Imperial Irish Canada’s Irish Catholics Fight the Great War, 1914–1918 Mark G. McGowan

79 Into Silence and Servitude How American Girls Became Nuns, 1945–1965 Brian Titley 80 Boundless Dominion Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview Denis McKim 81 Faithful Encounters Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire Emrah Şahin 82 Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies The Protestant Ethic and the Quest for Social Justice in Canada Richard Allen 83 Not Quite Us Anti-Catholic Thought in English Canada since 1900 Kevin P. Anderson 84 Scandal in the Parish Priests and Parishioners Behaving Badly in Eighteenth-Century France Karen E. Carter 85 Ordinary Saints Women, Work, and Faith in Newfoundland Bonnie Morgan 86 Patriot and Priest Jean-Baptiste Volfius and the Constitutional Church in the Côte-d’Or Annette Chapman-Adisho 87 A.B. Simpson and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism Daryn Henry

A. B. Simps on and th e maki ng of mo d e r n eva nge lica li sm

Daryn Henry

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2019 isBn isBn isBn isBn

978-0-7735-5926-4 (cloth) 978-0-7735-5927-1 (paper) 978-0-2280-0012-9 (ePdf ) 978-0-2280-0013-6 (ePuB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2019 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: A.B. Simpson and the making of modern evangelicalism / Daryn Henry. Names: Henry, James Daryn, author. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two ; 87. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two ; 87 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190173084 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190173181 | isBn 9780773559271 (paper) | isBn 9780773559264 (cloth) | isBn 9780228000129 (ePdf ) | isBn 9780228000136 (ePuB) Subjects: lCsh: Simpson, A. B. (Albert B.) | lCsh: Christian and Missionary Alliance– United States–Clergy–Biography. | lCsh: Evangelicalism–United States–History– 20th century. | lCGft: Biographies. Classification: lCC BX6700.Z8 s5326 2019 | ddC 289.9–dc23

This book was designed and typeset by Peggy & Co. Design in 10.5/14 Adobe Garamond

For James Pyles in memoriam and Franklin and Gay Pyles pater materque per evangelium

ἀλλ’ οὐδενὸς λόγου ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν ἐμαυτῷ ὡς τελειῶσαι τὸν δρόμον μου καὶ τὴν διακονίαν ἣν ἔλαβον παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ, διαμαρτύρασθαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ.

Acts 20:24

Contents

Table and Figures

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction

3

1 As for Me and My House

19

2 Memories of Conversion 39 3 A Good and Faithful Servant

66

4 Shepherding the Flock

91

5 Parting of the Company

118

6 New Wine, Fresh Wineskins 7 Mysteries of the Gospel

148 173

8 To the Ends of the Earth 207 9 When the Day of Pentecost Came

238

10 Defending and Innovating the Faith 265 11 A Race Run Notes

323

Bibliography Index

297

387

359

Table and Figures

Table 4.1

Congregational data for Knox Hamilton and Chestnut Street Pastorates. Sources: Home and Foreign Record, Statistical Returns, 1864–1873, and Presbyterian Church in the USA, Minutes of the General Assembly, Statistical Returns, 1874–1879. 114

Figures 2.1

2.2 3.1

5.1 6.1

8.1

10.1

Simpson homestead, Chatham Township, Ontario. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 41 Old site of Chalmers Church on the Caledonia Road, Chatham Township, Ontario. Photo courtesy of the author, 2014. 65 Albert and Margaret Simpson during their Hamilton Pastorate. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 86 Portrait of A.B. Simpson. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 145 Leaders of the C&MA convention at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 1912. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 165 Inside of the Gospel Tabernacle, New York City, New York. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 209 Simpson’s sermon notes on the Good Shepherd. rG 103, Founder Series 1, archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. 274

xiv

10.2 11.1

tABle And fiGures

Portrait of Margaret Simpson. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 289 A.B. Simpson funeral procession, Tuesday, 4 November 1919, Nyack, New York. Photo courtesy of the archives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Used with permission. 318

Acknowledgments

The background context for this study in North American religious history was established by my personally having been a student of some phenomenal students of the American experience, to whom I am deeply grateful: George Mitges, Craig Simpson, Margaret Kellow, Rob MacDougall, David Blight, and M. Shawn Copeland. My greatest appreciation is for Randall Balmer, who imparted to me both the major tools for analyzing evangelicalism and also an abiding posture of deftly balancing the “hermeneutics of understanding” with the “hermeneutics of challenge” when it comes to interpreting the evangelical tradition. Professor Balmer encouraged the viability and envisioned the significance of this study before others in academic circles did, and he generously gave a very close reading of the full manuscript, offering crucial enhancements. Among my other teachers, the late Lamin Sanneh’s work on translatability and vernacular enfranchisement in missions and world Christianity remains an indelible pole of my thought. The two peer reviewers for McGill-Queen’s Press provided eminently attentive, detailed, judicious, and enriching assessments of the manuscript, appreciating its arguments and intentions while saving me from some mistakes and oversights. Liz Adams, Steve Lafontaine, Jon Ungerland, Rob Snider, and Nichole Flores all gave charitable and beneficial feedback on portions of the manuscript. Any advanced historical research vitally depends on the often unsung and typically assiduous work of archivists and librarians. At all of the universities where I worked and all of the archives I visited, I have relied on their labours. Let me acknowledge, in particular, the exceptional guidance I received from Jenn Whiteman at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church Archives and Kim Arnold at the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives. The interlibrary loan folks at both Boston College (BC) and the University of Virginia have been stellar. Special thanks to the John J. Burns Library of Special Collections

xvi

ACknowledGMents

at BC, especially Justine Sundaram, who coached me on the other side of the archives. Accruing numerous scholarly and intellectual debts over the course of this research, I have attempted to pay homage to them in the notes and bibliography. I would like to make explicit mention, however, of a generation of Alliance denominational historians, especially John Sawin, C. Donald McKaig, Charles Nienkirchen, Lindsay Reynolds, and Sandy Ayer. Even though I frequently depart from their interpretations, I remain in awe of their meticulous compilation of historical data – especially in the “olden days” before digital humanities – and their sheer dedication to Simpson and C&MA research. Among broader influences, my specific interpretation of Simpson has been most shaped by two pioneering studies: Darrel Robert Reid’s Queen’s University dissertation, “Jesus Only,” and Bernie Van De Walle’s The Heart of the Gospel. A number of other friends and colleagues over the years have contributed to my understanding of the nature of evangelicalism in North America as we wrangled about its meaning and legacy, among them: Nicole Reibe, Sarah Koenig, Jeremy Sabella, Joe Collins, John Boyles, Steve Adam, Tommy Hawkins, Matt Hedstrom, Andrew Lynn, and Nathanael Homewood. The students in my “Evangelicalism” class at the University of Virginia have provoked me to re-engage this material in new and exciting ways. Lee O’Neil of Wallaceburg District Secondary School toured me around the Simpson sites in Chatham and provided his expertise on local Kent County history. Kyla Madden and Scott Howard of McGill-Queen’s have been incomparable editors who have dramatically honed this work. From our very first conversation, Kyla immediately envisioned more inspiration in the project than the author did, championing it and challenging it in requisite measure. Portions of the research for this book were generously supported by the Ernest Fortin Memorial Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the sponsorship of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. Without Nichole’s sacrifice and support – in a straightforwardly tangible, and not merely a rhetorical, way – I simply could not have completed this research, at least remotely near when I have. Ro continues to put any task into appropriate existential perspective. Jdh Charlottesville, Virginia

A. B. Simps on and th e maki ng of mo d e r n eva nge lica li sm

Introduction

When pastor and revivalist Albert Benjamin Simpson received news that General Allenby and Allied forces had captured the holy city of Jerusalem for Great Britain, he was overwhelmed with emotion. It was December of 1917, towards the end of his own life and during the course of the great crisis of the First World War. Simpson already viewed this world calamity in starkly apocalyptic and epic terms, but the transfer of Jerusalem from Muslim rule to Christian control ratcheted up expectations. To him, these events likely meant the eventual restoration of the Jewish people to Palestine; and the restoration of the Jewish nation meant the concrete fulfillment of biblical prophecy, heralding the end of days. For decades now, Simpson had been monitoring the signs of the times, and, in his estimation, all of them were pointing to a proximate consummation. The final sign that biblical prophecy was being achieved, according to his scheme of interpretation, would be the preaching of the gospel to all the nations, a task at which he and his ministry were also diligently at work. Shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, Simpson was also overcome with physical exhaustion and began to retire from an active Christian ministry of over fifty years. Yearning and ministering with such fervour for so long had finally exacted its toll; he died two years later, still desperate with anticipation for the second coming of his Lord. While Simpson’s prophetic views of the biblical end of history were one notable aspect of his life, and one crucial facet in the emergence of modern evangelicalism’s relation to the broader American society, his ministry had also encompassed a bricolage of elements from turn-of-the-century evangelical religious culture. From his upbringing in rural Canada and commitment to confessional Scottish Presbyterianism, Simpson journeyed into the heart of American evangelicalism, revolving around his base in the great metropolis of New York City. His ministry fused the classic evangelical emphasis on

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revivalist conversion with the quest for the deeper Christian life of holiness with a mystical bent, an intensification of the revivalist sensibility. Recovering the spiritual practice of divine healing, Simpson practised a dynamically empowered and supernaturally animated miraculous Christianity that would spill over into nascent pentecostalism. The independent ministry that he launched when he left his settled Presbyterian pastorate furnished a pattern for the patchwork coalitions of transdenominational ministries that would become characteristic of evangelicalism in the twentieth century. Cross-cultural missions also absorbed Simpson, part of a movement that would unleash the dramatic rise of world Christianity across the global south. His perceived defence of the integrity of the faith, championing an emphatic literalist interpretation of the Bible and campaigning against those who accepted the modernist distortions of evolution, biblical criticism, and religious pluralism, would also make Simpson a precursor of the fundamentalist melees of subsequent decades. In all of these ways, Simpson was enmeshed in some crucial threads of American evangelicalism during his day. Glancing backward into Simpson’s earlier life and ministry, many of the seeds of his new ministry were already present in the broadly evangelical Presbyterianism and nineteenth-century denominational world that he inherited. These were transitions that were taking place within evangelicalism itself. Looking forward beyond Simpson’s life, the harvests of Simpson’s ministry were evident in much of the hardening of evangelicalism’s conservative response to the shifts of modern culture. Simpson’s life and ministry, therefore, present a vivid, fascinating, and paradigmatic study in a religious culture whose conservative wing has often been overlooked. In examining Simpson’s role in both shaping and embodying this religious ethos, this book seeks to further illuminate the world of evangelicalism, and North American religion more broadly, during a relatively understudied period of its history. In the narrative that follows, I seek to foreground the actual story itself, as well as the original sources, and to banish the theoretical and historiographical questions and squabbles to the background as much as possible. But since the selection and presentation of any history involves manifold, contestable hermeneutical decisions, I will delay briefly in the introduction to clarify some terms. The reader who would prefer to delve straight into the action, however, would be gladly invited and encouraged to proceed to the main text.

introduCtion

5

Evangelicalism Simpson’s life represents a classic study in evangelicalism, and I interpret his ministry and legacy within the broader (contested) contours of that religious tradition. Beginning in the eighteenth century as a distinct form of populist renewal within Protestant Christianity – with antecedents in continental pietism, Puritan devotionalism, and Anglican voluntary societies – evangelicalism emerged as a construct coalition for those who pursued what they originally called “true religion,” “vital Christianity,” or “Christianity of the heart.” Evangelicalism’s genius became its enlivening personal appropriation and individual implementation of the Christian faith, especially evident in revivals (events fostering heightened religious commitment and activity). It cascaded across the Atlantic and Northern European world as a transnational movement during the Great Awakening (roughly 1730–40s), as leaders such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Selina Countess Huntington, and brothers John and Charles Wesley forged an enduring sense of communal identity for this movement. The term “evangelicalism” as such did not originate to describe this movement until the 1820s, and entered common usage only after the 1830s. Those in the early days typically spoke adjectivally of evangelical churches or evangelical teaching or evangelical religion. They gravitated toward the term “evangelical” – derived from a biblical Greek word meaning gospel, good news, or cheering report – to capture what they thought was a gospelcentred Christianity and an overwhelming, transformative experience of God’s grace in the midst of a generic Christian culture. Truly alive, authentic, holistic Christianity, for this group, necessitated deep individual commitment and had to be distinguished from the superficial, ceremonial, or mundane cultural Christianity in the established churches; Christianity needed to permeate the individual heart and inspire personal action, not just remain a system of belief for the head or a communal superstructure for the society. Some of Simpson’s own words, from towards the end of his career, eminently encapsulated this general evangelical sensibility. “There are two classes of Christians,” he wrote. The first was “the ordinary Christian with just enough religion to satisfy his conscience, to make him comfortable, and to enable him to rise to the standard of people around him.” This category of Christian was “conventional … orthodox, correct and cold.” From the evangelical perspective, such Christianity was also deficient – and for some, not even Christianity at all. It enabled “no surplus power,” “little service,” and “little fruit bearing.” In contrast to it was the “Spirit-filled Christian,” the

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one who had transcended “the narrow boundaries of his own selfishness, and, [lived] with a heart running over with God’s life and love.” This was the “fervid Christian, aflame with zeal, irregular often in his methods, less concerned about order than results, less interested in confessions of faith than in getting people to confess Christ and every fiber of his being absorbed in the one intense business of serving his Master and saving his fellowmen.” Evangelicals sought to exemplify this second type of Christianity that Simpson commended.1 Historians of evangelicalism (not to mention believers themselves) have been preoccupied with and vexed by the question of trying to define and circumscribe this movement. This has been particularly troublesome because the movement itself has been chiefly characterized by individualism, decentralization, grassroots coalitions, and entrepreneurial forms of ministry and communications, together with a propensity to found new organizations, fracture, and then fuse again. Evangelicalism has been a fluid and porous phenomenon, and while it does take migrating and drifting institutional form, as a term it primarily designates a shared spiritual sensibility or orientation. Despite some celebrity pastors who have tacitly aspired to such a role, the community has no pope, no formal institutional centre, no determinate organizational apparatus, no universally shared confessional or doctrinal statement, and no rigidly delineable boundaries. Borders and essential elements, therefore, have been vigorously debated. To understand what evangelicals do share, scholars have proposed various ideological, sociological, and historical models. Although it is necessary to reckon with ideological subtleties and tensions, and sociologically with how religious communities function as cultural systems with reinforcing symbols, a historically based model of interpretation presents the advantage of seeing evangelicalism as a tradition transmitted through personal and organizational networks, even while allowing for the discontinuities of time, culture, and circumstance, as well as idiosyncratic improvisation.2 Even if refinements and qualifications have been necessary, the model originally proposed by David Bebbington in his landmark Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (1989) has scarcely been improved upon in its essentials. It identified evangelicalism by four key spiritual hallmarks (which I have modified here): (1) Biblicism – the absolute centrality of the Bible, and its “plain” reading, both as the ultimate source for theology/ethics and as a regular devotional imperative for individual spiritual practice;

introduCtion

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(2) Experientialism – the personal encounter with and transformation by God as the source of a living faith, typically revolving around a specifiable “conversion” or “born-again” experience and overflowing into individual and emotive forms of spirituality; (3) Activism – the consequent motivation to be vigorously active in the world, either through evangelism (sharing the Christian message with those around them), through missions (taking the gospel/ scriptures to other cultures), or through activities for social change (whether service programs or socio-political influence), as the responsibility of every believer; (4) Crucicentrism – Christ’s death on the cross for humanity’s sin and the legal-sacrificial dimensions of salvation as the climax of the Christian story, including a spiritual rapture with the “blood” and “sacrifice” of Jesus.3 Augmenting (or pentagonalizing) Bebbington’s “quadrilateral,” I thematize a fifth characteristic, which often remains in the background of analyses on evangelicalism, especially palpable in the life and ministry of A.B. Simpson: (5) Transdenominationalism, which could also be called independent, “non”denominational, interdenominational, network, or entrepreneurial Christianity (all terms with certain problems). All of these, in any case, encode the idea that evangelicals have often worked across (certain) ideological differences for the pragmatic sake of ministry and evangelism, and have decentred the historic church denominations and confessions in favour of evolving interest or thematic or action groups and novel organizations. One classic phrase perceptively calls evangelicalism a “network-in-motion.”4 As a result, evangelicals have often coalesced around a charismatic personality or a common, shared goal, while pioneering new forms of ministry that attempt to “meet people where they’re at” and new forms of communications that achieve relative fluency in translating Christianity into the “idiom of the culture.”5 Sharing a configuration of biblical, conversionist, cruciform, activist, and pragmatic sensibilities did not exhaust the entire range of evangelical thought or experience, but as a spiritual-devotional amalgam, this complex has tended to undergird the multifarious forms that evangelicalism has taken,

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while divergences have often resulted from an accent on one of, or a selection of, these elements to a greater degree than the others. Bebbington’s interpretation – both due to the thorny nature of the question and due to iconoclasts being goaded – has been critiqued. It has been critiqued on internal grounds, as insufficiently able to encompass the farraginous complexity of the movement’s polarities. Some of these polarities are: innovative liturgies vs formal liturgies in worship; Calvinist vs Arminian views of salvation and freedom; postmillennial or amillennial vs premillennial views about the end times; progressive vs conservative views of politics and culture; charismatic vs cessationist views of pneumatology and the miraculous; anabaptist withdrawal vs constantinian-reminiscent influence in relation to society and the state; not to mention painful divergences about how to relate to issues of gender, race, and class, and a spectrum of pragmatic views about how the broad evangelical program could be best fostered and executed.6 Bebbington’s model has also been critiqued on external grounds, as overly beholden to evangelical self-identity and ideological perpetuation.7 On the former: certainly such polarities must be accounted for, but it should be noted that Bebbington never intended a comprehensive catalogue. His approach remains illuminating as a flexible heuristic of shared sensibility and has been vindicated as a highly reliable predictor of evangelical social self-description as recently as the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey.8 On the latter: the significant advantage of integrating emic terms, recognizable to actual participants, into the analysis recommends something in the ballpark. An overly myopic view of these questions, in any case, can be widened by the recognition that any broad social movement evolves, is both concrete and dynamic, and is characterized by a measure of internal differentiation and contestation, as well as sufficiently identifiable cohesion. With these concerns in mind, it is also beneficial to consider who in the Protestant orbit was not an evangelical. The answer, again, was not always clear, as these communities overlapped. Especially before chartering independent ministries – like Simpson did – became the norm, evangelicalism could be viewed more as an injection that flowed through the institutional arteries of Protestant Christianity, but did not reach every organ or system. One could potentially be a liturgical Anglican and an evangelical, for example. Simpson himself started out as a Presbyterian pastor, committed to the Westminster Confessions, but within the broad stream of evangelicalism. At the same time, there were also those in the established Protestant churches who tried to inoculate against evangelical infiltration: orthodox confessionalists, theological rationalists or revisionists, sacramental liturgists, ecclesiastical moderates,

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or social moralists. Resistance to such identification could be fierce. When Thomas Haweis delivered the sermons that he would later publish as his Evangelical Principles and Practice (1762), searching to articulate the ethos of the emerging movement, detractors of his “enthusiasm” cast stones through the windows of his church while he was preaching, mocked him sarcastically as the “saver of souls,” and told him, in essence, to go to hell.9 Others were more comfortable with communal loci of identity, intellectual assent, liturgical formality, doctrinal orthodoxy, or ethical concern, and looked askance at the potential irrationality, attendant disorder, and excessive emotionalism of callow revivals. A major problem with typifying evangelicalism by such hallmarks, moreover, is that it seems to mistakenly suggest that nonevangelical Protestants did not have, or deemphasized, these elements of Bible, conversion, action, and the cross. But contrasts were not absolute. The Bible, for example, was certainly one element in the life and piety of all Christians. The difference lay in the emphasis and its location in the imagined social architecture. Others encountered the Bible primarily as read corporately in the liturgy, interpreted through their church’s hermeneutical tradition of ecclesial witness, or modulated by the roles of tradition, experience, and reason. That being said, while many of the elements were indeed shared, what often distinguished evangelicals was an individualistic orientation towards or implementation of them. Evangelicals decentred longstanding church communities, institutions, and confessions (a process I call de-confessionalization) and prioritized personal practices, decisions, identities, and undertakings as central to their spirituality. Individually inflected in this way, evangelicalism actually became the quintessentially modern form of Christianity in its ethos and contour. At the same time, while the personal dimension has been central to evangelical spirituality, individualism by itself remains an insufficient model to authentically understand the movement, given how evangelicals themselves have often experienced relatively high degrees of communal belonging or beholdenness, frequently more so than Christian traditions with communally based identities or authorities. With individual emphases, evangelicals have actually re-forged strong community connections animated by acceptance, encouragement, obligation, expectation, sustenance through trial, shared interest, common mission, and collective subcultural symbols, all reinforced through potent in-group formation, sometimes through an other-alienating insularity. In order to truly understand the evangelical movement, therefore, its individual ethos and orientation must remain tethered to the actual religious content (like Bebbington’s model).

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During the nineteenth century the major historic denominations themselves had undergone a process of evangelicalization. By 1900, at the height of Simpson’s ministry, evangelicals comprised an estimated 60 per cent of all Protestants, and in the previous century they had assumed something of a cultural ascendency, especially in the United States and Canada, during what could be called an “evangelical century” – though such ascendency was also about to undergo a major upheaval.10 With maybe 80 million of them worldwide at century’s turn, the vast majority of evangelicals still belonged to the (by then) historic denominations: the Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Churches of Christ, and this makes it clear historically how “denominational” Protestantism (as I will call it, using Simpson’s term) could not simply be juxtaposed with evangelicalism. The shifting patterns of the evangelical global identity were nevertheless becoming an “increasingly connected and integrated” movement, even if “still a loose assemblage, of people, organizations and denominations.”11 This is where Simpson, who moved from the Presbyterian sphere to his own independent ministry, both emblematized the evolving evangelical legacy and projected where it was going into the twentieth century, and why he was such an important transitional figure.

Remaking Evangelicalism The evangelicals of Simpson’s generation embodied a next (third) wave of revival that shaped the movement at large. Pivotal was a renewed quest for holiness. Agitating them was the question of what to do after conversion and the initial revival were over. As they sought a more textured interpretation and a more robust practice of the Holy Spirit (what they called the “deeper Christian life”), which was a more consuming faith and practice than even their awakening lineage had promoted, conversion unleashed became a spirituality unquenchable. Restless, meandering, bored, idealistic, zealous, or insatiable, disenchanted denominational evangelicals began to leave their home fellowships in order to further intensify their faith with what they saw as the still-unfulfilled supernatural power of earliest Christianity. This is the shift that reconfigured what we now know as modern evangelicalism, and it was a shift in which A.B. Simpson played a crucial role. A number of scholars have used the term “radical evangelicals” to describe this cadre, from either the Wesleyan holiness, the Reformed Higher Life, or the Baptistic independent streams who organized during the twilight of the nineteenth century to reshape the evangelical landscape once again. I adopt this term

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to describe the particular sub-group within broader evangelicalism to which Simpson belonged.12 In many ways, the term is apt. Compared to the (by his time) traditional structures of church life in the evangelical denominations, Simpson innovated and pushed boundaries. When Simpson came out of his Presbyterian denominational evangelicalism, he often derided the “spirit of conservatism” that had discouraged “new methods in Christian work.” In their methods of ministry, their pioneering of new institutional forms, their sense of purity, devotion, and zeal that led to a seemingly drastic withdrawal of these “holy rollers,” in their eccentric critique of common American pastimes like dancing, the theatre, card-playing, sports, and leisure, and in their transgression of many standard social divisions, these believers could certainly appear “radical” even to other broad-tent evangelicals, let alone to the mainstream culture. Simpson’s own preferred language earlier in his career was “aggressive”: he sought “bold and aggressive” practices of “evangelism” that might take him outside “ordinary ministerial channels,” a Christianity more “simple, direct, and aggressive.”13 He promoted an aggressive Christianity in the adaptation of ministerial forms, the implicated level of commitment, and in personal holy zeal. The Methodists, the first and most dynamic church form to have arisen from the originating evangelical revivals, were a case study in the countervailing trajectory. Their circuit riders having entered the nineteenth century blazing populist, innovative trails, the Methodists would close the century having become an entrenched part of the elite, cultured Protestant establishment, with one of their devoted sons as president of the United States. According to different vectors of analysis, however, Simpson would also become emblematic of the “conservative turn” in American Protestant Christianity, and I will oscillate between the terms “radical” and “conservative” evangelical. Looking back on his life and teaching as a whole, many historians would probably be tempted to label him a “fundamentalist.” I demur from that label in Simpson’s case (“proto-fundamentalist,” maybe), because I reserve that term with more historical precision for those who self-consciously relished and brandished it into the 1920s and beyond. Although the series of eponymous pamphlets The Fundamentals (1910–15) was published during the end of Simpson’s lifetime, and although most of the authors were among his colleagues and friends, Simpson died in 1919, before that movement would coalesce around this particular nomenclature. Aggressiveness notwithstanding, Simpson didn’t exhibit the same antagonistic style of public engagement in his ministry that the subsequent fundamentalists did (unlike J. Frank Norris, for example, Simpson never shot and killed anyone). The current usage of

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“fundamentalism,” additionally, has been tainted by having become simply an ideological slur for anyone in a different position from whoever is doing the wielding – in historically misleading ways from its original context. The success of George Marsden’s towering and pioneering Fundamentalism and American Culture (1980, 2006) in interpreting fundamentalism as an intellectually and culturally vibrant movement, furthermore, has had the outcome of making “fundamentalism” the defining label for twentieth century conservative Protestantism. Compounded by the subsequent reliance of historians on an exclusive fundamentalist-liberal dichotomy for understanding modern Protestantism in America, this interpretive paradigm has actually beclouded the historical reality that the conservative, transdenominational evangelicalism – of which Simpson was illustrative – was older, much broader, and more differentiated than the narrower fundamentalist movement as such, and the former should be seen as the more central historical category. Most of those belonging to Simpson’s sphere of conservative evangelicalism never became involved in the specific public and legislative battles that the self-proclaimed fundamentalists waged, and most of them were far more concerned with evangelism, missions, and forging their own entrepreneurial institutions and communications. As the case of Simpson will show, many of the leaders of conservative evangelicalism were indeed involved in the narrower ideological technicalities that the fundamentalist-modernist (or revisionist) split represented, but at the same time, many of their constituencies were much more interested in other matters of religious experience that blended traditional religion with highly modern elements, and their revivalist and evangelistic leaders developed deep cultural sensitivity to the shifting impulses of those among whom they ministered.14 Certainly, the fault lines along which fundamentalist-modernist Protestants battled in the 1920s had been rumbling throughout the post–Civil War period, and that model is not wholly dispensable. Simpson himself definitely landed on the “fundamentalist” side of this divide ideologically when it came to an emphatic literalism of the Bible, antievolution, and the rejection of certain developments in intellectual culture, while the larger evangelical world was experiencing processes of both “theological narrowing and broadening.”15 Simpson did eventually arrogate the language of “conservative” for himself in intentional contrast to the “liberal” Christianity that, in his view, was undermining many of the foundations of the ancient faith and illegitimately capitulating to modernity. One crucial aspect of this conservative relation to culture was Simpson’s apocalyptic view of end times prophecy, or his

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premillennialism. I explore this term further into the work, but generally speaking premillennialists became increasingly skeptical that changes in culture and society – including the nineteenth-century evangelical legacy of social action – were advancing the kingdom of God, and they believed that a more confrontational view, according to which the kingdom would come to overthrow worldly society, was needed. Some scholars have argued that premillennialism was, in effect, the defining feature of conservative evangelicalism. The apocalyptic outlook was certainly one crucial ingredient in the cocktail of this religious culture, and there were ways in which it could leaven the entire batch of one’s spirituality. But preoccupations with this singular contributing factor are not so much incorrect as reductionist. (Similarly, while the “business turn” in evangelical historiography has also proved groundbreaking for understanding evangelicalism’s relation to culture, it is also tempted by reductionism.) Although Simpson’s legacy is interwoven with some intriguing political strands that I will explore, and although premillennialism was one crucial aspect of his spirituality, neither of these exhausted or interpreted Simpson’s religious culture as a totality. As seen from Simpson’s life, evangelicalism was not primarily about politics in its action (except in Aristotle’s grandest sense of any power relations, of course) and not exclusively about prophecy in its theology; it was much more multifaceted than that. If there is one way to synthesize the various elements of Simpson’s religious culture, especially in its differentiation from other trends in enlarging evangelicalism and from the broader culture, I focus on the “supernatural” as the integrating motif. Although this category betrays a potential susceptibility to reinscribing the terms of an Enlightenment-modernist outlook into the analysis, historically the supernatural was one of Simpson’s own privileged terms. It permeated his description of authentic faith and for him was often at the centre of the debate with other believers and with the culture. Dramatic supernaturalism emerged from the vivid sense that God was not just a generic presence associated with the Bible and the churches, but a dynamic personal agent who actively interacted in singular and spectacular ways with the world and with human lives. Of course, since human people and structures were still the sphere of this divine action, there was the contentious question of how this view elevated certain human forms above others as vehicles of divine activity. Such determinations, in any case, were what put Simpson and his cohort into increasing confrontation with a culture in which the discrete natural sphere was assuming more cultural plausibility.

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In a Modern Age To highlight this aspect raises the question of the “modern,” not in a facile way but in a way in which the increasingly astringent “immanent frame” (to use Charles Taylor’s term) was indeed crucial background for Simpson’s religious culture. By reading Simpson in this context, I do not intend, in this work, to theorize or thematize “the modern,” except insofar as to enhance the now well-established observation that there were divergent paths through modernity, and to uncouple modernization from secularization. I am primarily concerned here with the contours of a specific historical religious culture. Modernity remains quite an elastic term, and its precise characteristics have been contested by historians; much depends on where someone stands and which aspects they take as emblematic of the modern. How modern is modern? Is all expansion progress? In the Western world, the modern has been variously credited to – or castigated for, depending on whether from the perspective of the beneficiaries or from the various “undersides” – decisive inflection points all the way from the first millennium to the twentieth century.16 From the perspective of the world of automobiles, airplanes, air conditioning, the internet, smartphones, laser surgeries, and three-dimensional printers, of course, Simpson’s world looks positively premodern. Let me just say for this study that Simpson’s lifetime occurred during arguably crucial transitions in the modern, with remarkable advances in capitalism, transportation, communications, industrialization, urbanization, and imperialism, all of which affected his life and ministry. It was also a time in intellectual culture when an uninterrogated narrative of progress, the mythology of modernity, was reaching its zenith. Simpson died just after the First World War when that myth was pulverized, and when what could be called postmodernity (late/hyper-modernity) began its nascent emergence in literature and the arts. In the modern of America, the tenure of Simpson’s public ministry, from 1865 to 1919, coincided with what can be called the Gilded Age and Progressive Era periods of the nation’s history, during which America underwent a profound and lasting resurrection through fire, metaphorical and literal. Out of the rubble of a union, a nation emerged. Out of a predominantly agrarian society, and the paradox of freehold landowners and slave labourers, a commercial colossus and an industrial behemoth emerged, surpassing China and India as the world’s largest staple and England and Germany as the world’s largest industrial economy. The population more than trebled, from 32 million at the outbreak of the Civil War to 106 million by 1920, becoming more urban than rural by that same year. The country, more than ever, metabolized peoples

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of various backgrounds and cultures, as its shores and borderlands received an influx of nearly 30 million Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, Polish, Mexican, Chinese, Scandinavian, and French Canadian immigrants in one of the largest relocations of people in human history to that point, only finally curtailed by the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. In 1890, a whole 15 per cent of the population was foreign born, a concentration not yet exceeded. The country witnessed a dramatic reconfiguration – or in a metaphor consonant with the violence of the times, annihilation17 – of space and time by technologies of scale, as steamships churned through waterways in record time, railroads traversed immense distances overland, and the telegraph, the telephone, and the beginnings of electricity integrated individual homes into vast networks that seemed both to generate unimagined opportunities and to menace local autonomy. Increasingly looking to the Pacific world and to the rest of the Latin American continent with covetous eyes, the nation continued to expand its imperial vision and interests, primarily through the soft power of economic entanglement, but, when it seemed necessary, also through the hard power of armed might.18 Incorporation made America a business nation, big in terms of organizational apparatus, geographical reach, and capital holdings. Fortunes amassed, especially in the early key industries of oil, steel, finance, railroads, mining, and technology, and a beckoning lure of consumer goods and their advertising enticements built up around them, as America learned to cultivate the power of desire itself. The nation waged one violent reconstruction in the post-slavery South, with a backlash of lynchings against newly freed African Americans, and a second bloody reconstruction of the trans-Mississippi West, as the land of the First Nations was confiscated for western expansion. This was an era, compendiously, altered by “immigration, urbanization, environmental crisis, political stalemate, new technologies, the creation of powerful corporations, income inequality, mounting class conflict,” “increasing social, cultural, and religious diversity,” and epic “failures of governance,” where the foremost achievement of presidential leadership might just have been the beards.19 While the discontinuities could be exaggerated and the continuities overlooked, it was not wholly misleading for those at the time to say of the dramatic change, with Henry Adams: “the American boy of 1854 stood nearer to the year 1 than the year 1900.”20 All of this disorienting and tumultuous change associated with the modern provided the context in which Simpson’s wave of revivalists reinvented their ministries and forged their enchanted supernaturalist interpretation of Christianity in ways that had both ferociously antimodern and eminently modern aspects.

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What was happening with Christianity in America during this same period? The broader historical narratives have been glaringly paltry on religion (notwithstanding the obligatory, cursory genuflection before the social gospel), more so than for other periods of American history (Rebecca Edwards’s New Spirits is one happy exception). Did active and vibrant Christianity simply go gently into that good night? Even the standard religious historical narratives have (rightly and understandably) gravitated toward the profound intellectual challenges, increasing religious pluralism and innovation, ascending secularism, and progressive forms of American Christianity typified by the social gospel that took hold through the turn of the twentieth century. These were indeed crucial trends, but preoccupation with them has also meant that the abiding importance of conservative movements, networks, and figures has suffered from relative scholarly dereliction, oversight, and under-interpretation. These narratives, furthermore, have relied too heavily on trends in elite culture, failed to appreciate the reality on the ground, and overlooked how conservative networks, even if waning in cultural influence at the time, were laying the groundwork for the return of Americans to churches in droves after the Second World War and for the spectacular worldwide proliferation of Christianity in the global south. Taking a look at the bigger picture, one basic datum indicator remained stark and tantalizing: from a dip after the Civil War, the rate of religious membership in America from 1870 to 1916 (roughly Simpson’s career) actually continued to escalate from 35 to 53 per cent.21 Not many scholars have taken seriously religious historian William McLoughlin’s proposal that such developments constituted a “third great awakening.” And McLoughlin himself dismissed the Moody network’s role as largely redundant, overlooked the rise of the holiness movement and pentecostalism, and failed to synthesize the social gospel – what he saw as the truly socially revolutionary aspect of this period – with the explosion of the Baptists, the concomitant swell in Catholic devotion, and the dramatic rise and importance of the African American churches.22 Awakenings, from the theoretical perspective, seek to interpret a trend of religious intensification and increased activity, and precisely as models encompass complex, multifaceted, sometimes contradictory data. And so, of course, they are subject to scrutiny. Such wariness provides a corrective to hyperbole, distortions, and indelicate balances between historical continuity and discontinuity; the idea of awakenings has to be situated within steady religious progress, together with cross-currents of mundane belief, unbelief, and religious pluralism. Nevertheless, when put into the context of the continued rise in religious membership and in relationship

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to the sectors in which Christianity was actually gaining ground during this period, the specifically religious dimension of Gilded Age and Progressive Era America will come to assume more significance. This context is crucial for a study of Simpson’s life, because he was one key participant in and shaper of the conservative sector of this religious transformation.

A Religious Biographical History This book seeks to enhance our understanding of the religious culture of this era’s evangelicalism through the biography of one of its sons. To do so, I take A.B. Simpson’s life and ministry as those of an “ordinary” evangelical. By ordinary here I do not mean without achievement. Simpson’s life contained notable accomplishments, beyond the scope that many of his time would dream of: from a star student at Knox College, Toronto, in the 1860s, Simpson catapulted into renown as a preacher, travelled widely around North America and the world equipping his ministry, founded an entire Christian denomination that endures, and participated in many essential public conversations and controversies about Christianity in his era. What I mean by “ordinary” is simply that Simpson’s life lacked the same level of drama and tumult of those whom we might consider the paradigmatic revivalists, such as a Charles Finney, Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, or Billy Graham. Part of this was due to Simpson’s largely remaining in a settled pastorate and not having become an itinerant evangelist, before the age of broadcast media. Part of this was his style of public engagement. What this does mean, though, is that Simpson was ordinary in being representative, in typifying a whole host of other evangelical leaders, preachers, Bible teachers, and active layfolks whose lives did not have quite the same glamour or intrigue as the celebrity revivalists, but who ministered and toiled faithfully year after year according to their own convictions about the gospel. Even if he himself was elite for the time in terms of education and platform, Simpson both voiced and influenced the concerns of a host of average believers in conservative evangelicalism and was a window into their religious and cultural world. Taking such biography as history has suffered somewhat in the past couple of decades, both from quantification (the wielding of aggregate data that deluges the personal actor, making individual decisions seem negligible to broader historical patterns or forces), and from a postmodern fragmentation of the self (the dissolution of the individual into a site for the competing interests of social identity in various contests of power and frictions

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of group formation). Neither of these insights is dispensable; neither of them, however, tells the whole story of history as probing the gamut of human experience. Human life is enabled only by the supposition that there is sufficient, even if differentiated and communally formed, coherence of the self and responsibility for the self to operate in the world. And so, as of yet, I still “read the historical record as affirming the power and decisiveness of individuals.”23 That is not to say I succumb to the methodological flaws of the old “epic man” biography, which had to be enlarged both in its view of which subjects were fit for biography and in its view of embeddedness. Any human person, no matter how powerful, has been thrown into a world they did not create and are constrained by social and demographic forces they do not harness. Agency itself is not static, but historically conditioned. The possibilities available to any one individual to personally enact in the world, the more or less buffered or porous character of the self, and the shape of the choice architecture – all depend on social, political, economic, and cultural circumstances. A scholarly biography, therefore, has to be vigilant about which inferences it extrapolates from the evidence of a single case. The very same social history, nevertheless, has made us aware that even individual decisions are not solely individual but themselves already betray the reciprocal influence of cultural situations, and so biography already deals with a life’s surrounding environment and not just the life itself. This is a key point for Simpson as he did not see his public ministry and professed theology as divorced from his private life, but as an extension of it and deeply related to it. In many cases, Simpson saw his ministry as his private commitments being lived out in public. In any life, there are numerous threads interwoven at the same time, and a biography faces the challenge of untangling some of them for the purposes of crafting its own narrative or analytical tapestry; the goal is not to distort the individual life by the resultant tapestry. In any case, I have not attempted to be comprehensive. No biography, however many volumes, could ever hope to exhaust the ebb and flow of a life as actually lived or the capaciousness of another human person. A decent one, sufficiently nimble and dexterous, can nonetheless strive to capture some of the vital features and crucial monuments of the legacy of a life. This first scholarly biography of A.B. Simpson hopes to do so for his life and for the evangelical world he inhabited.

CHAPTER ONE

As for Me and My House

Convulsion was gripping the Atlantic world when the ancestors of Albert Benjamin Simpson fled their troubled Scottish homeland for the prospects of British North America.1 In June of 1775, amid the escalation of the revolutionary conflict that would transform the world, William and Janet (Winchester) Simpson corralled a gaggle of eight children onboard the schooner John and Elizabeth, along with forty-two other passengers from Moray. As the ship sailed from Scotland, the travellers it carried envisioned a new life for themselves as pioneers in Atlantic Canada, a land they had never seen.2 James Simpson, A.B.’s grandfather, was just a five-year-old boy at the time. Accompanying his parents on their transatlantic journey, he became swept up in that remarkable migration of people from established Europe to the colonial Americas that continued to surge despite the crescendoing drums of war. During the same month that the Simpson clan was on the ocean, the British bombarded Bunker Hill. In the months afterward, the revolutionary forces countered by gambling on an eventually botched stratagem to involve the Canadian territories directly in the war by conscripting the French Canadians to their cause of liberty. Unable to compel the surrender of strategic Quebec City, whose 8,000 residents by that time had become “accustomed to being besieged by Anglo-Americans” and who were in any case doubtful about the American version of liberty, the ploy ultimately failed spectacularly – even if it was also “one of the great marches of the eighteenth century.”3 Like the British colonies in the Americas, William, Janet, and their children faced an uncertain future that year as well.

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The Simpson Family Migration The disruption was not only in the colonies of the British Empire, but back home as well. With generations of ancestors in the Highlands of Scotland, the Simpson family experienced pressure to leave their traditional lands due to the dramatic social and economic transformation of the Scottish countryside that became seared into the national memory as the Highland clearances. The clearances were a complex and controversial process at the threshold of modernity, during which, in reality, the Highlands were not cleared of people at all.4 In terms of absolute numbers, the population of the region continued to increase over the entire period, while, of all the counties, only four saw actual decreases.5 But the economic and social reorganization of the region did catalyze unprecedented dislocation, internal and external migration, and forced displacement. Families who had lived in the Highlands for generations were on the move: into the Lowlands, into the cities, and eventually out of Scotland altogether.6 This meant that times were stringent for many common farmers, labourers, and craftspeople in the Highlands when William and Janet made their voyage. At this early stage of the commercial, capital, industrial, and urban transformations of Scottish society, the commercial type of land enclosure where the Simpsons lived was becoming the norm. Rapidly turning into a chief resource in the intensifying capitalist economy, land had to become an alienable commodity and a more generative means of production, and so large landholders sought to make their holdings more profitable and efficient. In the Highlands especially, but also elsewhere, economic incentives led the gentry to reorganize. The society leaders liked to style it “rationalization,” as they began to enclose lands that had previously been open range. All across Europe, enclosure, together with other agricultural innovations and crop rotations representing technological progress, contested with preciously held local and traditional land rights of poor and middling folk. In Scotland, land reorganization conspired with already exhausted soil, overpopulation relative to production, and grinding poverty to exacerbate financial hardships. One result of this drive was that rents soared to unsustainable rates for many commoners; some areas saw them balloon over 400 per cent during the course of a few decades. Prices of the major Highland commodities like cattle, kelp, fish, meat, and wool also escalated sharply. Landlords in Morayshire, where the Simpsons lived, were among some of the earliest and swiftest reorganizers of their lands, and so those communities

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were particularly vulnerable to appeals for emigration. The area was one of the few to have an absolute loss in population from 1755 to 1801, where there was a 9 per cent decrease.7 For many middling Scottish families, emigration became an attractive option – or a necessity – as well as a powerful cultural movement. By 1772, Norman MacLeod from the Isle of Harris observed a “spirit of emigration” that had “got in among the people,” one which he speculated might just “carry the entire inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland to North America.”8 Around the vicinity of the Simpsons, 144 people had already emigrated during the period from 1770 to 1773.9 In subsequent years, forces intensified, as sheep inundated people and commercial sheep farming proved more profitable than renting. Generations of Highland culture were shaken. Tensions between landowners, society elites, and the common labourers bubbled, as there were occasions of forced eviction, coercion, displacement, and violence, and a whole way of life was transformed. These were the events that became emblazoned in the historical memory of the clearances, and which gave them their ominous reputation.10 The specific story of the Simpsons at this point remains unknown, as the personal motivations that precipitated their departure were not directly recorded. A sense of their experience, nevertheless, can still be inferred from the descriptions of other migrants. Thousands of the Scots who migrated in 1774–75 gave their primary reason as “high rents.”11 Others who emigrated from the Highlands during the same year as the Simpsons articulated their various motives, at least for the official records, as the desire “to get better bread” or “to provide for his family a better livelihood,” but also “to mend his fortune,” or “to better himself.”12 Migration was a multifaceted phenomenon, and people moved for different reasons. There were a range of push and pull factors. Although significant attention in the Scottish case has been given to the expulsionary factors, there were also many strong attractions to come to British North America, such as an abundance of available, arable land, relatively more flexible prospects for social mobility and advancement, and a fresh start in the world. One advertisement for settlement in the British Atlantic trumpeted the possibility of civic and religious “freedom” offered “to persons of all persuasions … Papists excepted” – although many Catholics would soon challenge that exception as well.13 Still, economic motivations were often crucial, as many dreaded the impending poverty, “racking” and “high rents,” “overcrowded farms,” and the “oppression” of their tenancy, frequently described as the “tyranny of landlords.” Others mentioned “crop disasters,” “extreme dreariness of provisions,”

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and “collapse of cattle markets” as decisive factors. On the positive side, many emigrants entertained the prospects of “taking up property,” “doing better,” or advancing their interests somehow. There was a wide array of other reasons: one man eloped “with a young widow” to flee “a wicked wife,” while another proclaimed his animation by “fervent zeal to propagate Christian knowledge.” One boy was simply “running away.” Some looked to “improve health.” A number of Scottish women said they were going “to get a husband.” And others simply stated that they were “curious,” and driven by some sense of “adventure and exploration.”14 While these responses must be carefully interpreted for the complex constellation of human hopes, desires, fears, and concerns that lay behind the migrant drama, the fact that the Simpsons migrated after already having established a large family of eight children, and that they migrated with others in their immediate vicinity, suggests that their primary motivations were likely due to negative economic pressures of the reorganization in Moray. William and Janet had already been married seventeen years prior to their emigration and had parented children of good Scottish name, for whom there are baptismal records: Margaret (b. 1759), Thomas (b. 1760), William (b. 1762), Christine (b. 1764), Helen (b. 1766), Jean (b. 1768), James (A.B.’s grandfather, b. 1770) and Janet (b. 1772).15 Moving as a large social unit, then, the Simpsons followed what has been called the “provincial” pattern of emigration, which involved families and communities in a high degree of cultural and institutional transmission and continuity.16 At a basic level, the prospects of settlement in British North America must have offered a significant enough differential compared to remaining in Scotland to warrant the Simpsons uprooting their entire family and wagering on the prospects of the transatlantic journey. The Simpsons, together with the other families, had been recruited by colonial proprietor Samuel Smith to occupy tenancy of Lot 57 on St John’s Island (later changed to Prince Edward Island, or Pei, in 1798). The westward voyage from Scotland to Atlantic Canada took roughly eight weeks, sometimes longer, and it cost a fare of £3.10 (70 s.) for steerage or £4.10 (90 s.) for cabin.17 Unfortunately for the Simpson family, their voyage across the Atlantic was not routine. It seems that the John and Elizabeth was shipwrecked just before it reached its destination on the Island.18 That calamitous start was exacerbated by risks taken by their colonial landlord, who did not adequately prepare for contingencies. Extra supplies to supplement their scant provisions were not readily forthcoming, as the formal outbreak of the Revolutionary War began

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to snarl oceanic trade and transport, as well as to make it vulnerable to the schemes of privateers. (Charlottetown itself was even plundered and some local officials taken captive, impetuous actions that caused George Washington considerable embarrassment.19) Most of those who travelled on the John and Elizabeth simply abandoned their settlement for the more stable community at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on the mainland. For reasons unknown, the Simpsons did not join the majority of this group but chose to remain on the Island, eventually sojourning in the colonial capital at Charlottetown.20 To a devout Presbyterian like Simpson it must have seemed that, in the mighty providence of God, their wilderness wandering was being sternly warned of judgment before it would be lavishly blessed with favour. The small island to which the Simpson family came in 1775 was a fledgling British colony, with a stable European population of about 1,500 souls. Before the Island had become a piece in Europe’s colonial machinations, groups of First Nations people, known as the Mi’kmaq, traversed the region for millennia, hunting caribou, beaver, arctic fox, deer, and hare, as well as fishing in the bounteous Atlantic waters. Adapting to their environment even through intertribal wars, Mi’kmaq society upheld a vibrantly stable and self-sufficient baseline culture.21 By the era of sustained European encounter, their population was somewhere around 18,000.22 The Mi’kmaq themselves called what became Prince Edward Island Abegeweit or Minegoo, and were captivated by it as a sacred space. One Mi’kmaq tradition recounted that “the great spirit fashioned an enchanting island and called it Minegoo. He dressed her dark red skin with green grass and lush forests of many different kinds of trees, and sprinkled her with many brightly coloured flowers. Her forest floors were like deep soft carpets which would cushion the moccasined feet of the Micmac people.” The Mi’kmaq recognized the landscape as a place of distinct beauty and joy – “so beautiful that it made the great Spirit extremely happy – so happy that he thought about placing Minegoo among the stars.”23 The Mi’kmaq thus maintained their own account of the significance of the Island in divine providential unfolding. From a blessed gift, the Island would become a site of imperial contestation by the seventeenth century, embroiled in the vicissitudes of European empire-building in the Americas. Claimed by Jacques Cartier’s explorations, disregarding those who were already there, the Island became a peripheral part of the “unformed” colony of New France. The arrival of the French ushered in an extended period of cultural negotiation, creative adaptation, opportunity, and disaster for the Mi’kmaq, where the scourges of disease and displacement

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killed upwards of 75 per cent of the population. Resisting European exertions of sovereignty over the land and impositions on their culture, the Mi’kmaq endured to achieve cultural survival and revitalization.24 Sparsely settled, and mostly administered by the strategic fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island (a first sounding of that self-reflective provincial motto: parva sub ingenti), Prince Edward Island began its transfer back and forth from French to British control when a New England contingent, blessed in their mission by the renowned revivalist preacher George Whitefield, seized the great fortress in an unexpected campaign. Such a stunning victory of true believers over Catholic France led the famous New England theologian, Jonathan Edwards, to interpret the event as interwoven with the millennial providence of God in the events of the Great Awakening.25 Even though later re-exchanged, this transfer already heralded the future of the Island as a British colony, finally settled with the treaty that ended the Seven Years’ War (1754–63). British suzerainty did not necessarily mean clarity of development. Ambivalence probably best captures the initial outlook of the British authorities to its newly acquired Maritime colonies, as they triggered headaches about land distribution, governance, expenditure, and defence.26 Initially bewildered by what to do with this tiny piece of imperial booty, the government dithered. After repudiating different proposals, eventually the Board of Trade did decide to offer by lottery the sixty-seven lots of approximately 20,000 acres each – surveyed in a hurry in 1765 – to potential investors in exchange for quitrents and other conditions of development.27 Each colonial proprietor was ostensibly responsible for recruiting at least 100 settlers and providing basic supplies; this was the program under which the Simpsons were originally convinced to move to the Island.28

A Pioneer Family William and Janet Simpson lived in Charlottetown for fourteen years following their original, ruinous ordeal. William seemed to have supported the family by plying his traditional trade as a tailor, as well as labouring as a woodcutter and transporter for the colonial elite. Their family continued to grow. 1776 witnessed the arrival of their daughter and ninth child, Charlotte, followed in 1779 by their youngest son, John. The Pei Simpson clan also enjoyed their first marriage during the Charlottetown stint when, in 1780, their eldest, Margaret, was betrothed to John McNeill, from another of the Island’s prominent Scottish immigrant families.29 During their time in the city,

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the elder Simpson scrimped and saved in good Scottish fashion, and by the year of his daughter’s marriage he had earned enough to lease his own “grass and pasture lots”30 in Prince Town Royalty from the first colonial governor, Walter Patterson. These lands would have allowed him to begin farming and accumulate more resources. By 1789, William had amassed enough capital to lease property for settlement: 500 acres in Lot 23 of the Island, the location of Cavendish.31 So it was that at age fifty-six with an unwieldy family, Simpson began his third new life as settler and farmer. When a Scot came to Atlantic Canada, one of the first things they typically noted was the trees. Eastern North America nurtured variegated woodlands of a size and density unimaginable in Scotland – and that was the landscape from which the pioneer life had to be won. For the most part a wilderness forest just giving way to new settlers was the environment in which the Simpson clan would struggle for the next few decades, hewing out their living from the Island’s resplendent red soil. Pioneer life fostered meaningful community cohesions, while it also offered its own peculiar freedoms. For the most part, however, it was arduous. Daily life was toil for survival. Outside of the colonial capital of Charlottetown, roads and services were rough and primitive. Space and materials for new buildings had to be hacked out of the forest. These labour-intensive efforts, especially the drudgery of “the stumping” with rudimentary hand tools, had to precede any advancement.32 The Simpson homestead would have fallen under a very similar characterization as most of pioneer Atlantic society did during this time: “Tiny clusters of people continued to live in isolated pockets of settlement, separated from each other by vast waterways, dense forests, and a forbidding climate. Social conflict and suspicion among groups persisted, and for the ordinary inhabitant life continued to be a lonely, back-breaking struggle with a rich but exhausting natural environment.”33 The pioneer experience unfolded as one of constant work, familiar daily routines, and local social solidarity. Then there would have been the Atlantic winters: the biting cold fashioned “a season with which a man cannot trifle,” in the estimation of the famed Victorian writer Anthony Trollope after his encounter with the climate of Eastern Canada.34 Despite the challenges of pioneer life, the Simpsons plodded away. A census of 1798 showed the family decently established in the Cavendish area.35 The community built barns, houses, schools, and eventually a church building. Still another decade of labour after that, however, one survey revealed that only about half of the original 500 acres of the Simpson property had been cleared for farmland.36 Achievements were modest; one travel writer who

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visited the Island at the turn of the nineteenth century reported that Cavendish by 1800 had “no great progress in comparison with many other” lots on the Island – though the Simpson family might have challenged that characterization.37 The land that had been cleared, in any case, was distributed among the family and associates. By 1808, the patriarch William had partitioned his land, distributing 200 acres to his second-eldest son, and now apparent heir, William Jr. That land encircled 165 acres held by William Clark (ancestor of A.B.’s mother, Janet). One hundred acres at the most westerly portion of his property, right up to the boundary of Lot 22, were transferred to William’s son James Sr (A.B.’s grandfather), who married Nancy Woodside in 1796 and was well on his way to raising his own family.38 The pioneer patriarch William finally died at the family home in Cavendish in 1819 at the age of 86, his wife Janet having preceded him a year earlier. Having established a homestead, a decent parcel of land under cultivation, and already a family of seven children of his own, James Sr made a bold decision when he decided to recapitulate the pioneer exodus of his father sometime around 1812. At age forty-two, James Sr moved his family a few miles farther west into Lot 22, in order to establish a base of operations all over again at the site of Bayview. James Sr likely felt constricted by the limitations of Island agriculture, even when surplus crops could be peddled to market, and was looking to enlarge his economic interests into the newly vitalized timber trade and shipbuilding industry, which had become the Island’s primary conduits of capital flow. By then, the Island economy was sustaining “extensive and valuable fisheries,” and was beginning to churn out exports of wheat, barley, oats, salt pork, butter, furs, seal oil, oysters, and some beef, in addition to the healthy timber trade. James Sr seized the opportunity to partake of this expanding commercial network.39 Along for the ride was James Jr (A.B.’s father), who had been born in Cavendish back in 1807, and who himself would eventually enter the shipbuilding trade. The family of James Simpson Sr, then, established a successful community for themselves at Bayview, where together with relatives and neighbours they formed a complex of interrelated enterprises that thrived around the exportation and shipbuilding industries into the 1820s and 1830s.40

Heritage of the Faith Many of the Scots, through the trials of migration, clung tenaciously to their culture and religion. Particularly renowned for their religious fervour were the Highlanders. Faith was both a clear identity marker and a centripetal

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force for both sociological and existential stabilization in otherwise deeply unstable conditions, and endowed the individual or familial journey with the meaning of a world-historical context. Thus immigrants brought their faith with them to the North American world, even if it would also often be transformed in the process. Especially for those who migrated in families and communities, there was typically a “high degree of social, moral, religious, and cultural transfer and continuity.”41 Such was the case for the Simpson family. All available evidence suggests that William and Janet were not merely generic adherents of their faith, but ardent practitioners who disseminated their beliefs to their family. The Simpsons inherited faith was Presbyterian, the predominant religion of the Scots since the sixteenth century, when John Knox had brought back a reforming zeal from his study with John Calvin in Geneva and actualized it in the official Church of Scotland (the Kirk). Named for its distinctive form of church leadership and oversight of Christian discipline by various echelons of elders, Presbyterianism belonged to the broader Reformed tradition, one of the major streams to have emerged from the Protestant Reformation. The Reformed heritage shared a theological orientation and practice of the Christian faith emphasizing the absolute sovereignty of God, the radicality of sin, a strict focus on the Bible, a covenantal interpretation of history, and a predetermined view of salvation in grace, amalgamated with an introspective, searching piety, a literary intellectualism, and an ennobling view of secular work as a sphere of Christian faithfulness. These aspects made it not just an influential theological view, but also a potent social force in the early modern world. By the eighteenth century, the Presbyterian faith and its shaping practices were integral aspects of what it meant to be culturally Scottish for many common believers like the Simpsons. Testifying to their genuine Presbyterian affiliation, William and Janet travelled from Scotland to Pei with a customary affidavit of character from their Scottish minister, M. Cumming. The papers, notarized shortly before their departure to the colonies, documented their active membership in the parish in Rothes, during which time the minister professed that “they behaved them selves modestly decently as became Christians and so as to preserve this caracter unsullied.” The document was a way of attesting that there was no impediment to the Simpsons being “received into Christian community, seccaty or publik comunaty of mankind or into any place of the w[o]rld” where “providence should see fit to order their lot.”42 One charming family tale, in particular, revealed the deeply devout nature of William’s faith. While in Charlottetown working piecemeal as a wood-hauler, the story went that Simpson, a zealous

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sabbatarian (a hallmark of Presbyterian devotion), had refused to haul wood on the Sabbath even at the personal behest of Governor Walter Patterson on a frigid January day. The governor apparently went to Simpson personally to implore his case that this specific task could not be delayed. Simpson retorted that the governor should have anticipated on Saturday that they were low on fuel and could have had it delivered then. Despite such myopia, Simpson chastised the governor, he and his beasts would obey the Lord’s command to cease from work on the Sabbath, and the task could be completed after midnight on Monday morning. Whether this piece of Simpson oral tradition was entirely accurate or not, the tale’s continual recirculation by the family could only bespeak its deep resonance with Simpson’s character, and its moral coheres with everything else that is known of the elder Simpsons in the family’s oral tradition, all of which testifies to their deep religiosity and profound commitment to the Scottish Reformed faith.43 The Simpson family chronicler even speculated that the family’s religious scrupulosity was one contributing factor in their departure from Charlottetown to found Cavendish. The colonial capital at Charlottetown then boasted an urban moral latitude and a throng of competing religious denominations. One of the earliest Presbyterian missionaries to Charlottetown gauged it to be “wicked enough for a larger town: swearing and drunkenness abounded.”44 In any case, once they left Charlottetown, the Simpson family would have to cultivate their faith on their own. For approximately the first fifteen years of their settlement in the Cavendish area, the Simpson family had no access to the regular, structural ordinances of life in the Presbyterian church. As they forged their settlement out of the unruly forest, the exercise of their faith would be the stuff of necessity. Oral traditions rumoured that the family “regularly observed the worship of God in their families” and in their homes. What specifically this meant in terms of daily practices is not certain, though it most likely included Presbyterian trademarks of daily prayers, Bible readings, strict moral discipline, and an unalloyed regimen of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In that de facto ecumenism of a tenuous frontier, many of the Presbyterian families of that area would make the roughly twenty-three-mile excursion to Charlottetown, in order to have their children receive baptism from the lone, ecumenically minded Church of England priest there.45 Establishment of the Simpson homestead in Cavendish roughly corresponded to the erratic but incremental development of Presbyterian institutional and ecclesial life in Atlantic Canada, as the church followed the migrants.46 For much of its early history, Prince Edward Island was a neglected part of the

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larger Nova Scotia mission for the Presbyterian churches, and was visited sporadically by a series of missionary ministers from a few different Presbyterian affiliations.47 James MacGregor (1759–1830), an early Presbyterian missionary to the Atlantic territories, was one of the earliest to take a sustained interest in the Island’s Presbyterians. A walking one-man Bible society, an abolitionist who freed a Nova Scotia slave girl with his first-year’s wages, and an intrepid, if overconfident, missionary, MacGregor had first arrived in the Atlantic region back in 1786. His initial assessment of missionary life in Nova Scotia was bleak: “Nothing but necessity kept me there; For I durst not think of encountering the dangerous road to Halifax again, and there was no vessel in Pictou to take me away and even had there been one, I had no money to pay my passage home.”48 MacGregor warmed to his travails for the gospel, however, and by 1791 he had commenced the first itinerant tour of Pei. Following this visit, he implored his synod to provide more pastoral resources for the spiritually deprived Island.49 Not having yet received any further resources, MacGregor himself returned to the Island on multiple occasions, trekked up to forty miles on snowshoes, all the while grumbling about illiterate and superstitious Scots who agitated about ghosts, fairies, and witches. This latter ethos led to a number of conflicts between MacGregor’s elitist, purist, and doctrinaire sensibilities, and the more makeshift and syncretic rhythms of frontier faith – for example, MacGregor’s implacable campaign against the “innovations” of the hymns of Isaac Watts, even though they were wildly popular.50 While the structures of Presbyterian life were expanding throughout the Atlantic region, Pastor Urquhart, this time a minister of the established Church of Scotland (the Old Kirk), became the first ordained minister to visit the Simpsons at their home in Cavendish at the turn of the nineteenth century. The old workhorse MacGregor finally ventured out to the Cavendish area himself in the summer of 1806. There, on Wednesday, 16 July, he gathered together the community in the homestead of James Simpson Sr for Presbyterian service and fellowship. In his own recollections of the visit, MacGregor took favourably to James Sr, describing him as “a very pious and intelligent man from Moray.” The preacher then delivered what was sure to have been an inspiring and uplifting sermon in the great blazing style of uncompromising Reformed preaching. For those who had toiled so long in the wilderness, for those who thirsted for fresh water to the parched soul, MacGregor quenched them with an exposition of Ezekiel 36:31 – “Then ye shall remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.”51 Law before gospel.

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The following year, MacGregor was able to hand over the reins to a permanent charge for the Island, Peter Gordon, who managed to preach regularly in Cavendish till his early demise. (Gordon’s widow, Janet, then married James MacGregor.) Gordon’s ministry oversaw the coalescence of the first permanent church assembly in Cavendish. After Gordon, John Keir was ordained to the charge at Princetown and Malpeque in 1810, and it is likely that James Sr attended the installation service. From the time of his assumption of this post, given his abiding responsibilities to his own home church, Keir provided what services he could to the fledgling Cavendish congregation, which was largely composed of members of the region’s pioneer families, the McNeills, the Lairds, the Lockerbys, and the Simpsons, who “were well able to conduct intelligently, amongst themselves, religious services, and did so until they obtained a pastor of their own.”52 Among the elders who oversaw the regular Cavendish worship in Keir’s absence, particular mention was made of the dedicated efforts of Captain William MacKay, John MacEwen, and James Simpson Sr, who “in the absence of a regular minister” reportedly “conducted the Sabbath services themselves with acceptance and profit to the people.”53 During this entire period of Presbyterian organizational development, oral histories maintained that the whole community would often go by boat to the church building at Malpeque. “Two long sermons were preached,” the Avonlea Women’s Institute recollected, “with an interval for lunch.” Sabbath sacred time was also social time: “the mothers fed the children and got a chance to get caught up on the neighborhood gossip.”54 This church building for Malpeque-Princetown was one of the oldest Presbyterian church buildings on the Island, an original structure begun around 1794. A second meeting house replaced it in 1810, and was also used by the community as a schoolhouse and a small debts court. Although the styles of Presbyterian church buildings were evidence of “resolute adherence to the principles of practical and functional architecture,” Presbyterians, ever theologically wary of idolatrous catholicizing iconography, still made even the simplest buildings not just buildings but “vital cultural signposts.” With only clean and straight lines and no gratuitous or ostentatious ornamentation, the buildings were nevertheless dramatic markers on the built environment, embodying the community’s faith identity, its social and cultural values, as well as spaces of respite from the demands and toils of pioneer life. The buildings themselves were “acts of faith,” and precisely in their simplicity, aesthetic deprivation, and functionality, they were theological commentaries and spaces of formation.55

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Finally, by the summer of 1826, the Cavendish cadre was officially recognized as its own distinct congregation by the Presbytery of Nova Scotia. Hugh Dunbar was ordained into a permanent post, and the Cavendish folks finally had their own regular pastor. Dunbar’s tenure lasted for eight years, and the prevailing view circulated that the “congregation seemed to prosper.” At the same time, there were also reported “jealousies between the English and Gaelic speaking” Presbyterians. Linguistic and cultural differences fomented strife, and Dunbar resigned his charge and departed.56 Still, the congregation continued to grow. A new church building was erected by the efforts of the Cavendish and New London community by 1837, built on the site of a previous log cabin, up the hill from town and across the bay from Cavendish.57 By this time, Maritime Presbyterianism had come far. Where there had been seventeen permanent ministers at the founding of the Synod of Nova Scotia (fourteen Secessionist and three from the Kirk), by 1835 there were thirty-one ministers, including six permanently stationed on the Island.58 Back in Cavendish, the departure of Dunbar set the stage for the arrival of Cavendish’s most celebrated minister, John Geddie (1815–1872), whose influence loomed large both in Canadian Presbyterianism and in the life and career of A.B Simpson in particular. Geddie was a man aflame with zeal for world missions. Whereas in previous centuries global cross-cultural missions activity had largely been the province of Catholics, the late eighteenth century into the nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic proliferation of Protestant missions. The missionary impulse was certainly intrinsic to Christianity, but this intensifying interest in Protestant missionary activity was catalyzed by expanding transnational networks of communication, transportation, trade, and migration, and by an ambivalent, though collusive, coincidence with European colonial expansion. In 1792 William Carey, a Baptist missionary to India, published Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen, and ignited a fire of awareness and activity among Protestant Christians concerning their responsibilities toward groups of people wholly unaware of the Christian message.59 Inspired by this rising passion for missions, Geddie yearned to foster a similar commitment to foreign missions in the Canadian Presbyterian church. Geddie’s biographer wrote of him that “his mind was deeply exercised with the state of the heathen world, and from the time of his ordination he manifested his interest in Foreign Mission work.”60 As his first post, the young Geddie was assigned to the joint charge of Cavendish and New London, where he was ordained on 13 March 1838, and

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from which he would champion his missionary project. At that time, no branch of the Presbyterian church in British North America actively pursued foreign missions work. Geddie crusaded through publications in Island papers and in the Presbyterian Banner to galvanize resolve for the missions cause. He submitted proposals to the presbytery and the synod, and chartered a missionary society in his home church in Cavendish. It must have been a struggle. When the Atlantic church itself was still largely frontier, fledgling, and tenuous – a home mission field – it was difficult to convince his fellow ministers that treasured resources should be diverted to foreign missions when many places at home were also in dire need of them. Still, by 1844 the Nova Scotia Synod had acquiesced. The synod charted the first board of foreign missions, and, in the following year, Geddie himself was selected as its first foreign missionary.61 Geddie’s earliest biographer wrote that “at an early age the desire to serve God in the Gospel, and, if possible to go abroad to carry the message of salvation to those who had not heard it, took possession of his heart.”62 Geddie would receive the opportunity to follow that heart, even unto his death in the field. The missionary ardour that animated Geddie would be communicated to his congregation with the Simpson family at the Cavendish post. Already in his first year, a women’s missionary society was convened in the congregation, betokening a wide expansion of horizons for the rural Islanders. The Cavendish church itself became the first to ante up a consistent pledge towards foreign missions to the tune of £15 per year; the entire presbytery together pledged a total of £72 for missions work that year.63 Geddie was remembered as having “preached to his own congregation annually on the subject [of foreign missions], besides breathing into his ordinary sermons and prayers the spirit of the missionary enterprise.”64 When, in 1846, Geddie was called away into foreign missions, he preached a rousing farewell sermon that was sure to have lingered in the memory of the Simpson faithful: “I trust that the cause of missions will not abate but rather increase by my removal from you.” Missions, he preached, should be second only “to your own salvation,” and he condemned it as an “awful criminality” for missions to be neglected among believers while “myriads of your fellow creatures are going downward to perdition.” With a pointed affirmation, Geddie left encouraged that, “as a congregation,” those in Cavendish “have been aroused to a sense of your duty on this subject.”65 It was evident from this sermon that foreign missions had been a recurrent thematic of Geddie’s ministry there. This commitment to foreign missions would leave an indelible mark on A.B. Simpson’s life, and

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the world evangelization movement of nineteenth-century evangelicalism for which Simpson would be such a fervent advocate. Years later, Simpson would reminisce about the influence of Geddie in the pages of his own publication.66

A Time to Be Born Into this religious ethos, during the apex of Geddie’s ministry among the Cavendish Presbyterians, and as his family was establishing themselves in the Prince Edward Island shipbuilding and trade industry, Albert Benjamin (A.B.) Simpson was born on 15 December 1843 at the family homestead in Bayview.67 Albert was the fourth child of James Simpson Jr and Janet Clark, cousins from two of Cavendish’s pioneer Scottish families, and so Janet had been raised in a shared religious and cultural world with her husband. Janet’s parents were William Clark Jr (James Jr’s first cousin) and Margaret (McEwen) Clark, both of whose gravestones were in Cavendish. Janet’s paternal grandfather, William Clark Sr, had been born in Clackmannanshire back in 1754 and emigrated to Pei like the elder Simpsons, although Clark seemingly did so in order to evade a press-gang forced conscription into the British navy.68 Clark had set out with the Simpson family early on to settle the Cavendish region, and he married the Simpsons’ daughter, Helen. Both families grew into prominent members of the Island community. Among the relatives of the Clarks and Simpsons were professionals and provincial political leaders, as well as their most famous progeny, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942), a distant cousin of A.B. Simpson, whose memories of being raised by the McNeill clan in bucolic Cavendish would be immortalized in Anne of Green Gables.69 Baby Albert was baptized into Presbyterian covenant by Pastor Geddie in the winter of 1844. The family story additionally recounted that at Simpson’s baptism the pastor had “consecrated the child to missionary service,” as Geddie’s own parents had done with him.70 To perpetuate the missionary fervour of his ministry, Geddie apparently singled out Simpson as an inheritor of that legacy. Years later, when Simpson was a pastor in Hamilton and Geddie was home in Canada raising support for his mission, Geddie tracked him down and told him the story of his baptismal dedication, the full version of which his parents had never disclosed. The story hammered Simpson as a wonderful and mighty act of God’s providence, and once he became aware of it, it would become a dramatic focal point for him: both a lens through which to view the spiritual calling of his young life, and also a continuing source of inspiration for his emphasis on world missions.71 In any case, A.B. Simpson entered the

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world into a family heritage and social environment of deep faith commitment, an expansive horizon of world Christian missions (even though Bayview itself was a remote, rural community), and a rough but disciplined frontier spirit that had secured a relatively stable and comfortable domestic situation out of the wilderness. His own time in Prince Edward Island would not be long, however, as the family of James Jr would be compelled to recapitulate the migratory exodus, this time farther into the Canadian interior. James Simpson Jr, in the year of his son’s birth, likely expected to remain on the Island for the duration of his life. He had already built his own homestead from scratch like his father and his grandfather before him, and he remained connected to various family interests around Bayview and Cavendish. Financial calamity intervened in the 1840s, however, when a decisive shift in British economic policy towards the colonies began to have repercussions on economic equanimity all across the British Atlantic. On the Island, shipbuilding had boomed in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and a peak of ninety ships were built in the year 1845.72 The adoption of free trade in 1845 and an end to preferential trade with the British homeland hit the Atlantic colonies hard. In some regions, exports of all goods plummeted by 37 per cent. Merchants and traders howled treachery, and public talk of annexation to the United States reached a high point. The Canadian economy would eventually recover and adapt, as the Canadian colonies shifted from primarily east-west transatlantic trade with Britain to north-south crossborder trade with the US, formalized in the 1854 reciprocity treaty. But out in the Maritimes, many Atlantic Canadians underwent a “decade of tribulation” and an era of “anxiety” during the 1840s as a result of the economic turmoil. Significant segments of the population fled the region, while those who remained grew increasingly disgruntled with inherited colonial structures and institutions.73 James Jr was among those who hemorrhaged major losses. Others in shipbuilding, trading, and timbering who had more diversified resources were able to weather the storm, but James Jr, less diversified, went bankrupt by 1847. His son A.B. described the situation later in life: his father “had suffered a financial blow in one of the terrible panics that had struck the island,” out of which “wrecked business” he had only been able to salvage “a few hundred dollars”; a decade after his business collapsed, overdue accounts were still being negotiated.74 With the “little money” he had saved, James Jr decided to move his whole family out of the debacle – and out of the home that the Simpson family had made for themselves for three generations – in order to start over once again. He gathered seven other families together, some of whom had been

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his employees in the shipping business, and chartered transportation to the growing region of Canada West (Upper Canada/Ontario). And so, James Jr, Janet, and their four children, including a young Albert Benjamin, took passage up the St Lawrence River to Montreal, through the Great Lakes system all the way to Detroit, then back up the Thames River to their intended destination of Chatham, Canada West. As his own grandparents had left Scotland to start again on the Island, so James Jr undertook his own journey to a new homeland, this time in the rolling mixed wood forests thronging southwestern Ontario.

Chatham, Canada West: Pioneers Once More A.B. Simpson could not have had much more than hazy impressions of his family’s life on Prince Edward Island, as the family left when he was only three and a half years old. Of his birthplace, nevertheless, he long entertained wistful associations of a halcyon time and place. The positivity of his view of Prince Edward Island was directly proportional to the negativity associated with his memory of his father’s move and their new location. Recalling somewhat bitterly from the perspective of old age, A.B. had internalized the interpretation that the move from Pei to Chatham had been an unmitigated disaster. “With little knowledge of the country,” A.B. later wrote, his father had led them to farmland “in one of the dreariest regions that could be imagined, and had taken his sensitive wife and his little family … into the wilderness.”75 Part of that incriminating assessment was due to the fact that A.B. always retained buoyant associations with life on the Island, focusing less on the harsh pioneer realities that his grandfather and great-grandfather would have endured to settle there. It was also the case that Simpson himself had suffered illness during the family’s journey to their new home.76 A.B. seemed to have imbibed this view from his mother, furthermore, who lamented the absence of her “good family” and “the little island where … her father was one of the public men of the island and a honored member of the legislature,” and where she had “a great number of friends.” Indeed the Simpsons, Clarks, and McNeills had been well established in the Cavendish area by the time A.B. was born, and they were embedded in a large kinship network upon which any individual member could draw. A.B.’s older sister Louisa remembered the same journey from Pei to Chatham differently; she experienced it as a “thrilling pleasure” and adventure.77 At any rate, A.B. never fully comprehended either the severity of the overarching economic realities that constrained his father’s livelihood, or the socio-economic enticements that would have led him to the Chatham area.

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Given the circumstances, James Jr’s choice of Chatham was actually quite reasonable and strategic. At the time, the small town in Kent County was certainly young and untested. But it was also an attractive and growing location in the rapidly expanding and developing colony of Canada West. Between the 1830s and 1850s, Chatham positioned itself as a major stopover for both riverboat and stagecoach traffic. Particularly of interest to James Simpson Jr was that Chatham seemed poised to ascend as a major shipbuilding location for the entire region. At the same time, agriculture and lumbering were also beginning to emerge as vital industries. The latter was part of what has been vividly called, from the perspective of environmental history, the “North American assault on the Canadian forest,” as the forests fell to the nineteenth century’s ravenous demand for timber.78 From a modest 100 settlers in 1830, Chatham had grown to 2,070 residents by 1851, while the population of surrounding Kent County quadrupled from about 4,000 to 16,000.79 The area’s vast supply of rich, arable land beckoned a surge of prospective farmers, as the acreage of land under cultivation jumped from an estimated 16,128 to 64,260. Comparing factors of growth in Chatham to other towns in Canada West suggested that “both the county of Kent and the village of Chatham were considered attractive locations for immigrants from outside the province, as well as from within.”80 The shops and businesses in the town by the time of the Simpsons arrival were various and vibrant.81 Chatham’s robust growth mirrored the larger colony-wide story of Canada West’s rise. By the time the Simpsons moved there, that region was poised to become the leading colony in all of British North America. By 1850, Canada West had surpassed Canada East (Quebec) to become the most populous colony in British North America, and in the subsequent decades it grew to become the most dynamic socio-economic region as well, beginning to wrest the epicentre of British North America away from Montreal.82 The coming of the colony’s roads, mail routes, canals, telegraphs, and then railways continued to catalyze an economic transformation and social diversification that fed sustained growth and development.83 From small pockets of Loyalist settlements in the midst of a number of First Nations communities, Upper Canada had steadily drawn larger and larger pools of immigrants from the British Empire, as well as significant numbers of African Americans who found at termini of the Underground Railway both political emancipation and cultural animosity.84 The War of 1812 had represented a crucial moment in the formation of an Upper Canadian identity, intensifying ambivalence to the United States and

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clearly stiffening the region’s desire to remain with the British Crown, yet also stoking desire for more broad-based rights and political participation than would have been typical of a subordinate colony.85 Canada West struggled to negotiate its familial role as “the child of one superpower” (Britain), and the “sister of another” superpower (the United States) that was dramatically ascending.86 Much of the early cohesion of the colony had been due to the ethos of Loyalists, whose flight from the American Revolution, in the words of one Loyalist, sweetened the bitter taste of defeat with the “sensible pleasure” of being able to depart a country “where discord reigned and all the miseries of anarchy had long prevailed.”87 The apparent homogeneity of Upper Canadian society, however, became further heterogenized by major arrivals of Irish and Scots, by the continuing tension with the claims of the First Nations to wide swaths of the territory, and by the major religious presence of Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Mennonites, in addition to the established Church of England that John Strachan initially lobbied to entrench. By the 1850s, the dominance of the Family Compact in government and the stranglehold of the Church of England on the clergy reserves and schools had begun its slow wane. Having been born to Scottish settlers on Prince Edward Island, most of A.B. Simpson’s upbringing would be in rural Chatham, and his horizon of experience Canada West. Here Simpson would be shaped decisively by his family, his community, and by the two realities that dominated the social imagination of much of nineteenth-century Ontario: the land and the church. Even through subsequent conversions and changing circumstances, Simpson would carry these lessons forward. The religious, missionary, and frontier experience of the Simpson family would have a deep impact on Simpson’s own life and ministry. The land would be where his father would raise the family and make his living for the rest of his life. From his own experience with the land, the younger Simpson acquired an entrepreneurial disposition that carried him through various pastoral endeavours. “Every Canadian,” he would preach on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, “seems by his very attitude to be forever saying, I can.”88 This, of course, was not everyone’s experience, but it had been his. Both his grandfather and his father had undertaken the pioneer trajectory, starting out with very little and making something of it. On the land, one had to learn, adapt, and be resourceful. From his experience with the church, Simpson derived his worldview’s fundamental orientation to evangelical Protestant Christianity. It was in this context that Simpson would undergo his personal conversion experience and be nurtured in his intensely

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sensitive and deeply interior spirituality. The Simpson household had chosen whom they would serve, as they understood their Scottish Reformed faith. As pastor and revivalist, A.B. Simpson would later overhaul many of the specific doctrines of the Reformed system of theology, but the broad ethos of evangelicalism would be the religious inheritance that he received and sustained throughout his life. Through many changes and challenges, Simpson would also choose to serve the same Lord.

C H A P T E R T WO

Memories of Conversion

The Simpson family reached Chatham, Canada West in the autumn of 1847. For three years they resided in the centre of town, while James experimented at shipbuilding. According to the Kent County decennial census, Janet laboured as a “seamstress,” work that she had probably done to supplement an unpredictable family income.1 At some point, likely due to inconsistent returns in the shipbuilding business and an upswing in the wheat market, the family patriarch began entertaining the prospect of farming for a living. This proved to be a shrewd instinct: the farms of Kent County were already starting to harvest substantial surplus wheat crop for market. The trade downturn after Britain adopted free trade had now been reversed, with new markets opened in the United States and demand for staple exports reaching a frenzy. Wheat and flour exports from southwestern Canada West – the Saskatchewan of the nineteenth century – rose from 3.7 million bushels in 1849 to 9.4 million bushels by 1856.2 Another factor contributing to James Jr’s decision to move out of town and onto the farm seems to have been a family tragedy. In 1851, their little six-year-old daughter, Margaret Jane, succumbed to an epidemic that ravaged the childhood population of Chatham. According to the older sister, Louisa, her mother refused to endure another bereavement after that. “Not caring what the hardships might be,” Louisa recalled, Janet “insisted” on abandoning the disease-plagued urban environment for the quarantine of the country, “if only she could save her three remaining children from death.” Devastated by the second loss of a child and “in dread for the rest of her children,” Janet hastened the move – regardless of whether James Jr was entirely ready for his new profession and the family’s new lifestyle out on the farm, or not.3

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Simpson’s Early Upbringing The County land records revealed that James Simpson Jr had originally acquired 100 acres in Chatham Township on 26 July 1850. This property had previously belonged to one John Urcherd, who had obtained it from Crown Lands back in 1837. The parcel that James bought was surveyed as the north half of Lot #9 on Concession #7, which was up the Caledonia Road from the river, roughly nine miles north and east of town.4 Farming was apparently not something for which James Jr was as prepared as he had initially thought, even though he would have wielded some cognate skills in building from his past. His daughter put it candidly when she remembered that her father, at the time of the move, was “not a farmer, and it was a hard struggle for him.”5 Still, James, along with some hired help and the labour of his sons, made incremental progress. The family upgraded from an original, rudimentary log cabin to a more elaborate frame farmhouse, and they erected some outbuildings on the property. Throughout the 1850s, James managed to eke out a living, though the family was not prosperous. The Simpsons began integrating into the surrounding community, which was populated by a plurality of Gaelic-speaking immigrant Highlanders, as well as forging ties in the city of Chatham.6 Despite Janet’s insistence on the change of location, the first few years of life on the farm were a trauma for her. An initial move away from her beloved Pei was compounded by the 1851 move out to a Canadian hinterland that was menaced – in a classic phrase – by the “interminable forests and the timeless emptiness of the north.”7 This was the setting for the cataclysmic reminiscences that A.B. Simpson retained later in life, ones which cast a shadow for him over the family’s entire move and many of his father’s decisions. As A.B. memorialized their family’s experience: “The first recollection of my childhood is the picture of my mother as I often heard her in the dark and lonely night, weeping and wailing in her room, in her loneliness and sorrow … in passionate upbraidings because of her cruel lot.” This sadness coloured A.B.’s memory of his early years. His father, he indicted, had stranded his “little family of four children into this wilderness,” an environment he characterized as bleak and doleful. The outcome for his mother was that, “in that lonely cabin, separated from the social traditions to which she had been accustomed and from all the friends she held so dear, it was little wonder that she should often spend her nights in weeping.”8 This melancholic interpretation of his childhood home provided opportunity for Simpson to spiritualize his upbringing, to preach a

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Figure 2.1 Simpson homestead, Chatham Township, Ontario.

preacher’s message of conversion to his young self and to the memory of his parents. With theological retrospective, Simpson waxed that this crisis for his mother occasioned his own spiritual awakening. “I still remember,” he narrated, “how I used to get up and kneel beside my little bed even before I knew God for myself, and pray to Him to comfort” her. The wilderness of the landscape was a parable of the impoverishment of true, authentic Christian community around them: “There was not another Christian friend within a circuit of miles.” In her inconsolable grief, Simpson chastised from a more comfortable position, his mother “had not yet learned to know God in all his fullness as her all-sufficient portion.” For his younger self, the intense grief provided the opportunity for his own first crisis experience: “that her little boy should find his first religious experience … in trying to grope his way to the heart of Him, who alone could help” his mother.9 While this was one of the first of many examples of Simpson’s “crisis” interpretation of his early life, and while there certainly was much family hardship, at the same time the Simpson family was also actually involved in a flourishing and devout Presbyterian religious community during the 1850s. The establishment of a strong Scottish identity in Chatham and its environs,

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and a burgeoning Presbyterian church community, could have been another attractive feature of Chatham life that drew James Jr there originally. The first Presbyterian church in the settlement of Chatham was established by 1841, when William Proudfoot planted a United Presbyterian congregation there from his permanent charge in London – the congregation that the Simpsons would eventually join – and exhorted the flock to press on toward the goal of growth and expansion, even in his absence.10 In January of 1842, a group of lay trustees purchased a property on Wellington Street and began construction of a building for worship that was completed two years later.11 According to the synod records, James Simpson Jr served as one of the elders of this congregation as early as 1855.12 Even during the early stages of carving out his farm from the forest out in Chatham Township, James Jr was still diligently and intentionally involved in church life back in town; this would have been a considerable commitment under the circumstances. By 1856, the family’s church procured the services of pastor William Walker, who would become an influential leader for the Simpson family and A.B. Simpson’s guide into the Presbyterian ministry. While the family did become involved in Presbyterian life in town, the centre of gravity of the Simpsons religious devotion and practice remained the home. Inculcation of faith in the family home was not merely a private affair in the nineteenth century, but was also a “patriarchal domesticity” that was interwoven with public society, a religious formation in which women also exercised a public role.13 In their own family story, A.B. described the spiritual sensibilities that his father cultivated in the home as those of “a good Presbyterian of the old school, [with] belief in the Shorter Catechism and in the doctrine of foreordination, and all the conventional rules of a well ordered Puritan household.”14 From the perspective of his later spiritual experiences, which recoiled at any semblance of religious formalism, routine, or intellectualism, Simpson wrote that the memory of this whole religious upbringing imbued him with “a chill.” Later in life, A.B. would interpret his inherited Christianity as largely formulaic, regimented, and lifeless. Nevertheless, there were glimpses embedded even in A.B.’s own memories that his father’s religiosity was more multifaceted than that. A.B. begrudgingly conceded that his father was “himself a devout Christian and most respected for his intelligent mind, his consistent life, and his strong practical sense.” He remembered his father reading his Bible daily, and recalled that he would “tarry long” at his devotions. While A.B. claimed throughout his adult life that as a child he had lacked comprehension of the Christian message and personal experience of its

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meaning, his father’s practice, he claimed, still infused him with a lifelong sense of “sacred awe.” The stern pedagogy and the religious knowledge that were “crammed into [his] mind even without understanding it” still succeeded in instilling in him an ethos of “reverence and discipline,” a visceral “horror for evil things” that anchored him amid the “temptations of the world,” and deep truths that would be subsequently “illuminated by the Holy Spirit” – “precious vessels for holding the treasures of divine knowledge.”15 Though recognizing the benefits, his memories nevertheless lingered on the drudgery and severity. James Jr was a strict moral disciplinarian and a zealous sabbatarian. One of the few whippings Simpson remembered receiving as a child resulted from his “playing” on the Sabbath in “ungodly liberty.” The punishment could not be enforced on the Sabbath itself; that would have been considered “work” to James. So it was early the next morning when the blows fell, in order to sear into A.B.’s heart, and body, the “great solemnity” of God’s holy day. In such moral discipline, however, Simpson largely saw inauthenticity. He and his brother learned that they could get out of many “chastisements” from their father if they made a performance of spiritual earnestness, if they feigned a “spirit of penitence and seriousness” and contrived to be seen reading their Bible after committing some wrong. While recognizing himself as a “hypocrite to practice this trick,” the whole tenor of these memories became an emblematic tale for Simpson about the absolute difference between exterior, formal religion and the true transformation of the heart.16 The Sabbath days at the Simpson household were devoted to Christian instruction. Whenever the family could not make the wagon journey into Chatham for church, family devotional practice would substitute for corporate worship. The family would sit in a circle for hours to read from the scriptures, and then to have them expounded by works of Reformed theology and devotional commentary. Reared “according to the strictest Puritan formula,” for the Simpson children the Sabbath afternoons were dedicated to the rote memorization of the Westminster Shorter Catechism – the manual of religious instruction composed by the English and Scottish Puritans. The litany of question and answer repeated itself roughly bimonthly, as James Jr would typically test his children on one half of the Catechism’s 107 questions on a given week, and the other half the next. In this way, the regimen would endure “year after year as the younger children grew up and joined the circle.”17 Simpson himself devalued the potency of the Catechism with his own emerging individualism, in contrast to his family’s more communal outlook. The formation of catechesis hoped

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to shape the children’s imagination through imparting the major doctrines of Reformed Christianity: “Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? A. 1. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” The children would thereby internalize the grand scope of the Christian story from creation through fall and redemption. In its original intent (and for many believers thereafter), the Catechism actually had desired to unlock the profound meaning of Christian doctrine for children with its pithy, fresh use of language rather than the reiteration of formal linguistic signs.18 In other cases, however, the calcified routine of memorization could have precisely the opposite effect, and Simpson remembered it as being pure tedium. This religious monotony was punctuated only by a few very clear memories of what Simpson would later interpret as experiences of authentic spiritual transformation.

Simpson’s Conversion Story The years from 1857 until he went away to college in 1861 at age seventeen were pivotal times for Simpson. A number of significant events occurred during this period in terms of his educational maturation, his career trajectory, and his spiritual development. Most decisive for the shape of Simpson’s entire life was the spiritual dimension; it was during this period that Simpson experienced his first personal awakening to Christ. Although Simpson’s later memories of this dramatic event emphasized the dissonant relationship between the intensity and intimacy of conversion and the formality and externality of his earliest church exposure, it was actually this very context in which Simpson was initially formed for conversion and through which he would interpret it. The early ethos of Simpson’s conversion had been facilitated by a devout family life, surrounded by his Scotch Presbyterian community and with the scriptures and Reformed theology constantly in the background, as well as by the intensely introspective character of Puritan spirituality. Because Simpson personally underwent further refinements in his theology, in his distinctive account of the true believer’s sequential crisis experiences, he would often reminisce that his earlier Christian life had been considerably incomplete and impoverished. Nevertheless, this initial conversion experience, understood within a Puritan context, reverberated throughout the remainder of his life. The Puritan tenor of Simpson’s early formation would have led him to continually search for signs of God’s election in his life, and Simpson recounted a number of experiences that intensified his spiritual awareness and incited his religious awakening, all of which meant that what he interpreted later as

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his decisive conversion experience also occurred within a broader formation. A first such personal experience for Simpson was one tinged with guilt and shame. The young Simpson went out to town one day to procure a firearm, something that had been absolutely prohibited in his family due to his mother’s sensibilities about the matter. Like Augustine and his pear tree, and some hyperbole, Simpson later interpreted this action as an illicit passion, which demonstrated how his “carnal heart rebelled” against God’s calling, “because of the restraints it would put upon me.” His day of reckoning came, however, when his mother – as they all do – found his “forbidden idol.” Such a revelation provoked the “day of judgment” in the home, with his mother “pouring out the vials of her wrath while [he] sat confounded and crushed.” His mother demanded that he not only return the firearm to its vendor, but also forfeit the funds used to purchase it. Guilt led to punishment. Guilt and shame were key initial elements in the Puritan religious phenomenology, leading to the awareness of sin and a broken relationship with God. Those associations also corresponded to the remote and exacting view of God that Simpson claimed he had learned up to that point in his life. According to Simpson, this series of events was his “first definite religious crisis.”19 A second significant religious moment that left an indelible impression on the young Simpson was his experience of the threat of drowning in the Thames River. The liminal experience of death has often been the occasion for a decisive experience. Having to face the possibility of dying forces people to consider the possibility of finality, the removal of the self, the terminus which makes a human life a completed whole, and so raises the question of the meaning of one’s individual life. Particularly for one raised within the Puritan matrix, this experience would be weightily interpreted as a confrontation with the prospects of hell, the consuming wrath of God, and the Lord’s eternal mystery of reprobation for unconverted sinners. As an adult Simpson confessed that the prospect of death had plagued his childhood: “I remember when I was a child what a shock a funeral bell would give me. I could not bear to hear of someone’s being dead.”20 One afternoon after school, Simpson had been goaded by one of his peers into venturing out into the river. Incapable of swimming, he soon found himself in trouble, and terrified by his vulnerability, the trauma engraved itself upon his mind. Simpson was spared from any ultimate confrontation when the howls of his schoolmate summoned a boat to his aid, although with good Puritan sensibilities, he attributed his deliverance to divine providence: “God mercifully saved me.” The experience was one of reckoning for him, as he recalled that it “greatly deepened my spiritual”

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seriousness.21 His sister Louisa later corroborated how formative it had been for her younger brother.22 This warning of judgment had hurled Simpson into an existential turmoil that would leave him particularly receptive to and permeable by emotional presentations of the gospel message. Shortly after his not-so-near-drowning experience, Simpson was “deeply convicted” while attending a revival meeting held by the itinerant preacher H. Grattan Guinness (1835–1910) and listening to his “pungent preaching.”23 Scion of the famous Irish brewers, Guinness had launched an independent evangelistic and global missionary campaign from his base in London. In the style of Whitefield and Finney, Guinness marshalled all the methods, devices, and theatrics at his disposal for the purposes of cajoling conversion in his hearers.24 Guinness came to North America on one of his early preaching tours in 1858, following what was by then a well-trodden itinerant trail blazed by Methodist circuit riders from Montreal through Brockville, Belleville, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Chatham, Detroit, and Chicago.25 Guinness’s preaching would have been unlike most of what Simpson encountered in the Presbyterian pulpits. At a young age, Guinness had already earned a reputation as an emotive, fiery preacher whose orations moved thousands to conviction. It was the type of preaching pioneered by Whitefield’s theatricality and swiftly becoming characteristic of many pockets of transatlantic revivalist evangelicalism. This preaching was extemporaneous in performance, typically an oral improvisation anchored in certain recurring tropes, and conducted in an approachable vernacular, which stood in stark contrast to many of the carefully curated texts, sometimes florid and always embroidered with deep erudition, that were habitually read in the Presbyterian pulpit. These revival sermons were designed primarily for accessibility, communication, and emotional fomentation, and they fixated on their primary objective: to catalyze a momentous spiritual decision.26 Guinness’s delivery of his revival sermons was described as “pictoral preaching; comparison, contrasts, figures and anecdotes.”27 His style (as one commentator dryly put it) was “short on exegesis,”28 and unburdened by formal rhetoric, doctrine, or theological sophistication, even if that meant not getting overly hindered by the opacity of any actual scripture passages. But this type of rhetoric was, in any case, pragmatic and effective: “few will question [Guinness’s] intense earnestness, and fail to conclude from his impassioned manner that the conversion of souls to Christ is the masterful purpose of his life, and the one object that he always had in view,” as one account of his published sermons put it.29 All of this would have been weighty stuff for the

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young Simpson, still reeling from previous poignant experiences, spiritually porous, and recurrently vexed by his status before a holy God. Guinness first invoked the now-customary evangelical trope of assaulting the sterile religiosity that was antithetical to the authentic, transformative gospel life. To be truly converted, in his view, often began with castigating and purging reliance upon one’s own religious formation, insofar as the latter was exterior and not interior. Exterior religious formation came in the forms of official church involvement, religious practices, spiritual routines, or even pious sentiments, while “unregenerate ministers” came in for special lampooning: “there are some servants in the church who are the servants of Satan – the servants of Satan clad in the livery of God; but God owns them not.” In staccato interrogatives, Guinness skewered the conscience of his listeners. Superficial formalities would not suffice, he taught; radical transformation was required. “Doest thou pretend to be a solider of the Most High God? Is thy name enroled among the warriors of Jehovah? Art thou marked with the blood of the cross? Dost thou stand beneath the open and unfurled banner of truth? Art thou fighting against the foes of God and of man? Art thou willing to lay thy life down for his sake?” Then came the crescendo: “If not,” Guinness thundered, “you are not a soldier.” Then it was time for gospel decision: “you must be born again!”30 We do not know whether Simpson went forward during an “altar call” at Guinness’s revival meeting that night for any kind of decision, but the incident as a whole left a profound impression on him, one which both he and his sister later recalled as being influential on his entire life. Simpson returned home emotionally electrified, but still spiritually meandering and physically exhausted. Not only did this event trigger Simpson’s own early religious quickening and personal appropriation of his faith, but the template of Guinness would also resonate into Simpson’s ministry when he founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). Although Simpson himself became impressively educated, he returned to Guinness’s lesson that preaching was first about conversion and heart-transformation, and conversion for the many required simple, straightforward, unencumbered encounter with the essential gospel message, one which put individual feeling before intellectual profundity. Upon the revivalist’s death in 1910, Simpson eulogized the early support that Guinness had given the C&MA movement, having been present at its first convention in New York City – even though Guinness had also subsequently blasted Simpson’s specific divine healing teachings. Most importantly, Simpson dwelt on his own personal connection to Guinness through

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those revivalist meetings held in Chatham some fifty years prior, “which left a lasting impression upon [my] own mind as a young man at a critical stage of [my] own religious experience.”31 This season of spiritual upheaval in Simpson’s life culminated with his defining conversion moment. His background formation in Puritan spirituality, his parents’ teaching, his near-death encounter, and his presence at the Guinness revival all deeply molded Simpson’s religious outlook, but they were not what he remembered as his true conversion experience. In many ways, Simpson’s testimony took the prototypical shape of an evangelical conversion narrative, a distinct form of individual Christian spiritual autobiography and self-interpretation that emerged with the movement in the eighteenth century.32 Simpson seemed to have been honestly wary of self-promotion and overly focusing his message on the “self,” which in the modern world could readily morph into self-aggrandizement: “I am willing to overcome the natural reticence which has made it always a pain even to publish my photograph, and let God use the testimony in any way in which it may please and glorify him.”33 But in memorializing his testimony, Simpson nevertheless presented a narrative that proved insightful about common, lived spiritual experience and which was a seemingly transparent presentation of himself (notwithstanding, of course, how the self is always already being constructed through acts of decision, as well as by receiving, negotiating, and interpreting the self in relation to others and the world).34 Many aspects of the evangelical conversion narrative can be gleaned from Simpson’s testimony. Conversion referred to a process of changing, turning, or transforming. In the broad sense, then, this term could be quite multidimensional, and describe a range of changes from internal beliefs, ideals, hopes, meanings, to external practices or behaviours, or to crossing the threshold from some sociologically identifiable group, affiliation, or institution to another one. There can be intellectual, moral, political, affiliational, or religious conversion. There can be conversions of varying intensity, magnitude, and duration. For the larger Christian tradition, conversion could mean a distinct, specifiable moment. Indeed, many of the paradigmatic examples that inspired other believers were those dramatic events: Paul on the road to Damascus, Augustine in the garden, Luther’s justification insight in the tower, Wesley’s heart warmed with personal assurance. But it could also refer to the whole cumbersome and prolonged process of the Christian life, becoming conformed to Christ over a lifetime. The context, meaning, and manifestations of conversion in different cases varied, as did the theological infrastructure behind them and

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the doctrinal implications drawn from them. The basic question solicited by this phenomenon, nevertheless, referred to the dative of transition: conversion from what to what?35 For the Protestant evangelicalism of Simpson’s time, as typified by Guinness’s revival, what was intended was the definitive moment of personal transformation. This religious sensibility sought a total reorientation of the self, a radical revolution whereby the rest of one’s life became demarcated by such a decisive episode of turning. To have undergone conversion was to have one’s life seized by the Christian story and to have one’s life shaken up by the agency of the person of Jesus Christ interpreted through the power of the Holy Spirit. To be converted was to turn from a state of alienation and distance from God to an experience of friendship and relationship with God. In the classic evangelical idiom, it was the experience of being “born again,” of ending one way of being and beginning another, of receiving life anew and starting it afresh against a new horizon. Especially because of its interpretation within the scope of a grand account of the world – the whole biblical metanarrative of salvation – and because its agential cause was taken to be ultimate, divine reality, the individual evangelical conversion experience characteristically assumed a supreme significance. Other aspects of life all became coordinated to this event: one’s prior life anticipated it, and one’s life thereafter flowed from it. There was a before, and then there was an after. From the outside, this often looked like a surprising and dramatic change of character, though it was also clear that old elements lingered, and contributing social and psychological factors acted as incentives or barriers. From the inside, this was the defining experience of one’s life, an event of intense emotional or psychological energy, where one’s desires and fears, hopes and shames, joys and laments were all reconfigured by the gravity of the Christian story and were all channelled into impacting the individual’s pattern of actions. This was also interpreted as an event of world-historic significance, regardless of the modesty of the convert, because the biblical story, in which any individual conversion was situated, was the fundamental story of the world. It was this form of the evangelical conversion narrative, freighted with its corresponding account of the world, that Simpson used to interpret what happened to him as a young person. His own story evidenced many of these patterns, though there were some idiosyncratic elements as well. Simpson’s religious searching and questioning coincided with a period of physical illness, frequently one of the life preconditions for the conversion experience. Frail and small of stature, Simpson’s

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first battle seemed to have been brought on by intense and arduous periods of reading and study during a period when he was lodging at a boarding house in Chatham and preparing for college. After many months of unrelenting labour, “a fearful crash” came. Sensing apocalyptic visions and images of blazing light, Simpson “fell into a congestive chill of great violence” that he was convinced “almost took [his] life.” As he recounted the story, the seriousness of the situation was magnified by one of his fellow boarders. This person was suffering from delirium tremens, “and his horrible agonies, shrieks and curses seemed to add to my own distress the very horrors of hell itself.” From this description, we can see that Simpson’s health challenges and his spiritual crisis were deeply entangled. He left the boarding house and returned to the family farm out in the township. A physician diagnosed him with something akin to an anxiety disorder and prescribed a year-long hiatus from study, concluding that Simpson’s “whole system had collapsed” and that he was “in the greatest danger.” Simpson described this stage of his life as a “mental and physical agony” so intense that “no language could describe” it adequately, he claimed.36 It was possible that this indicated, at least partially, some sort of mental illness or instability, or a psychosomatic affliction engendered by his natural sensitivity, his mental susceptibility, or his religious fear of death and hell. Simpson’s own retrospective, though, was theologically laden: he later diagnosed the real situation, amid the physical anguish, as his having had “no hope and no Christ.” He was still bereft of the “great change called regeneration or the new birth … [that] had not yet come” and that would be the only true medicine for his torment. “Sinking into the bottomless depths constantly,” Simpson still made it through the worst of the physical torment. “God was just going to spare me for one day,” he thought. His response was that he “must strive and pray that day for salvation as a doomed man … lest I should lose a moment from this intense and tremendous search for God and eternal life.” This careening between despair and longing continued over some months. At the time, his father must have been concerned about the status of his health, but also comforted that his son was potentially showing some of the initial evidences of spiritual solemnity that he could be one of the elect.37 While convalescing, but apparently back on his feet and out to study against doctor’s orders, Simpson found the resolution to his crisis when he “stumbled” upon a book by Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (original 1692) in the library of his pastor, William Walker (and so probably not such a haphazard stumble after all). A sense of the crucial passage to which he was drawn became etched in Simpson’s memory: “The first good work you will ever

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perform is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Until you do this all your works, prayers, tears and resolves are vain. This very moment it is your priviledge and your duty … to kneel down and take the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, and tell Him you believe according to His word, that He saves here and now. Believe this in spite of your doubts and fears and you will immediately pass into eternal life, will be justified from all your sins and receive a new heart and all the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit.” Simpson’s encounter with this written passage proved to be the spark. These words, he recounted, “opened my eyes, and … opened for me the gates of eternal life.” There was a before, and then there was an after. What came to him that moment was “assurance” in the actuality of God’s promises for him, the conviction that belongs to the “believing soul.” As he described it, “the Spirit answered to the Word,” and Simpson became “born of God.”38 Crying out personally to God, Simpson exclaimed, “Thou knowest how long and earnestly I have tried to come, but I did not know how.” He had now been shown the way through belief in Christ. Simpson “dare[d] to believe that Thou doest receive me and save men, and that I am now Thy child, forgiven and saved simply because I have taken Thee at Thy word.” Entering into adoption and familial relationship with God, Simpson could now affirm, “Abba Father, Thou art mine, and I am Thine.”39 Throughout his subsequent theological and existential developments, Simpson would mark this event as his defining, singular conversion moment. As was clear, however, reaching this moment had also involved an extended period of preparation and formation.

Evangelical Memory While this conversion event obviously had been authentic and powerful for the young Simpson in its original circumstances and occurrence, there were also clear signs that the way he rendered the story later in life betrayed the interpretive nature of the evangelical conversion narrative. The conversion story was not merely a straightforward chronicle of events but also a renewed act of self-definition for the subject who underwent it, a form of coherence that was endowed to the person’s life emerging from the conversion experience itself. The power of the originating episode of conversion was a triggering event, but the malleability and plasticity of its memory also meant that its recollection would be shaped over time. Events became configured based on theological principles. Memory of conversion not only involved presence, but also, dialectically, aspects of forgetting, deferral, or receding. Remembrance

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rearranged, skipped over gaps, and connected discontinuities. This was partially the case because the conversion event was not merely something that happened once, but was something that was reenacted. Part of the Christian life was to retell the conversion story as a continual practice of definition of the self and witness to the other. As the story was told over and over again in the continual unfolding of the subsequent Christian life, every recounting of the conversion event forged a new experience and thus a reconsolidation of the memory of the originating one. Each time, the historical details of the originating event merged with and were interpreted by the event of self-definition, according to one’s spiritual perspective at the time of the recounting. The existential intensity of the triggering conversion experience, together with its reiterated tellings, shaped the person’s memory. This was an evangelical memory, in which the actual, lived historical events of one’s life could become increasingly conformed to the spectacular “before” and “after” crisis of the conversion episode. This memory was imbued with a narratival patterning and woven into a tapestry according to the theology of salvation. One tendency embedded in this type of remembrance, among others, was to foreground and dramatize problematic or negative aspects of the person’s life prior to conversion and to deemphasize and smooth out problematic or negative aspects of the person’s life following conversion. At the same time, the continual retelling of evangelical memory occurred in the context of the believing community, and thus generated post-memorial reverberations. This took the form of testimony, by which the retelling of the conversion narrative was received by other listeners for their own spiritual purposes. Testimony itself became part of the repeated, ratifying practice of believers and an invitation extended to others to experience conversion for themselves. In this way, evangelical memory was not only part of the personal framework that gave meaning to the individual life, but was also transmitted to the communal or collective ethos. Members of the group shared recognizable conversion experiences with each other, or negotiated their own identities in the context of those who did, and this communal memory formed one aspect of a cohesive social identity. Evangelical conversion represented an intimately individual experience, but at the same time it occurred in this essential communal context that shaped and reinforced its proper interpretation and meaning, and gave the individual story enough shared features that it formed a discernable genre or narrative. Simpson, in his memory of the originating conversion experience, was compelled to emphasize the sterility and spiritual dryness of his youthful Presbyterian environment and formation, not only

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because that was the context out of which he had been converted – the “from which” of his conversion – but also because he was often imploring his hearers to be converted out of similarly apathetic situations.40 These features could be seen in Simpson’s case, in particular, through his treatment of a crucial detail of his narrative. In the telling of his conversion story, Simpson had some of the details accurate: Marshall’s Gospel Mystery of Sanctification was the crucial text, for example. It was a work his own father had read in his devotional life, and one that his Presbyterian pastor would certainly have recommended for Simpson in his search for comfort and illumination. The specific text that Simpson cited, however, was not entirely from that work. Instead, some of the passage that he recounted corresponded more to his own theological shifts and spiritual pilgrimage since then. The first part of Simpson’s quotation was a rough paraphrase of chapter 11 from Marshall. But the second part of the quotation didn’t even seem to be from Marshall at all, but was rather a compacted form of Simpson’s own preaching and teaching honed over decades in ministry, aimed in particular at the unconverted. Especially notable was the subtle shift away from pure Reformed soteriology, with its heavy emphasis on divine monergism in the work of election and salvation – God’s work alone, to the exclusion of human reception – and the subtle shift towards a more experiential emphasis on the Holy Spirit, evidenced by Simpson’s rendition of the quotation.41 What did all of this mean? In the telling of the testimony, Simpson had telescoped many events into that single defining conversion moment while reading the Marshall book after his physical collapse, and with the pitiless fear of hell and spiritual shame weighing on him. It also meant that Simpson was mischaracterizing the poverty of his Presbyterian religious upbringing prior to his conversion based on his subsequent theological departures. By contrast, Simpson’s Presbyterian context had been much more vital and lively than he later credited, and that youthful context had provided the very circumstances in which Simpson could experience a conversion moment within the larger scope of an intentional and extended search for God and exploration of Christian teaching. In later life, Simpson often remembered his Presbyterian upbringing as largely spiritually dry and desolate, and he retrospectively interpreted its religious significance as “cold denominationalism.” Even while Simpson conceded that his heritage had taught him “reverence and discipline” for which he “often had cause to thank God since,” and even while he acknowledged that his upbringing had been “strangely sheltered and guarded by divine providence,” he still felt that, on the whole, the “whole religious training” imparted to him by his parents and

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tradition had left him “without any Gospel”; it had no vivification in it. The teachings of his parents and his Presbyterian church had been “precious vessels for holding the treasures of divine knowledge,” but this only became the case when Simpson was converted. Prior to his conversion and awakening, Simpson felt that these teachings had been heaped upon him without any understanding or meaning. With these judgments, Simpson was prone to retrojecting his subsequent crisis experiences, and his own theological developments of the work of the Holy Spirit, sanctification, holiness, and experience of intimate divine presence onto his Presbyterian experience.42 A.B.’s sister, Louisa, provided some counter to the narrative of spiritual barrenness and cold, strict religiosity that Simpson remembered of their upbringing. Of their father, James, she wrote that she “never once [saw] him lose his temper or say an unkind word.” His disposition was “very tender and most affectionate,” and the witness of his life was “radiant with sunshine.” Louisa emphasized that her mother was “an earnest Christian all her life,” and spoke of the “[d]eeply religious” character of her parents. While growing up, she remembered that her mother “used to talk to Jesus and tell Him everything as if He were really present in person,” an intimate friendship with Christ nurtured in their Puritan spirituality that hardly resembled a vacuous religious formalism.43 The sermons of the Simpsons’ pastor in Chatham, William Walker, certainly did betray an intellectualist preoccupation, to which Simpson might have reacted as a young person. Deeply erudite and a scholar of the classics, Walker repeatedly returned to the motifs of “doctrines,” “truths,” “understanding,” “ignorance,” and “instruction,” as he laboured to dismantle the views of skeptics and critics in an apologetic mode. Even in this mode, however, Walker’s sermons, brimming with scriptural texture and detail, often took the theme of the “new birth” that Jesus spoke about in John and proclaimed the imperative of “regeneration”; they also encoded the heart religion and existential conversion sensibility that Simpson later claimed had been absent from his religious formation.44 While the elder A.B. who told his conversion narrative would have disagreed on certain doctrinal teachings with the Presbyterian church upbringing in which his originating conversion happened, it was still inaccurate for him to characterize that religious situation as devoid of evangelical influences. In fact, Simpson grew up in a Presbyterian environment that had already been significantly permeated by evangelical influences along with the older Protestant denominations over the course of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century – part of a trend that one historian delightfully called

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the “affectional transposition of Christian doctrine.”45 This did not mean that the spectrum of evangelicalism did not manifest varieties contingent on theology, denominational characteristics, social location, or geographicalnational situations. Nor did it mean that Simpson’s later de-confessionalized and institutionally transformed evangelicalism was the same as that of his upbringing. Certainly, Simpson’s conversion narrative represented authentic differences between his Presbyterian evangelical formation and his later post-denominational evangelical developments. But these were differences across varieties of evangelicalism itself and not differences from the outside in.

The Puritan Matrix of Simpson’s Spirituality Such continuities could be further discerned from the distinctively Puritan tenor of Simpson’s early spirituality. The time after Simpson’s conversion was a spiritually euphoric one, and the memory of the afterglow of his conversion lingered. The months afterwards were, Simpson recalled, “very full of spiritual blessings.” The truths of God “burst upon [his] soul with a new and marvelous light.” Previous doctrines that had been but “empty sounds,” meaningless clamor, became for him in his internal life “divine revelation to [his] soul … every one seemed especially for me.” In Simpson’s “imagination,” he “clothed the glowing promises of Isaiah and Jeremiah with a strange and glorious radiance” that illuminated his heart and stirred his emotions to the core. Simpson now devoured the scriptures with “ecstasy,” and he felt that particular passages spoke directly to him and to his situation. Learning about other’s experiences of “failures and fears,” Simpson recoiled at the prospect of undergoing a declension from his spiritual heights; the possibility that he might “lose the supreme joy of a soul in its earliest love” provoked his prayer that he be taken straight to heaven rather than backslide into his “old life.”46 Death no longer daunted him, he professed, for he had appropriated the Apostle Paul’s words that to die in the intimacy of Christ would be gain. But the journey of faith would be an undulating one, with both hills and valleys. Simpson retrospectively conceded that he had already wrangled with doubt during his conversion experience, conducting “the fight of faith with the great Adversary” before receiving the “divine assurance that always comes to the believing soul.”47 During the year after his conversion, Simpson was still undergoing an extended process of spiritual self-reflection about his status of election that corresponded to the Puritan introspective tradition and to its phenomenology of salvation. Simpson’s conversion event, therefore, assumed

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the shape of the broad evangelical conversion narrative, shared across a number of Christian traditions, but it also had been decisively shaped by the more specifically Puritan spiritual sensibility in which he had been raised by his mother, father, and Pastor Walker. During this season, Simpson was closely reading Philip Doddridge’s classic, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (original 1745), one of those “old musty” volumes (along with Thomas Boston’s Human Nature in Its Fourfold State and Richard Baxter’s The Saint’s Everlasting Rest) that his father had cherished as inspirations of Puritan “heart religion,” but which Simpson later claimed gave him “chills.”48 Following his conversion, nevertheless, Simpson seemed to have been following the Puritan program of devotion rather attentively to consolidate his spiritual state. What he would later view, in terms of sanctification as a distinct crisis experience of the Holy Spirit that led into the “deeper life,” was viewed by the Puritan program as a rigorous life-long process of “practical divinity,” a continuing, gradual experience of Christ’s perfect redemption being applied to and manifested in the covenanted saints. The spiritual life that Simpson pursued during these years involved a deeply introspective interrogation of the self, searching for creaturely evidences of sin and judgment, which could be existentially brutal, or for empyrean evidences of blessing and holiness, which could be blissful. Simpson’s description of his whole conversion process still bore discernable marks, years later, of the archetypal Puritan twofold contour of salvation. First, the spiritual seeker attempted to fulfill the exacting demands of God’s holy law through their own efforts at obedience. These, inevitably, fell short. Seekers grew intensely aware of their own shortcomings, the insufficiency of their efforts to placate God, and were left destitute of their works. Recognizing the poverty of their own merits was often portrayed in the Puritan devotional tradition as a catastrophic experience of the self, accompanied by a dramatic sense of God’s wrath, a vivid sense of one’s own unworthiness, and a palpable terror of death and hell. Possibly, this stage verged on (or crossed over to) severe existential depression, or even suicidal tendencies. It could often manifest itself in psychological or bodily symptoms, just as it seemed to have done in Simpson’s case. The second stage was the intervention of God’s disruptive grace in the situation of hopelessness. A sense of the blessing of God’s radically free and unmerited gift of forgiveness and friendship would deluge the individual and permeate their whole being, often conveyed by an overwhelming sense of “light,” similarly to what Simpson had described in his encounter with illumination. Once the seeker had been purged of false security in their own accomplishments, God’s true grace could irrupt into their lives.49

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The oscillation between entrenchment in sin and transformation of grace would have continued for Simpson as he perused his Doddridge. The spiritual life following conversion was a consistent renewal of the covenant and a continual rejuvenation of spiritual energy. Reading through Doddridge, Simpson undertook a gruelling regimen that sought to expose any difference between the “superficial” practitioner (the still unregenerate) and the authentically religious believer (one truly renewed by the Spirit). Doddridge addressed himself even to those who supposed themselves to believe the truths of Christianity, attend to religious forms, and live a decent life – to “nominal Christians … not only blameless but amiable … just and sober, humane and courteous, compassionate and liberal.” To his readers, Doddridge could be ruthlessly truculent for the sake of dismantling any remnant of pretense: “look seriously into your own heart, and ask it this one plain question – Am I truly religious? Is the love of God the governing principle of my life? … And am I … making his service my business and my delight, regarding him as my master and my father?”50 What could the sinner do under such withering examination? The sinner who was honest with themselves would already sense their tenuous position. The litany of piercing and searing indictments that Doddridge hurled at the soul hoped to break down the sinner to the core. The fear of hell meant that these warnings could not be ignored any longer: “Thousands are, no doubt, already in hell, whose guilt never equaled thine … it is astonishing that God has spared thee to read this representation … Oh waste not so precious a moment, but enter as attentively, and as humbly, as thou canst, into those reflections, which suit a case so lamentable and so terrible as thine!” The barrage continued unabated. All the actions of the inquirer outside of true grace, Doddridge unleashed, were “all hypocricy; and artful veil” that “profaned and prostituted … the sacred name of God.”51 Page after relentless page, Doddridge raised and then rejected every excuse in which the sinner might possibly take refuge. Every crevice and cranny of the soul had to be meticulously scoured for possible counterfeits to the unmerited gospel; even those who retained a modicum of self-reliance, pride, or self-congratulation had their motives probed. The message was draconian, but for the Puritan tradition such was needed in order to deal sufficiently with the extremity of sin and the radicality of grace, which lavishly outweighed the misery of the corruptions of sin. It was for the latter reason, according to Doddridge, that these “loving wounds” were inflicted. The entire regimen was a precursor to the authentic reception and recognition of the liberating news of the gospel by faith, and the believer could take comfort in the final victory of Christ, which could be anticipated even now in the communion of

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the Lord’s Supper and in worshipful fellowship with the saints. Existentially sensitive and of mystical temperament, such a spiritual discipline left a deep and lasting impression on Simpson.52 This spiritual program culminated when Simpson entered into a “solemn covenant” with the Lord, a practice that Doddridge had recommended in Rise and Progress. This was a written statement that would be a tactile and fixed memorialization of the believer’s dedication to the service of God, to which they could return if need be – a sacramental of word for an iconoclastic theology.53 So on 19 January 1861, at seventeen years of age, after spending a day in prayer and fasting preparing for the Sabbath, Simpson enacted just such a covenant. In it, he pledged himself to the “everlasting and almighty God, Ruler of the universe … who art in every place beholding the evil and the good.” Appealing to God (“O Thou Searcher of hearts”), he confessed – in true Puritan form, ever watchful of the pervasiveness of sin and the depths of human self-deception – that “so far as I know my own heart, it is not a worldly motive that has brought me before Thee now. But my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and I would not pretend to trust to it; but Thou knowest that I have a desire to dedicate myself to Thee for time and eternity.” Simpson came as a “sinner, lost and ruined by the fall, and by my actual transgressions, yea, as the vilest of all Thy creatures,” and he heightened the tension of his confession by dramatizing his sin: “when I look back on my past life, I am filled with shame and confusion. I am rude and ignorant, and in Thy sight a beast.” In his covenant, Simpson rehearsed all the salient points of the Reformed system of theology from creation to fall to redemption, and embedded a commentary on all the scriptural covenants into which his own covenant would fit. At first emphasizing the depth of depravity, Simpson then turned to extol the Lord’s outrageous mercy, the one who “condescend[s] to look on me, a vile creature … For it is infinite condescension to notice me.” “But truly,” the panegyric continued, “Thy loving kindness is infinite and from everlasting. Thou, O Lord, didst send Thy Son in our image … In Him were united all the perfections of the Godhead with the humility of our sinful nature. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant, and through Him we all have access unto Thee by the same Spirit.” Only through the work of Jesus, Simpson confessed, could he even have the inclination to make such a dedication of himself: “Through Jesus, the only Mediator, I would come to Thee, O Lord, and trusting in His merits and mediation, I would boldly approach Thy throne of grace.” It was by the grace of the “new covenant” enacted by Jesus through

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his “blood” on the cross that Simpson could ever have fellowship with God and offer himself for his service. To make such a commitment, Simpson declared that he was entering into his own personal “covenant” with the Lord: “I believe on Jesus and accept of salvation through Him, my Prophet, Priest, and King,” who had become for him “wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption and complete salvation.” God himself had given him the desire to make such a covenant, but following the rhythm of the Psalms, Simpson implored the Lord, as the believer’s own act of worship, to “ratify” his covenant and faithfully “remember” his promises. Having sealed his covenant with the Lord, Simpson now claimed “all the blessings of the New Covenant,” and particularly looked forward to receiving “the Holy Spirit in great abundance, which is the earnest of my inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” “May a double portion of Thy Spirit rest upon me,” he prayed, and “give me all spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Blessings also came with the responsibilities of belonging to God’s covenant: “I shall go and proclaim to transgressors Thy ways and Thy laws … Sanctify me wholly and make me fit for heaven.” Simpson was now transformed into a “soldier of the cross” and a “follower of the Lamb,” and he pleaded to be placed “in what circumstances Thou mayest desire.” By doing “God’s will,” by abiding in it, Simpson would “drink of the rivers of salvation, lie down by still waters, and be infinitely happy in the favor of [his] God.”54 Simpson preserved the text of this covenant throughout the remainder of his life, even after his other shifts in belief, practice, and ministry. At two other critical spiritual inflection points in his life, and as late as 1878, Simpson scrawled further additions to the document, signifying renewals of the original covenant. Interpreters of Simpson have often viewed this covenant as a mechanical, almost meaningless, inheritance of his denominational past, especially signified by the ostentatious language – the Thees and the Thous – and by the theological density and intellectual pomposity of the statement. Certainly, this document represented language and an approach that Simpson would later reject. At the same time, the view that this was strictly a formalistic performance for Simpson at the time is misleading. The dense rhetorical fog of this covenant did not becloud the intimacy of Simpson’s relationship to the divine “Thou” – something clearly discernable from his sincerity. The covenant pulsated with a deep, authentic attempt to live out a life of faith according to the terms and beliefs of the religious inheritance that Simpson had received. The text that he used, furthermore, was not simply mimicked

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from Doddridge, but creatively adapted, revealing the personal appropriation and internalization of a spiritual tradition, not its formulaic replication. The text Simpson wrote already evidenced his deeply Christ-centred spirituality, with a robust awareness of the Holy Spirit, testifying to a profound interiority and an active engagement with Christian devotion mediated by his evangelical Presbyterian context.

Education towards the Ministry The years from 1857 to 1861, during the same time as Simpson underwent his conversion experience and his self-examination for inner signs of regeneration, were also years spent pursuing an advanced education with the goal of attending theological college. When the Simpson family had first moved to the area of Chatham, public education was in the early stages of development. Rudimentary schools operated in makeshift settings: McGregor’s distillery, Iredell’s old log cabin, and Chrysler’s cabin. These gave way to the first common school by 1831.55 The expansion of the public school system in Chatham occurred as part of a colony-wide dedication to the importance of education, an effort that was being shepherded by the indomitable Egerton Ryerson who championed the Education Act of 1850 and began the process of reconstructing the public schools according to his ecumenical and disestablished, but still noticeably Protestant, vision of education as forming virtuous citizens, contributing to the societal common good, promoting social harmony, and cultivating discipline and deference to authority.56 Debates over the common school system were entangled with the colonial challenges over the religious establishment of the Church of England, and whether and to what degree other churches would be represented in public institutions. The struggle between Anglican establishment and the rights of other churches that bedeviled the political situation of pre-Confederation Ontario revolved around what to do with the one-seventh of colonial land earmarked for the clergy reserves.57 The Simpson children first attended the local, rural schoolhouse in Chatham Township, a few miles down the road from the family farm, in addition to being instructed in reading for Christian devotion at home by their parents. Due to their professional ambitions, however, both A.B. and his older brother Howard would require more advanced schooling. To obtain sufficient education would require sacrifice, as their parents could only afford meagre contributions during those years, not to mention partially losing the assistance of their two most regular labourers on the farm. Committed to his

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children’s education, nevertheless, especially with their interest in the ministry, James arranged for them to be instructed in the Greek and Latin classics. Their own erudite pastor, William Walker, offered to continue their studies, including the additional subjects of English and mathematics, as long as the boys were willing to take the long ride into town twice per week. Eventually, the young A.B. wanted to devote himself to full-time study, and so he entered the Chatham Grammar School as a boarder. Having begun its operations in 1851 and moved to a new campus in 1855, Chatham Grammar at this time mostly taught students from wealthy families, but opportunities for sponsorship and work-study (performing menial tasks around the school) were also available to students from more modest backgrounds, such as the Simpsons. A.B. seized this opportunity and was able to demonstrate his aptitude for learning and study, exemplified during his first semester at the Chatham School by winning a book prize for academic excellence.58 Intense studying, however, took a physical toll on his delicate physique, as well as that of his brother Howard. It was during his time boarding at the Chatham School that Simpson experienced the physical collapse recounted in his conversion narrative, and he was required to put study on hiatus for a number of months. Still, following his conversion and recovery, Simpson made an industrious return to his studies. By early 1860, he had advanced enough in his own learning to become a teacher himself, earning a common school teacher’s certificate and beginning to teach in rural Kent County in order to save up money for college. Simpson vividly recalled that early classroom experience. He stood in front of about forty students, some already grown and much older than he was, and he longed for “a few stray whiskers, or anything that would have made [him] look older.” Timorous in that setting, with concern over how his meek presence would “hold in control those rough country fellows, any of whom could have thrashed me with his little finger,” Simpson had his first experience of empowerment in his slight stature. A glimpse can be found here of how Simpson, naturally shy and unimposing, could become such a powerful leader and a commanding orator in the pulpit: “the hand of the Lord … was pleased to give me a power and control that did not consist in brawn or bone.” In between stints in the classroom, Simpson dedicated “every spare moment to prepare [himself ] for the opening examination” of his college course.59 Simpson pursued an advanced education because of his longstanding and unyielding desire to enter the ordained ministry. He recalled that for much of his childhood he had “for a good while earnestly desired to study

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for the ministry.” Through the lens of his later holiness theology, he glossed this reminiscence with the interpretation that this desire came largely from a “conviction of duty” rather than any authentic “spiritual impulse.”60 But other details of his story belied such an impugning of his early motives. His older sister Louisa recalled that young A.B. nursed a genuine desire for Christian work, having been inspired by examples of Protestant missionaries. Sometime around the age of nine, Simpson had became especially engrossed by reading the martyr story of John Williams, the English missionary to Erromanga (Vanuatu), whose violent death at the hands of the Indigenous peoples led to him becoming a “heroic figure among English noncomformists and the subject of a huge popular literature.”61 A.B. was “so impressed” with Williams’s legacy, according to his sister, “that he devoted himself to the work of the Lord, and he never swerved from his determination.”62 A true captivation with a life lived in career service to the Lord seemed to have animated Simpson throughout his childhood. That Simpson had to persuade his parents to let him study for the ministry, and to sacrifice a great deal for it, also seemed to suggest that his desire to enter the pastorate was not wholly an external obligation, but rather emerged from some genuine inner motivation. In 1857, the patriarch and matriarch of the family had summoned the two eldest boys, Howard and A.B., to a family synod about their future educational and vocational pursuits. James, as A.B. recalled, in his “quite, grave way,” solemnly declared that Howard, as the eldest son who “had long been destined to the ministry,” would be financed to begin pursuits.63 Howard was described by his family as “shy, sensitive, affectionate, a great lover of flowers and of everything beautiful, a brilliant student and a writer of many poems … His thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and he would stand beside his father at his work all day and ply him with questions.”64 His deep intellect and curiosity probably contributed to his father’s decision to support Howard, but it was also the fitting choice for an eldest son who showed some promise. As the younger son, A.B. would have to wait his turn. James told his boys that his resources would be sufficient only for one of them to enter the ministry, and it would be Howard. A.B. remembered being told that it was “his duty,” in fact, to yield place to his elder brother, and that he would be obligated to “stay at home and help on the farm.”65 Simpson’s description of his reaction demonstrated his own personal investment in his calling, not merely on a formal level: “I can still feel the lump that rose in my throat,” he recalled, “as I stammered out my consent to my brother’s being educated at family expense, for I could clearly see that he

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had been foreordained,” adding bitterly and bitingly, “at least by my father and mother, if not by the Lord.” A.B. remained steadfast, however. Refusing to relinquish the initiative, he pleaded that he receive his father’s “blessing and consent” to continue, even without the family’s financial and logistical support if necessary. He would make his own way, but the way of the ministry it would be. James eventually acquiesced and, according to A.B.’s memory, commissioned him with the words: “God bless you, my boy, even if I cannot help you.”66 Such a concession from the family patriarch must have been in response to some genuine and fervent spirit he discerned in his boy, for this path would entail a considerable cost for both him and the family. In any case, this was the path that Simpson would follow under the guidance and encouragement of Pastor Walker in Chatham. Throughout all his personal trials, Simpson demonstrated the intellectual capacity and spiritual sensitivity required for the Presbyterian pastorate, and certainly more talent for it than his older brother. In October of 1861, Simpson was presented to the Presbytery of London for examination to that end, as acceptance into the theological college required “a satisfactory testimonial and recommendation from the Presbytery from whose bounds” he came.67 His spiritual experience, his education, and his career desires thus far in his life converged. As the presbytery evaluated his personal, academic, and religious preparation, they perceived the movement of the Spirit upon the young man’s trajectory and deemed it good for him to continue along towards the ministry with the full support of the church. With that, Simpson set out for Knox College, Toronto, the beginning of his sixteen-year ministry within the Presbyterian church.

Testimonies James Simpson Jr remained an influential member of the Presbyterian community in Chatham, a periodic elder, Sunday School superintendent, and participant in Canadian Presbyterian Church government until his death on 21 April 1891, when his son’s new independent ministry was on the rise.68 His reputation endured as one of both granitic faithfulness to his Lord coupled with an often unyielding will to his neighbour, seemingly taking after his own grandfather in those respects. Among the community at Chatham, James Jr was reputed to have “possessed the stern and unbending qualities of John Knox” himself.69 James and Janet birthed four more children in Chatham: James Darnley and Peter Gordon, who remained with their parents out on the family farm for the remainder of their lives; Elizabeth Eleanor, who died

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tragically as a young child; and another boy who died in childbirth. The degree of James’s intransigence was likely embellished by later generations in the community, who found themselves in a relatively more comfortable and flexible position compared to the severity of a frontier life preceded by bankruptcy. With nostalgia, by contrast, his daughter Louisa recalled that she “never once saw him lose his temper or say an unkind word to anyone, though I often saw him hurt deeply, for he was very tender and most affectionate.” According to his younger children, James lived life as a man “who never wronged his fellow.”70 He was certainly a man of personal equanimity and decency. That said, the story of the Chalmers Presbyterian Church (one of the most widely circulated stories in town about the reputation of James Simpson) also revealed his stubborn side. When the original frame building of the Presbyterian congregation in Chatham Township had to be replaced in the early 1870s, two factions arose having no trivial opinions about the suitability of potential locations for the new building. James Simpson commanded one faction, and Duncan MacVicar the other. The MacVicar party championed a location one concession over, while the Simpson faction was committed to a location on the Caledonia Road (where Simpson lived). The controversy “taxed the sill and patience of the Presbytery,” who eventually elected to go with MacVicar’s location, and Knox Church was erected on that site in 1878. Simpson was so aggrieved that he disregarded the church session’s decision, fuelled the discontent of the dissenters, and went forward with plans to build Chalmers Church on the Caledonia Road site anyway. Passions over the matter became heated enough that the congregation schismed. Notwithstanding the formal names for these churches, the rival edifices were locally known as the “MacVicar” and “Simpson” churches respectively. Fifteen years after the original dispute, financial distress caught up with the belligerent parties, and so the impecunious congregations were compelled to reunify back at Simpson’s church, while MacVicar’s building was auctioned off to the Baptists. It was likely that MacVicar did not entirely agree with the assessment that James Simpson had never wronged any of his fellows.71 Following a visit to his hometown on the occasion of his father’s death in 1891, A.B. wrote about him in one of the editorials for his ministry’s magazine. Simpson described how “thirty-three years ago” he had been “received into the fellowship of Christ’s people” in the very community where his father’s funeral had been held, acknowledging the debt that he had to his father and to the Presbyterians in Chatham. As always, Simpson couldn’t restrain himself

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Figure 2.2 Old site of Chalmers Church on the Caledonia Road, Chatham Township, Ontario.

from preaching the “full gospel.” He used the occasion to “testif[y] of Jesus in His fullness to the friends and classmates of [his] childhood” gathered that night, such that some “precious souls were saved … and a large number led into the deeper life of Jesus.” Speaking at his old home, Simpson eulogized his “venerable father,” whose “sweet and sacred influence of his saintly life of eighty-five years was lingering everywhere.” Concerning his mother, Simpson saw only the positivity of Christian hope: there was “no darkness” about Janet, for her “brow lighted up with holy peace and hope … as she was waiting the little while till the meeting again.” Hearts were “cheered by the glorious light which Christ and His gospel shed on even the winter of age and the night of death.”72 James Jr, in all likelihood, would have been troubled at his son’s departures from Presbyterian orthodoxy for more enthusiastic streams of spirituality. The son, in turn, would have partially chastised his father for being mired in religious formalism and still lacking the second blessing of the deeper Christian life. Across the denominational divide, nevertheless, they both would have shared a recognition about the power that authentic gospel conversion unleashed in the world to transform lives.

CHAPTER THREE

A Good and Faithful Servant

In the fall of 1861, at seventeen years of age, A.B. Simpson embarked on that wilderness and crucible period for prospective ministers known as seminary. Earlier in the spring, Simpson had taken the entrance examinations for Knox College, the Presbyterian theological school in Toronto. The curriculum of the school was orchestrated into two sections: a three-year liberal arts course for general preparation and the primary three-year theological course for the ministry. Threshold for entrance to the school was strongly oriented towards a facility in the classics, with a sprinkling of the other liberal arts. From his own prior study and teaching in Chatham, Simpson managed to achieve decently on the exams: while his performance was not sufficient for direct entry into the theological program, it was enough to enter the advanced level (year three) of the literary course. The final year of the literary course that Simpson entered required an academic competency that benchmarked to readings of Caesar and Virgil’s Aeneid in Latin; Xenophon in Greek; the Gospel of John, Galatians, and Timothy in the New Testament; proficiency in Euclidean geometry and algebra/quadratic equations in mathematics; as well as a thorough command of English grammar. In the rigour of the Reformed intellectual tradition, training for the ordained ministry demanded a well-rounded and holistic educational competency, not just facility in reading the Bible and preaching. Presbyterian ministers were also public defenders of the truths of the faith.1

Knox College Simpson, whose family had been affiliated with the United Presbyterian (Secessionist) denomination in Chatham, had originally intended to enter its Divinity Hall, but that same year the ecclesiastical politics of the Canadian Presbyterian world were in flux. In the summer of 1861, the United Presbyterian

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Church entered into an ecumenical union with the more recently founded Free Church Presbyterians to form the Canada Presbyterian Church (CPC). Both the United Secessionists and the Free Church were among the bodies who had separated themselves from the established Church of Scotland (the Kirk), but they had done so at different times, for different reasons, and with differing traditions. More recently, the Free Church had been founded to defend the “spiritual independence” principle and the integrity of Christ’s universal headship of the church. Disruptions in Scotland would have reverberations for diaspora Scots in Canada. In 1844, Robert Burns, veteran of the ecclesiastical trenches in Scotland and Simpson’s future theology professor, travelled to the British North American colonies to proselytize for the Free Church position there.2 He was to become one of the early leaders of that church’s growth and development in Canada, and a dynamic force in Canadian intellectual life more broadly.3 By 1861, the year Simpson entered, the Canadian Free Church had expanded to 158 congregations in eight presbyteries, was the fourth largest denomination in Canada West comprising over 10 per cent of the colony, and was the most vigorous and vibrant of the Presbyterian denominations in Canada.4 Although not without enduring typical congregational negligence – as Burns complained after a home missionary tour to Owen Sound in 1855, “the modest timidity of the Free Church in Canada has kept us back in instances not a few” – still the zeal and dedication of the average Free Church clergy and members led to factors of growth only matched by the Methodists.5 The Free Church became one of the leading components of a mainstream Protestant evangelicalism in nineteenth century Canada, vociferous in denouncing “popery, intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking” and prominent in the leadership of many intellectual, educational, and social-voluntary organizations in the province.6 For all settlers in Canada West during this period, the churches “were almost the only broad social organizations in a largely amorphous pioneer community,” and the sense of belonging to one’s church “linked scattered backwoods settlers, provided familiar ties for immigrants … and made [for] fervently hot politics.”7 Expanding rapidly and consolidating its institutions, the Free Church was in the process of negotiating “an arduous union” with the United Secessionist Church. While these two church bodies differed doctrinally on their political theology (the precise covenant relation of church and state), by 1861 they had come to realize that the vastness of their overlapping consensus warranted formal collaboration, an ecumenical mood in which Knox faculty played no small part in encouraging.8 A groundswell for union among the laity, inspired

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by a recognition that their differences violated no essential biblical principle, unified these two churches around what they saw as the true common antagonists of evangelical Presbyterianism: “Popery, Infidelity and Irreligion.”9 So the union proceeded and the Divinity Hall of the United Church was absorbed by Knox College to form a joint theological school for the united CPC. This was the school in which Simpson would matriculate in the autumn of 1861, joining a cohort of fifty-six other students.10 All this meant that Simpson would seek ordination in a greatly expanded Presbyterian body with much wider horizons. It also meant that he inherited a church legacy of principled dissent and independent structures, lessons that would serve as precedents for his own departures later on. A theological college for those with Free Church loyalties and named after the great Scottish reformer, the fledgling institution of Knox College had inaugurated classes back in 1844 with ten students under the leadership of Henry Esson. The college received a major institutional boon in the mid 1850s, when recruiting some major business patronage it was able to acquire Ensley Villa, a magnificent estate on an acre of land along College Street between Yonge Street and St Vincent (now Bay) Street, the former residence of Governor-General Lord Elgin. Ensley Villa was the Knox campus that Simpson attended during his student days. Knox remained at this location until its success finally allowed it to construct its own home, the famous Gothic revival building at 1 Spadina Crescent in 1875.11 Knox, together with its connections to the University of Toronto, was one of nineteenth-century Canada’s great centres of learning. Through both its faculty and students, well into the twentieth century it would exert a disproportionate influence on Presbyterianism, Canadian evangelicalism, and Canadian intellectual life more broadly.12 Rigorous intellectual training would plumb the depths and cleave to the profundity of the Reformed biblical and doctrinal tradition, while facilitating the communication of those truths to the modern world and their defence against incursions from skeptical and revisionist arguments. At the same time, these truths would be animated by a passionate personal investment, seasoned by an evangelical and missional dedication, and grounded in authentic spiritual integrity. All of this together was necessary to communicate faithfully, rigorously, and intelligently to congregations in an increasingly modern, educated, and professional society. Emphasis fell on the “great evangelical truths” and the “great Christian verities,” which were entrusted to the clergy “with a special degree of responsibility for their preservation and propagation,” as well as

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the college’s more specific and narrow mission of upholding the “intellectual integrity of the Presbyterian system of doctrine as revealed by God in the scriptures and systematized most fully in the Westminster Standards.”13 Professor Burns continued to insist on high intellectual expectations for prospective ministerial candidates at Knox: entrants ought to be able to demonstrate a “certain measure of previous literary attainment,” and suitable academic calibre “ought to be required in every one who is to be received into the seminary.” Intellect alone was insufficient, however, and Burns mandated that candidates would also have to show authentic conversion of heart: “there ought to be, in addition, some good evidence of a decided change of heart in the applicant. If this not attended to, we need not expect to realize [our] true object … the rearing up of a spiritual ministry, with a special view to the conversion of men to God.”14 At Knox, head and heart would unite. The Presbyterian publication Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record described the importance of Knox College to the church’s ministry in this way: “A good theological college is the sheet anchor of every Christian Church, the source, humanly speaking, of its internal purity … and the mainspring of its evangelistic and missionary power.”15 Simpson began his own studies at Knox in the third level of the literary course. The demands were heavy. Classes ran six days a week, 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturdays. The curriculum for this level of study included: advanced philosophy (metaphysics and ethics), introductory Biblical Hebrew, natural science (geology), history, and literature. Some of these courses were covered by the University of Toronto, which had been formed by the disestablishment of King’s College from strictly Anglican control in 1849.16 For the subsequent three years, 1862–65, Simpson followed the primary theological curriculum, which was organized around the classic fourfold division of theology into biblical exegesis, systematic theology, church history, and practical theology. The theological curriculum delved deeply into study of the Westminster Confession, Augustine’s De Gratia, Calvin’s Institutes, and George Hill’s Lectures in Divinity for systematics; Thomas Hartwell Horne’s Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of Holy Scriptures for hermeneutics; and Joseph Butler’s Analogy of Religion, along with William Paley’s Natural Theology or Evidences for apologetics. Other intriguing choices for texts were Charles Hodge’s Commentary on Ephesians for exegesis and Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor for practical theology.17 Hodge of the “Old Princeton” dynasty was trusted by the Knox faculty on many doctrinal issues, but he was never wholly adopted because of his compromise on the

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slavery question. At Knox, both Burns and the famous principal Michael Willis – the first and only president of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada – were zealous abolitionists.18 They could not find palatable a theological system that had colluded with slavery, even an ambivalent one that had decried many of its most egregious abuses. In addition to coursework, Knox’s student life was filled with spiritual formation and evangelistic fervour. Saturday evenings after classes were given over to Christian fellowship and prayer. Students participated in distributing tracts, conducting prayer meetings, or attending debates on some compelling topic in the city. The students ate dinners together, joined in “musical recreations” during down times, and savored brisk morning and evening walks – as one student described it, to “brake up the system for new mental toils.” The entire college joined together for morning and evening devotions, which punctuated the “long, silent evening studies, protracted sometimes to midnight and to early morn.” There was also a selection of student voluntary societies, in which students gained experience working in and leading various social and evangelistic causes. At Knox, the most active club was the Student Missionary Society, an interest that drew the students together with the professors. The society held monthly meetings, researched information on the status of missions home and abroad, bankrolled winter supply and summer postings at fledgling home missions congregations, provided for services in Gaelic, and organized city missions with both social and evangelistic dimensions. They maintained a special interest in spearheading their own mission to reach the “French Romanists” in Quebec. A Total Abstinence Society was also founded, just as the temperance movement – which first aimed to moderate and then to prohibit the consumption of alcoholic beverages – was gaining steam among nineteenth-century reforming evangelicals.19 Student activities revealed how profoundly the Knox College culture during Simpson’s time reflected the concerns of the Canada Presbyterian Church as a whole and the wider evangelical Protestant world more broadly. The revivalism, evangelistic piety, missional concern, activist temperament, and social engagement that were all hallmarks of the CPC would deeply influence Simpson’s early ministry and clearly linger into his independent ministry, even if Simpson himself often downplayed the connections in retrospect.20 One editorial from the CPC’s flagship publication, the Home and Foreign Record, captured its conversionist and evangelical sensibilities. The editorial called for the gospel message to continually be proclaimed among the church’s hearers: “It is to this fullness that perishing men must be directed … to the love that God hath to us, to the fullness there is in Christ as a living and loving Saviour

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able to save us to the uttermost. Here and here only is to be found the spring and principle of repentance, love, and evangelical obedience … to repent, to reform, to pray to God, to give their hearts to God.”21 On the basis of conversion, the CPC would be inflamed for action, resulting in the “transformation of the Church, of Canadian society, and of the world.”22 Among Simpson’s classmates, a number of successful alumni testified to the calibre of the education at Knox in its time. The most famous of his classmates was Francis Patton, who went on to become a leading staunch traditionalist in the Presbyterian world, a popular academic, professor, and ultimately twelfth president of Princeton University, where, even despite his success, he was forced out by secularizing influences in favour of his immediate successor, Woodrow Wilson.23 John R. Riley, another of Simpson’s classmates, was one of the first black Canadian seminary graduates when Knox began accepting students from its Buxton Mission for freed slaves, “desirous to promote the improvement of this long neglected and deeply injured race.”24 Some of his fellow classmates also had specific recollections of Simpson during his student days, describing him as “fresh from his father’s farm and his country school teaching, giving little intimation of the mighty man of God that he was to become in later years.” J.W. Mitchell had believed Simpson “was eager to get into the field … and was sure he would forge his way to the front.” Another classmate recalled that Simpson “was a most attractive young man – his body lithe, active, graceful; his countenance beaming with kindness, friendship, generosity; his voice rich, musical, well controlled. Often, no doubt, flattery was showered upon him, and strong compliments were paid by admirers and relatives, all of which would tend to develop vanity and self-importance; but I never saw a trace of these traits in young Mr. Simpson.”25 Another classmate claimed Simpson “was a favorite with the students.” All seemed to remember Simpson’s voice and pulpit presence. Whether or not this view was intensified by Simpson’s subsequent success, it probably nevertheless reflected an original kernel of truth. Multiple former colleagues recalled how Simpson was “in urgent request as a preacher of the Gospel” and that already in seminary “his pulpit gifts were notable.”26

Simpson’s Student Days The views of his fellow classmates from Knox, and the prevailing concerns of Knox’s professors, seemed to differ starkly from Simpson’s own personal retrospective of his college days, which was mostly a tale of declension. “I did not cease to pray or to walk in some measure with God,” Simpson would

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later acknowledge, “but the sweetness and preciousness of my early piety was already withered.” He further qualified, “I do not mean to imply that I went into open sin or turned away from God,” but nevertheless he viewed his spiritual state during those years as largely sterile: “my religious life was chiefly that of duty, with little joy or fellowship, and my motives were intensely ambitious and worldly.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, he tethered this judgment about the poverty of his spiritual life during his Knox days to his not having yet entered the deeper life or sufficiently experienced the infilling of the Holy Spirit: “I am sorry to say that I did not recover my lost blessings until I had been the minister of the Gospel for more than ten years … In a word my heart was unsanctified and I had not yet learned the secret of the indwelling Christ and the baptism of the Holy Ghost.”27 According to Simpson’s memory, then, his Knox College days were days of formalism, obligation, and career ladder climbing. It is difficult to reconcile this picture with the one painted by his fellow classmates, who recognized a deep spirituality and an empowered preaching in Simpson; and it is hard to reconcile it with the expectations of Simpson’s professors concerning the nature of formation at Knox. For Simpson, in any case, one of his primary problems appeared to have been his first roommate, an urbane and sophisticated man who seemed to both engross and appall the simple, traditional boy from the country. He recalled, “I was thrown with a roommate in the first year of my college course whose influence over my heart was most disasterous.” His roommate was also a theological student, but much older than Simpson. He was a “bright and attractive fellow,” and a man of “convivial tastes and habits.” Simpson recollected, however, that this person was also engaged in some unsavory practices. Describing the nadir of spiritual probity in their shared residence, Simpson confessed to a weekly “oyster supper in our room.” On these occasions, the roommate decided “to invite one or two of his friends, who happened to be medical students, and whose habits were worse than his.” Libations of both beer and whiskey flowed freely (as they can tend to do in college residences), and this abominable, raucous revelry “would go on until very late at night with laugh and song and story, and many a jest that was neither pure nor reverent.” In the midst of such a horrific and unholy “orgie,” as Simpson later termed it, he lamented that he had “not firmness nor experience sufficient to suppress these entertainments.” Denouncing that he had been “compelled to be a witness” to such deplorable activities, he seemed especially ashamed that he had allowed himself to become – as he admitted circumlocutiously – “in some measure a partaker,” although such crude “amusement was always distatseful to

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all my spiritual life.” With these weekly dalliances with worldliness, as Simpson would later interpret it, the primary stumbling block was the roommate, who because there “was a certain attraction about him” caused a situation in which “altogether his influence over me was bad.” By Simpson’s subsequent judgment, the man “was cynical and utterly unspiritual,” and he coupled that assessment with the roundabout accusation that the man “had a fine literary taste and was fond of poetry, which he was always reading or repeating.”28 At the same time, counter-memories or glimmers of grace pierced Simpson’s account of these years. Even if dry and desolate, the “deep religious impresions” of his Puritan upbringing and training in spiritual discipline “still continued,” and these kept Simpson from what he saw as the even more grave “temptations of city life.” His spiritual formation had been such that “there was a sort of horror association with the saloon, or a house of infamy, which put an effectual barrier across my sensitive heart, and such things never appealed to me.” Simpson conceded begrudingly that “there must have been a strong current of faith and a real habit of prayer in my college life,” because this period was also a time of remarkable academic accomplishment, finanical provision, and pastoral fruitfulness. “God did many things for me, which were directly supernatural and to me at the time very wonderful,” he concluded.29 Academically, Simpson glittered as a star student. Each year he won one of the competitive college prizes based on academic performance. During his first year of study, Simpson bested every other student at Knox, including those who were three educational years ahead of him, to garner the “George Buchanan Prize” for excellence in the classics, officiated by Principal Willis, Professor Burns, and Pastor John Jennings.30 A unique gift and passion for preaching was also evident early in Simpson. In his very first year at Knox, the Home Missions Committee of the CPC allocated Simpson as a summer missionary and pulpit supply candidate for the Presbytery of London in churches at Sarnia, Tilbury, Amherstburg, and Moore. According to one observer, Simpson already exhibited dazzling homiletic prowess, and he preached messages “which in content would do credit to a professor of homiletics, and for diction and delivery would meet the demands of a teacher of elocution.”31 Simpson himself remembered “well” what a “look of surprise with which the grave men of the congregations where I preached would gaze at me as I entered the pulpit. I was extremely young and looked so much younger than I really was, that I do not wonder now that they looked aghast at the lad who was presuming to preach to them from the high pulpit,” while he himself stood there “in fear and trembling.”32

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Simpson’s academic and ministerial thriving at Knox continued into the following years. In the 1862–63 school year, Simpson began the first year of the theological program. His personal situation was ameliorated somewhat by finding alternative housing. Pastor John Jennings, whose Bay Street Presbyterian Church in Toronto Simpson attended, had made connections for him with a boarding house owned by one of his congregants. Under the more watchful eye of church stalwarts, and finding himself in more familiar surroundings living with his brother Howard, who at last joined him at Knox, Simpson would have been more stable in his personal life. That year was another banner year, academically, as he took classes with Willis, Burns, and the formidable George Paxton Young. In March of 1863, Simpson won the John Knox bursary, an award given for an extracurricular essay defending the practice of infant baptism.33 Simpson described the process of writing his infant baptism essay in later years. “After much hard work,” he recalled, “and … very much prayer,” he had composed a cogent and compelling essay, “proving to my own satisfaction that children ought to be baptized.” Ironically, he later editorialized, he had to retract all the worldly knowledge that he had “so stoutly maintained” in his “youthful wisdom,” when he subsequently changed his mind on the position.34 That summer, Simpson was again conscripted into pulpit service, this time in the Presbytery of Hamilton, preaching at congregations in Welland, Crowland, and Port Colborne. J.W. Mitchell, a fellow worker with Simpson that summer and already graduated from Knox, recalled that “I did my work faithfully and acceptably,” but admitted that he “was quite thrown into the shade by [his] junior,” Simpson.35 Entering his third year at Knox (theology year two), Simpson’s success and advancement did not prevent him from experiencing spiritual anguish. We know that this was the case not only from Simpson’s jaundiced reminiscences of his upbringing – out of which his early religious formation has to be tactfully reconstructed – but from a contemporaneous note. On 1 September 1863, prior to starting school again for that term, Simpson inscribed an addendum to his “Solemn Covenant” that he had made back in 1861. A cryptic, but telling, message documented his concern for spiritual torpor: “Backslidden. Restored. Yet too cold, Lord.” Simpson was clearly vigilant against the fires of ardour for his faith dwindling. He was feeling that he had lost his first love, his initial intimacy. The exact nature of the “backsliding” was not apparent – if it was related to pride or ambition, apathy or cynicism, worldly living in some respect, or just excessive work – but he nevertheless appealed to God to “pardon the past and strengthen [him] for the future, for Jesus’ sake.

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Amen.”36 Whether or not Simpson was able to recalibrate his internal spiritual compass, the academic and ministerial achievements kept amassing. Simpson garnered the coveted Prince of Wales Prize, the most prestigious of any of the college’s awards valued at $60 per year for two years, which was enough to establish him on firm financial footing for the remainder of his study. That year the prize was given for a paper on the topic, “Preparation of the World for the Appearing of the Saviour and the Setting up of His Kingdom,” and adjudicated by Professor Robert Burns, with whom Simpson studied closely. It was a topic close to Burns’s heart and central to what he saw as his activism and mission in the church, the university, and in society at large, and Simpson’s paper engaged the more theologically scrupulous points of eschatology. Winning the prize also indicated that Simpson was thoroughly postmillennial in his convictions at this point in his career.37 Simpson vividly remembered this essay competition later in life. Labouring “hard and long” on his investigation of this “difficult historical and philosophical subject,” he left the writing “until the very last moment,” squeezing in every last ounce of research while his mind tinkered away at the topic. Composing the final draft in a classic college procrastination all-nighter, he depicted the scenario with Romantic hyperbole: “toiling at my desk … I wrote and wrote, until my hand grew almost paralyzed … my brain began to fail me and I found myself literally falling asleep.” Resorting to reckless extremes, Simpson claimed “for the first and last time in my life, which I can understand professional men doing until they fall under the power of the most dangerous opiates,” he went out to the drug store to search for some “product” that “would keep me awake at any cost.” As he “sipped” the product “through the night,” Simpson’s “brain was held to its tremendous task.” With chemical assistance, he was able to submit a completed, polished paper just in time. Following its submission, Simpson “prayed much” for the fate of his “strenuously prepared paper,” even while he believed “there seemed little hope of … success.” His hyper-sensitive description of these events revealed him as a deeply driven and ambitious, if also self-conscious, student. With his spiritualizing interpretation, Simpson recounted that he “threw myself on my knees and had the matter out with God, and before I rose from my knees I dared to believe somehow that God had heard my prayer and given me my prize which was so essential to the continuance of my study.” The providence of God, of course, always seemed inevitable for the victor. After class, Simpson learned from Burns that he had indeed won the prize, announced at the very time he was out praying. Simpson derived

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a lesson that he would apply to all his later ministerial work. God had taught him that, “before any great blessing … I must first believe for it in blind and naked faith. I am quite sure that the blessing of believing for that prize was more to me than its great pecuniary value.”38 During this period of academic exertions, however, Simpson had been suffering a relapse into health challenges, similar to the symptoms he had experienced prior to his conversion although not quite as severe. At the same time that he had been working on his prize-winning essay, he had also become chronically late for class and derailed from his other studies. The Senate minutes from Knox College for the same meeting in which they awarded Simpson the Prince of Wales prize documented that he had “requested and was permitted” to present the board with “medical evidence and other documentation explaining the causes of his lateness in attending the classes this session.” Explaining the reasons for his intermittent attendance at class, Simpson must have had compelling reasons, for the Senate adjudicated that it “was satisfied” with his testimony. Even despite the health problems that were clearly disturbing his studies, Simpson was still achieving academically and pastorally, being assigned to pulpit supply again that summer, this time to the Presbytery of Paris.39 All of these successes together paint the portrait of a highly motivated, talented young ministerial prospect, who was also pushing his frail constitution to its limit. Simpson’s final year at Knox, from 1864 to 1865, was the most rigorous course of studies yet. Besides those studies, Simpson was often requisitioned for pulpit supply at Knox Church in Dundas, home of the renowned preacher and very first moderator of the Free Church of Canada, Mark Young Stark.40 Though Stark was in declining health, as one of the most influential preachers in Canada he would not have opened his pulpit to just anyone. Such a request showed that Simpson was already becoming considered in wider Presbyterian circles as a dynamic preacher and a budding ministerial candidate in a church tradition that eminently cherished and scrutinized its preaching; truly, for them, the pulpit was “the glory of the church.”41 The Dundas papers reported that the elders were so impressed with Simpson they gave him a special offering of $46 for having “in a very satisfactory manner occupied the pulpit for some time past and otherwise interested himself in the welfare of the congregation.”42 The gruelling regimen of studies, extracurricular papers, student activities, and pulpit supply that many students were assuming was an issue taken up by the Senate of Knox College that same year. It was likely that his own pastor, Jennings, had Simpson as at least one case in mind when he directed the college’s board to propose

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reducing the “injury done to the students by their too perpetually supplying stations,” which resulted in the “occupancy of their time otherwise than in classwork, and frequent absence [from] travel and fatigue.”43 The motion passed unanimously. Such relief would not come in time for Simpson, but it would lighten the load for his brother’s remaining year.44

Into the Deep End Simpson proudly graduated Knox College on 15 April 1865, the same day Abraham Lincoln died of an assassin’s bullet. Burns gave a lecture at the graduation, where a “large audience convened, embracing many ministers [and] former alumni of the college.” Principal Willis exulted over how that year had been Knox’s largest enrollment in its history, and that eight students would now be graduating “who would be immediately at the call of the church for active service.” A.B. Simpson was among those talented, promising, motivated, but as of yet unproven eight.45 Over the next few months, events cascaded rapidly for him. These were major life events that would set him on the course for the next sixteen years of his Presbyterian ministry, and continue to influence him even after he had left the Presbyterian church. During that summer, Simpson supplied at Knox Church, Hamilton, while he entertained his prospects and considered his future. The Hamilton Spectator’s reporting fawned over Simpson’s work there. It gushed that Simpson “had won the esteem and friendship of the whole congregation, who thus showed their appreciation of his merits.” Later, after a lecture by Simpson on education, the Spectator intimated that the Presbyterian congregations in Hamilton were ready to chase after him: “The reverend gentleman justified the high opinion that has already been formed of him and created a feeling of satisfaction that a man of so much promise [could become] permanently associated with one of our city congregations.”46 This period of service, in fact, generated two calls for Simpson, one at Knox Dundas, where he had spent much of the previous year and where Pastor Stark was retiring, and another at Knox Hamilton, which had been absent a minister for some months and was enduring some squabbles. Simpson later described the situation he faced: “I had the choice between two fields of labor.” He thought Knox Dundas would be an “extremely easy one, in a delightful town, with a refined, affectionate, and prosperous church, just large enough to be an ideal field for one who wished to spend a few years in quiet preparation for future usefulness.” The alternative was Knox Hamilton:

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“a large, absorbing city church, with many hundreds of members and overwhelming and heavy burdens, which were sure to demand the utmost possible care, labor and responsibility.” Dundas would be manageable, comfortable, and preparatory for a virgin minister; Hamilton would be frenzied, arduous – and thrilling. Even though all of his “friends, teachers and counsellors advised [him] to take the easier place,” Simpson inclined towards the more challenging post, which would have enticed both his ambitious, driven side, and the side of him that was devoted to meaningful, valuable service for his Lord. Simpson later interpreted his decision for Knox Hamilton as “an impulse … at least indirectly, from God, even though there must have been some human ambition” mixed in. If he took the easier path, he reasoned, he would likely “rise to meet it and no more.” If the harder, he would not “rest short of all its requirements.” In this way, his ministry would be fuelled through the “habit of venturing on difficult undertakings … by the grace of God, through the necessities … of difficult positions.”47 From the human aspect, Simpson would play up to the level of his challenge, stretching himself and not becoming complacent; from the divine aspect, he would be forced to rely in faith on God’s grace. Like his ancestors, Simpson chose the pioneering trajectory, not the easy one. Ambition and opportunity drew him to craft something that was his own. These same lessons could not have been far from his mind when he eventually set out on his independent ministry many years later, leaving behind all the resources of Presbyterian institutions altogether. Prior to accepting any full-time appointment, however, Simpson first had to tackle another hurdle: the various “licensing trials” of the Presbyterian church, something of an ordeal by fire for prospective ministers. His whole preparation up to this point – intellectual and spiritual – would be scrupulously examined by other church leaders. Because the Presbytery of Hamilton would not convene for some months, Simpson petitioned to be vetted by the Presbytery of Toronto, which included his seminary professors and college pastor. The intense process began in May of 1865 with a provisional probing of Simpson’s broad knowledge of the classics, systematic theology, philosophy, and pastoral theology, after which he was temporarily granted permission to proceed with licensure. After such initial probing, the real exams were assigned. Simpson would be required to present before the presbytery five different discourses, each engaging a scriptural text as its basis and each with its own method of approach. The assigned exams were as follows: a technical exegesis in Greek on Romans 8:22–5 (of course, they had to assign him Paul for Greek), a learned homily crafted out of 2 Timothy 1:10, an informational

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lecture on Matthew 4:1–11, a Latin quaestio in the form of a scholastic-disputed topic in systematics on An Filius Dei ab eterno sit genitus a Patre? (Whether the Son of God is eternally generated from the Father?), and lastly a pastoral sermon on Romans 1:16, the nature of the gospel. A generous three months were given to prepare.48 Reconvening in August, the presbytery adjudicated Simpson’s assigned discourses, and further tested his internalized capacity with Hebrew, church history, and church government. They also queried him about his personal spiritual testimony. On all his trials, Simpson performed up to the presbytery’s “satisfaction.”49 The last step, then, was to administer the interrogatives of confession relating to the distinctives of the Canada Presbyterian Church, to which Simpson assented.50 After all this, Simpson was formally licensed to preach the gospel. During this period of transition, Simpson also confronted the most taxing task of his twenty-one years: preaching for the first time in his home church in front of his mother and father. This was his “greatest trial” to date. Anxiety, in Simpson’s case, bred preparation, as he “walked in the woods for days beforehand.” Simpson delightfully recalled that he rehearsed his “carefully composed” sermon before “the trees and squirrels,” lest he bring anything remotely mediocre before his parents. “In some way the Lord helped me to get through,” Simpson recalled, though he “never once dared to meet” the eyes of his parents during the tribulation. The memory of this event was further opportunity for Simpson to editorialize. Taking a jab at his Presbyterian background, Simpson added that “in those days preaching was an awful business,” for the “manuscript” had to be written in full, “committed to memory,” and every “period and paragraph” recited “verbatim.” According to Simpson’s theological retrospective, Presbyterian preachers “knew nothing of trusting the Lord for utterance” – that is, they did not leave their sermon preparation to the orchestrated spontaneity and extemporaneous calculations of the revivalist style.51 In any case, whether spiritual or unspiritual, Simpson preached with verve that Sabbath, and his hometown paper, the Chatham Weekly Planet, swooned over his performance. Boosting the son of a local resident and former student at the grammar school, the paper was “pleased to observe” that Simpson was already “gaining much popularity” in Presbyterian circles “on account of his talent and eloquence, as well as his modest and gentlemanly demeanor.” That was a description of a preacher that any Canadian Protestant of the time could celebrate. With hometown pride, the paper boasted that a “more graceful and eloquent pulpit speaker we have seldom indeed had the pleasure of listening to.” His childhood pastor was described by the paper

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as “justly feel[ing] proud of the great success which is attending his young friend,” basking in the redounding glow of his former pupil’s rise.52 All the while, Knox Church Hamilton had been pursuing their interest in Simpson to become their pastor. Now that he was licensed, they could immediately proceed with the formalities. Two weeks following his licensure exams, on 15 August 1865, the Presbytery of Hamilton convened to forward a call to Simpson, acting on an earlier decision by the church session.53 The call was supported by signatures of 197 members and 128 non-member congregants of the church, and unanimously upheld by the presbytery. They offered Simpson a hefty $1,200 as his yearly salary along with use of the manse. Now leaning toward accepting this call, Simpson would additionally have to undergo another round of trials, this time under the jurisdiction of the Presbytery of Hamilton, leading to full ordination. These trials were more pro forma and less demanding than his licensing trials. Nevertheless, Simpson would have to prepare a series of lectures similar to his licensing ones to deliver before the Hamilton Presbytery and the local church.54 Once again, he performed splendidly according to all present; one description claimed that his responses were “unanimously sustained,” and the other pastors expressed their “high approval of the whole.”55 His ordination service was then rapidly scheduled for 12 September 1865, two weeks hence. The Hamilton Spectator gloated over catching a promising young minister of such “marked ability,” who was likely to become “most successful and popular in the position he is called to fill.”56 Simpson’s ordination service would have been a culminating personal occasion for him, in addition to a celebration of the enthusiasm with which the Presbyterians cherished their ministry. After his years of study, his sacrifices of time, labour, and body, and his years of desire to enter the ministry, his time had now come. A seemingly boundless career in the Presbyterian pastorate seemed open to him. So many of those who had been integral to Simpson’s formation attended the event: his parents, William Walker, John Jennings, Mark Young Stark, as well as William Ormiston and David Inglis representing the presbytery. In classic form, the service began with the opportunity for objections from any believers, none of which were proffered. Worship commenced with prayer and the singing of the 72nd Psalm. Pastor Grant of Oneida preached a sermon on Colossians 3:17 that would have resonated deeply with Simpson’s early piety: “And whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Ormiston issued a weighty charge to the young ordinand: to be blameless, to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be unswervingly hopeful in the gospel’s capacity

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to convert lost sinners, and to be a faithful preacher. He charged Simpson to minister in a “strictly evangelical” approach. Ormiston didn’t mind if a preacher meandered to talk about various current affairs, but in his estimation this was never sufficient. The preacher, he implored Simpson, must always return to the central message: “he must tell the whole grand story of man’s fall and need of a Saviour, and of the life and sacrifice and reign of Jesus Christ.” All preaching, regardless of theme, must inevitably return to the reality of Jesus: “there should be no sermon without Christ.” He further encouraged Simpson to remember the plight of his average congregant, a lesson Simpson would take to heart. A minister must “also be practical,” according to Ormiston, “and never fail to apply the truth to … the individual. [For] it is when God’s truth is brought home to the individual that [the person] cries in humble penitence, ‘What must I do to be saved?’”57 Following the charge to the pastor, the rite of ordination was then conducted with the gesture of the laying on of hands, and Simpson was embraced with the “right hand of fellowship.” Stark delivered a final address to the congregation on their responsibilities to respect and support their pastor. Afterward, a “grand soiree” was held in Simpson’s honour, where there were personal toasts with refreshments and song and joyous celebration; tickets sold to the community at 50 cents apiece.58 As celebratory gifts, the Ladies Voluntary society of the church presented Simpson with a pulpit gown, a cassock, and an advance on his first salary payment.59 Another crucial development was in Simpson’s love life. The very day after his ordination, on 13 September 1865, Simpson hurried back to Toronto from Hamilton in order to attend his wedding ceremony to Margaret (Maggie) Henry, the daughter of his former fellow congregant and landlord. Two and a half years Simpson’s elder, Margaret had been born in Toronto on 18 July 1841 and seemed an ideal candidate for a minister’s wife. Along with her father, she had been regularly involved in Presbyterian church life for years, and had also been educated at the Toronto Model School and Miss Brown’s private academy.60 Margaret became a crucial partner in ministry for Simpson, during his Presbyterian phase but especially later in the Christian and Missionary Alliance work. The hastily arranged marriage, however, also precipitated some years of marital turmoil and negotiation, when Margaret did not understand or agree with many of Simpson’s tendencies or decisions. The reasons for Simpson’s marriage to Margaret seem to have been largely pragmatic. As a young man of twenty-one, Simpson would have been highly wary of launching an all-consuming, complicated ministry at a large, prestigious church in a big

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city without a spouse.61 Simpson only became engaged to Margaret earlier that September – less than two weeks before the wedding day – while the call and ordination to Knox Hamilton were being formalized. This decision did not even leave time for the standard three-week interval between engagement and marriage that was a typical legal necessity for the publication of the banns. As a result, Simpson had to apply for a special exemption from the governor of the Canadas to obviate the requirement of the public announcement. The waiver, signed in Quebec City only two days prior, arrived in Toronto just in time for the wedding.62 The hastiness of his marriage to Margaret was evident from that fact that earlier in the flurry of that summer of 1865, Simpson had actually already been engaged to another woman, one Miss Carter of Port Colborne, whom Simpson had likely met there as an intern during his Knox College days. But in June of 1865, the couple had dissolved their engagement. Sensitive to his family’s interests, Carter’s brother, Louis, took umbrage at the broken engagement and connived to exact revenge by humiliating Simpson before the Presbytery of Toronto. In a letter dated 25 June 1865, Louis wrote indignantly to the presbytery that “Mr. Albert Simpson had after solemnly entering into engagement with his sister to marry her, improperly resigned from that engagement,” and he went on to grouse that his sister’s “health had suffered in consequence.” The letter had been spitefully timed to coincide with Simpson’s examination so as to inflict maximum damage. His letter, however, was presented with another one from the hand of Miss Carter herself, dated 25 July 1865 and certified by two witnesses. Miss Carter sought to exonerate Simpson by writing to the presbytery that “during the period of Mr. Simpson’s engagement with her his conduct had been candid and honourable.” She elaborated that the two “had parted kindly” and “by mutual consent.” Apparently Simpson had decided to move on from the engagement with the understanding and approval of Carter herself, even if her family nursed resentment. Because of the second letter, the presbytery suspected malevolent intent on the part of the brother, so in the end they judged Simpson innocent of misconduct.63 Only after that ordeal was Simpson at liberty both to pursue ordination and to get engaged to someone else. Over the course of the summer of 1865, then, Simpson had transitioned from a youthful college student to the weighty responsibilities of both career ministry and marriage. In the span of a few compressed months, he had endured the trials of licensure and ordination in a Presbyterian church that eagerly guarded the calibre of its ministry, preached before his parents and his

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hometown, broken off one engagement and contracted another, accepted a call to a large and prestigious church in an urban centre, and finally married. Through it all, Simpson showed talent, ambition, and focus, together with an honest and fervent desire to serve his Lord in the context with which he was familiar. The future looked bright for the young minister, and possibilities abounded. In September of 1865, the newlyweds took a boat tour of the St Lawrence River for their honeymoon, a brief hiatus before the two of them would be thrust into the bustling demands of ministry at Knox Hamilton.

Knox Hamilton: Environments of Early Ministry Knox Church in Hamilton bore a long and distinguished legacy in the Free Church, and, at various points in its history, had been one of the largest Presbyterian churches in all of British North America. Founded out of the initial disruption that yielded the Free Church, the congregation at Hamilton had accepted a £50 bounty to name itself after the famous Scottish Reformer. Knox’s first minister was Alexander Gale. Initially ambivalent due to his ecumenical sensibilities, he eventually became a devoted leader of the Free Church in Canada, inaugural editor of its flagship publication, and later an influential figure in Canadian education at the Toronto Academy.64 Knox opened its first building in 1846, an impressive and imposing edifice at the corner of James and Cannon Streets in Hamilton, built to house 800 people. By 1853, Knox boasted a weekly attendance of 750, with a communicant membership of 465 (second in Presbyterian Canada only to Knox Toronto), and was the leading contributor parish to the denominational Widow’s and Orphan’s Fund and third largest contributor to the Missions Fund. Under the shepherding of some other notable pastors, George Paxton Young and Robert Irvine, Knox continued to expand and mature. The church building was renovated so that its sanctuary could accommodate as many as 1,240 congregants, with average weekly attendance growing to 860 by 1863. Knox Hamilton became known as one of the foremost congregations in the Canada Presbyterian Church, with a particular reputation for virtuoso preaching and for generosity towards denominational initiatives.65 Towards the end of Robert Irvine’s tenure there, however, the church became convulsed by squabbles, beginning with an elder and deacon controversy in 1862. One laconic account suggested that “a good deal of trouble was experienced in carrying” the decisions of that year’s leadership elections “into effect,” resulting in the “commencement of much trouble.” An apparently

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bitter process of confirmation ensued, in which accusations of slander, procedural impropriety, and abuse of power were thrown around. Charges against the behaviour of the local church session were taken up to the next level of the regional presbytery. The presbytery, in turn, dismissed the specific charges, but reprimanded the session for the generally combative and secretive spirit in which it handled the affair. Clinging ferociously to their local prerogatives, the church session under the leadership of Irvine defied legitimate, authorized requests from the presbytery to turn over its minutes concerning the uproar, and some of the critical evidence suspiciously vanished. Even the national synod of the church became embroiled at one point. The whole situation betrayed the hallmarks of one of those truly acrimonious church melees that escalate and encompass a widening vortex of personalities, petty fiefdoms, and remote matters of contest. On two occasions, the entire present company of a congregational meeting stormed out in protest. The conflict culminated when Irvine abruptly resigned in January of 1864. A shattered church needed new leadership. The congregation tried to rectify the situation, but they were spurned by one candidate and had another call quashed by the presbytery.66 The scope of the fallout was seen in a 30 per cent decline in attendance from the time of Irvine’s resignation to the time of Simpson’s appointment to Knox, together with a plunge in church giving by almost half (see table 4.1). It was in the midst of this situation that Simpson had been called to the church. Simpson’s appointment had been seemingly well supported by 197 members and 128 non-member congregants of the church – but that was from a church that had hosted 492 members and 680 total attendees just a year and a half prior. Hostilities still lingered by the time Simpson assumed his post, and he had been a compromise candidate. It was atypical for someone of his age and experience to have been called to such a prestigious post under normal circumstances. But Simpson had the advantage of not having been party to any of the maneuverings of either the presbytery or the synod during the conflict, and so he had the appearance of neutrality. Simpson would get an opportunity to prove himself in an ambitious post; the congregation would get an enthusiastic and talented minister, but one who had not been sullied by previous church battles. With the appointment of Simpson, the session of Knox Hamilton reflected “with gratitude” on “the merciful deliverance vouchsafed by the great Head of the Church” that there had been a “peaceful settlement,” hopefully final, of this “long and vexed question” of the direction of the church.67

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The Hamilton Pastorate From 1865 to 1873, Simpson was vibrantly involved in many facets of Presbyterian religious life. His first task would be to stabilize and revive a tumultuous and divided congregation at Knox Hamilton. He had his work cut out for him. With a lucrative salary – for his age and experience – and a colossal task in front of him, the Simpson family moved into the handsome Presbyterian manse at 56 John St North to begin his labours. An account of another contemporary Presbyterian minister outlined the expectations for a successful urban minister: “learned, laborious, zealous and humble” – a challenging configuration to say the least.68 From all available evidence, however, Simpson exhibited all these characteristics deftly, and so was able to turn around his congregation. First among his achievements was his powerful preaching. The talent he demonstrated in the pulpit would flower during his time at Knox, according to the Presbyterian style and expectations. The Hamilton Spectator adulated that “he was second to none in point of eloquence and ability and success in ministry.” William McMullen, a fellow minister who knew Simpson well during his Knox pastorate, wrote of him that he “stood out at that time as one of the most brilliant young ministers of our church in Canada. He was endowed with intellect of a very high order, and he preached the Gospel of the great salvation with a gracefulness of manner, a fervor, and a power exceedingly impressive.”69 Simpson drew on his formidable intellect and his deep reservoir of interior spiritual intensity to compensate for his lack of physical stature. His internal dynamics endowed his voice and his presence with a rhetorical blaze that belied his unassuming personality and bodily frailty. Simpson, further, worked within the structures of Presbyterian institutions to decidedly advance the spiritual commitment of his congregation. He oversaw the implementation of “communion cards,” instead of the time-honoured tokens, out of concern for the seriousness with which his congregants were treating the Lord’s Supper, and out of worry that they might be partaking in an “unworthy manner.” While Simpson later came to view the rite of the Supper more flexibly and, even if beneficial, as somewhat peripheral to mission and evangelism, during this period Simpson seemed to have been broadly influenced by Calvin’s eucharistic view, which took the Supper with deep seriousness. Due to the “great importance” of the matter, the leadership would use the communion cards to maintain a “correct list of all members of the Congregation attending … the Supper.” In this way, the elders were charged to be more involved in and cognizant of the nurture and discipline of the

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Albert and Margaret Simpson during their Hamilton Pastorate.

church’s members. In 1871, Simpson increased observance of the Lord’s Supper to three times per year instead of two.70 He also cleaned house at the church session. During his first year, two of the four elders from the previous pastorate were dismissed on the grounds of “public, acknowledged intoxication.” The recruitment and formation of three new elders was completed by 1867, two

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more by 1869, and an additional four by 1870. Not only was responsible leadership of the church thus expanded, but Simpson also empowered and challenged the elders to take more responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their congregants. Each elder was assigned a geographic district in the city where they were directed to have more regular and intimate interactions with church members. A monthly report to Simpson and the session was mandated in order to monitor “the number of meetings held, and visits paid in their respective districts, and operations generally.”71 With concern for the local church as the centre of ministerial vitality, Simpson additionally engaged in significant efforts to update the church building. From 1868 to 1869, Knox Hamilton’s building underwent major renovations “in order to adapt it to the growing wants of the congregation, and render it more in keeping with modern ideas of what a christian place for worship should be.” Rededicated in May 1869, a Hamilton Spectator reporter described the newly renovated building as a “happy combination of commodiousness and comfort,” though still in the austere Presbyterian style “without any meretricious ornamentation.”72 Alterations included modernized lighting, new paint, panelling, carpeting and pews, and an enhanced pulpit and platform. Dr John Hall of New York City spoke on the occasion of the rededication of the church space about the symbolic importance of the Christian church, the centrality of the pulpit, and the role of the congregation in the ministry of the church. He commended the presence of, and further urged participation of the laity in, the work of various voluntary societies at the church: the Sabbath school, Young Men’s Society, temperance meeting, and Dorcas (Women’s Benevolent) Society. In an interview with the Spectator, Simpson took time to trumpet his achievements “during the past three years while [Knox] has been under his charge”: an increase in membership, rebounding to the fifth largest congregation in the Canada Presbyterian Church; increased giving, leading to the resolution of $7,000 in debt; more participation in church ministerial societies; and a number of “very considerable improvements” to the church building.73 While expanding the church’s institutional life, its building, and leadership, Simpson also laboured diligently to encourage, expand, or create new auxiliary ministries at Knox for the laity. The most stable of these when he first arrived was the Sabbath (or Sunday) School. Sunday Schools were wildly popular during this era, often supplementing basic education where public schools were absent or pathetic, building community, stimulating religious fervour, providing opportunities for exercise of lay leadership, and nurturing

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forums for Christian childhood development.74 Hamilton had formed its Sabbath School Association in 1862, and the various churches shared resources and expertise. Simpson regularly attended Sunday School meetings from the first, gave lectures to the teachers, and funnelled resources to them. By 1866, the Sunday School ministry at Knox was described as “flourishing,” and a city-wide gathering in 1867 drew 500 children and leaders. Under Simpson’s leadership, the attendance of the Sunday School at Knox alone grew to 459, larger than the entire congregation of the church when he had taken over the helm (see table 4.1).75 Simpson was further dedicated – under John Geddie’s watchful shadow – to promoting the cause of missions in his church. This was a commitment that Simpson harboured throughout his ministry, not only when he founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance with its zeal for world evangelization. Missions had already been one aspect of church life at Knox and in the Presbytery of Hamilton more broadly, but Simpson campaigned tirelessly to increase the intensity of giving and dedication to missions. In 1869, Simpson founded an official Missionary Society at his church with the hopes that, in the words of the session, “missionary revenue of the Church may be increased by the formation and vigorous operation of … associations … [by] the frequent diffusion of missionary intelligence, and by the establishment and successful working of a bona fide foreign mission in some heathen land.” Simpson longed to deepen the heart for missions among his congregation. An involvement in missions was not to be simply a potential option, but a necessary one for all members of his congregation: “We urge this as a duty to which every professing Christian owes to his less favoured fellow men; and by failing to fulfill our duty in this manner, we are disobeying the injunction of our Divine Master when He says, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’”76 The society at Knox succeeded not only in increasing awareness of various missionary developments and elevating contributions to the denomination efforts, but also in identifying China as a specific partner field for their local church, a mission field whose perceived exotic lure would continue to entrance Simpson throughout his life. One issue of spiritual discipline that the session tackled under Simpson’s tenure was that of Sabbath observance. Strict sabbatarianism had been an issue that Presbyterians had long held dear as they fulminated against its violation in Canadian society. Almost all Christians at this time observed the Sabbath for worship and rest, but not all agreed on the extent or nature of activities that should be publicly circumscribed or prohibited on the Sabbath

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(e.g., games, sports, or amusements), or whether or not this applied directly to public institutions. The Presbyterians saw such vacillating as evidence of creeping infidelity, a clear denial of the gravity of the Ten Commandments as standards for the godly and righteous society. In 1866, the Presbytery of Hamilton, with Simpson now a crucial member, decried the “unwarranted liberties” being taken “with the Sabbath” in their region. In the case of Knox Hamilton, the presenting issue was Sabbath funerals. The practice had arisen in the broader society of holding funerals and visitations on the Sabbath, and the strictest of the sabbatarians considered this “work” as opposed to worship or rest, to which the Sabbath should be wholly dedicated. So, from their point of view, these practices were “evils and inconsistencies,” evidencing a lack of “respect for the Sabbath.” Pastors were often called upon to officiate funerals, many doing so out of pastoral concern. Simpson was initially one of these, but found himself troubled in conscience because his presence there seemed to condone a broader lack of reverence for the Sabbath. Voicing the concerns of the session, then, Simpson informed his congregants that he would “in all cases absolutely refuse to attend Sabbath funerals” – with the caveat, “unless under circumstances of the greatest emergency.” Circumstances that would rise to that level were not detailed, but they would be among the extreme acts of “necessity or mercy” that permitted work to be done on the Sabbath.77 A final dimension of ministry dear to Simpson’s heart during this period was the transformation of society, especially centred on influencing young men. Inspired by the example of the popular Young Men’s Christian Association (yMCA), Simpson looked to found a similar ministry at the local church level that would have a more distinctive Presbyterian flavour. In January of 1870, Knox Hamilton launched its own Young Men’s Association for Mutual Religious Improvement. This association, its organizers qualified, was not intended “to conflict with the y.M.C.A. of this city … all the young men were recommended to connect themselves with that association.” But the Knox society would focus on having its young men distribute religious tracts, visit and serve the sick, and invite friends or strangers of their age to the meetings.78 At one gathering, to encourage the Young Men’s group in its activity and evangelizing, Simpson “related an anecdote of what a little tract may do in converting persons from sin.”79 Through public lectures, Simpson further tried to influence the young men of the city. He particularly focused on the themes of how personal discipline and self-education could lead to self-improvement, as he encouraged Hamilton’s youth “to spend hours of leisure, which so many waste in folly, and hundreds prostitute to sin, in cultivating that field of

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your own intellect.” Parroting Victorian bromides about individual elevation, Simpson recounted tales of those who rose to achieve distinction: “These men all rose from the ranks … by perseverance alone can the mountaintops of achievement and success be attained.”80 As a result of all his activities and connections, Simpson was rising to become both a leading Presbyterian pastor and an esteemed public figure in the wider city. Although he admired the evangelistic and social ministry of interdenominational organizations like the yMCA, at this point in his ministry he still continued to see the local institutional church, with its accountability and resources, as the proper sphere for such ministries.

CHAPTER FOUR

Shepherding the Flock

Glimpses of the Personal as Pastoral While Simpson busied himself with the various facets of a successful ministry at Knox Hamilton, this pastorate was also an eventful time for his family life. He and Maggie had four children during their Hamilton years (1865–73). Two boys, Albert Henry (b. 27 June 1867) and James Gordon (b. 31 August 1870), seemed to have followed a similar trajectory in life: they underwent Christian conversions at a young age, but as pastor’s children explored dalliances with “sin,” “temptation,” and the “dissipations of youth” when the family eventually moved to New York City, where there was plenty to go around. Both sons, the family claimed, returned to their Lord and helped their father’s ministry before their untimely deaths: Albert died in a sanatorium at thirty, and James Gordon died at thirty-seven. The family view was that the precocious but unmoored boys had not necessarily been “prepared for the responsibilities of life.”1 In their early years, the boys suffered both from their father’s neglect when the heavy demands of his ministry continually pulled him elsewhere, and from their father’s sincere but lenient and indulgent demeanour when he was present. A third child, Mabel Jane (b. 17 November 1872), was a delight to the family and eventually returned to Hamilton and the Presbyterian church with a prominent businessman suitor. A fourth, Melville Jennings, died in 1872 at three years of age, a deep source of anguish to his father.2 An intimate and revealing glimpse into Simpson’s family life and his personal character can be recovered from a series of preserved letters from 1871 that he sent back to his family in Hamilton while on his first ever tour outside of his country of birth. Having been buffeted with the demands of his ministry in Hamilton, and subject to another round of his intermittent health problems exacerbated by overwork, Simpson appealed to his congregation and

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to the Hamilton Presbytery for a sabbatical that year to engage in some rest and rejuvenation. Such requests for leave by pastors were not uncommon. For some time, churches had been concerned about the health and well-being of their pastors who were under inordinate expectations (though this concern was not always matched by a practical reduction in day-to-day expectations). A sabbatical to Europe had further perceived benefits for the church itself. Not only was the grand tour of Europe treated as something of an existential cure-all for Victorians of means (and an attempted rehabilitation of tarnished politicians, as for Ulysses S. Grant later in the decade), but it also came with the added attraction of enhancing the prestige and aura of the pastor, thereby redounding to the church he shepherded. During this era, Presbyterian pastors were among the most educated people in society; one who had also travelled around the globe would be among the most cultured and cosmopolitan as well, and that type of clout could be alluring. The combination of intellect and refinement, it was thought, could potentially coax many common folk in a large, urban setting into the orbit of the church. In any case, the elders of Knox Hamilton “very heartily concurred” with the request for leave and “returned thanks to Mr. Simpson for his thoughtfulness in having made very satisfactory arrangements for the supply of the pulpit during the whole time of his proposed absence.”3 Even in rest, Simpson would be diligent. Simpson would bring his characteristic earnestness and ambition to his vacation. Off for four months in Ireland, Scotland, London, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy, Simpson resolved that “it is a great duty I owe to the future” and “worth more to me than words” to visit all of these places “with a solemn and religious sense of responsibility for the privilege enjoyed.” Simpson admonished himself, “if I neglect anything which I can turn to good account I shall bitterly repent it when away from these scenes which probably I shall never see again.”4 Over the course of his journey, he clearly experienced the delights and frustrations of international travel. His letters reveal the mundane side of Simpson, a quirky and winsome personality beyond his role as preacher, pastor, or presbyter. He showed himself to be a keen observer, and deeply introspective. The following passage from his letters to Maggie disclosed his poetic and mystical sensibilities: “The nights are amazingly beautiful,” he wrote of the sea, “I could not have conceived its mystic beauty … I linger on deck admiring it – rapt in its beauty till the twilight of the morning almost meets the twilight of evening.” In humorous contrast to the introspective mysticism was Simpson’s practical absentmindedness: often forgetting items in previous places (including his cherished Bible), getting swindled out of money, and being distracted by the

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intensity of his experience of the world. “I am a very stupid traveler,” he finally conceded towards the end of his travels. He seasoned his periodic foibles, however, with a quirky sense of humour. As he wrote to his wife, “should I get so fine looking that you won’t know me” while he was off on his travels, he would send her a photograph so she should could “recognize” “the new edition of your husband.” After one particularly loquacious letter, Simpson self-deprecated: “I must not make this letter any longer or it will be arrested as a Communist document.” Describing travelling through the majesty of the Alps, Simpson quipped to his wife – with obvious absurdity – that he went “down a descent far steeper than the Hamilton Mountain.” He also remarked that he didn’t mind inconveniencing his European hosts because he had reached the conclusion that “these Continental fellows needed a little shaking up.”5 Always present was his intimate affection for Maggie and his family, even though he could be annoyingly obsessive about details with his wife (and there are some hints that she was not overjoyed with the arrangement while he was out vacationing). Writing from off the coast of Ireland to his “darling Maggie,” his letters pulsate with longing for the presence of his family, with nostalgia for his brother and sister back home, and with his struggle “to stand the lonesomeness as well as I can.” Whether his desire was for psychological, emotional, spiritual, or sexual companionship, it was clear that Simpson yearned for his spouse. Simpson concluded one flagrantly uxorious letter to his wife from Cologne with the valediction “with 1000 Kisses!!!!!!!” Simpson wrote of what he might do on a future trip to Europe, with the caveat that he would go “never again I hope alone.” His affection for his wife included some patronizing and paternalistic advice in reply to her expressions of difficulty with their arrangements, as when Simpson counselled: “My dear wife, try and learn to be happy only in God. It is a hard lesson you and I are learning now to depend on Him alone for our comfort, but it is a lesson we need, and it will be very blessed in the peace it brings in the end. He must have, and O He deserves, the chief place in all our hearts.” At the same time, he apologized for venting his own grievances about his travels, recognizing that this must have come across as spoiled while he was gallivanting around Europe: “I am afraid I sent you a very unsatisfactory letter yesterday, a grumbling, discontented, morose, morbid complaint against all sorts of things and persons.” Filled with romantic Victorian sentiment and effusion, these letters portrayed the sensibilities of a largely dedicated and congenial husband.6 Throughout his correspondence, which covered a range of preoccupations – money, family, culture, business, technological development – there remained constant Simpson’s genuine religious conviction and his enlivening,

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christocentric spirituality. Such piety corresponded to a moral sensitivity, flirting with sanctimoniousness, that was scandalized by the encounter with many continental customs. Simpson, for example, wrote of his horror at seafaring culture: “it is a system of beastly gluttony, and I set my face against it.” He described the drinking and eating and cavorting aboard ship as “something awful and appalling.” Those voyaging, Simpson recounted, “will drink at lunch a bottle of porter and follow it up with a pint of wine, and then at dinner drink as much – mixing often at the same meal vast quantities of porter, ale, sherry and claret and often brandy.” “Half the sickness on shipboard comes from over-gormandizing,” Simpson censured. He did note, however, that the abundance of sweets might suit his eldest child just fine: “Tell [Albert] there is any amount of cakes and pies and puddings, etc. – the next time he crosses the Atlantic.” While Simpson’s clear temperance principles permitted him to drink wine in moderation at this point in his career, he wrote that the more he experienced the excesses of Europe, “which was much worse,” the more he was inclined to become a full abstainer.7 An almost comical passage – if not also for its tragic obliviousness to social structures and inequities – was Simpson’s commentary on the open, public prostitution he encountered in Italy (something that was relatively more underground and clandestine in Hamilton, even if rarely prosecuted by the police despite the grousing of evangelical reformers).8 In Venice, Simpson observed the “flower girls of Italy,” the “demi-monde,” in “considerable numbers,” plying their meretricious trade in plain sight on the street. “They are nicely and modestly dressed,” commented an astonished Simpson, “and come up to you with a bunch of bouquets and offer you one.” He found it curious that if anyone offered to pay for the flowers up front, the flower girls would be insulted. Rather, he recounted, this was “the badge of her profession, and if accepted would lead to further arrangements if you chose … if not she would probably pass on, but feel you had dishonorably cheated her.” Simpson hastened to reassure his wife back home that he had entirely “escaped being compromised,” even when “accosted twice” by the flower girls, but he wrote candidly about the practice. With a pastor’s heart, he claimed that he had primarily “looked on the spectacle with mingled amusement and sadness.” Warming to his moralism, Simpson concluded that this was incongruously a “very pretty introduction to a very bad business,” the “saddest” aspect of which was “the quiet way that they go about it as a matter of legitimate business and nobody looks at them with surprise.” With the outsider’s self-righteousness, he simply expressed remorse that these girls and this society had “grown so

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hardened by sin” by “the demoralized public opinion of the country” that everyone “seemed quite unconscious” that such activities were even “sin.” This, according to Simpson, belonged to an even more pervasive and pernicious decadence that tainted the whole European continent, a “sad corruption and rottenness in the moral and social life of all these countries.” By comparison, Simpson took this assessment as inspiring him with “a new love and a new hope” for the moral simplicity and sincerity of the American continent “as the hope of the world’s future,” and his homeland of Canada in particular. Even with “its drawbacks and its comparative barbarism, in comparison with this land [Britain] of refinement and culture,” Canada could enjoy a “grand future yet to make, if it is only true to itself ” and to its moral principles.9 Simpson also had to cope with the European church scene. Although he sought out Presbyterian or Reformed churches on the Sabbath wherever he went, most of the time outside of Scotland he had to stomach the Church of England’s services. Attending one in Venice, Simpson grudgingly conceded that the Anglican chaplain there “had a fair sermon,” but he contrasted that with the formalities of the liturgy, which to him rang hollow with ceremoniousness: “a miserable ritualistic service.” Simpson revolted against the “exhibition of lamps and crosses and bowings,” as such that he had “never seen before in a Protestant Church.” He had thought that they only had “this sort of thing in R. C. [Roman Catholic] churches on a far grander scale.” Finding himself craving weekly Christian worship whatever the contaminations, however, “like a hungry man enjoying his crust of bread, even if the butter is bad, I enjoyed [the services] very much on the whole.” Even visiting Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece in London, St Paul’s Cathedral, didn’t change his mind about beauty. Sure, the building was impressive, but to Simpson the church life seemed “crowded out of existence into courtyards and lanes as though Mammon left no room for them.” In any case, an imposing edifice didn’t make up for the “dingy dirty look outside and in,” resulting in “a smoky looking affair … certainly not inviting in its appearance.” He editorialized that, regardless of the prestige, he “would not care to preach” at St Paul’s even if he had been invited to.10 The apogee of his ambivalence was his encounter with Rome. Simpson simultaneously marvelled at the splendor, grandeur, and historicity of Rome, while in stereotypical evangelical fashion for that era categorically lambasting the Catholic Church that had erected most of it. Italy as a whole was gorgeous, and Simpson visited St Peter’s Basilica three times, commenting that “the more I see of it the more I admire it.” Still, with predictable and self-confident

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Protestant certainty – and erroneousness – Simpson projected that the papacy’s “day is past,” especially considering what were, to him, the clearly despotic developments of the First Vatican Council’s infamous Pastor Aeternus. Simpson wondered in his letter, “Is this all Roman Catholicism had done from the world and for Rome?” Despite – and perhaps because of – its historical magnificence, Simpson interpreted the culture of Rome as a Protestant lesson, describing it as “the most ungodly, Sabbath breaking, worldly looking place I have ever seen.” In Rome, there was “more vice and lawlessness and brigandage” than could be found anywhere else. He described Rome’s religious life as a “sad spectacle … [of ] profane and ribald mobs … empty churches, and the very priests playing ball with the boys,” while neglecting anything truly spiritual. In a vivid image, Simpson likened the Roman Catholic Church as a whole to the floors of St Peter’s: a marble mosaic grandeur that was also antiquated and hollow. “[I] heard as I passed on the hollow sound that reminded me that I was treading on a hollow thing – full of graves … of dead men’s bones and all corruption.” Just so, according to Simpson, “the Church of Rome is grand but false and hollow, a glorious show, a gilded sculptured painted magnificent shell. Here people ask for bread and she gives them in her magnificent Cathedral a ‘stone.’” Struck by the lucidity of his own insight, Simpson smugly celebrated the inevitable: “But thank God her day is done,” he concluded.11 If Simpson’s view of Roman Catholicism was predictable given the rampant anti-Catholicism among Protestants of his time, his tepid reaction to one of the truly great and renowned evangelical preachers of the world, the Reformed Baptist Charles H. Spurgeon, was certainly not. On the return leg of his journey, Simpson was warming to London, especially for the advantages of its civilization and decorum: “I must admit London is the greatest city in the world. It grows upon me.” There he attended the evangelical mecca of the Metropolitan Tabernacle (one of the earliest “megachurches”) to hear the celebrated Spurgeon preach, one of the “sights of London” to which he had been desperately looking forward. Not overly critical, Simpson was able to recognize Spurgeon’s talents: he “preached a most excellent sermon, very much as I expected he would.” Simpson also approved the style of the sermon, with a touch of ambivalence: “it was a well balanced, highly interesting and I am sure deeply instructive and awakening sermon.” In his theological convictions, moreover, Simpson would leave such assessments concerning the sufficiency of the conduit of the word up to God: “Such as I do not doubt the Spirit of God employed to impress and quicken many a heart.” All that said, having become a noted evangelical preacher himself, and by this point probably

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beginning to think somewhat favourably of his own pulpitcraft, Simpson was underwhelmed by the evangelical titan, who by then was preaching to maybe 18,000 a week and had sold upwards of 8 million copies of his sermons. “But I must say,” he wrote candidly to Maggie, that Spurgeon delivered his sermon “with less eloquence and power than I looked for.” Even though Spurgeon had been convalescing in previous weeks, and so was probably not entirely on his game, Simpson still critiqued his sermon as “not moving or exciting or affecting. There were no appeals to feeling or fancy at all and there was little striking in the way of illustration or thought – indeed I might say nothing.”12 There was too much head, not enough to engross the heart or fire the imagination. But the thousands of Londoners who joined Spurgeon’s church because of his dramatic messages and earthy, unpretentious approach might have contested such an appraisal.13 Simpson’s mediocre view of Spurgeon might have been related to his expectations for this trip to rekindle his own spiritual embers. In his letters he wrote often of the spiritual side of his journey, often preaching to Maggie (and thereby really to himself ) of the need to stoke vital feeling for Christ. A culminating moment had come to him in Basel: after a long struggle with my despondent and unbelieving feelings … I have been a long time coming to see again what I have so often seen before but what I so often lose sight of utterly, that we have nothing to do but trust and love Christ; that we must not have any anxieties for they all show that we love something else more than Him, and that we will have none if we only love him supremely. O how I have longed to feel that I love him supremely, to realize the joy of having the heart filled with his love and nothing else … all our fears and mistrusts with our worldly thoughts, our laying up treasure on earth, our divided earth-loving hearts, and the true remedy is to lay up treasure in heaven, to get and ever keep a higher love to the heavenly – in short to know Christ and love Christ supremely … Let us do so, my dearest wife; let us aim at being filled with the love of Christ and all the fullness of God. And then while loving each other no less – we shall love with less anxiety and sinful fear and have a store of happiness which will bridge over the sad gulf of transient separation, and reach forward into the infinite ages of a future eternity.

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The whole trip was an opportunity for Simpson, once again, “to acknowledge [God’s] wonderful kindness and Divine love” and to return to the One “who with ceaseless watchfulness and tenderness has watched over my wanderings and enabled me tonight to raise another Ebenezer to his love.” If there was any concern that Simpson’s gruelling ministry had been pulverizing his spiritual joy, his trip to Europe was a time for him to renew his first love.14

Simpson as Presbyterian The European sabbatical to experience the world and refresh his faith had been much needed, given how intensely Simpson had been involved in the various institutional operations of Presbyterian church life, to which he would have to return when his travels ended. His faithful involvement in denominational structures was still a crucial aspect of his life and ministry throughout the Hamilton period. A minimum level of participation in denominational service was, of course, expected of every Presbyterian minister. But the degree and scope of Simpson’s activities revealed a minister with a passion for and an investment in ecclesial institutions, not just a meagre participation in them. Denominational structures certainly had their limitations, and Simpson was already challenging them. But much of his career until he left the Presbyterian church still furnished plenty of evidence that church institutions were not merely intransigent and resistant behemoths, immobile relics of an antiquated replication – though they could sometimes be that – but were themselves, through their leaders, also adapting to and negotiating with new movements of spirituality and broader changes in the culture. Simpson’s career has been almost exclusively chronicled and interpreted as though it began with the launch of the new ministry that became the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It is also crucial, however, not just to understand Simpson’s Presbyterian ministry as an obscure prelude to the C&MA, but on its own terms, with its own integrity and vitality. It is also crucial to see that many of Simpson’s developments, far from occuring in spite of Presbyterian institutional life, actually occurred through it.15 Over the years from 1865 to 1873, for example, Simpson was actively engaged at the presbytery level in Hamilton, the synod level in the greater Hamilton region, and the national Canadian Synod (pre-1869)/General Assembly (post-1869). At this point in his career, Simpson seemed to honestly believe that working through the structures of the Presbyterian church was integral to the practice of ministry. Simpson joined the Presbytery of Hamilton in 1866, and thereafter became intimately

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involved in its most important deliberations. Twice he was appointment moderator of the presbytery, and in other years he was appointed clerk or chair of one of the committees. During his work in the presbytery, Simpson also showed himself a concerned proponent of higher education in general, and of the flourishing of his alma mater Knox College in particular. At this point, Knox was still fondly on his heart, and Simpson showed deep concern for its thriving. Simpson was heavily involved, furthermore, in campaigns of his presbytery to foster revival through Presbyterian means, to promote more rigorous Sabbath observance, and to support the various voluntary auxiliary ministries of local Presbyterian churches. A highlight for him as presbyter likely would have been grilling his brother, Howard, on the latter’s ordination trials board, as well as getting to preach the sermon at his ordination service.16 A paramount example that shows the complexities of Simpson’s denominational belonging, among the many other issues he confronted as a participant in church politics, was his role in the Presbyterian “organ controversy.” The organ controversy was really a constellation of related disputes about biblical propriety in the styles and forms of worship, and the degree to which church worship could adapt to changing aesthetic forms in order to reach people. Traditional Reformed theology, holding to the regulative scriptural principle, believed that only those forms of music or rites of worship that were explicitly condoned in scripture could be used in congregational worship (specifically for Sunday worship, not necessarily for other purposes or personal enjoyment). Scripture’s silence on a given method was not sufficient to sanction it. That position, when consistently enforced, automatically excluded any musical innovation since the time of the New Testament. Traditional Presbyterian worship music had consisted in “lining out” the Psalms, with the congregation singing a cappella. By Simpson’s time, however, many churches were experimenting with innovations such as rehearsed choirs, choir directors, and instrumentation such as the melodeon or the organ. These methods had become wildly popular and successful in attracting diverse populations. Some leaders in the CPC, among other Presbyterian bodies, were questioning the theological arguments in favour of the regulative exclusion and were feeling pressure not to miss out on the musical opportunities of the times, which could potentially hinder the church’s outreach and alienate the youth.17 This question, however trivial it may have seemed to subsequent generations, really tested some of the foundations of Reformed theology. Organs, at the time, were beautiful, popular, musically elegant, and effective for leading congregational music. But they were not explicitly condoned in the Bible.

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They could be seen by traditionalists, therefore, as one of those “popish” corruptions introduced by human tradition. Their introduction would throw into question the Reformed axiom that God had provided everything necessary for the functioning of his church explicitly in the scriptures. (The status of instruments in David’s worship, or the Psalms, or Daniel, for example – the harp or lyre or timbrel or cymbals or horn or flute – was often taken by exegetes of the time to be ambiguously applied to the New Testament church). Ironically for an anti-tradition church, this was also a matter of custom. Worship by lining out Psalms without instrumentation had been the venerated tradition of Presbyterians for centuries now. Traditions there always were; it just depended on which ones and for which reasons. Knox Church Hamilton had already adopted some more progressive views on church music in the 1860s, implementing a formal choir and modern hymns in addition to the Psalter, but it had done so quietly. In 1867, however, Knox Church Montreal threw the question into the open by petitioning the Canada Presbyterian Church national synod to positively affirm its use of instrumentation in worship. Many pastors preferred that the issue simply remain dormant and that local churches be allowed to go about their business. But an explicit request to the national synod meant that battle lines had to be drawn. The matter took a decade to resolve, with the organ eventually winning out; even then, a few churches resisted the amalgamation of what they called “spiritual worship with carnal instruments.”18 Characteristic of Presbyterian practice, the matter was first sent down to the local church bodies for study and discernment. Simpson’s Hamilton Presbytery investigated the issue in its role as mediating body between the local church and the national governing body. Hamilton was one of the more progressive presbyteries, and so their vote came out in favour of granting liberty to musical innovations by a margin of twelve to seven. But if the vote was that close in a progressive presbytery, any seasoned churchman could anticipate that this issue would be bitterly divisive at the national level. Indeed, when the matter was taken up at the subsequent CPC national synod, five presbyteries approved of allowing organs (three with further stipulations on how they were used), while eight presbyteries voted to ban them. Simpson himself supported a motion to adopt a hands-off policy: refrain from making any universal ruling one way or the other and continue to let individual church sessions decide for themselves. This issue, he argued, could certainly be one of “mutual forbearance” in the church, allowing heat to escape on the issue while the national synod waited to see how the practice of local churches went.

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While there was no explicit biblical precedent for the use of organs in worship, Simpson’s position on the matter gravitated toward the counterargument that the national synod should respect the liberty of local churches. Those who sought to prohibit outright the use of organs also had no firm, direct grounding in either scripture or the Westminster Confession for their absolute binding on the matter. For Simpson, this was a matter of proportionality: he was convinced the organ question clearly should be an adiaphorous matter of local church discretion, not one for the national body to take a stand on one way or the other. “If the matter is so important as to be made a term of communion, if the actual use of the organ is so great an offense as to constitute a sufficient ground for schism,” he reasoned, “it must constitute a heresy so dangerous as to justify ecclesiastical censure of separation.” Simpson concluded that elevating this matter to such a level was silly: “We could not refuse [the right to use organs] without scriptural grounds; we cannot force our congregations to give up a privilege to which they conscientiously believe they are entitled … We may advise them to abstain from its use. We cannot make it a term of communion and force them to give up a liberty they claim.”19 Of course, that was the delicate balance of Reformed theology; one believer’s antinomian was another believer’s antilegalist. One’s neglect of the commandment was another’s Christian freedom. Simpson remained a faithful and dedicated Presbyterian during this period. In his response to the organ question, nevertheless, there were flashes of the sensibilities that would later lead him outside of Presbyterian constraints. Accusing the traditionalists on church music of hypocrisy, Simpson pointed out that “those who denounced as an innovation the introduction of instrumental music in public worship” were also those who were willing to open up the subject of baptism. Baptism, however, was a subject that was enshrined in the Westminster Confessions and which the CPC Synod had already reviewed, whereas organs were neither. How could traditionalists be open to re-exploring the former, while being so pugnacious about the latter? These were “the very same parties,” Simpson observed, “where no set ordinance but a mere circumstance of public worship was concerned most tenaciously cling to the standards of the church and most loudly appeal to the law and the testimony.”20 Simpson was both making an ecumenical point about majoring on the majors, and also showing disgruntlement with formalists clinging to matters of tradition that were not at the confessional heart of the church and squandering the church’s evangelical relevance to do so. After much debate at that year’s synod, the body eventually promulgated a resolution that was similar to the compromise

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proposal Simpson advocated. The non-decision decision, in any case, had the consequence of unleashing the tide of instrumental innovation in the CPC. What often happened in church decisions like this happened: a decision ostensibly for neutrality in reality opened the floodgates to whatever position currently had the cultural momentum. Back at Knox Hamilton, Simpson himself launched the initial fundraising program to install a church organ shortly before he left.21

Building the Lord’s House, Not Just Your Own Houses While Simpson was thoroughly involved as a faithful minister in Presbyterian denomination life during his Hamilton pastorate, he was also becoming involved in a number of cooperative evangelical organizations and movements that began to lead him in new directions. Moving him beyond the confines of a specific denominational allegiance, these ministries all bore common resemblance to an emerging pattern of voluntary societies gaining momentum as methods of ministry within evangelicalism during this period.22 Even at this stage in Simpson’s career, he began to exhibit growing frustration with historic denominational Christianity. This aspect of Simpson’s development, however, remained in tension with his continued dedication to his work in Presbyterian governance and commitment to traditional forms of its ministry. By the end of 1873, after eight years as pastor of Knox Hamilton, Simpson was ready to move on to a new challenge. His farewell sermon to the Hamilton congregation contained glimmers of his emerging poimenic sensibilities. While still operating within the Presbyterian denominational world for now, in a highly revealing passage Simpson implored his fellow ministers and parishioners “not to build churches and organize congregations and extend denominational limits as our final objects.” Simpson still believed that these were important things, but they were primarily tools to a larger end; they were “means for saving souls.” They would all be rubble and straw, however, if such structures were not used “to proclaim in the ears of a perishing world God’s message of salvation” and did not facilitate the activity of mission, “like the angel flying in the midst of the heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on earth.”23 During this period, Simpson had become increasingly involved in ecumenical evangelical organizations that would have lasting impact on his views of ministry and church life. The most important of these for him were the Bible and Tract Societies, the yMCA, and the Evangelical Alliance. Very early in his

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ministry, Simpson began attending and participating in the Hamilton branch meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society. This was one of the more prominent of the many Protestant Bible societies that were founded during the nineteenth century. Having arrived in Hamilton in 1839, the British and Foreign Bible Society worked to gather Protestants from various denominations around the two common, concrete goals: distributing copies of the biblical text and increasing awareness of biblical literacy among the larger culture. At its yearly meeting in 1866, Simpson delivered “a very eloquent address,” divulging ecumenical evangelical sensibilities that would continue into his ministry. Simpson remarked “on the duties of every christian of whatever denomination to disseminate the blessed Gospel.”24 He continued to be involved with the society throughout his stint in Hamilton, rising to become its secretary by 1873. Evidencing his growing concern for evangelical impact in ministry and for the transformation of hearts over and above the mere filling of heads, Simpson further implored the society to accompany its Bible work with “earnest, believing prayer.” Bible texts and head knowledge would not be sufficient by themselves. Revival was needed: “O for a baptism of fire to soften and melt, to purify and refine man’s corrupt nature,” as Simpson read from his report to the society. “Rend the heavens, O Lord, and come down, in the power of thy Spirit to a world lying in wickedness … not with the fire of Thy wrath, but with the incense of Thy grace.”25 Another crucial paradigm for Simpson’s ministry was his involvement in the Young Men’s Christian Association. Originally founded in 1844 in London by George Williams, this evangelical organization sought to transform society through attention to the spiritual, physical, and psychological development of young men in the context of a spiritually toxic urbanizing and industrializing setting. Popular in Canada, the yMCA spread widely in urban centres, and it became a quintessential expression of an urbanizing Christianity. The ethos of the yMCA during this era was decisively evangelical, but it was also pragmatically revivalist and downplayed denominational differences – emphases that continued to influence Simpson’s own approach to ministry.26 In this way, the yMCA became one of the key prototypes for the parachurch organization that coalesced Protestant evangelicals of many theological convictions around practical ministry concerns. While the yMCA could be seen as competing with the ministry of local churches – some of that may be evident in Simpson’s founding of his own Presbyterian Young Men’s Society – when the local branch was chartered in Hamilton in 1867, it still retained broad ministerial support, including from Simpson. The Hamilton yMCA’s first anniversary celebration

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was officiated by Simpson himself in the sanctuary of Knox Presbyterian.27 The guest of honour commemorating that event would become a crucial influence upon Simpson during the remainder of his ministry: yMCA booster, celebrity dean of American revivalists between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, and “God’s man for the Gilded Age,” Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899).28 This was the first of what would prove to be many associations between Simpson and Moody over the years. In the meantime, Simpson was a prominent figure at many yMCA events and was often a delegate to regional conventions. That said, he was still Presbyterian at this point, and he seemed to have had misgivings about certain ecclesiological ramifications of the yMCA ministry, even while he cherished its emphases on evangelism, social transformation, and lay participation. At one yMCA meeting in 1870, Simpson cautioned about “the introduction into the meetings of Christians … worldly amusements as a means of increasing their funds for Christian work.”29 (It is interesting that Simpson seemed here to be on the other side of ministry innovation from the side he took on the organ music question.) Through the yMCA, Simpson also met for the first time fellow Presbyterian minister and lifelong spiritual companion A.T. Pierson (1837–1911), who was then at his Detroit pastorate. Pierson attended an anniversary celebration for the Hamilton yMCA in 1871, shared the pulpit at Knox Hamilton, and later become an invited guest to the deliberations of the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church.30 Coalition organizations like the yMCA were becoming crucial forums for transnational networks and constellations of likeminded conservative Protestants who shared emerging theological concerns and innovative emphases in practical ministry that cut across the historic denominations. During Simpson’s time in Hamilton, the culmination of this process of broadening horizons and committing to evangelical interdenominationalism was his attendance at the annual general convention of the Evangelical Alliance in October of 1873 as one of fifty-four Canadian delegates. Originally founded in 1846 in London, the Evangelical Alliance emerged as the granddaddy of panevangelical voluntary societies.31 Its 1873 general conference convened 516 delegates from around the world in New York, many of them of remarkable stature, and it was eagerly reported on by the American press. Stealing the stage at that event was Narayan Shesadri, associated with the Free Church of Scotland, who addressed the assembly, “clad in Oriental costume, with snow-white turban and flowing robe,” and who gave an ecumenically minded talk on the prospects and difficulties of mission work in India, a resounding

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account that overwhelmed the delegates with “deepest emotion.”32 A resolution of gratitude for the convention, proffered by the Canadian delegation’s leader, George M. Grant, was seconded by A.B. Simpson. Not only the “munificent hospitality” shown to the Canadian delegates by the Evangelical Alliance, the yMCA, and the city of New York, but the deep impact of such a broad, powerful, and influential common evangelical enterprise electrified Simpson’s heart and intensified his interest in evangelistic and missional-focused endeavours that decentred denominational belonging.

New Horizons The Evangelical Alliance convention also had practical ramifications for Simpson. During the conference, he was invited by S.D. Burchard to preach at the prestigious Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (the same one to which Simpson would be called six years later). On this occasion, Simpson’s prowess in pulpitcraft so impressed a delegation from Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, that they immediately presented him with a call to fill their vacant pastorate. The offer enticed Simpson, who must have at least surreptitiously been exploring his options. At the conclusion of his time in New York, he took a detour to Louisville “to satisfy himself, by personal acquaintance, with the people” of Chestnut Street Church. When the Presbytery of Hamilton reconvened on 3 December 1873, only one month after the Evangelical Alliance convention, they found that news of Simpson entertaining a move had already spread widely in the Presbyterian orbit, and that his escalating reputation had generated three separate calls for his ministry. In addition to the offer to join Chestnut Street Church, there were also calls from Chalmers Church in Quebec City and the intimations of a call from Knox Church in Ottawa, the Canadian capital. Knox Ottawa’s proposal consisted of a telegram that described how a formal delegation was in transit to woo Simpson, and they requested a suspension of the Hamilton Presbytery’s deliberations until they could arrive and present their case fully in person.33 Events were once again moving rapidly. The possibility of obtaining his now widely regarded services was attracting much interest, and other churches were rushing to get in on the action. Upon an initial review of the options, the presbytery decided to move forward with deliberations without waiting for the Ottawa delegation, while the session of Knox Hamilton gave their own presentation hoping to keep Simpson where he was. Simpson claimed to wrestle with a “deep and painful feeling” while weighing his decision, but outlined

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some of his concerns about remaining in Hamilton. While not in the midst of one of his serious health collapses, Simpson did express feeling overworked, and said that he was looking for a post that offered him more time for rest and for his own intellectual pursuits. A second factor, seemingly in tension with the first, was his ambition for new challenges. Simpson believed that, “so far as the outward growth of his [current] congregation was concerned, his work had reached its maximum.” The continuing work at Knox Hamilton would be that of sustaining what he had accomplished, which he recognized was an important achievement. But Simpson saw himself as “perhaps too young a man to sit still.” He was looking to build again, to pioneer something. Though Simpson’s two main concerns seemed inconsistent with one another, it seemed to him that if he remained at Knox Hamilton, he would have a heavy burden engaged in activities that would not reflect where his heart for ministry was leading him. Simpson envisioned potential: Chestnut Street was, at the time, “the largest and most influential church in its own Synod, in the largest Presbyterian body in the world,” and so that church “presented as ample a field for ministerial influence and usefulness as any minister could desire.” Chestnut Street’s offer, lastly and not inconsequentially, was far more lucrative than what the other churches could afford. They offered a salary of $5,000, almost triple his current one, with the promise of built-in time for study and contemplation. After his initial discussion, Simpson indicated that of the four possible options he was leaning toward Louisville, and the presbytery reluctantly sustained his decision.34 Simpson delivered a parting address to his Hamilton congregation on 14 December 1873, two weeks after the presbytery meeting where he had decided to leave. Simpson’s impact on the community of Hamilton was obvious: his farewell service was one of the city’s largest church-sponsored events to that point in its history. The sanctuary overflowed hours before the service, and an estimated 500 people had to be turned away. For his valediction, Simpson took as his text 2 Corinthians 6:1–2 – a bookend, as it was the same passage he had taken for his very first sermon: “We then … beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Simpson outlined his view of ministry as animated by a “simple and absolute faith in the sufficiency of the Gospel to save men,” and characterized by a “bold and faithful proclamation of the Gospel in all its simplicity.” Anticipating his later thematic emphasis on supernatural empowerment, Simpson declared that the

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other essential aspect of Christian ministry was a “profound recognition of [the] supernatural element … a humble dependence upon the Spirit of God to ensure its efficiency, and an implicit expectation of the divine efficaciousness in our work.”35 Success in Christian ministry relied not on strategic programming but on an influx of the power of God. In an evangelical shot across the bow at some of the trends in Protestant churches, Simpson took the opportunity to chastise ministries that had been encumbered by intellectualism, ritualism, or formality, while obfuscating the clarion preaching of the gospel and neglecting the simple ministry to those outside of the church. He skewered “empty rhetorical haranagues,” “vapid pointless high sounding orations,” “brilliant philosophical speculations,” and “high season declamations,” all of which he thought too many pulpits were exchanging “for earnest, evangelical preaching.” As mainline denominational practices and tastes were generally becoming more ornate, Simpson decried what he saw as “ecclesiastical millinery … ritualistic exhibitions and stage performances, and weak diluted Romanish [practices] … which some weak and goodish men and women think are necessary now-a-days to attract hungering and perishing souls to the house of God.” Such fluff was displacing in many churches the “simple and primitive worship” of the pure, elemental gospel. After giving this diagnosis, Simpson asked the leading question: “Is it that men have lost faith in the power of the gospel and the presence of the Spirit and the efficacy of God’s machinery for saving men?” This sermon upon his departure from Hamilton was highly revealing of Simpson’s future trajectory. The Protestant world, according to his assessment of things, was in danger of losing its gospel simplicity and evangelical grounding. The ministry of the church was no longer vital and vivid in its concern for the conversion of souls. And the proper response should be to trust, once again, in the supernatural infusion of divine power. The panacea, Simpson bellowed, was to return to the simple foundation: “Men are lost, they must be saved.”36 With this last appeal for revivalistic urgency, Simpson concluded his service at Knox Hamilton. On 18 December, his family auctioned off their furniture from the Presbyterian manse; by the 22nd, they had boarded the train on their way to a new country, a new pastorate, and a new series of crises that would continue pushing Simpson’s views of ministry in new directions.37

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Louisville: Environments of Ministry Founded amid the Revolutionary War, Louisville had become a crucial city in the expansion of the United States into the trans-Appalachian west, as Kentucky became the second post-Revolutionary state admitted to the Union in 1792. The city’s strategic importance derived from its location at the falls of the Ohio River, the only portage site along the transportation journey from the interior into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. As such, Louisville became a major boarding, transportation, and hospitality hub, and it continued its importance for transportation when the city landed its role as the headquarters of the Louisville-Nashville Railway, one of the early antebellum Southern lines. By the Civil War, Louisville was the twelfth-largest urban centre in the US and the leading industrializing city of the South. It was a crossroads of east-west and north-south axes for America. One hundred miles east of Louisville, in Bourbon County, sat the Cane Ridge Meeting House where the 1801 revival typified the religious camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening that swept across the frontier landscape of the early Republic, accompanying the roaming of westward settlers via the National Road or the Cumberland Gap.38 In addition to the east-west axis, Louisville’s Southern social and economic connections were significant, as the city styled itself the “Gateway to the South.” Gateway to the South, in the antebellum period, included the coerced passages of a prominent slave market, where slave dealers funnelled an estimated 43,000 enslaved persons from the Border South into the Deep South during the 1850s, 16 per cent of the black population of Kentucky.39 The Civil War upset Kentucky’s delicate balance. Its conflicting allegiances were uncannily symbolized by the state being the birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Once the war came, a considerable and vociferous minority of white Louisville lobbied for secession along with the rest of the South. Kentucky, as a whole, would have preferred neutrality. Fearful of protecting the interests of about 39,000 irascible slave owners, while at the same time being home to many supporters of the federal government and dependent on its economic ties to the Union, Kentucky found itself in a contorted position. The possibility of neutrality quickly vanished. In September 1861, a Unionist majority in the legislature stifled the secessionist voices and declared the Commonwealth in support of the federal government. Disgruntled representatives from sixty-eight of Kentucky’s 110 counties responded by assembling their own convention in November of 1861 with

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the hopes of seceding and establishing a rival Confederate state at Bowling Green. Though the attempt failed, Kentucky retained its strategically conflicted importance. Lincoln allegedly quipped that while he would like to have God on his side, he must have Kentucky; or, in words he certainly did write, “to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”40 The divisions of politics and society in Kentucky were also the divisions of the churches. The Civil War was not only a political, economic, social, and constitutional crisis for the Union, it was significantly a theological and moral crisis as well. It tested the balance of the federal government’s reach into local autonomy when it came to the morality of slavery, but it also struck at the foundations of the religious-cultural ascendency of evangelical Protestantism. An American consensus was shattered when widely shared beliefs in the supremacy and sufficiency of the Bible and the hermeneutical orientation to the Bible’s “common sense realist” interpretation actually led to diametrically opposing – and indeed mutually intolerable – theological positions on slavery. The spiritual fallout from the Civil War, including the schism of many churches within the same denomination along sectional lines, all seemed to justify Lincoln’s warning about the “judgments of the Lord” and the “woe due to those by whom the offense” of American slavery had come.41 American Presbyterianism had already suffered divisions prior to the agonizing ones of the Civil War, as a result of the Great Awakenings when the Presbyterian river forked into New School and Old School streams. The Civil War further divided an already fractured church. Both New School and Old School branches split over their positions on slavery. The Old School had awkwardly managed to keep itself together until the very outbreak of war in 1861, but by then simmering pressures erupted. A hefty majority of the Presbyterian General Assembly was prepared to force the issues of the war and voted on the “Spring Resolution,” declaring it a Presbyterian “duty to support the Federal Government and preserve the union.” The Synod of Kentucky was one of the parties who deeply resented this resolution, seeing it as an infringement upon the proper limits of Presbyterian polity. Individual congregations, under the jurisdiction of their presbytery, retained the prerogative to decide for themselves matters that were not explicitly and directly prohibited in scripture. Since neither slavery nor American union received explicit and direct scriptural approval or prohibition, the Southern delegates insisted that these should remain issues of interpretation for the local churches to decide – or to be adjudicated according to the laws of the state. In terms of Presbyterian protocol, the Southern delegates were on firm ground. But in the

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context of a national cataclysm and the intensifying moral sentiment about the broad evil of slavery, the protest of the Southern contingent was myopic. To defend the interests of slaveholders, they deployed the “spirituality of the church principle,” and began to construct elaborate theories about limited government and non-intrusion, which in this case just happened to mean the freedom to support the ownership of other human beings buttressed by religious principles. A bloc of Southern- and slavery-supporting Presbyterians withdrew from the General Assembly and formed the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America (later, the Southern Presbyterian Church) that convened in Augusta, Georgia. And American Presbyterianism was split North from South.42 The Kentucky Presbyterian Synod, like the Commonwealth as a whole, found itself in a compromised situation. It formally remained with the Northern, parent body, but not without significant contestation among its ranks and considerable sympathies with the seceders. The drama thus unfurled within Kentucky Presbyterianism was encapsulated by a clash between two ferocious public advocates of the competing positions. On one side was the labyrinthine Robert Breckinridge. He was the uncle of John Breckinridge, the 1860 Southern Democratic presidential candidate, and a slaveholder himself; but he was committed to the gradual social eradication of slavery, as well as an ardent supporter of Lincoln and Unionism. He paid the price for his commitments: two of his sons joined the Union Army and two joined the Confederate Army. On the other side of the Presbyterian divide was Stuart Robinson, sympathetic to slaveowners and the South, who plotted to keep Kentucky Presbyterians neutral in the war. Robinson was just as outspoken about his loyalties, which endangered him in a formally Union state. In 1862, Robinson found himself in exile up in Canada after facing spurious charges of sedition. Sequestered in Toronto for the duration of the war, he continued to preach and teach there, including publishing his biblical defence of the institution of slavery, Slavery as Recognized in the Mosaic Civil Law (1865), which would not have been well received north of the border. After the war, he returned to a hero’s welcome in Louisville, and his writings continued to be featured in the local papers up through the time of Simpson’s pastorate there. Simpson came to Louisville eight years after these bitter events, which may have seemed like a decent amount of time for healing. But with the Civil War, even when the fighting was over, the memory of it was long – and pliable. Circling around the ideals of reunion in the nation and suppressing the ugly realities of race, the memory of the war was especially tortured and

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visceral, as the survivors struggled to make meaning of such drastic carnage and moral turmoil.43 For many years, divisive influences could still be felt in periodic violence, outbursts of reprisals against newly freed blacks, embittered churches, and a contentious social atmosphere.44 The PCusA General Assembly, for its part, did not take Lincoln’s call to “bind up the nation’s wounds” overly rigorously; they opted instead for righteous punishment. The assembly implemented a policy that required all ministers seeking ordination within Southern presbyteries to be examined on their views on slavery and their loyalty to the Union. The Presbytery of Louisville, which Simpson would join a few years afterwards, reacted angrily to what they saw as another infringement on the freedoms and the spirituality of the local church, a punitive action in spirit and a potentially heretical action in doctrine by conflating loyalty to the nation with loyalty to the church of Jesus Christ. In turn, they promulgated a defensive broadside against the General Assembly, subtly entitled Declaration against the Erroneous and Heretical Doctrines and Practices … Propagated in the Presbyterian Church …45 Stuart Robinson – this after the war – then led a contingent of Louisville Presbyterians out of the PCusA to join with the Southern Presbyterian Church. According to one Presbyterian history, “the split occurred with much vituperation and bitterness at Synod level, but its impact for most Presbyterians in Kentucky was felt in sessions and congregations,” especially in Louisville.46 Congregations found themselves torn apart.

The Louisville Pastorate This was the general Presbyterian situation that Simpson entered at the turn of the year 1874, with many bitter memories still lingering. While the war and its aftermath had been the source of distress for many Presbyterians, the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church was the one community that had emerged relatively unscathed. According to its own records, Chestnut Street was the only church in Louisville that hadn’t been broken apart. One reason for this is that the church would have only attracted people who were comfortable with its pro-PCusA allegiances in the first place, as well as it was generally known for its “strong, cohesive social force.”47 A relatively new church, it had been anchored by the stabilizing, diplomatic presence of elder L.L. Warren, after whom it would eventually be named. By 1873 under the leadership of Gilbert H. Robertson, the congregation had grown to 373 members, with 350 in the Sabbath School, and had erected a nice building seating 650 at the corner of Chestnut and Fourth Streets. The departure of Robertson, however, left a

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difficult challenge to navigate: finding a new pastor for a thriving, prosperous congregation in the context of a rancorous and politicized church environment. Simpson, as he had been in Hamilton, was the perfect conciliatory candidate. Although he had been trained by zealous abolitionists at Knox, the slavery question as such was now closed with the passage of the Civil War Amendments to the US Constitution. Coming from Canada, however, Simpson would not have been directly tainted by the rivalrous North-South relationship, nor have been previously involved in the controversial dynamics of the PCusA General Assembly or the Kentucky Synod. Thus it made perfect sense for the Chestnut Street delegation to pursue Simpson doggedly once they heard him preach. Having departed for Louisville in December, the Simpson family arrived late in the year. His work began without delay. An installation service was held on 2 January 1874, “impressive ceremonies” with Dr Morris of Lane Theological Seminary presiding. For his inaugural sermon, Simpson exposited from the text of Matthew 17:8 – “And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” Yanking the phrase “Jesus only” wildly out of context from the transfiguration passage as a whole, it nevertheless served to crystalize Simpson’s vision for ministry and to synthesize the spiritual lessons he had learned thus far in his life.48 Unpacking a whole theology of the centrality of Christ in the universe, the world, the church, the Bible, and the life of the believer from this slogan, Simpson made it clear to his Louisville congregation that this would be the animating theme of his ministry. He thundered at ministers who had transmogrified ministry into an attempt to entertain and allure: those who “aim at nothing higher than to compete with the countless purveyors to that morbid sensational appetite which grows the more you feed it … [and who] make the pulpit … and the Gospel one of the fashionable amusements of the day.” Nor was a reliance on “doctrinal purity” as such, which he had been taught at Knox was symbiotic with vital Christianity, a viable solution to the problem of entertainment Christianity as he now saw it. Countering heterodoxy in the usual way was frivolous. The best way to counter heresy was simply to convert hearts: “to aim rather to be scriptural, evangelical, useful; to reach men; to find in every legitimate way the key which unlocks the avenue that reaches their heart: to be in the Scriptural … sense all things to all men, that we may, if by any means, save some.”49 The shift of emphasis from confessional orthodoxy to outreach-minded evangelical pragmatism and flexibility had not yet led Simpson out of a relationship with his Presbyterian denomination, but it was a harbinger of larger shifts to come. As seen from

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this inaugural sermon, the process of Simpson’s de-confessionalization from Presbyterianism was already under way. At the same time, however, these were also developments that had significant continuity with Simpson’s experience from his time at Knox College and throughout his Hamilton ministry. Simpson threw himself into his new ministry with typical gusto, and there did not seem to be much of that time for personal contemplation and study that he had touted as he departed Hamilton. A pamphlet from 1874 that listed church activities catalogued a plethora of active ministries and programs. Under Simpson’s guidance, “the resources of the Congregation for active Christian work were called into lively service.” His church conducted multiple Bible classes for different ages and with different emphases, including a special “pastor’s bible class” on Tuesday evenings. Prayer meetings proliferated throughout the week. A host of voluntary society meetings were hosted by Chestnut Street Church: a social meeting, a benevolent society, both young women’s and young men’s associations, and a ladies’ visiting committee. In addition, Simpson had the lecture rooms and the study of the church building renovated in his first year, raising $3,000 for the project. Bringing his now-characteristic missions emphasis to the church, Simpson founded a women’s missionary society to further support both home and foreign missions, and Maggie assumed the society’s first presidency. The church soon witnessed a marked increase in home and foreign missions efforts.50 The Louisville papers reported that Simpson’s efforts were favourably regarded by his new congregation: “the members of Chestnut St. Church are highly delighted with their new pastor.”51 Clearly, Simpson was still pursuing the aggressively evangelistic program outlined in his inaugural sermon through the infrastructure of the Presbyterian church. All the while, like a good Presbyterian minister, Simpson preached regularly and preached fiercely. Simpson’s sermons revolved around devotional, evangelistic, and social themes. He wanted his congregation to engage more deeply with Christ, to be focused on the “Jesus only” mission of converting lost souls, but also to interface their faith with what was happening in society, even though Simpson was skeptical of society’s prevailing trajectories. One of the sermons given to his congregation was particularly revealing for his view of the interface of gospel and social concerns. This sermon was on gender roles. During this period, Simpson showed himself to have been influenced by classic Victorian sensibilities about the breakdown of American domestic life, and thereby society at large, under the conditions of precipitous industrialization, urbanization, and capitalization. Simpson opined that much of

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Table 4.1

Congregational data for Knox Hamilton and Chestnut Street Pastorates

Year

Minister

Church members

Growth

Sabbath School

Giving for missions

Total giving

Knox Hamilton Pastorate 1864

Irvine

492

+3.1%

160

$23

$4,243

1865

–

344

–30.1%

–

$8

$2,285

1866

Simpson

385

+11.9%

177

$44

$4,113

1867

Simpson

425

+10.4%

250

$48

$8,138

1868

Simpson

465

+9.4%

225

$73

$4,642

1869

Simpson

503

+8.2%

326

$200

$6,071

1870

Simpson

528

+5.0%

334

$450

$5,954

1871

Simpson

564

+6.8%

350

$420

$6,260

1873

Simpson

646

+14.5%

459

$400

$5,859

Chestnut Street Louisville Pastorate 1874

Simpson

380

–

400

$200

$7707

1875

Simpson

495

+30.3%

400

$1,369

$10,563

1876

Simpson

580

+17.2%

600

$1,000

$10,500

1877

Simpson

606

+4.5%

600

$583

$7,742

1878

Simpson

596

–1.7%

350

$648

$15,563

1879

Simpson

635

+6.5%

350

$908

$6,122

the problem had to do with women abandoning their “proper sphere” of the home. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, the home would remain the predominant cultural symbol for ordering American society, even as it also generated numerous tensions.52 Largely internalizing the Victorian gender division of society into public and private realms, Simpson’s idealization of feminine domesticity underwent significant strain with the emergence of the “new woman” in the ascending capitalist economy. To Simpson, the domestic view of women was clearly biblical. He also thought it natural. “The truest women,” he preached in one sermon, didn’t have to struggle with the problem of locating their identity in the realm of the home. They “instinctively fall into this sphere without trying to find it,” he moralized. But for those who were challenging the divinely ordered and scripturally mandated gender structure, Simpson combatted, “the dissatisfied ones are

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dissatisfied rather with their womanhood [itself ] than with any particularly womanly sphere.” He traded on the prevalent feminine dichotomy of paragon and scandal to make his point: “Woman is the world’s greatest blessing or the world’s most withering blight, according as she fills or overflows her true sphere.” She could be, Simpson soapboxed, “earth’s best angel,” and angels “beautify and fertilize the world.” Or, if society would “unsex her” and then tolerate her “to invade the province of man,” she became – switching metaphors – not an angel but a hurricane: “like the rivers when they overflow their banks and roll in swollen, angry torrents,” with the consequence of “spreading desolation over all the land.”53 Within the church realm, Simpson concurred with the longstanding Protestant Christian teaching that women’s roles should be strictly limited in agreement with the Apostle Paul’s injunctions. Women were only to teach children or other women in Sabbath Schools and in missions gatherings, as well as to “speak for Christ … [and] give Christian tone … [to] the conversation of social life, and make the drawing room … a delightful scene of Christian fellowship.” But a woman could not, Simpson believed, “take her place as a public teacher of religion in mixed assemblies” without sacrificing “her own delicacy” or breaching “divine legislation.”54 In his cultural commentary here, Simpson largely parroted the ensconced gender ideals of American society, as he simply failed to differentiate what were culturally Victorian values from what was specifically and explicitly biblical teaching. Simpson’s corresponding view of masculinity was less about role and more about character. His interest was not so much in a man doing or achieving something in particular, or even necessarily providing (though that was what he should do), but rather in a man being a certain type of person. A true man, according to Simpson, would evidence “healthy, vigorous, symmetrical and proportionate development” of all four aspects of his being: “physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual – the body, the mind, the character and the soul.” Such holistic “manhood,” Simpson believed, was “the greatest monument of creating wisdom and power the world contains,” with the exception, of course, of man’s “completion and counterpart, a perfect woman.” Simpson diagnosed many of his urban listeners as having embraced a different kind of manhood: a crass, craven, and worldly emasculation of the true thing, in which “the swagger and the slang, the smoking and the swearing, the drinking and the debauchery, the sneer at womanly virtue, and the familiarity of unmanly vice” prevailed. Such advice from Simpson might not have been wholly misplaced for Louisville; the Christian Observer recorded how in 1874 the police had made 6,538 arrests for drunken and disorderly behaviour, physical violence,

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and stealing, while it opined that the traffic in “intoxicating liquors” and the pervasiveness of “needless swearing” was high.55 For Simpson, in any case, this type of behaviour was “a long way off from manhood.” The trajectory of men who were given to such behaviour had been “bruteward, not manward.” It might feel manly to some to be engaged in such activities. But this was, according to Simpson, a pseudo-masculinity, a “premature maturity, like a shriveled fruit ripe and withered two months before its time,” a “withered maturity, not a healthy manhood.” In addition to the absolutely necessary characteristics of the true man, which was largely a catalogue of biblical virtues, Simpson also offered his own litany of personal suggestions of things that “real men” should steer clear of as much as they were able: alcohol, debt, sharp dealing, loose talk, immoral women, and politicians. In such true men and in the integrity of their character resided the true hope of the American experiment and the promise of American greatness: primarily “not in the excellence of the constitution, the stability of its banks or the resources of its soil, but in the character of its sons and the manhood of its men.”56 The contrast between Simpson’s more counter-cultural view of masculinity with his culturally conformist view of femininity revealed an intriguing juxtaposition within evangelicalism about its insider/outsider status in relation to the broader American culture, as well as the depth to which biblical principles and interpretation could be culturally conditioned. During the early period of his Louisville ministry in the mid-1870s, Simpson’s pastoral dedication to evangelism, his reformist moralism, and his search for the deeper life of sanctification in Christ were still conducted through a devoted commitment to Presbyterian church life. This was evident – as with his Hamilton ministry – from Simpson’s continuing, dedicated involvement with his local church, with the Presbytery of Louisville, and with the Synod of Kentucky. In October of 1874, Simpson was joining a synod that was negotiating its identity: “resolved that our true love for [God’s] Southern Country has no better expression, than by our efforts to lay the foundations of an intelligent and mighty Presbyterian Church.” With respect to the African American freedmen, the synod had established a committee fund to help with their religious education and social advancement, but the synod was struggling “in our heart with much regret” that sixty-six of its churches had failed to contribute a single dollar to the fund; commentary on the racialized reasons for lack of contribution was absent. In any case, the Canadian Simpson was quickly dragooned into the work of the synod.

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Being particularly well recognized for work in education, missions, revivalism, and organization, Simpson was appointed to the committee on the minutes of the assembly, appointed to the committee on the “state of religion,” appointed to speak on fostering foreign missions at the next meeting of synod, appointed as one of a three-member committee to “prepare devotional exercises” for the next gathering, and appointed to an initial one-year term to the board of trustees of Centre College, the Presbyterian liberal arts school in Kentucky. Simpson would continue on the board of trustees for Centre College for the rest of his time in Louisville. He was further tasked to a committee reviewing the status of Danville Seminary, where the committee resolved that both academic rigour at the school and financial support of the students needed further attention. Entrusting a newcomer like Simpson with the care of the synod’s educational centres, in a church whose glory was the educated ministry, was a resounding endorsement of the quality of Simpson’s ministry. While still committed to Presbyterian institutional life at this point, however, events in his ministry, his personal life, and his theology were soon to lead him to question whether or not those structures had to be transcended for the sake of evangelical emphasis and efficacy.57

CHAPTER FIVE

Parting of the Company

While Simpson was diligently engaged in denominational and local church life in Louisville, the years 1874–75 would mark a decisive turning point for him. Much of that development would revolve around the major Louisville revival led by evangelists D.W. Whittle and Philip Bliss that Simpson had been taking the lead in organizing and promoting. Simpson had been undergoing changes prior to this revival – his initial sanctification crisis experience, for example – and there was continuity with his previous Presbyterian ministry as well as discontinuity. But it was around the events of the Whittle-Bliss Revival that Simpson would consolidate his changing views of the Christian spiritual life and of Christian ministry. His intensifying quest for personal sanctification merged with his enlarged emphasis on the centrality of evangelism in ministry to the masses – deemphasizing much else in ministry – to produce both a personal reorientation and a renewed mandate for his pastoral leadership in the Louisville community.

The Whittle-Bliss Revival Towards the end of 1874, personal and ministerial developments led Simpson to preach fervently on the topic of “revival” to his congregation. In a sermon entitled “Is the Church of God to Have a Great Revival?,” Simpson expounded upon the text of 1 Kings 18:41 – “And Elijah said to Ahab, get thee up and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.” Simpson was searching around him for new evidence of an abundance of the Holy Spirit raining down upon the church. The church should be intensely expectant, he thought. Synthesizing prophetic teachings from David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, Simpson exhorted, “the church has scriptural reason to expect sudden and overpowering manifestations of divine influence, followed by extensive

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and surprising fruits in the conversion of the multitudes.” It was this emphasis on radical occurrences of “divine influence” that would continue to lead Simpson in new directions. In this sermon, Simpson self-consciously placed expectations for his own ministry in the revivalist tradition and situated himself within what he saw as other dramatic historical movements of the Spirit. He catalogued the increasing alacrity and extent of the work of the Spirit through the vessels of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Charles Finney, and, contemporaneously, the “unprecedented awakening” associated with the “labors of Mr. [Dwight L.] Moody,” who was then beginning a crucial campaign in England, where Simpson “hoped the pulses of that great center of life would be so thrilled as to throb all around the world.”1 Capitalizing on the energy unleashed by the city’s ecumenical Protestant unity meetings shortly after his arrival, Simpson further proposed daily prayer meetings to seek God’s blessing for a convention that would foster city-wide action and an outpouring of revival. The meetings held in response to such sentiments represented a groundswell of pan-Protestant enthusiasm for common emphasis on conversion and revival.2 Simpson became part of forming a Louisville chapter of the Evangelical Alliance, and the support for transdenominational cooperation flourished. Amid this ecumenical mentality and revivalist interest, Simpson was able to successfully back an invitation to the itinerant evangelistic team of Major D.W. Whittle and Philip Bliss to hold a campaign in Louisville. The travelling duo of Whittle and Bliss were emblematic of the increasingly transdenominational evangelicalism that was sweeping the US during the Gilded Age. Both apprenticed under D.L. Moody and were extending his work into new territory. Whittle had been wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg in the Civil War and was lured out of a lucrative career in the watch business by Moody to become a full-time evangelist. Bliss was an accomplished Baptist musician, most famous for composing the tune to Horatio Spafford’s masterpiece of hymnody, “It Is Well with My Soul.” In addition to their revival in Louisville, the Whittle and Bliss team would also hold revivals that year in Chicago, Nashville, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. The following year, Bliss would die tragically in the Ashtabula River train disaster, when an experimentally built and insufficiently regulated iron-wrought railroad bridge collapsed into a deep ravine and the rail cars exploded, killing 108 people.3 Upon hearing of Bliss’s death, Louisville was gripped by the “most profound sorrow,” because his “evangelical labors created for him … an affectionate esteem.” A memorial service for Bliss was led by Simpson, who praised the

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“loving recollections [Bliss] had left behind him in hundreds of hearts.” Simpson used the opportunity to preach the gospel. Just as Bliss had died trying to save his wife from the railcar fires, so had Christ laid down his life, but ultimately more radically to save even his enemies.4 In anticipation of the Whittle-Bliss Revival, Simpson became thoroughly involved in the preparations, and it seemed that this was exactly the type of ministry Simpson was now envisioning.5 In a short month’s time, a massive apparatus for marketing, logistics, and follow-up for mass urban evangelism was orchestrated and ready to welcome the Whittle-Bliss team on 10 February 1875. The Whittle-Bliss Revival program followed a template that Moody had already pioneered. Prayer bathed all of the activities. A daily noon prayer meeting gathered hundreds of participants from the city, of all churches and no church, to beseech God’s favour on the revival. Another liturgical novelty engineered for these revivals was the practice of Bible reading. Of course, the Bible was read at home in the family and in Christian worship throughout the Protestant world, but in the revival setting there were some unique adaptations. Campaign workers would hand out texts of scripture to random people sprinkled throughout the crowd, and the leaders would get those folks to read passages of scripture aloud. A much clearer demarcation was made between the words of scripture read as such – unadorned and uninterpreted – and the commentary of the speaker’s sermon or the confessional and doctrinal interpretation of scripture (notwithstanding, of course, how the very text, translation, selection, and organization of Bible passages already involve interpretations). Even when the speaker eventually delivered a message, there was more intentionality about distinguishing the written Word from the preached word. Whittle’s revival addresses were not primarily about exegeting, in texture and detail, a small portion of scripture, or about advancing some doctrinal interpretation. Rather, they were about stringing together a series of passages on some integrating theme, such as “faith.” The intense focus on the very words of the Bible, shorn of commentary, was then ensconced more neatly, not within more words on either side, but with music and prayer in order to evoke affective bonds with the words of scripture, a metadiscursive attachment to the Bible. The Louisville Courier-Journal described the effect of this method on its town’s revival: “The interest taken in this service deepened as it progressed. Many an eye was moistened with tears by the simple beauty and glory of the precious words of the gospel.” Although the paper’s initial reaction was to find “nothing new or striking” in this process, it went on to acknowledge

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that “the fact soon appeared that it was not the intention to show what men could say, but to fix the thought on God’s utterances.”6 Audience members were then given opportunities to submit prayer requests either out loud or by writing them down. The prayer requests were drawn upon by Whittle as personalizing and sentimentalizing sources for the event. Whittle was not going to pontificate on his abstract assessment of the culture and its problems; rather he allowed such topics to emerge organically out of the audience itself. This made his adaptation of the gospel message to the concerns of his specific audience vivid, anecdotal, flexible, and relevant.7 Circumventing the traditions of the elegant Protestant sermon and the erudite doctrinal confessions, this practice emerged as a new tradition and liturgy itself that elevated certain experiences and dimensions over others, but it was a tradition that was even more exclusively Bible focused, transdenominational, populist-democratic, unassuming, and emotionally resonant. The main event of the revival was the nightly mass meeting. Drawing larger crowds intensified the sociological energy. The meetings began with a selection of widely known songs and a musical enflaming of the emotions. Bliss’s obscene musical talent made this phase of the service uniquely potent, often combining the most widely known and accessible hymns of his day with original compositions of his own in order to foster as encompassing a community spirit as possible. Perhaps even generated earlier that same day, his fresh compositions endowed the gathering with a special singular quality, as he would gradually invite the audience to join in the choruses of his newly written songs. Bliss believed that what was needed for a successful revival was “the joy of the Holy Spirit and a humble heart.” Music was integral. “Many a good sermon,” Bliss wrote of the necessity of music at revival meetings, “has been blown away for want of a hearty hymn to harrow it in … for want of the lubrication of a cheerful praise-spirit manifested in some soulful song.” A moving song would help a truthful message burrow its way into people’s hearts. At the same time, Bliss was writing about how he was putting his philosophy of revival into practice in the Louisville setting. In a letter to his mother from Louisville on the 16th of February, Bliss wrote that “the Lord has done and is doing a great and mighty work here.” He further described the “thousands and thousands crowding daily and nightly to hear the old-fashioned Gospel of Christ,” and estimated that “hundreds of souls … have been saved, we believe.” Later in March after they had left, Bliss confided in a letter that he believed the team had experienced “a series of wonderfully successful Gospel meetings” in Louisville.8

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Music and prayer would segue deftly into an address by Whittle. As preacher, Whittle simply spurned the elevated rhetoric, elegant and sequential composition, intellectual sophistication, and doctrinal intricacies of the educated Protestant minister who had become a symbolic – and satirized – figure in a nineteenth century era that did relish its rhetoric. Harkening back to the simplicity that had allowed the upstart Methodists and Baptists to surge in the early days of the American Republic, except on a larger scale, Whittle embraced the populist, common-folksy, approachable idiom that disarmed his audience, unwilling or unable to engage in educated subtleties.9 The audience, in turn, embraced Whittle, while the reporters who were accustomed to covering the orations of educated clergy demurred. The Courier-Journal newspaper thus described Whittle’s talks as “fragmentary in their nature … [lacking] any accurate sequence of relation [except] a hasty hitching on of illustrations, exegesis, corollaries, applications, [and] incidental appeals.” But they also had to concede that these sermons were “forcible or effective in their way,” proportionally “as the attention of the hearer is enlisted,” such that “to hear these discourses is to admire them, and to go away with the feeling that many good things were spoken in … [a] forcible manner.”10 Whatever those good things happened to be, Whittle would pummel away at a cavalcade of items, images, and applications until he reached his evangelistic crescendo, piercing the heart of his listeners. A common motif was that old evangelical bromide: those who were self-satisfied with religious rituals, moral platitudes, or external trappings were “like a false light-house upon a dangerous coast.”11 These revivals buffeted the town of Louisville like a whirlwind. In the weeks following Whittle and Bliss’s arrival, almost everyone in town became fixated on them. The Public Library Hall was overflowing nightly, and scores of people were being turned away. The Courier-Journal trumpeted: “Never in the history of Louisville has so vast a crowd gathered in one place on any occasion, and the results of this evangelical movement will form one of the principle epochs in her annals.”12 Special revival meetings were organized for African Americans, and others dedicated especially to children. The city’s pastors were inundated with “increased and desperate inquiries about salvation.”13 With some intermittent hiccups, the Louisville revival came to a head on the night of 12 March, when an estimated 10,000 people attended, a full one-tenth of the entire city. According to the reports, “many to whom religion has been but a light jest yielded to the mysterious influences, and placed themselves within the atmosphere of prayer.”14 Providing grist for Whittle’s closing sermon, 784 different requests for prayer were submitted by attendees. The revival

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reverberated across Louisville with the city’s Baptist, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, and Episcopal churches all seeing increased attendance and intensifying religious commitment.15 The city’s newspaper conceded, “whatever people may think … of the efficacy of prayer with the Almighty, there has been evidence enough in Louisville during the past few weeks to prove that it is a mighty power to change the views and lives of men.”16 The Presbyterians, deeply entrenched in the city, enjoyed particular benefit from the Louisville revival. The church that reaped the greatest harvest, however, was Simpson’s Chestnut Street, adding 101 new members in the wake of the revival.17 This episode both embodied Simpson’s emerging visions for Christian ministry and transformed him in the process. Even during the success of the revivals, Simpson had clamoured for more. As they were unfolding he saw the divide between the middle classes and the poor as one of their limitations. Simpson worried that shame and selfconsciousness were keeping many of the city’s poor away from what had become a mostly social middling event.18 Notwithstanding his concerns, Simpson had been involved in various facets of the revival as an on-theground presence. His particular moment came when Whittle was called away to Chicago to be present with his dying father. For those few days, it was Simpson who took the position of chief evangelist alongside Bliss at the evening meetings, and he seemed to revel in the spotlight, satisfying both his ambitious side and his dedication to evangelism.19 Upon Whittle’s return, Simpson presided over a meeting at the Public Library Hall, during which, after an awkward beginning, dozens of men from various walks of life stood up to give their public testimony about how Christ had transformed their lives.20 The papers summed up the city’s view of Simpson’s role in this major event: “A.B. Simpson, has labored with untiring patience and zeal during these past three months, and has had the great joy of seeing this large number saved through the blood of the Lamb.” Simpson’s pastorate, on the whole, had “greatly blessed” his church: “He is faithful, talented, abundant in labors, and the work of the Lord is prospering in his hands.”21 Riding the revival wave, Simpson decided to adapt his own patterns of ministry. He began to spearhead Sunday night services that would continue even after the revival had moved on. These meetings would take place at the Public Library Hall instead of at his own church building, and this change of venue “was taken as a more effective means of preaching the truth of the Gospel to the masses, many of whom were not in the habit of attending any church service regularly.”22 For the next few months, these services attracted a large

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residual audience from the revival meetings. A reporter described Simpson’s leadership this way: “Mr. Simpson’s forte is pathos; his pungent deductions, lucid illustrations and incisive appeals are but so many strands of a … line of discourse that breaks down … the sturdiest indifference, takes sophistry by storm, and vitalizes the most dormant resolution.”23 Simpson’s passion for novel forms of mission, inspired by both the revival and his changing views, was beginning to chafe against his standard responsibilities as a Presbyterian, and with what his church expected of him.

A Rift Opens With success came conflict. In the wake of the revival, Simpson was busy back at Chestnut Street. He was beginning a campaign with his church for a new building that would be a platform for novel and vibrant ministries. The building itself would embody the transition that Simpson was undergoing from denominational churchman to independent revivalist with aspects of both continuity and discontinuity. By 1875, Chestnut Street Church was expanding and looking for a new location. Simpson envisioned a 2,000-seat auditorium that would seize on growth made during the revival and expand opportunities for more conversions. The plan for the building was a Gothic Revival design modelled after T. DeWitt Talmage’s Brooklyn Tabernacle. The sanctuary would be 120 by 90 feet with a semi-octagonal interior, an organ gallery, and amphitheatre-style seating. Laid on 29 May 1876, the northern face of the cornerstone emblazoned a dedicatory inscription that reflected traces of Simpson’s emphases: “Dedicated to the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; And Consecrated to the Gospel of a Full and Free Salvation Through the Blood of Christ; and the Converting Power and Saving Grace of the Holy Ghost; The Spirit and the Bride Say Come, and Whosoever Will Let Him Take the Water of Life Freely [Revelation 22:17].” Simpson gave his interpretation of this dedication to the community of Louisville. The inscription was “itself a sermon.” It would represent the “preaching to every passer-by enough of the Gospel to convert the generation.” At the same time, “it will rebuke the rationalistic and social pride which would dethrone the Gospel or exclude the lowly, and say at once to the most scornful and most timid”: whoever will come, let him come.24 This new building would be a massive undertaking for his church. Simpson faced many naysayers in his quest, and many questions about the building’s practicality, especially in a time of severe economic recession (after the panic

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of 1873). To those who queried Simpson, “why build this house in times so hard,” he responded, “God’s best work always demands sacrifice.” For those who thought that Simpson’s prospects for the building, given his church’s current size of around 400, were delusions of grandeur, Simpson countered with visionary evangelical zeal: “we are building for a new century, and for a population of 50,000 who never go to the house of God.” Simpson moralized on the levelling effect of the gospel by claiming that his church’s motto must ever be: “The gospel for the rich as well as the poor – the poor as well as the rich … These words express the peculiarities of the work here begun.” Such work, Simpson continued, would be “aggressive,” to be “distinguished from defensive and passive; free, as distinguished from exclusive,” and it would be “evangelistic.” He referred the city back to his first sermon: “Jesus Only.” “May that rock be our cornerstone,” he punned. Gospel ideals didn’t directly pay the bills, however, so the practical question still emerged from the congregation as to how this enterprise was to be financed.25 Debt was to be assiduously avoided. Through the sale of old church property and through a sacrificial subscription campaign among church members, about half of the $65,000 projected budget was accounted for. For the remainder, the church elders suggested the sale of bonds. But Simpson viewed this as a compromise for the Lord’s house: “We want to give the Lord a house which is ours to give,” he preached. “We want to feel that one of the glories of the latter house is that it is honest. We want to be able to preach any time after its dedication on the text, ‘Owe no man anything, but to love one another’ [Romans 13:8].”26 Instead, Simpson proposed adapting the pew rental system to his purposes, both financial and evangelistic. For the Sabbath morning service, individuals or families who wanted to book a pew, and would agree to use it regularly, would pay a fee prorated according to what they could afford, whether that be a lot or a little. Then for Sabbath evening service, all the pews would be open access to anyone who wished to use them. In this way, Simpson argued, “all will be asked to contribute regularly to the cause of Christ what he can conscientiously afford,” and at the same time, “the rich and poor shall meet together before and with the Lord, the Maker of them all.”27 Simpson pushed the congregation to be able to open the new building within six month’s time. The sermon that he preached at the initial laying of the cornerstone of the church building revealed much about Simpson’s transitions in ministry. Haggai 2:9 was the pointed text that he took for this sermon: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

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Allegorically applying the house of the Second Temple, of which Haggai spoke, to his own church building as house of the Lord, Simpson expounded on what he thought the “glory” of the church should truly be. Because he wanted to break open membership to anyone sincerely interested in revival, he cautioned his congregation that the church’s outward presentation might be more humble and less impressive than they were used to. The radicality of conversion would begin to cut across class differences in surprising ways: “Less magnificent names may fill its communion roll, and more of the world’s lowly ones” may fill its pews. “Less of the world’s wealth and fashion may recline in its pews, and more of the common people who heard Christ so gladly may throng its aisles.” The church would be “less known … for learned eloquence, stately dignity, social pre-eminence,” but more widely known for “Gospel earnestness, social warmth and Evangelistic simplicity.” The spiritual result for the community would be “the rebuilding of His kingdom’s broken walls … Over its roof there shall rest more constantly the cloud of His abiding, and on its altar burn more warmly the fire of His baptism, and in its pews be found more frequently the cry of His penitents, and from its pulpit sound more simply the Gospel of His reconciling grace, then indeed will the glory of the latter house be greater than of the former.” The new church building would epitomize a new phase of the church’s life, and of Simpson’s ministry. Inspired by the “great religious awakening” then occurring among them, the church itself would be newly “born of the Holy Ghost.”28 It would be engrossed by its one mission, “to seek and save lost men, and carry the Gospel to the masses.”29 Simpson’s hopes were only ambiguously realized, as the transition he proposed dismayed a number of the community’s traditional members. The church building eventually opened, but it was only partially completed and partially funded. Nor did the congregation, as a whole, adopt the new approaches to ministry that Simpson championed. Such wariness occurred in the larger context of the Presbyterian synod itself, which had become increasingly skeptical of some of revival’s ramifications, exacerbated by Old School qualms. The Presbytery of Louisville – having previously praised the harvest of revival in terms of memberships – affirmed a countervailing report that cautioned against the unruly nature of lay evangelists (like Whittle and Bliss), and against “listening to any self-sent or irregular preachers, whatever be their pretentions to piety and zeal.”30 Presbyterians were entrenching denominationally and were cracking down on unregulated evangelists who could not be properly vetted or discerned. At the same time, some members of Simpson’s congregation resisted the influx and influence of “undesirables”

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who had infiltrated the congregation. Tension between opening the church to conversion and preserving the purity of the church in those ministered to were coupled with the tensions between the Presbyterian traditions of high moral rigour and social decorum, and the church’s missional commitment to reach out to everyone regardless of their circumstances or background. The new building became a site of that contest. A significant contingent in the congregation preferred an elaborate, ornate building suitable for the dignified worship of the saints, instead of primarily a ramshackle home for those of any social standing. This group, furthermore, did not want to shell out for a building that others would use without helping pay for. It ultimately took two years to fully complete the project, a subject that caused a great deal of friction between Simpson and his elders. By 1881, after Simpson had left for New York City, the debt owed on the new church building was still in the neighbourhood of $43,000 and a “source of anxiety” to the congregation. Wealthy and dedicated elder L.L. Warren, with whom Simpson had no doubt struggled over the matter, was greatly disturbed at the lingering drag of this debt on the church and agreed to retire it out of his own personal benefaction. In a remarkable gesture of goodwill, on the five-year anniversary of the building, Simpson was invited back from New York to celebrate a service rededicating Broadway Tabernacle as Warren Memorial Presbyterian.31 During the period from 1876 to 1879, then, Simpson faced mounting challenges to his ministry, which included lingering resistance to his building plan, tensions over his new views of ministry and his shifting theological views, and personal turmoil at home. In the fall of 1876, Simpson returned from vacation to find that his plans for the new church building had stalled, and that general resistance among the congregation to his ministerial emphases had increased in his absence. A setback in physical health compounded matters when Simpson suffered a gunshot to the arm while hunting in the Kentucky backcountry, sidelining him for a number of weeks.32 Simpson began to realize during this time that, whereas the session elders at Hamilton had been more responsive to the leadership of their pastor, the elders at Chestnut Street were more entrenched and retained more of the balance of power. He responded to the heightening crisis by fleeing town and seeking advice from his friend D.L. Moody. Before he could even meet with Moody, however, Simpson heard testimony from another minister that shook his foundations: “Friends … God took me out alone with Him, and I have had such a sight of Jesus that I will never need anybody or anything again.” The highly individualized message of not needing anyone else, but only one’s direct relationship with

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God through Christ, seemed to assuage Simpson’s anxiety. He later recalled, “I took the train the next morning for home. As I entered my office, the face of Jesus was awaiting me there to receive me; and there came such a flood of His presence and grace and His glory that it seemed … I could never fear again.”33 Simpson preached a sermon to his congregation in the wake of these revelations suggesting that he had been overly fixated on his own plans, schemes, hopes, and anxieties, taking his “eyes off Jesus.”34 Such lessons in spiritual theory, however, did not immediately alter the exigencies of his situation in practice. By the following summer of 1877, the strains of Simpson’s ministry and the conflict with his congregation had resulted in a complete breakdown and the need to request a sabbatical of several months. By July of that year, Simpson had taken the atypical step of retiring as moderator of the church session. Coincidental with his spiritual turmoil was another round of physical health concerns; the two had often seemed to go hand-in-hand. For a period of time, Simpson entered the medical care of the sanatorium and clinic at Clifton Springs, New York, just east of Rochester. By November, the church session was exploring “what action” they should take with regard to Simpson’s absence from the pulpit. Simpson himself was contemplating departure. In December of 1877, he transmitted a formal letter of resignation to the church. In it, he strived to be diplomatic by stating, “I have already written you so freely expressing my feeling regard my works and people … that I have loved both with a devotion that would have made me glad had it been God’s will to live and die with and for them.” But he was also evasive, stating that the primary reasons for his resignation were “the condition of my health” and “the need on your part of prompt effectual pastoral care, and all the circumstances of that care.” Underlying the pleasantries were Simpson’s frustrations with the intransigence of his congregation and his desires for a new forum that would be amenable to his emerging views of evangelism and ministry. Simpson’s congregation was not ready to release him quite yet, however, especially without another legitimate call on the table. So a congregational motion to repudiate his resignation passed by a hefty 130 to 37 margin. Submitting to the discipline of the church for now, Simpson returned to active ministry and to session committee work by January of 1878.35 Back with his burdened and antagonistic congregation, Simpson’s first sermon was on Philippians 3:13–14: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do: forgetting things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the

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mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” It was during this season of return that Simpson would make the second of his cryptic, but revealing, renewals of his solemn covenant that he carried around with him: “Louisville, Ky., April 1 1878. Renew this covenant and dedication amid much temptation and believe that my Father accepts me anew and gives me more than I have dared to ask or think, for Jesus’ sake. He has kept His part. My one desire now is power, light, love, souls, Christ’s indwelling, and my church’s salvation.”36 While this was an earnest dedication, it had become clear by then that Louisville was unlikely to be the site of the church’s salvation for which Simpson longed. He would remain a Presbyterian minister for three more years. But the processes of theologically untethering himself from Presbyterian confessions and moving practically into new avenues of mission and ministry were all well under way by this point. Simpson’s concern to reach people in American society who were not currently being reached by the Christian message – or at least the way in which he was hoping to pursue that ministry – was abrading with other longstanding Presbyterian structures and commitments. Disagreements would eventually lead the two parties to part ministerial ways.

Years of Malaise After his failed attempt to resign at the turn of 1878, Simpson remained a good soldier, even though much of his life and ministry had clearly spun catawampus. He continued to labour in his Louisville post for almost another two years, but it was a time of crushing disappointment for him, during which he was entertaining other options and seeking new avenues of ministry. His ambivalence had been on epic display when Simpson preached at the dedication service for the new church building. During the opening of the Broadway Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, where pastor S.J. Nicolls of St Louis presided, Simpson was noticeably withdrawn. In his lone message, Simpson preached what can only have been called a spite sermon: haranguing the church for the massive debt they had accrued to make the lavish building. Fixating on the unpaid debt, Simpson railed: “Some people may not see it, but God will see it. Angels will see it. Your imagination will call it up. Every time an appeal from the pulpit comes for money it will stare you in the face. Therefore … let us try to take down that ugly scroll debt which hangs this morning as a dirty rag on every projection of this beautiful sanctuary.”37 To Simpson, God would not use the church for his purposes if it was mired in debt. A church

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with such debt can never be free and available for true gospel ministry. He further called on his church to be more “unselfish and missionary.” Simpson thought if his people could not “give up every year as much to the great cause of conversion of the world as to its own support,” the congregation would become a “living embodiment of selfishness and will die of chills.” Making one last appeal, Simpson charged: “This morning I desire to place on this pulpit the simple standard, Broadway Tabernacle Free! Free from debt, free to God, free to all.”38 While revivalistic outreach, evangelism, and mission had been part of Simpson’s ministerial tapestry since his time at Knox and Hamilton, an increasing focus on their urgency and primacy was beginning to bring him into open confrontation with other aspects of Presbyterian denominational church life and the sensibilities of his congregation. According to the papers, during these last years Simpson seemed “entirely absorbed in this one work of evangelism and missions,” while his flock maintained more varied interests in Christian and cultural life.39 Nevertheless, throughout this period he continued to work at his efforts at transforming ministry through his institutional commitments. His work in church discipline provides one example of both Simpson’s continuing activity through Presbyterian structures, and the tensions in his church that were generated by his emphasis on outreach. A fascinating glimpse into the practice of church discipline of the time was the case of one Mrs A. Searles, a member of the Chestnut Street Church who was indicted on charges of prostitution. Searles had been converted during the Louisville revival back in 1875 and had become a member of Simpson’s church. By 1878, however, according to the investigations of the church session – they did not say how such knowledge was obtained – they discovered that Searles “continued to live a life of prostitution.” The elders of the church maintained communication with her in an attempt to dissuade her from remaining in this particular line of work. Formal church membership, however, made this no longer just a situation in which a sinner was called to repent, but one in which, from the Presbyterian perspective, the incongruity of continuing in public sin with the Christian life in the Spirit made this a potential case of excommunication. In a pastoral moment, Simpson heard Searles’s open confession of her sins, but since she refused to change her behaviour Simpson still brought the case before the church courts for adjudication. Even though Searles had explicitly confessed her actions to the pastor, the session, in good Presbyterian fashion, was quite meticulous in adhering to its due process and giving Searles plenty of opportunity both to defend herself and to alter course.

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At the same time, the consideration of the social imbalances that might have constrained Searles in her actions or exerted pressure on her decisions never once entered into the committee’s deliberations; nor did they consider the gender differential of power involved in asking a woman to dispute the details of her prostitution before a handful of scornful men. For the session, such sexual sin was a case where the decision was a strict dichotomy. According to their understanding of 1 Corinthians 6, one could either be engaged in prostitution or be in communion with the church, but not both. As a practice of ministry, the church did not offer her concrete financial or social support to help her exit her current way of life. So the trial proceeded. Searles was summoned on multiple occasions to appear before the church session, but dodged. One of the elders was appointed to act in Searles’s defence, but presented “no testimony” on her behalf. Preferring not to appear in person, Searles sent a letter to the session stating, “she could not see her way clear to abandon her present course of life, and consented to the session to proceeding with her trial in her absence.” Even then, one of the elders voted for leniency, suggesting that more pastoral time was appropriate for persuasion. But the rest of the session thought the matter was clear. In July of 1878, after three months of negotiation, all the other elders voted against her and “publically announce[d] to the church the excommunication.”40 All grace was not abandoned in excommunication, however. When Searles was mortally ill the following summer, Simpson made a pastoral visit to console and counsel her (though the comfort he offered was dulled by his failure to retract the church’s condemnation). Such cases of church discipline, in any case, showed that during these years Simpson was still actively involved in the institutional life his church, while these very same dynamics revealed how Simpson’s ministry increased tensions with the church. It was out of Simpson’s emphasis on revival and outreach, on inviting the “neglected classes” into his congregational life, that the church was infused with new members and new life. But those members did not always behave as good, decorous Presbyterians, and challenged the congregation’s mores, ethos, and priorities.41 What is more, this represented a more fundamental tension within evangelicalism itself: between radical outreach in grace to anyone and everyone in any situation of life, and the traditional exacting standards for moral righteousness expected of every authentic believer, violation of which could lead one to be frozen out of the community. Despite the difficulties, Simpson hoped to press his church to continue its wide outreach. In the spring of 1879, Simpson’s plan to invite a new

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evangelistic team to the Tabernacle in order to revive the earlier flame of the Whittle-Bliss crusade was thwarted by the session in favour of smaller, more restrained church-focused meetings. Divergence between Simpson and his church was now becoming vast. Besides the issues over ministry, there were also increasing divergences over doctrine and Christian experience that generated friction. A turn to the special reception of the Spirit for holiness – in a way incongruent with the typical Presbyterian description of gradual growth in sanctification – would become his consolidated teaching as Simpson went along. Another factor was his shift towards premillennialism. While Simpson’s approach to eschatology had been in flux for a number of years now, becoming more pessimistic and apocalyptic, some further crucial impetus was provided by his friend and colleague, A.T. Pierson, who was also moving decidedly in the premillennial direction. Pierson was invited to officiate communion at the Broadway Tabernacle in the summer of 1878, where he also preached in Simpson’s pulpit and baptized his fifth child (fourth surviving), Margaret Mae, in the Simpson household.42 At the same time, Simpson was also dabbling in spiritualist writings about divine miracles, contemplative prayer, interior conversation with God, and spiritual intimacy. This cocktail of influences were at odds with the predominant orientation of his church in spirituality, doctrine, and ministry, even though none of these issues, by themselves, would have necessarily led someone out of the fold. Amid the fracas with his Louisville congregation, a lifeline was thrown to Simpson when S.D. Burchard (1812–1891) of Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York City retired and recommended Simpson as his replacement. In September of 1879, Simpson requested a month’s leave from his church, though he did not disclose why. During the leave, Simpson preached at Thirteenth Street on successive Sundays, clearly testing the waters for a potential move. By the third sermon, Thirteenth Street was ready to act. They “unanimously” approved a motion that “in view of the generally expressed wish of the people, the Session call a meeting … for the purpose of extending a call to the Rev. A.B. Simpson to become our pastor.”43 An annual salary of $3,500 was offered to Simpson, which was $1,500 less than his current salary at Louisville. His willingness to take a pay cut was only one indication of how disgruntled he had become. Simpson tendered his resignation to the Broadway Tabernacle session on 29 October. Despite repeated clashes over ministerial philosophy with their pastor, both the session and the entire congregation of the church were surprised with Simpson’s abrupt resignation, confused, disillusioned, and frustrated with the process, and seemed to be unaware of

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the depth of the conflict. The congregational meeting considering Simpson’s second bid to resign opened with a heartfelt tribute from longtime elder L.L. Warren: “During the six years that this relation has existed Mr. Simpson’s labors in this church and community … have been owned and blessed by God in the comforting and edifying of His people and in the salvation of many precious souls.” The church session benevolently affirmed that they were also optimistic about what Simpson could accomplish in a new post and new endeavours: “we are gratified at the prospect of greater future usefulness that opens before our pastor in the large and influential church to which he is so urgently called in the city of New York.”44 Nevertheless, the church’s dismay at their pastor’s departure was rendered into the diplomatic form of session minutes, which lamented: “We do most deeply and sincerely regret all the circumstances … which renders it necessary for us as a church to consider this question.” The church once again lodged their protest by voting eighty-one to fifty-six against Simpson’s resignation, closer than the first vote. This time, however, the congregation agreed to acquiesce to the judgment and authority of the presbytery whether or not to ratify Simpson’s decision, and there his departure was sustained. Still, the session of the church resolved to commend Simpson, on the whole, for his ministry among them: “we bear testimony to the purity and gentleness of his life among us, to his generosity and unselfishness and spirituality; to his untiring self-sacrificing and health-destroying labours among the poor of his congregation and the city; to his zeal and energy.” Restraining any rancour and extending grace, the church “cordially unite[d] in commending him to the love and … fellowship of those among whom, by the providence of God, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he seems called to labor. To himself and to his family we tender the assurances of our warm personal regard – and upon them we invoke God’s richest blessing.”45 Simpson recorded his reactions to such a gesture of magnanimity in his diary: “I was much comforted by their action. It was kind and God will bless it, I trust, to them and to my usefulness.” Still, he was as convinced as ever of his decision to pursue a new calling and explore new ways of ministry. His church’s plea for him to stay “did not sufficiently impress me to lead me to hesitate in the course in which God has been leading … [and] God made it an occasion for bearing testimony fully to the guidance of the blessed Spirit.” Simpson interpreted these events as God’s will for his life and ministry; now “Christ’s free servant,” he could pursue the ministries to which he had been increasingly gravitating.46

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Family Struggles Simpson’s assurance of God’s will for his life was not initially shared by his family. Margaret, who had been enthusiastically involved with Simpson’s earlier forms of ministry, seemed to have been more and more opposed to his emerging views and the decisions her husband was making on their basis. Being emotionally attached to their life in Louisville, and now facing a move to the daunting and disorienting metropolis with a higher cost of living, an initial $1,500 pay cut, and a baby still in arms, Margaret was infuriated with these precipitous decisions made largely devoid of her involvement. On the day of the dissolution of his pastorate in Louisville, Simpson detailed a situation in which Margaret ripped pages out of his diary in a fit of anger. “Poor child,” Simpson subsequently wrote, “God so permitted her foolish and sinful hand.” Divulging in his diary that his relationship with his wife was causing confusion and disquiet, Simpson confided, “I have prayed for her until of late I cannot pray without intense distress. I leave her with Him, trusting that He will lead her to repentance and salvation.” Acknowledging that “she has suffered much of late,” Simpson still couldn’t believe how his wife was “possessed of an intense bitterness, and I am full of pain and fear.” He admitted that he had even entertained the prospect of bringing his wife before the church session to discipline her about reconciliation with her husband. Turmoil continued for many nights. On 14 November, Simpson jotted sombrely, “Great trials today about M … led to continued prayer. Constant cloud and burden of pain. At times much sense of displeasure. I fear impatience of spirit. I pray to see God in it all. Much tenderness and love and hope today.” So intensely convinced of his own leading, Simpson spiritualized Margaret’s opposition by inferring that it must be a result of some sinful resistance on her part: “Much trial at my wife’s condition. Conflicting feelings; at times intense sense of unrighteousness, at times intense concern and compassion, at times fear condemnation, again fear complicity in sin.” Having experienced a “burden all day,” Simpson lamented his wife’s unbiblical “state of hardness and rebellion.” In his discernment, he felt he was “led to leave it in silence with God,” and in the final analysis to be “kind, gentle, forgiving, and much apart.”47 Margaret’s vexation may have been exacerbated by the fact that her own children had just got on spiritual track. Albert Henry and James Gordon had just been received into the church on profession of faith a few months prior, in July of 1879.48 A huge change so shortly after that may have been concerning for its disruptive potential.

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Margaret’s unhappiness was juxtaposed with the many encouraging and supportive visits that Simpson made with members of his church and those in the community of Louisville during his last days there. “Much affection among my people – the poor especially,” Simpson recorded in his diary. He issued “praise” to God “for such blessed service this week, in visiting my church and finding so many friends … for delightful meeting tonight, and words of love from so many hearts.” At the same time, in his self-reflective moments, his wife’s displeasure did seem to prod Simpson at least to question his own discernment at times: “Clouds of strange terrific suffering. So all day today. Is it the Spirit’s intercession? Or God’s displeasure, or sympathy for the pain of others, or discord in the church?” By the time the Simpsons had to leave Louisville for New York, Margaret, in Simpson’s view, had become so implacable that he used the word “hatred” to describe her disposition towards him. Simpson described having “alternate feelings of compassion, tenderness and dreadful pain and even fear about Maggie … I can hardly speak to her, and have shut myself up in my Savior leaving her simply and fully with Him, and praying to be kept perfectly in his way and temper toward her.”49 Their relationship thus strained, the decisions were already made and the time came for their departure. Moving further and further away from the predominant patterns of his Presbyterian church and towards independent forms of Christian ministry, and with the costs to his familial stability and concord, the Simpsons left Louisville for New York City on 21 November 1879.

Gotham: Environments of Ministry The family arrived by train the following day, a Saturday. In his diary, Simpson confided that on the journey he had again been “led to consecrate myself unreservedly to Jesus and claim his perfect blessing.” There would be no hiatus on his pastoral responsibilities. The night he arrived, Simpson attended a prayer meeting at his new charge. He was anticipating the seemingly boundless ministerial opportunities that the great city presented to him. The “holy fellowship and prayer” Simpson encountered his first night represented to him “manifestations of God that made my soul trill with power and joy as at the far off sound of the voice of the King.”50 To someone still mired in familial turmoil and personal uncertainty, Simpson must have taken this as a sign of God’s blessing on his new endeavour and confirmed in him the resolution that this was where God was calling him. The following day, Simpson preached his first formal sermon as pastor to his new congregation. He took as his text a passage

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that spoke volumes about his priorities of ministry, Acts 1:7–8 – “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” New York City, the vast and imposing metropolis, must have seemed like the ends of the earth to Simpson. His own view of the city had evolved somewhat since his earlier years. Back in 1870, before he had visited New York for the first time or had travelled abroad from Canada at all, Simpson had expressed different views when one of his fellow Canadian Presbyterian ministers, William Ormiston, had been called to New York City. At that time, Simpson had described the city as the “vast emporium of evil, where Satan hath his seat, and where there is much need for a new reformation.” Even then, however, Simpson conceded that “Christ must reign there as well as here, and his banner wave over corrupt, sin-committing, Sabbath-breaking, mammon-loving, God-defying Gotham.”51 Having been the US’s largest urban centre since the Revolution, New York had often been a bellwether for the nation. But perhaps in no era was this more so than in the Gilded Age of industrialization, urbanization, and technological/communications revolutions of scale. While in theory Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois was the archetypal locale in the American imagination (the Midwest world of largely rural, proprietary homesteads, free labour, contract freedom, and Protestant consensus),52 in practice, this was a time when American priorities were beginning to look more and more like those of colossus New York. By 1880, New York boasted a population of 1.2 million, and when that population was augmented by the absorption of the borough of Brooklyn, the combined 1.9 million was almost as much as the next four largest cities of Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and St Louis combined. New York had undergone its own convulsions in recent decades. The Union draft riots during the Civil War set the city aflame. Reconstruction in the city unfolded as a dramatic conflict to fully embrace an interracial democracy in the postwar era, even in this bastion of the North. After a circuitous trial, Boss Tweed, whose Tammany Hall machine coerced and lubricated local politics, finally died in the Ludlow Street Jail after having embezzled millions of dollars from New Yorkers and having bequeathed infrastructure projects to them in return. The financial panic of 1873 and its commercial fallout had hit the city particularly hard. But by 1879, America was exiting the depression, and New York was leading the way. The city was poised for another cycle of boom. The re-opening of the South; the conquest and farming of the West; the preservation of the gold standard; the continuance of pro-business Republican

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rule in Washington after the bitterly polemical single-electoral-college-vote election victory of 1876 (with Colorado’s newly enfranchised, unelected three votes); the proliferation of the railroads across the expanse of the nation: all coalesced to line the pockets of New York’s bankers, merchants, industrialists, and traders.53 Of all the marvellous urban sights that Simpson would have experienced moving to New York, none would have been greater than watching the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Begun in 1869, the epic suspension bridge was a nineteenth-century engineering wonder, the largest and most ambitious human structure then attempted on the North American continent. The bridge had been masterminded by a German immigrant, John Augustus Roebling. Roebling had not only studied cutting-edge engineering in Berlin, but was also a prized student of philosophy with Hegel, whose view that America was next in history’s cavalcade of epic civilizations would be prophetically instantiated in Roebling’s bridge. Unfortunately for Roebling, a workplace injury leading to amputation, tetanus, and death meant that he sacrificed himself for his work; but the synthesis was that his son, Washington, took up the project and eventually saw it to completion. As the bridge’s towers went up along the skyline, as the excavations on the Manhattan side flailed to find bedrock and found only sand, and as the largely Irish, German, and Italian immigrant workers became sick from “the bends” or maimed from explosion blasts and continued to die in the process, the bridge itself proved spectacular. When the bridge finally opened for traffic in 1883, a wild celebration emblazoned Roebling’s dream on its banner: “Babylon had her hanging gardens, Egypt her Pyramids, Athens her Acropolis, Rome her Coliseum – so Brooklyn has her bridge. Over its broad roadway the teeming millions of the two cities may pass; under its spacious arch the commerce of the world may pass.”54 The bridge was the greatest but not the only urban wonder that provided the setting for Simpson’s new ministry. By the 1870s, the New York Elevated Railway Company had constructed an urban rail line that shuttled passengers from downtown to uptown. In 1873, Central Park, as the nation’s first large-scale, artificial, landscaped urban environment, was expanded to its current 843 acres. From 1872 to 1875, the erection of George Post’s Western Union building, an early anticipation of the skyscraper, loomed a then-unprecedented ten storeys over lower Manhattan. During the same decade, the city became wired for both sound and light, crisscrossed by telegraph wires, emerging American Bell Corporation telephone connections, and electrical illumination, though by this point mostly for the wealthy.55

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Simpson, however, thought that the whole city, and not just its bridge, might as well have been built on sand, because it had not been sufficiently built upon the rock. That same reality, nevertheless, meant that opportunities for true ministry abounded among those who were unchurched or underchurched. The question for Simpson would be whether the institutional wineskins of the Presbyterianism that he still inhabited would be able to contain his new wine. This would be his struggle over the next two years, from 1879 to 1881. In his diary, Simpson wrote that his initial transition to New York had led him to pledge to his Lord, “more unreservedly than for years – Here am I – all thine, send me [Isaiah 6:8].” That calling led Simpson to some questioning and doubt. When it came time for Simpson’s first session meeting at Thirteenth Street Presbyterian and for his formal installation, he queried, “peculiar burden tonight in Session meeting. My installation proposed and requested at an early day. Does the Master clearly bid this? Or does He hold me back at present and keep me free for wider work – as I have often desired – as an Evangelist? Or does He bid me receive this special charge at present and let Him open the way in future for whatever else He may have?” At times, Simpson seemed to be convinced that his heart for evangelism and missions could be realized through his current post. A clear response in prayer that Simpson claimed was that his master “was not misleading and would not let me be misled about it, and enable me to write without question. All doubt and fear was taken from my heart at this time, and I was enabled to commit all to God in beautiful confidence and leave it.” When Simpson spent one day at the outset of his ministry surveying his field, “extending especially from 14th St. to 17th, and 6th Avenue to the West side,” he described his soul, “filled with joy to find it so great and full of the plain people – whom I love. My pastoral work will be a great joy here. It is all our own, this field, and God is with us and will bless.” That same night, at a very large prayer meeting, Simpson experienced “much witnessing power when the people prayed for me as they did so fully. May God bless this dear church, so full of devotion and give it love and power for Him.” Inspired, Simpson thought of sending a letter to everyone in his neighbourhood “inviting [them] to the church,” but he left that plan to the Lord, unsure about it.56 Those in the neighbourhood of Thirteenth Street in the 1880s, whom Simpson sought to invite to his respectable church, were becoming less and less native-born, more and more poor wage labourers, tenement dwellers, and increasingly Catholic. Quite atypical for the nation as a whole at this point, New York City was already 44 per cent percent immigrant and 50 per cent

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Catholic. In the great metropolis, the heights of the grandeur of the bridge were being matched by the depths of the squalour in which a significant portion of the city lived under mostly non-regulated or under-regulated housing, food distribution, waste removal, and industrial polluting industries. Simultaneously majestic and appalling, New York City became, as the Gilded Age literary figures put it, a place of “palaces and hovels,” neither of which were the honest “homes” that Lincoln dreamed would populate his country. After the Civil War, New York’s board of health had faced a monumental challenge in dealing with the city’s “rotting garbage, fetid water, overflowing cesspools … outhouses and decaying animal corpses” that overwhelmed libertarian ideology, nuisance ordinances, and the discrete interests doctrine that tried to pin communal wastes on specific individual perpetrators in an increasingly integrated urban environment. In one year, the city’s government had to remove 160,000 tonnes of untended manure and disinfect 6,481 private latrines for fear of spreading disease.57 The litany of neighbourhoods that emerged in the heart of the city described their experience in the nomenclature: Hell’s Kitchen, Satan’s Circus, Rag Pickers’ Row, Cat Alley, Rotten Row, Bummers’ Retreat, Mulligan Alley, Cockroach Row, and Five Points. Such neighbourhoods were dominated by tenement housing, designed especially for immigrant and wage-labouring residents. These structures were narrow and deep to fit onto small slices of lot, three to six storeys tall. The six-storey ones crammed in two-dozen apartments of two rooms each: one parlour with a window and one bedroom without one, poorly ventilated, with communal privies and water pumps. These two-room apartments designed for one family often held more, as wage rates versus rent rates compelled many families to split the costs. Disparities were stark: infant mortality in the tenements was twice as high as in private homes of the very same city. As a whole, New York during this period had the highest known mortality of any city in the Western world. All of this was the situation that Jacob Riis would expose to the public in his pioneering “muckraking” work, How the Other Half Lives (1890), but when Simpson first entered the city it was just the reality being lived.58

The Thirteenth Street Pastorate Simpson initially embraced his institutional role in the session of Thirteenth Street and in the Presbytery of New York, but he also inherited some serious problems. Under the forty-year pastorate of S.D. Burchard, Thirteenth Street

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had grown from a revival congregation to a congregation of substantial wealth, prestige, and size, the seventh largest in a very large presbytery. The increase of wealth and influence, however, had come at the cost of the congregation’s zeal. While still involved in many social ministries, Pastor Burchard had observed a marked lessening of the “direct and personal efforts for the conversion of sinners” among his congregation. Over forty years, the Thirteenth Street Church had also undergone a dramatic transformation of landscape from a suburban destination to an urban immigrant centre, as the incessant suburban flight in New York continued the march beyond its location. Members of the church became concerned about the corrupting social forces that flowed in and threatened to deluge it. Wealth and respectability were fleeing. What was coming in? Immigrant poverty and moral taint, Burchard feared, “leaving as driftwood Jews and Catholics.”59 These were the same population trends that Simpson viewed as a golden evangelistic opportunity for true gospel work. But a number of his church members fretted about having steep bills to pay and unsullied children to raise. (Burchard himself later became infamous for the 1884 Republican presidential campaign slogan deriding the Democrats as the party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” which monumentally backfired against James Blaine and allowed Grover Cleveland to become the first Democratic president since the Civil War.)60 The financial situation of the congregation had also become precarious by the time Simpson arrived. The church budget remained fixed to the expenses from the days of wealthier patrons, while the income gradually depleted. On top of that, Burchard’s resignation had come amid allegations of pecuniary impropriety that had to be formally investigated by the presbytery, the detailed results of which were never made public. When Simpson arrived, the church was deeply in debt and struggling financially even with its large membership of 714.61 Simpson presented a conundrum to the church session. On the one hand, Simpson’s renown for revivalism could inject some new vitality, energy, and membership (with attendant dollars) into the church. On the other hand, Simpson’s concern to minister among the poor and his plans to abolish pew rents could topple an already teetering financial situation. Even with an unstable situation, and torn over how much of his energies to devote to traditional congregational ministry in relation to his visions of urban evangelism and missions, Simpson still began his new ministry with characteristic vitality. In the first few weeks, he commenced a tour to visit with every one of the congregation’s families. Describing “many delightful experiences,” Simpson visited as many as thirty homes in a day.62 As with his ministry at Hamilton

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and Louisville, Simpson was still concerned with the regular structures of Presbyterian ministry; even in a large church, “a more systematic and thorough visitation” program should be executed.63 To resuscitate his sickly congregation, Simpson also hurried to work organizing a series of local revivals at Thirteenth Street. These sought to rejuvenate his congregation’s piety and to correspond with the Evangelical Alliance’s Week of Prayer in early January of 1880.64 By the close of the revivals, the church had already welcomed thirty-seven new members to its rolls, and reverberations were felt as the number of members at the church continued to grow through the first part of the year.65 For Simpson, the revivification of his members’ religious life was supposed to lead to active ministry out in the community. At a congregational meeting in 1881, he implored his members to be sharers and not just consumers of the church’s life, “urging more active individual effort upon the part of the members to reach the non-church going people in the vicinity of our church and to bring them into regular attendance.”66 While Simpson was especially concerned for those outside the walls, his church nevertheless flourished in its internal life under his ministry. During the next year, he succeeded in adding new members, many by examination and not just by transfer. He increased attendance at the Sabbath School, having such an evangelistic effect on the youth that his New York Presbytery was led to report “gratifying signs of God’s presence in His power to convict and convert,” especially with a “quiet awakening among [Simpson’s] young people.” All in all, Simpson enabled a boom in giving to the church, with especially increased donations to home and foreign missions.67 During the early period of his church work in New York, Simpson’s personal life was still burdened by his wife’s animosity. His diary contained many entries along these lines: “much anxiety for Maggie today.” Agonizingly, Simpson petitioned the Lord on Thanksgiving Day “for a Christian temper and attitude towards my wife in everything, so as fully to please God and never regret a word, act or thought.” For the next few months, Simpson’s visits to members of his church, his yearning for new avenues of ministry, and his painful conflicts with Margaret seemed to be yanking him in multiple directions. He interpreted his wife’s resistance to his plans as demonic machinations. Caught in a spiritualizing vortex, the more convinced he became that the Lord was leading him to abandon the security of past structures and to set out on new trajectories, the more convinced he became that any opposition could not be merely difference of opinion, difference of emphases, pragmatic concern, or even human frailty, but had to be outright spiritual warfare. The more he

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felt that he was engaged in spiritual warfare over these matters, the more he became wedded to the idea that Satan would only attack him thus because he was so engaged in a legitimate heavenly mission. After a prayer meeting one night with Maggie in attendance, Simpson confided that he felt “a dreadful presence of evil all night … had to fight, almost for life … But this too I commit wholly to Him. He will not let Satan hinder His work, but will open a way and conquer at the right moment.” Reflecting on his previous ministry, Simpson wrote, “I have suffered much lest this dreadful thing which cursed us at Louisville, making my home a desolation and my church a strife, will mar all here” as well. Towards his wife, Simpson expressed a “desire to be merciful and charitable,” but on the other hand he knew that “Satan is in this.” Simpson continued to pray for “complete deliverance from the Power of Evil in my heart, home, and work.” On 4 December 1879, the strife seemed to reach a crescendo. “Distressing burdens about my family,” he scrawled in his journal. Invoking apocalyptic language, he felt that “to come to my home [was] like coming out of light and peace into a dark and fiery pit.” Simpson was sure that “the Evil one meets me here and oppresses me.” Margaret, according to Simpson, was “under an influence of excitement and morbid resistance. And I cannot be free with her without distress and condemnation.” At this point, Simpson noted the effect on his family: “My children were in tears when I returned tonight and in strife.” He prayed desperately for the blessing of what he saw as a well-ordered Christian household: “for grace to control and rule my home in the peace of God, and for deliverance from this evil. My fault has been want of faith. Lord give faith and grace to please Thee.”68 From late 1879 at least through early 1880 (if not longer – his diary entries cease), Simpson suffered a volatile relationship with his wife. There must have been enough cessation of hostilities, however, for something of a reconciliation; the couple gave birth to their youngest son, Howard Home, in September of 1880.

Gospel in All Lands All the swirling emotional and spiritual anxiety Simpson was undergoing about his life, his family, and his ministry came to be channelled through his plans to publish a missionary magazine that would vent and publicize some of his emerging ministerial concerns. Originally conceived back in Louisville when Simpson had entertained the prospect of becoming a missionary to China – to the complete dismay of Maggie at the time – the potential for work on the magazine was one of the primary reasons he had been drawn to the New

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York pastorate, as he had been assured that his concern for missions would be supported there. Plans began to crystalize around the turn of 1880. Already back in November, Simpson had begun to discern that a magazine might be the appropriate vehicle of the current moment for his increasing emphasis on missions. Praying in his journal that God would “direct the wording and give the vision and keep me in His Holy will,” he discerned clearly that “this is His message – write.” On Thanksgiving Day, Simpson wrote praise to God “for the great work of the Missionary Magazine, given to me this year, with its doors of service.” Trusting in God for support of this enterprise, Simpson received a generous Christmas gift from his church session for the purposes of launching the magazine. Such provision he interpreted as God’s decisive blessing for him to continue. To begin, he collected books on Africa and China and researched notable missionaries, sketching some early issues of the project. In January, after the mini-revival in his church, Simpson began writing, arranging information, and obtaining images for his publication. “I must record God’s amazing goodness to me today,” he wrote in January, “in enabling me to write so much for my magazine, and, I trust, so well.”69 By February of 1880, Simpson had published the inaugural edition of his missionary magazine, entitled The Gospel in All Lands (GAL). Although never as influential as the more widely circulated Missionary Review of the World, started back in 1878 and edited by his friend A.T. Pierson, GAL was an important early voice in missions literature and one of the few American missionary-themed publications of that decade. For the next two years, it would be a dynamic forum for Simpson to promote his concerns for missions and evangelism. The theme of the first issue was Africa. It featured articles on various fields and from various people involved in missions both at home and abroad, including an article from Pierson. Especially notable, the publication contained elaborately textured descriptions of missionary life and efforts, and through an exoticism of gritty detail and the allure of eye-catching and realistic images, it attempted, romantically and enticingly, to make the “missionary story beautiful and attractive.”70 The initial editorial described the project as a labour of “Aggressive Christianity,” and a summons for a “great Missionary Revival” that would give heed to the spiritual desolation of “million[s] of our immortal fellow men … great billows of humanity surging every generation upon the dark shores of eternal death.”71 Simpson went on to outline his purpose in soaring, vivid terms: “The specific object of this Magazine is to advocate the great work of the world’s evangelization.” Expressing his frustration with the lethargy of the denominational

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church on the work of global missions, Simpson claimed this was the “most pressing, the most neglected obligation of the Church of God.” Simpson placed missions among the “four great ends” of the church’s purpose and reason for being: “worship, testimony, edification, [and] aggression [mission].” It was, furthermore, “peculiarly the end for which the Enduement of the Holy Ghost was promised.” The association of missions with the outpouring and “full baptism” of the Holy Spirit revealed how much an experiential encounter with the Spirit was coming to energize Simpson’s ministry and spirituality. Mission, furthermore, represented a compendium of benefits for the vitality of the church and a remedy for its ailments: missions were “the strongest bond and manifestation of the unity of all Christians; the great unfulfilled condition of the Lord’s return; the most effectual answer to infidelity; the true antidote to worldliness and declension among Christians; the source of unspeakable power and blessing to the life of the church at home; the loudest call of Divine Providence to-day, [and] the present, the pressing, the preeminent duty of the Church of Jesus Christ.”72 This editorial coalesced a number of themes that had been animating Simpson over the past years: ecclesiological, missional, eschatological, evangelical, and pneumatological. As an opening salvo, it also evidenced Simpson’s ecumenical concerns and an increasingly transdenominational approach to Christian work. He urgently wanted all the evangelical churches to work together on this. While his publication, Simpson claimed, would not “disparage the distinctive testimony, methods, and work of [any of ] the great Evangelical Churches and Missionary Boards,” his focus would be on the “widest point of view.” Taking examples from all of the churches, Simpson would synthesize them into a “mighty aggregate,” such that “by closer mutual acquaintance, sympathy, and co-operation, each can draw from the strength of all.” In this programmatic editorial, Simpson also showed his increasing embrace of simple pragmatism and spurning of intellectual sophistication. GAL, he wrote, would deal sparingly with the “fine questions of ecclesiastical policy, geographical and ethnological science, and philosophical speculation,” and instead major on the majors of “those great fundamental facts and principles in which so many of our members and ministers need to be educated.” Notwithstanding the subtleties of enculturation in a given context, the disputed questions of how the church was to adapt to a given culture, or the delicate contours of the interface of worldviews, Simpson would concentrate on what he saw as the simple, elemental truth: much of the world’s population did not explicitly know the basic Christian gospel, did not know they were sinners who needed

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Figure 5.1 Portrait of A.B. Simpson.

to turn to Jesus for salvation, and his magazine would advocate for that basic imperative. This lack of consideration for reflection on method led to an obliviousness about the blatantly cultural imperialistic aspects of his program and the orientalizing gaze of its outlook. For example, one article in the first edition spoke of Africa as the “New World,” “terra nova,” and the “Dark Continent” upon which “all the squadrons of commerce and science are marching.” The article continued in this militaristic vein: “Already its defences are pierced at a hundred points,” and an “invasion of Africa” was well under way, “an invasion whose exploits deserve the honors of history far more than those of Cortes, and Pizzaro and Mendoza” – to invoke actual conquistadores. The

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author enthused that “such an attack upon a continent hitherto unknown … and participated in by all the great forces of civilization, has never been seen since the world began.”73 Such views of a self-evident and colossal Western cultural superiority so permeated the magazine’s worldview as to be the water in which its fish swam. A consideration to differentiate the gospel as such from Anglo-American cultural forms, or to differentiate the reception of a specific message from the suppression of local cultural agency, did not even seem to appear as a possibility. At the same time, the exposure that such a magazine gave American Christians who read it – most of whom would never travel to such places – should not be underestimated. The magazine significantly increased awareness of other societies and facilitated something of a cultural interaction, even one mediated by print. The first year of GAL featured mission fields in China, Japan, India, Turkey, Syria-Palestine, Iran, Polynesia, Malaysia, Siam, and Burma, and took Gilded Age Christians on written and visual explorations of Shinto temples, Chinese markets, the Taj Mahal’s ornamentations, Buddhist pagodas, and the Dome of the Rock. While saturated with assessments of cultural superiority, GAL still gave textured, observant, careful descriptions of other cultures as windows into other great civilizations of the world. And even though the ever paramount goal was the conversion of these “heathen” who did not know Christ, and many of their practices were condemned as “idolatry,” the approach to outlining the mission situation typically included a vivid and candid account of the spiritual background of the society that strove for some true degree of understanding amid the condescension. GAL received high praise from other like-minded Christians for its efforts in this respect, and other missions-minded Christian publications in America lauded its work. All of Simpson’s past intellectual labours were perhaps not so antithetical to practical ministry after all, as learning served Simpson’s missionary agenda.74 In any case, for readers of GAL, as well as all those evangelical Christians in America involved in the upswing of world missionary fervour during the second half of the nineteenth century, this periodical would have represented a significant increase of global awareness. For the evangelical world at large, Simpson’s missionary magazine was one player in an intensifying interest in cross-cultural missions that was still embryonic at this point, but which was nevertheless laying the foundations, by the turn of the twentieth century, for far-reaching, monumental ramifications in the interaction of world cultures, as well as for the re-emergence of Christianity as a world religion with an unparalleled multicultural transmission.75 For Simpson personally, the publication

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of this periodical would become the emblem of a turning point in his life and ministry, one from which he would never return. His path had begun to part from what he liked to deride as “denominational” Christianity, or denominational evangelicalism, and this would take him into new forms and structures of ministry in a radicalized form of evangelicalism then emerging.

CHAPTER SIX

New Wine, Fresh Wineskins

The unrelenting pace of publishing, combined with his regular ministerial work and family strife, began to accumulate for Simpson. In a disarmingly candid editorial for the July 1880 edition of GAL, Simpson explained to his readers why there had been a hiatus for the previous issue: “Complete prostration of body and mind for a time, and a long and almost overwhelming domestic trial, compelled the suspension of our June number, and seemed for a time to imperil the further progress of the work.” Even while the “all-sufficient grace of Christ had indeed sustained for the time under the task which He had made so delightful,” still his ordeals had revealed to him by “the providence of God” that “the burden” of his magazine “must be shared, or the work be abandoned or be imperfectly done.” To continue this “labor of love,” Simpson brought on Eugene Smith, a Methodist, to share the business work of the periodical.1 The following year or so after this collapse would be a decisive time for Simpson. From 1880 to 1881, many of the developments in his spiritual life, theology, and approach to ministry finally spilled over the bounds of the Presbyterian church that he had known and served all his life. Prior to this year, even with Simpson’s changing views on eschatology, on the necessity of re-envisioning methods of urban mass evangelism, and on the need for vigorous commitment to world missions, Simpson could still see his own ministry as consonant with traditional congregational work, and even with the institutional operations of Presbyterian church structures. By the end of this year, that would cease to be the case. New wine required fresh wineskins.

1881: A Year of Turnings A crucial facet was Simpson’s evolving view of ministry. What seemed to him to be the torpor of the denominational church meant that more urgency and dexterity was needed in Christian evangelism and missions. And more urgency

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entailed a greater emphasis on lay ministry. Throughout Simpson’s entire pastorate he had sought to empower the elders of his church and individual believers toward greater emphasis on participating in the church’s mission, but he had still typically relied on professionally trained ministers to lead the way. Now he began to question whether or not the gravity of the situation, the immediacy of Christ’s return, the distraction of the ministers, and the triviality of intellectual work did not rather mean that adaptable lay people should take up the mantle. Inspired by his friend A.T. Pierson’s article, “The World Evangelized in Twenty Years,” Simpson asked in an October 1881 editorial: “Has the time come when the Church should cease to rely exclusively upon the trained ministry to supply the foreign mission field?” Simpson saw the “apathy of theological students” and the “signal blessing which God has given to the work of humble men and women, called and qualified wholly by the Holy Ghost” as decisive “lessons of our time” – lessons that the burning need for world evangelization could and should be done by lay workers. Pragmatism for gospel dissemination was needed. “Are there not many pious and consecrated young men willing to work anywhere for Christ, but unable to undertake a course of theological study, who, if the door was open and the means provided, might be eminently useful in spreading the Gospel?,” he asked rhetorically. The key was energy and success, not learning and prestige.2 Simpson countered an argument that “learning and culture” were practically necessary “to confront Oriental pride and philosophy.” In response, he speculated that the occasions where deep sophistication was truly needed for the successful spread of the gospel were marginal compared to the vast majority of cases where humble lay people with enthusiasm and conviction could do the job: “the simplicity of the Gospel and the qualities of courage, faith, love, patience, and tact, are far more needed than professional culture.” Simpson looked to the situation in the books of Acts to buttress his outlook. Those who spread the faith among the gentiles, Simpson argued, were not (with the exception of the Apostle Paul himself ) “apostles or ordained missionaries, but private Christians.” With the primitive church as paradigm, Simpson contended that the “pioneers of Christian missions were humble laymen, whose work was accompanied by the hand of the Lord, and who were astonished at their own success.” A further corollary was that women should become leading and active participants in this endeavour: “There is a great and growing missionary work for godly women. They are doing nobly at home in raising means. But God wants more of them abroad. O what thousands of aimless lives would be elevated, blessed and ennobled by such a consecration.”3 Simpson’s view on the urgency of the missions situation had

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begun even to overthrow his deeply engrained Victorian-biblical views on the home as the proper sphere for women. New opportunities for active service out in the world emerged from the exigencies of mission. In the Presbyterian church, as it was currently structured, of course, many of these situations that Simpson was now entertaining would have been viewed as fanciful. They would have been seen as undermining the proper amount of preparation, training, discernment, and intentionality required for viable cross-cultural missions, while drastically undermining accountability. Of all the events and changes causing tumult in Simpson’s spiritual life during this crucial year, none was more decisive than his experience and reception of miraculous physical healing. Simpson had struggled intermittently with major health breakdowns throughout his life. He often recalled that his fragile physique and tender constitution frequently put him on the brink of other potential collapses, while his own congregants had worried about the status of his health. “I struggled through my work most of the time and often was a successful worker,” Simpson later explained, “but my good people always thought me so delicate, that I grew weary of being sympathized with every time they met me.” Simpson had undergone his most recent serious breakdown back in the summer of 1880, which had delayed the publication of his magazine. Then again by the spring of 1881, a doctor urged him to take further reprieve from his labours for the sake of the “preservation of his life and usefulness.”4 He was, once again, facing the precipice. Tired of being tired, a sequence of events would transform Simpson’s relationship to his own body. During that summer, the Simpson family first vacationed upstate to the mineral waters attraction of Saratoga Springs, New York, seeking some amelioration of the pastor’s health. There Simpson claimed to have experienced a special moment of sensitivity to and awareness of Christ’s presence to him. Simpson later recalled that God used the vehicle of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, a black ensemble, to speak to him, as white northern evangelicals had long indulged something of a restrained fixation with black music and spirituality. As the group crooned the song, “My Jesus Is the Lord of Lords: No Man Can Work Like Him,” it catalyzed a renewed spiritual awakening in Simpson. The chorus’s message “fell upon me like a spell,” he recalled. “It fascinated me. It seemed like a voice from heaven. It possessed my whole being. I took Him to be my Lord of lords, and to work for me. I know not how much it all meant; but I took Him in the dark and went forth from that rude, old-fashioned service … strangely lifted up forever more.”5 A few weeks after his encounter with the Fisk University singers at Saratoga, the Simpsons

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vacationed on the Atlantic coast at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, a location that would continue to loom large over the early history of the C&MA. One hundred miles north of Boston, situated on the serene Saco Bay, Old Orchard boasted some of the most idyllic beach scenery on the northern Atlantic coast. Going back to the original First Nations inhabitants, the waters of Saco Bay were believed to have healing properties: an old legend had been circulated for generations that at these waters, “old age came to be rejuvenated, middle age to be strengthened and childhood and even infancy was dipped annually to insure them against disease and death.” Such associations, in any case, were grist for the mill for the burgeoning American tourism industry, as well as turning the Old Orchard area into one of the “playgrounds for the rich and famous” who were increasingly populating Gilded Age America. Town resident E.C. Staples envisioned the prospects for Old Orchard as a desirable retreat destination when he directed the construction of the Old Orchard House hotel in 1875, which joined the Old Orchard Pier in becoming an iconic landmark. Tourists initially came by steamship, but the addition of a stop at Old Orchard on the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1874 unleashed the floodgates. By its zenith at the turn of the century, fifty-four trains shuttled an estimated 10,000 passengers a day to Old Orchard during the summers. The pristine retreat setting also became a favourite of religious revivers, including both “The Temple” at Ocean Park under the Free Will Baptists and the “Camp Meeting Grounds” at Old Orchard founded by the Methodists. The open-air assembly of the Camp Meeting Grounds initially hosted an estimated 7,500 people, which expanded to 10,000 by 1900. The year 1881 was Simpson’s first pilgrimage to Old Orchard; he would return there for the next thirty-five years.6 That first summer, Simpson took his family to Old Orchard “chiefly to enjoy the delightful air of that loveliest of all ocean beaches” in quest of respite.7 Initially, he had not planned to attend the camp meetings that were becoming an increasing feature of the Old Orchard summer ritual. But since they were occurring while he was there, he eventually ventured to explore. One of the revival meetings featured a healing ministry led by Charles Cullis (1833–1892), a lay Episcopal physician who had founded a treatment home in Boston. Influenced by holiness teaching and his travels with William and Mary Boardman, Cullis had come to believe passionately in recovering the spiritual discipline of faith healing. This was a Christian practice that exchanged the use of modern medicine for faith in God’s direct activity on the body, claiming such promises as an endowment for the whole church.8 At one healing session,

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Simpson was struck by how a “great many” of Cullis’s listeners had testified that “they had been healed by simply trusting the Word of Christ, just as they would for salvation” – that is, without any other secondary means of action on their part.9 Enticed by the seeming practical efficacy of the faith healing and driven by curiosity to investigate the matter for himself, Simpson did what any good evangelical would do: he searched the scriptures. In the quintessential approach of emerging de-confessionalized and independent evangelicalism, Simpson decided to consider the matter anew, “at His feet alone, with my Bible open, and with no one to help or guide me.” The emphatic individualism of the evangelical relationship to the Bible was clearly on display here. Simpson later emphasized, “I am so glad I did not go to man,” because his Presbyterian doctrinal tradition on the matter was cessationist. That interpretation believed that such direct miracles of healing were the province of the early church during Christ’s lifetime and the lifetime of his Apostles, and were no longer necessary or justified once the scriptural text had been composed. Upon his own examination, however – ostensibly uninfluenced by any other “traditions of man” – Simpson came to the conviction that direct divine healing was indeed “part of Christ’s glorious Gospel for a sinful and suffering world, for all who would believe and receive His Word.”10 Having become thus convinced of its doctrinal, intellectual truth, Simpson resolved in his evangelical pragmatism that he must then experience and practise the doctrine for himself. He made three commitments, echoing the decisive significance for his life and ministry that his “solemn covenant” had back in 1861: 1. As I shall meet Thee in that day, I solemnly accept this truth as part of Thy Word and of the Gospel of Christ, and God helping me, I shall never question it until I meet Thee there. 2. … I take the Lord Jesus as my physical life, for all the needs of my body until all my lifework is done; and, God helping me, I shall never doubt that He does become my life and strength from this moment and will keep me under all circumstances until all His will for me is perfectly fulfilled. 3. … I solemnly promise to use this blessing for the glory of God and the good of others, and to so speak of it or minister in connection with it in any way in which God may call me or others.11 Attempting to reckon with what was, for his intensely sensitive spiritual life, a threshold from which he would not return, Simpson claimed that upon

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his commitment, “every fiber of my soul was tingling with a sense of God’s presence.”12 While not absent of “tests,” from that day forward Simpson viewed his life as a testament to divine healing – until the day of his death. A few months after his own healing, his new beliefs would indeed be dramatically tested to their foundations – and then consolidated – when his daughter, Margaret, became desperately ill from diphtheria and was allegedly healed through Simpson’s reliance on faith practice alone without medical means. (In this she was unlike R.A. Torrey’s daughter, Elizabeth, who died tragically in 1898 after her father relied on faith healing instead of the recently available and highly effective medical antidote, antitoxin. This event made faith healing less attractive to conservative evangelicals like Moody who were more preoccupied with public respectability.)13 Existentially, Simpson had made a momentous decision, and he sensed he could never go back. A few years later, Simpson articulated the transformative nature of his experience of divine healing: “the Lord met me as never before, and completely changed my whole life.”14 He testified that he had been mystically enabled to endure the tremendous pace and weight of his continued labours without ever again succumbing to them: “I returned to my work in this city, and with gratitude to God I can truly say, hundreds being my witnesses, that for many years I have been permitted to labor for the dear Lord in summer’s heat or winter’s cold without interruption, without a single season of protracted rest, and with increasing comfort, strength and delight. Life has had for me a zest, and labor and an exhilaration that I never knew.”15 Simpson claimed divine empowerment for the physical task in every moment of the day: “I am intensely conscious with every breath that I am drawing my vitality from a directly supernatural source.”16 As with other aspects of his own spiritual experience, Simpson here succumbed to the imperious temptation to normalize and universalize his own experience such that he expected every authentic Christian would undergo the same spiritual experiences that he had undergone, which to him were clearly biblical. It was difficult for him to process when those who seemed to be honest believers did not receive the same. The divine healing event at Old Orchard, together with his newly acquired approach of methodically examining all Christian teaching directly for himself, bracketing any exterior interpretation, truly led Simpson down new paths. In the first issue of Gospel in All Lands since his return from summer vacation, Simpson reviewed a copy of Cullis’s book, Faith Cures: Answers to Prayer in the Healing of the Sick (1879), which had attracted much media sensationalism as well as criticism from denominational cessationists. In his review, Simpson inventively adapted divine healing to the concerns of his missionary

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magazine by suggesting that acts of healing would be an inimitable “source of missionary power.” Especially crucial, Simpson saw the evangelistic and missionary potential for the testimony to divine healing as credible witness to the potency of the gospel. Authentic testimony of healing would provide compelling evidence for evangelism. Christians, in their urgent work with the masses at home and the hordes abroad, would be offering “complete redemption for both body and soul,” and evangelists would “receive the public seal of their divine commissions in the healing of diseases,” just as the early Apostles had. In any case, Cullis did not claim for himself special powers. He attributed all the alleged healings to the “divine promise and command,” given as inheritance to the whole church. This was an experience that was clearly “understood and uniformly claimed” in the early church, but which had only become lost due to the “corruption and unbelief of the Church in later times.”17 The evangelical power of divine healing would come precisely from no practitioner assuming credit for it. All activity would be reflected back to God’s glory. With Simpson’s intensifying views about prophesy, his increasing urgency to engage in practical, effective evangelization and missions, and his shift to belief in divine healing, there came a corresponding decrease in his estimation of the usefulness of the traditional institutional church, which from his perspective had largely missed all of these trends. While his concern for pushing the boundaries of formulaic Presbyterian ministry had continuity with his days in Hamilton, and had intensified during his days in Louisville, through the year 1880 Simpson had nevertheless largely pursued his ministry through faithfulness to the denominational structures. That would now change. An editorial of July 1881, published while Simpson was still on vacation and undergoing those transformative spiritual experiences, adumbrated his growing cynicism about the denominational churches. Responding to a call by another missionaryminded Christian leader to set forth a “practicable business proposition that before the year 1900 the Gospel shall be preached to every living soul,” Simpson then calculated the modest financial and personnel contribution per person if every Protestant Christian in America became involved “in one grand world-embracing army of holy aggression and human salvation.” If every American Protestant Christian were actively involved, Simpson observed, such a movement to proclaim the gospel to every nation by the end of the century could be “wholly practicable and would be in entire harmony” with the other wonders of the Gilded Age, “in commerce, in industry and every department of human life.”18

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Simpson then complained how this could be the case, but likely would not be because of the apathy and slothfulness of the American church. “It is obvious,” he remarked, “that our present policy of gradual advance,” attributed to the churches, was “utterly inadequate to meet the wants of a generation which will be dead before we shall have reached it, and to fill the measure of opportunity which God’s providence has placed at the Church’s hand.” Simpson implored his readers that such a work should be done “at once, for a few years will stamp the character of these awakening nations [as missionary destinations] for all time.” Compared to the mighty working of God that Simpson discerned to prepare the worldwide mission fields for a plentiful harvest of salvation, the tepidness and enervation of the workers was “most humiliating.” When he surveyed the results of that year’s PCusA foreign missions report, he still saw some signs of “encouragement.” The church was making incremental progress, he conceded. And yet, on the whole, this was not sufficient or intense enough for Simpson. He sympathized with those who alleged “spiritual lethargy and religious apathy” on the part of American churches. His trust in the denominational missions structures was eroding. “God’s time is now,” Simpson thundered in response, “and the world’s need is for the present and passing hour.”19 By October of 1881, Simpson had warmed to his prophetic denunciation of the spiritual ossification of the churches. In an editorial, Simpson took the assassination of President James Garfield as a sign of the times. Lacerating the nation’s raw wounds, Simpson took the opportunity to announce God’s judgment, not only on the nation but also on the church. As for the nation, Simpson rebuked a cavalcade of sins: “But for a wicked nation, with its political corruption, its social vices, its boastful pride, its selfish luxury, its notorious drunkenness, impurity and Sabbath profanation, its infernal outgrowths of Mormanism and Spiritualism … its failure to recognize God in any deep or real repentance even in this hour of long suffering – for such a nation All is not riGht.” In a sermon that attracted the fascination of the local papers, Simpson furthered his prophetic denunciation. “Probably never since the dark days of the Rebellion has the Nation been so full of solicitude,” he preached. “The affliction brought upon this Nation,” he prophesied, “is the chastening rod of God applied for our good.” In the midst of this national tragedy, “God has uttered his voice” as a sounding of warning, “a rebuke to our national pride.” Simpson connected the nation’s pride directly to its service of mammon in the Gilded Age: “The national prosperity has been so great that our self-esteem and pride has become inordinate.” To the astonishment

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of many observers, Simpson chided that even the death of the president had been “needed,” in order “to show us that we are dependent on the power of God.” “God has humbled the Nation and showed us what we have in our midst.”20 Exploiting one of the nation’s most devastating moments, Simpson used it as an occasion to denounce the trajectory of its culture and ethos. Yet his deepest scorn was reserved for the church. The American church, in Simpson’s view, had become “worldly and backsliding.” The church was still vainly praying with its words, but “not repenting” in its action; it was “drifting every year into deeper worldliness and sin.” Against the “evils of the time,” the church was only marshalling a pathetically “fake and feeble testimony … for Christ’s true honor.” The ostentation of the Gilded Age came under special condemnation from Simpson as the church’s whited sepulcher. Instead of spending their abundance on mission for the gospel and help of their brothers, Christians were “gathering in splendid churches, delighting in costly eloquence, music and architecture,” while at the same time they were wantonly “patronizing with equal ardor the theatre and ball-room; spending hundreds of millions in decoration, furnishing, art, and fashion.” Christians squandered all this money while “the masses in our great cities are swarming in the haunts of pleasure and perishing without the Gospel.” In the emerging era of social science and fascination with statistics, Simpson relished listing in tedious statistical detail the vast sums that Americans were spending on frivolities like tobacco, liquor, theatre, games, decorations, distractions, and various consumer goods, and juxtaposing that with how many people around the world could be reached if the same amount had been spent on missions. This last discrepancy drew Simpson’s especial ire as his rhetoric reached its pinnacle: when “all the churches of the world are spending less for foreign missions annually, than the theatres of the single city of New York receive every year – for such a church All is not riGht.”21 Such savage prophetic rhetoric was not Simpson’s primary register, but it did reveal his increasing fascination with apocalyptic confrontation during this period, his disgruntlement with the institutional and cultural church, and some hints of what would become the antagonistic, militant posture towards the culture of many subsequent conservative evangelicals.

Waters of Rebirth From this piece it could have been seen that the time for a final break was ready. Simpson’s participation in his church’s session and presbytery had been declining for a while, but this type of rhetorical stand reached another level

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of dissonance. The presenting issue for complete departure became Simpson’s changing view of baptism. The method of his approach to the divine healing question would inspire Simpson to re-evaluate a number of his doctrines in a similarly individualistic way. Casting aside any confessional interpretation that he had inherited, or any context of Christian history and historic interpretation, Simpson began examining various questions for himself, ostensibly only taking into account his own spiritual experience at the interface with the strict text of the Bible. While he had practised the Presbyterian baptism of infants for his entire ministry thus far, and while he had written that paper back at Knox College theologically defending infant baptism, Simpson now came to the belief that baptism should only be given to adult believers by full submersion. In later years, Simpson reflected on how he changed his mind on the matter. Ever the experientialist, Simpson found it tragic that the subject of baptism was “too often treated as a mere question of doctrine,” whereas for him it should be treated as a matter of “spiritual experience.” Simpson remarked upon how we “inherit our opinions and we are very apt to contend sturdily for the doctrines we have received by this inheritance.” But what was required, he prodded, was for these opinions to become fortified by the “conviction” that the Holy Spirit grants; such convictions “often revolutionize our long cherished opinions.”22 Simpson claimed that a moment of decision came for him in that autumn of 1881 when he was preaching on the book of Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites under Moses. Blissfully unaware of the irony that he was relying on a very traditional typological reading of the waters of the Red Sea as symbolizing the waters of baptism in order to dispense with traditional doctrinal interpretations, Simpson described his insight into this passage. The Spirit illuminated for him that the Red Sea referred to the spiritual life of the believer, coming out of “the old life of Egypt and the world” and into the new life of holiness and heaven. In his view, baptism was therefore far more experientially significant for the believer than would be thought in classical Christian doctrines. Baptism was “much more than he had dreamed, much more than the rite of initiation in to the Christian Church, much more than the sign and seal of a hereditary conviction on the part of parents for their children.” Apparently, all of those things were not much. More profoundly, for Simpson, the waters of baptism became “the symbol of personal, intelligent, voluntary and profoundly earnest surrender of our life to God in self-crucifixion, and the act of dying with Christ, that we really pass out of our old life … and have such an entering into a new world of life.” This transformation of being drowned in death with Christ and yanked up into new refreshment of the risen life of Christ “was to

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be sealed by the actual descent and infilling of the Holy Ghost,” a Johannine baptism of water and Spirit.23 Such an interpretation of baptism, of course, could not be applied to infants absent their conscious, personal embrace of this transition from death to life. Only committed believers could undergo the radical change symbolized by the waters of baptism. So infant baptism had to go. Always one for integrity, Simpson could not thus experientially abide in his own infant baptism. He himself had to be baptized again (or truly); he himself had to undergo the authentic meaning of baptism in his own life. So in October of 1881 Simpson arranged to have himself baptized through immersion by a local Baptist pastor. The venue for the occasion also seemed to hold significance for Simpson. Just as he was renouncing what he saw as the theological embellishment and sophistication of infant baptism, so would he also have the new event take place not “in some distinguished public temple,” but in a “humble little frame school house in the poorest district in New York,” representing the simplicity, clarity, and accessibility of believer’s baptism. Also representing the de-ecclesialization and individualism of his new view, Simpson held his baptism with only three people present: the Baptist pastor, the pastor’s wife, and himself – plus the frigid water. Neither Maggie nor his children were invited. The clandestine nature of his new baptism was also due to its stakes. Simpson did have some sense that this event itself would mark a “death to all his past religious history and work.” As he saw it, his actions signified “obedience to the dictates of his conscience,” but he suspected that his actions would also leave him “utterly alone.” He would be “misunderstood, and condemned even by his dearest friends for an act of eccentric fanaticism that must surely separate him from all the associations of his Christian life and work.” All this only seemed to make more real that this action was “indeed a death to all the past … that he might be even nearer to his Master in every stage of that journey to the cross.”24 So spiritually sensitive and existentially attuned as he was, Simpson would not have executed this action if he had not been truly convinced for himself that this was his Lord’s desire for him; that was a mighty act of conscience. At the same time, he also attempted to downplay what it meant with regard to his relationship with his Presbyterian congregation and friends. He tried to explain his actions as merely a shift of emphasis and structure for the sake of ministry. They did not entail a rupture of fellowship. Tacitly, however, Simpson’s (re)baptism was already an act of ecclesial rebellion and severance. Bodily, he was performing a speech act that asserted that his original baptism

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as an infant had been invalid, and that the authority of his Presbyterian church as a church of Christ to issue such a baptism was null and void. In this respect, the Presbyterian church had not been acting as a true church of Christ. From the outside, Simpson’s baptism also seemed like the perfect excuse for him to venture out into the new ministerial territory that he wanted to anyway. The shift in beliefs certainly seemed entirely sincere. Simpson had continued baptizing infants in his own church at least through June of 1881, and his own youngest son, Howard Home, had been baptized as an infant the previous year.25 But the end result, in any case, afforded Simpson the opportunity to set out on his own. In a meeting of his congregation on 31 October 1881, Simpson gingerly discussed his changes with his church’s session. Diplomatically, he offered that he did not think his changed views would have necessitated a departure from Presbyterianism if he were a congregant. As pastor, however, he could no longer baptize infants, and so could no longer fulfill his ministerial role according to the protocols of the PCusA. Simpson explained how, “after much prayerful examination of the Word of God in regard to the ordinance of baptism as administered in our church, his mind had undergone an entire change and that he could not with a good conscience administer the ordinance to infants nor to adults seeking admission to the church … except by immersion.”26 Simpson then moved to have his pastoral relations with Thirteenth Street dissolved. After what was described in terms of session meeting pleasantries as a “frank and fraternal conversation,” and with “more reflection and prayer,” the session eventually concurred, realizing this transition meant he could no longer serve. His church expressed how much they “deeply regret[ted] the step our pastor has taken,” but, still “believing that he has conscientiously arrived at his present conclusions[,] deem it wise that his pastoral relations with this church should cease.”27 A week later, the Presbytery of New York ratified the decision of the session. There was no official commentary, so we can only speculate as to the conversations that were had.28 Simpson was then expunged from his church’s roll and his pastoral relations dissolved, though the church noted magnanimously that this was done “without any reflection on his character + with full recognition of his ministerial standing.” Even though it was painful to part ways, Simpson’s faithful and generous service had meant that the split would be largely amicable. Potential evidence of his continued alienation from Maggie may be that she and the rest of the family were not recorded as formally leaving their church until March 1882, five months after Simpson.29

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While the issue of baptism became the presenting ecclesiological issue, the same session minutes where Simpson discussed his resignation with the church also testified that his concern for new avenues and structures of ministry were also driving his decision. Simpson stated before the session that “for a long time his heart had been drawn to a wider field of mission work among the masses of non church people,” and this passion for people outside the church had been an endeavour more than “the pastor of a particular church could perform.” The session presented Simpson’s concern as follows: “he has felt called to labor in the cause of Christian mission and for the benefit of the masses of people, who are unreached by the present methods of church workers.”30 The specific issue of pew rents was not explicitly mentioned, but it was one of the key battle lines. Simpson envisioned a church with no pew rents, and thereby no preference given for the wealthy in the worship life of the congregation. Given Thirteenth Street’s financial status and history of decisions, this would have been a risk for them. Ever since his divine healing experience the past summer, furthermore, Simpson had become more and more disgruntled with what he viewed as the complacency for ministry, the neglect of missions, and the suffocating constraints of what he would call the modern denominational church, insofar as this inhibited practical, adaptable, effective methods for mission and ministry. Simpson preached his final sermon as a Presbyterian pastor on 6 November 1881. His resignation came as a “complete surprise of nearly every one present.” He took as his text Luke 4:18 – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Simpson’s resignation caused a minor stir in the papers, as both the New York Times and the New York Tribune took notice of the pastor’s unusual departure and recorded his sermon. In it, Simpson dwelt on the need of the church to minister to the “lowly,” especially to the vast masses of unchurched (i.e., actually unchurched, or nominally churched, or Catholic) impoverished immigrants right around them. “Christ’s whole ministry was to the lowly,” he proclaimed. But in the modern institutional church, there had been a “divorce … between the poor and the rich.” Simpson contrasted this divorce with the ministry of Christ: “People … do not see the world as God sees it.” “There was need of the Church” in its institutional form, Simpson begrudgingly conceded, but he wanted to focus more on what was lacking: “there was also great need of caring for the outside millions. The doors should be thrown open and poor pressed to go in. The tendency in this city to separate the classes was not right.” In this oration, Simpson brought forward a number of key themes learned

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from all of his previous Presbyterian pastorates, but it was also an indictment of the preoccupations of that pastorate and a modern denomination church that, for him, justified setting out on his own. Embedded within his sermon, furthermore, was an implicit critique of the Gilded Age’s stark disparities in wealth, and an emerging sense of class consciousness as a result of escalating economic inequality.31 Ever the peacemaker, Simpson sought to make the departure as harmonious as possible, and he wanted to avoid an acrimonious break. While his baptism was already an act of de facto ecclesial condemnation of Presbyterian practice, and while he had basically charged his church with forsaking legitimate Christian mission, he nevertheless worked to prevent strife. To avoid the appearance of stereotypical schism, Simpson implored all of his current parishioners not to follow him into his new ministry. Even for those at Thirteenth Street who sympathized with him, Simpson graciously asked them “to stay where they were and to work honestly for the cause of evangelical religion” there. He claimed that he wanted “no controversy,” and reiterated that he wanted to be “released both by Presbytery and his church” in a spirit of “good feeling.” Simpson pledged his continuing availability to his old congregation: “if there is anything I can do in this pulpit, in your homes, your church societies, to help make this church strong, call upon me.” It seems that his desire was sincere, and not just rhetorical posturing. In the following year, only two other Thirteenth Street parishioners were recorded as transferring to Simpson’s new ministry. Simpson claimed that in departing his church, “he did not wish any freedom,” he simply wanted people of every background to “take the Bible to their hearts.” Ecclesial freedom, however, was precisely what he was getting. Simpson was leaving behind the daily grind, limitations, and responsibilities of confessional church life, in order to forge his own way forward.32

Taking Half a Tunic Simpson wasted no time getting down to business. On 20 November 1881, two weeks after his resignation from Thirteenth Street, he held the first meeting of his new ministry on a Sunday afternoon. Seven attendees were present, and Simpson invited them to join “an aggressive spiritual movement.” The group met at the Caledonia Hall on 8-10 Horatio Street near Jackson Square, right down the block from his old church. The founding story of Simpson’s independent ministry was re-told so many times in subsequent Alliance memory that

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it has something of the lustre of mythology. Huddled together on a crisp New York fall day, the story goes, the scripture at that inaugural meeting was, fittingly, Zechariah 4:6, 10 – “This is the Word of the Lord … Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts … For who hath despised the day of small things?” In subsequent weeks, Simpson put out advertisements in the New York papers about his new ministry’s “small things.” He promised to address “the spiritual needs of the city and the masses.” The New York Tribune described the popular reception of his new ministry: “Simpson proposes to prosecute an anti-sectarian religious movement among those who are not usually reached by the churches.” They described his plans “to reach not only the poor … but also the great class between the rich and the poor who are not within the active influence of the church.” Conveying Simpson’s intentions, the papers claimed that he had “no rivalry to his old Church … nor does he propose any sectarian organization.” He wanted only “to present the Gospel to those who do not ordinarily attend religious services.” Simpson planned to appeal to non-churchgoers with engaging singing, through the “marked shortness of his sermon,” and by “an absence of any money-raising features, which might keep away the people whom he wants to attract.”33 The following week, this band of aggressors achieved its first victory when it attracted its first convert from the unchurched population of New York. At similar gatherings and prayer meetings at Simpson’s house and out in the community, the group steadily continued to grow. After about three months, the independent movement became formally organized as a new church body with thirty-five members. Simpson launched out on his own by repudiating the whole idea of institutional denominationalism; but already within a short time some principles of organization had to be embraced. The initial platform for the organization, which testified to its theological and spiritual concerns, articulated eight principles, including its fundamental basis in the Word of God, its beliefs about the roles of Christ and the Spirit, how it would admit new members, and what the community would do for the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. Point the fourth described how this ministry saw itself, interdenominationally, “in connection with every true church of Christ,” but would take as its specific mandate and ethos “to promote the work of evangelization among the neglected classes at home and abroad, as God may enable us in every part of the world.”34 Like the very act of the church composing any type of mission or teaching statement itself, this commitment was an intriguing extra-biblical interpretation about the relative emphases on the church’s mission.

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Recognizing that the activity of the New Testament church did also include worship, ordinances, witness, teaching, kingdom ethics, and service, this group of Simpson’s followers simply admitted that they were largely going to focus as an ecclesial community group on the aspect of mission. Such specialization was reminiscent of the nascent specialization of the capitalist economy and would become an increasingly prominent feature of evangelicalism into the twentieth century, as different ministries adapted themselves to diversified market segments. After about a year of efforts, the new ministry, which came to be called the “Gospel Tabernacle,” reflected on how it had already evolved. The need for formalization was required “to unite in the work,” to which all the believers were committed. So there was a pragmatic aspect to their institutionalization. In addition, “converts … need[ed] a Christian home.” Initially, Simpson’s ministry envisioned those of its members who were drawn from other churches as continuing to remain members in good standing of their home churches, whichever they may be. The ministry, however, would also be enticing people who were previously unaffiliated, and those folks needed a church home. That was the original, and inexorable, drift into church organization. As Simpson’s periodical described the movement, then, “it became manifest that God was calling the brethren, thus associated in His work, to organize according to the principles and example of His word, a Christian Church for this special work.”35 Simpson was adamant that he did not want to compete with currently existing evangelical denominational churches, and he desired to be as ecumenically gracious as possible with them. As can be seen from its earliest documents, however, this was more of a good intention. His new ministry would baptize, correct in discipline based on the word of God, confess the Son and the Spirit, worship, edify, receive members, elect elders, judge moral conduct, and host the Supper. That is, Simpson’s new ministry would do everything a Protestant denomination would do, just in a new way, with new structures, and with new emphases. Conducting the ministry that Simpson wanted to pursue, in practice, gravitated toward ecclesialization and institutionalization.

Stepping Out of the Boat One of the practices of Simpson’s ministry that would designate him as a key transition figure from the denominational evangelicalism of the nineteenth century to the independent, pragmatic, and eclectic evangelicalism of the twentieth century was his embrace of “faith missions.” The fledgling ministry,

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as he saw it, would operate on faith. Faith missions were a new method in nineteenth-century evangelicalism. Christian workers would relinquish any denominational support or full-time income from other work (“means”), and supposedly rely only on God working through their own ministries for support. In this, Simpson was helping to shape what would become a predominant modus operandi of a subsequent era. The problem with launching church structures at the time was marshalling the resources. When Simpson left the Presbyterian ministry, he not only left a $5,000 yearly salary for his family, but also the pooled resources of the PCusA that could potentially be utilized towards any of the ministries to which he was committed. Many leaders of the time thought it highly impractical to attempt ministries of the scope Simpson envisioned without the support of denominational backing. At the same time, Simpson was involved in a network of evangelicals who were all pushing against the boundaries of the denominational strictures and impatient with their inflexibility to keep up with evangelistic innovations. For them, the denominations simply could not adapt readily enough to the immensity of the demand, nor intake rapidly enough new potential resources. The tension was not simply organizational, but also theological and ecclesiological. For those committed to the laborious but responsible work within denominational structures, Simpson was a reckless abandoner. Where Simpson proposed transdenominational spiritual unity and nondenominational flexibility, those who remained could sense interdenominational competition. Where Simpson pulsated with prophetic, premillennial urgency for ministry, others were wary of exaggerated extremism. Where Simpson viewed the harvest of any willing layworkers as the pragmatic filling of a need, others saw eviscerated standards of spiritual and educational formation and a lack of accountability. The faith mission movement had begun among the early evangelical group, the Plymouth Brethren, when Anthony Norris Groves launched an ultimately ruinous expedition from Ireland to Baghdad in 1829 on faith principles. It reached Simpson through the influence of J. Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission (CiM), with which Simpson’s network forged many connections. Rare for Protestant missionaries of that time, the degree to which Taylor embraced and respected Chinese cultural practices was one of his great innovations, more reminiscent of the missiological approach of the Jesuits. Taylor acquired fluency in multiple dialects of Chinese and wore Chinese garb. Zealous for the evangelization of the Chinese, Taylor did not anchor his CiM to any one denomination, but used lay volunteer missionaries, solicited his own funds, and relied on prayer and God’s providence to provide the necessary resources and support. His ministry operated on two fundamental principles:

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Figure 6.1 Leaders of the C&MA convention at Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 1912.

first, there was never any direct appeal for funds. Support would only be accepted that was offered spontaneously and freely. Second, its members went out into the field with no guaranteed salary. Someone else who influenced Simpson here was Philip Bliss, an early adopter of this faith missions practice, who may have planted the seeds in Simpson’s mind during the Louisville Revival. When Bliss had joined Whittle on the revival circuit in 1874, he decided to give up attending music conferences, writing “secular” music, and receiving income from his professional labours, trusting God to support his work spreading the gospel through freewill offerings at the revivals. A final influence was George Müller’s “faith principles,” which he used to operate charitable orphanages and support missionaries.36 Faith missions cohered eminently with the emerging conservative evangelical theological focus on supernaturalism and contrasting human and divine means. Traditional denominational methods for raising funds and support for ministry included direct collections, pew rents, anniversary parties, tea meetings, lectures, concerts, bazaars, and raffles. While classic Protestant theology could see all these methods as perfectly legitimate “secondary means” through which God could work to support the church, the emerging escapist

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theology, like Simpson’s, increasingly viewed all these traditional methods as “worldly human devices” that did not truly rely on divine action in faith. Simpson’s ministry, he explained, would not rely on “taxes, assessments, or pew rents allowed,” because these were all humanly means and “unscriptural ways of sustaining the Lord’s work.” In this way, Simpson’s nondenominational denominational ministry would be supported not by the worldly means of the churches, but by faith. As Simpson put it, his independent ministry was launched “simply depending of God for the pecuniary support of himself and family, and the means necessary to carry on the work.” He would not “apply to any human channel for aid, and should only accept the voluntary offerings of those who wished to assist by their contributions.”37 Of course, money had to come from somewhere, and God didn’t literally drop it like manna from heaven. What Simpson’s faith position did do was make his ministry activities more accessible to people up front, as well as push the very human means through which funding did come into more remote locations from the consciousness of those who received it. Since the appeals and channels were less proximate and less readily identifiable, this could definitely form an enhanced sense of faith. Without sources of funds being identified with a known, affluent benefactor, or coming from mundane methods of collection like a church bazaar or pew rents, the overall functioning of the community did indeed assume more collective mystery, and the leader’s own participation in the project endowed it with a potent sociological energy. When successful, these types of ministries actually became highly adept at generating vast sums of resources. Even the very fact that his ministry survived and thrived, therefore, was itself a testament for Simpson that God was uniquely working through it: “Without a penny of assistance from a human patron, without wealth among its friends and workers, it has grown to be a strong and self-sustaining centre of Christian life and power among multitudes of our population.”38 Honest faith ministry – in contrast to those leaders who profitted extravagantly from it – did not exclude the leaders. So Simpson put his money where his mouth was: “The Pastor receives no salary whatever, nor a single penny from the ordinary revenues of the Church. This is by his own choice and desire … the wants of his family are daily supplied by the Providential care of God.” All direct channels of ministry revenue went back into the ministerial tasks themselves, whereas funding for Simpson’s salary came through “extraordinary” means, free will or love offerings, anonymous donations, or circuitous contributions. Often, Simpson claimed, when he worried that he

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was struggling and even hurtling toward financial ruin, he had to recall himself to faith: take heart! God would act through some surprising channel, and he would be “enabled to close the year without any debt … and without lack or need” for himself or his family.39 It was this experience of provision that was also one of the contributing factors in reconciling Maggie to her husband’s new ministry. Coupled with the profound experience of her children’s healing, “God’s tender care in supplying their temporal needs” through faith support brought Maggie around, dissolving her hostility towards the move to New York and all the new facets and directions of her husband’s ministry. She eventually became deeply involved in and committed to the work of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.40 Relying on the faith principle was just one key example of the new forms that Simpson’s ministry was taking. To further promote his ministry, in 1882 Simpson launched a second publication – emblematically focused on his threefold emphasis, The Word, the Work and the World (WWW) – after having been forced to relinquish control of Gospel in All Lands to the Methodists.41 The opening editorial sampled the main vintages of Simpson’s new wine of ministry. In an era of “laxity, sentimentalism, and rationalism,” Simpson’s ministry would be based solely and firmly on the word of God. To proclaim the gospel message, it would forge connections between “the work and progress of the whole church, at home as well as abroad,” such that anyone with interest in the “evangelization of the neglected classes,” whether in America or on the foreign mission field, could stimulate their interest by connecting it with a work that was global in scope. The ministry would be a “faithful witness for evangelical truth, Christian work and world-wide evangelization.” The ministry would be ecumenical – in the evangelical sense – and a transdenominational effort showcasing “the essential unity of all true Christians.” It would document “the failures,” as well as “the triumphs of visible Christianity.” And it would press the “claims especially of the poor, the lost and the neglected classes” in the need for a “more aggressive Evangelization.”42 Such a description aptly encapsulated the early ethos of the forms of evangelical ministry that Simpson was now pioneering.

Heart of the Ministry: The Fourfold Gospel Throughout the 1880s, Simpson’s new ministry grew steadily and continued to attract followers. He ministered regularly and faithfully from his base in New York City, preaching weekly, holding meetings for prayer and healing

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in his own home, designing educational programs, writing in his periodical, and championing the cause of evangelism and missions among his people. His little band of Christians, while seemingly a tiny remnant, were also part of an increasingly extended network of evangelicals who were developing their own distinct identity in changing times. What started as a trickle of a movement at the wane of the nineteenth century would crash as a tidal wave into the twentieth. Disgruntled, inured, invigorated, propelled, or drifting, from 1880 to 1920 these groups of Christians left what had become the historic Protestant denominations, as well as Catholicism, to form wily, nimble, transdenominational Christian communities and organizations that were animated by an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, a profoundly intense spirituality, dramatic supernatural empowerment, and otherworldly visions of communal life they likened more to earliest Christianity. This exodus portended a dramatic realignment of American religion. Simpson exemplified this wave of revivalist transformation. And at the heart of this spiritual, devotional, theological, and communal program was a synthesis known as the “Fourfold Gospel,” a term that A.B. Simpson coined. By 1887, those involved in the variety of Simpson’s new ministries decided to form a more encompassing organization to promote their work. At the Old Orchard summer convention that year, two movements were chartered: the Christian Alliance (a term used for the group as early as 1885) for domestic ministry, and the Evangelical Missionary Society for cross-cultural ministry. At the commencement of these organizations, Simpson preached a sermon entitled the “Fourfold Gospel” to describe the constellation of their teaching. When ten years later, in 1897, the two societies merged to officially form “The Christian and Missionary Alliance” (C&MA), becoming in effect a new holiness or radical evangelical church denomination with Simpson as its first leader, the Fourfold Gospel was deeply embedded in its identity and central to its ideology and ministry.43 Undergirding all the activities of the C&MA was this message that the “whole” or “full” or “complete” gospel included an affirmation of Christ as “sanctifier,” “healer,” and eschatologically “coming King,” as well as his traditional evangelical role as “savior.” These “distinctive truths,” as Simpson called them, permeated the unique efforts of the C&MA from its earliest days. Simpson depicted the Fourfold Gospel as a choral harmony of evangelical teaching, an orchestra of Christian practice that drew on previous instruments of the evangelical heritage, but unified them together into a common symphony. The “Fourfold Gospel,” he proclaimed, coalesced “the elements of a Christian unity which no other fellowship could give.”

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Simpson came to believe loftily in this teaching, as it was “sublimely high in its ideal of Christian living” and consummate in representing “the highest life possible for redeemed men … a Christ life, a reproduction of the Christ Himself ” with “practical results as high and glorious.” Simpson, of course, did not attribute this insight to his own genius, but he did believe – and many of his colleagues testified – that the slogan of the Fourfold Gospel had been gifted to him directly by the inspiration of the Spirit. Original to him, he believed, this phrase amalgamated a number of new and old themes in the evangelical realm that were pure, powerful, and unabridged Christian teaching: the gospel in its “incorruptible richness and infinite fullness,” as Simpson put it.44 Still, even if the precise term was distinctive to Simpson, the Fourfold Gospel represented a confluence of many streams of conservative evangelicalism during the late nineteenth century, epitomized by Simpson’s network of friends such as D.L. Moody in Chicago/Northfield, A.J. Gordon in Boston, and A.T. Pierson in Philadelphia. Neither a true innovator nor renegade, Simpson acted primarily as a harmonizer in encapsulating this message. What this theological program did do, nevertheless, was to combine ingredients from the religious idiom, personal experience, and practical ministerial innovations of a network of conservative evangelicals into a potent theological cocktail. The traditional revivalist heritage merged with novel doctrinal positions; individual spiritual crises experiences fuelled radical and urgent developments in ministry, evangelism, and global missions. As individual and independent evangelical leaders, each of those in Simpson’s orbit spoke in their own accents and emphasized their own nuances. But Simpson’s program represented a crucial hub of these circles.45 This new program would also represent a significant shift in the relation of evangelicalism to the broader culture. It was animated by a profound and radical sense of supernaturalism, an empowering and personal spiritual experience, and an elevated view of dramatic and direct divine agency that circumvented normal human means. And this program often resulted in the minimizing or overcoming of traditional, entrenched hierarchies or social relations. At the same time, the program was also conservative: as part of its antagonistic relationship to an utterly corrupt, immoral, and unrighteous culture, it rejected many contemporaneous developments in intellectual culture and learning. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel exemplified these trends. It represented a multifaceted religious culture, in which dedicated adherence to holiness/ sanctification, the practice of divine healing and miracles, vivid, intensely personal spirituality, and highly activist and aggressive evangelization and

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mission were all interrelated and mutually reinforcing. A doctrinal narrowing, an increasingly literal biblical hermeneutic, and an experiential sense of God’s supernatural, interventionist activity as true Christian spirituality all combined in this movement. As all these aspects coalesced into a definable program, the supernatural dimension, understood as a unique emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, was its foundation. Each of the four planks in the Fourfold Gospel played their role; each was a mystery of the gospel that was especially tied to a renewed focus on the Holy Spirit and to special outpourings of the Spirit in which these believers thought they were participating. As this activity of the Spirit came to be seen more and more in supernaturalist terms as dichotomous from natural experience, the divide between those who emphasized the supernatural in relation to the natural in their spirituality continued to widen.

Christ as Saviour The first, foundational element of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel was conversion. This was an aspect of Simpson’s message that had been with him his entire life and ministry. It was the most notably continuous thread between Simpson’s Presbyterian ministry and his independent C&MA ministry. Embedded in the familial instruction of his father (despite Simpson’s later recollections), personalized at Guinness’s revival meetings as a youth, and transmitted to him as an inheritance from his evangelical Presbyterianism, the emphasis on personal salvation in Christ through faith was a cornerstone. Simpson consciously connected this element of his teaching directly to the heritage of Protestantism in an article from 1883 on the anniversary of the Reformation. The recovery of this truth by Luther and Calvin, from his perspective, had been the “most important event in the history of the Christian Church since Apostolic times.” The occultation of the gospel of salvation between the second or third century and the Reformation, according to Simpson’s reading of church history, was “so dreadful” in its implications that he was sympathetic and could “scarcely wonder [how] good men were slow to recognize,” over the centuries, the depth of the travesty that the “Church should have become the Antichrist.”46 What the Reformers recovered, furthermore, was the truth that the free gift of grace through conversion was based on Christ’s sacrificial work in the atonement. Therefore, the crucifixion was an integral component of Simpson’s conversionist teaching and this spirituality, and, in this way, the first pillar of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel – Christ as saviour – evidenced two of the crucial aspects that were distinguishing marks of evangelicalism in the broadest sense from the earliest days of the awakenings.47

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More specifically, Simpson’s view of salvation had been influenced by the history of the revivalist tradition itself. Events of revival were the beginnings of populist, flexible, and practical cooperation of Protestant Christians across various churches to promote individual conversion and belief in Christ as personal saviour. The rite, or ceremony, of conversion consisted of scenarios that underscored existential intensity, dramatic religious sentiment, and personal appropriation of the Christian faith. It was also a public site of religious expression stimulating and manifesting social ferment. Throughout his ministry, Simpson explicitly and self-consciously situated himself within the lineage of the great revivalists, including Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Charles Finney, and the ones with whom he had personal experience, H. Grattan Guinness and D.L. Moody. While inheriting the revivalist view of salvation and conversion from the evangelical heritage, the one great shift in Simpson’s own view of salvation during his career was from Calvinism to Arminianism. Simpson transitioned from a belief in the old Calvinist position of monergism (God’s overriding will in the event of grace) to a loosely Arminian receptive synergism (where the human person has to decide to respond to God’s offer of grace). Simpson came to regard salvation not as solely the drama of God’s absolute sovereign action played out on the world stage, but as an interchange between God’s freedom and human freedom, even if an asymmetrical one. While adamantly clear that God took the initiative in salvation, and supplied by his work all that is necessary, Simpson averred: “Every man’s salvation hinges upon his own choice and free will … We are not forced to take it. We must voluntarily choose it or reject it. God calls each of us through the Gospel to accept His free offer of salvation … and then it becomes with each of us a matter of individual choice … Salvation is not a mechanical process, but a voluntary one in which every human effort must cooperate with God.”48 Accompanying his Arminian free-will shift, Simpson had inherited the Protestant soteriological fixation on penal substitution as the governing interpretation of the atonement, even though he also employed a wider range of biblical imagery for salvation, including ransom, redemption, satisfaction, deliverance, and cleansing that gave texture to his view of salvation and atonement.49 This shift in Simpson’s view of grace corresponded to a shift in his view of revivals: instead of the “surprising work of God,” as Edwards had interpreted them, they were what Finney called “the work of man,” “something for man to do,” employing “the right use of the constituted means.”50 The circumstances and environment in which revival could transpire were not arbitrary, but involved an intentional effort of the revivalist to arrange the proper situation.

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Of course, conversion had to be grounded in God’s work; but the openness to conversion could be amplified, encouraged, engaged, or cajoled by the revival setting. Although Simpson himself had certainly been influenced by Finney’s view of revival as encouraged or facilitated by the organizational work of the ministers, revivalism for him still depended for its reality, efficacy, and power not on human activity but on God’s work through Christ in the atonement. The transition from Calvinist revivalism to Arminian revivalism, nevertheless, had become one of the most significant realignments within American evangelicalism. It cohered nicely with a national enculturation of a feisty frontier and individualist, republican democracy that was harnessing its own future. By the early twentieth century, Simpson did not even have to belabour the point of soteriological disputes, or engage in exacting theological subtleties on this issue, because with the exception of a minority contingent of committed, confessional Calvinists – who would also undergo a later resurgence – the Arminian view of personal decision had triumphed in evangelical culture.51 Despite the doctrinal particularities, this piece of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel – conversion and revival (Christ as saviour) – had, generally speaking, been a standard component of the broad-tent evangelical movement from its historic origins, even if Simpson himself had shifted from the Calvinist stream to the Arminian stream within it. The next three aspects of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel (holiness, healing, and premillennialism), however, were novel and fluctuating aspects of the evangelical coalition in the nineteenth century. All of these trends cohered with a dramatic view of supernaturalism and an exalted view of divine activity in the life of the individual believer and in the operations of the world. And all of these trends served to increase the divide not only between Simpson’s cadre of evangelicals and the broader trajectories of American society but also between camps inside American Protestantism itself. Therein lay the drastic significance of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel synthesis for the contours of North American religious culture.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mysteries of the Gospel

Second Conversion: Seeking Holiness Another crucial ingredient in Simpson’s spiritual cocktail was holiness or entire sanctification. Protestant theology had long grappled with the topic of sanctification – being made holy, pure, or set apart for God, the precise way in which the work of the Holy Spirit became applied to and appropriated by the believer. The confessional system that Simpson had inherited at Knox College in the form of the Westminster standards had described sanctification – more tersely than most of its doctrines – as a progressive, incremental process that remained incomplete in this life and looked toward eschatological fulfillment. The saints were “more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of holiness … This sanctification is … yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part … yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”1 Another of the decisive transitions that Simpson would undergo was from this gradualist view of sanctification to the belief that, by the dramatic and supernatural influx of the Holy Spirit, the gift of full sanctification could be received in this life and holiness made fully manifest in the life of the believer. Sanctification had always been one theme of Christian thought and practice, but the radical evangelicals of Simpson’s generation became obsessed with it. They thirsted for holiness. Desiring to plumb this thematic of scriptural teaching that had not been elaborated so extensively before, evangelicals from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries brought the question of sanctification to the fore in what became known as the “holiness movement.” On the one hand, for holiness Christians such spiritual intensity electrified

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the believing life in what was seen as a broader Christian culture that had become mundane and complacent. This was a spirituality that grasped at the glory of eschatological completion, resolved the meaning of the mountains and valleys in post-conversion Christian life, and revitalized the peculiarities of discipleship in a generically Christian society. On the other hand, holiness was also a potent reaction to an increasingly modernizing and secularizing world. In the context of Enlightenment rationalism and the Romantic countermovement, a holy life seemed an undeniable aesthetic and experiential testimony against Christianity’s critics. As a result, many Christian traditions during this period wrestled with the precise nature of holiness in the Christian life and experience, which “could threaten to engulf the experience of the Holy Spirit in an undifferentiated subjectivity.”2 In Protestant circles, sanctification teaching had been especially associated with the career of John Wesley, the progenitor of Methodism. In addition to Wesley’s archetypical Aldersgate conversion experience of having his “heart strangely warmed,” Wesley also became fixated on unearthing the “teleios” word group in the New Testament, meaning complete, perfect, matured, finished, fulfilled. What were the implications for this completeness or perfection for the Christian life and experience? Holiness teaching was not crafted out of whole cloth. It exhibited intriguing similarities to more ancient Catholic doctrines of sainthood, penance, and grace – though, in the evangelical context, these teachings became refracted differently. Wesley, in any case, envisioned himself as reclaiming the distinct nature of sanctification for the church. Instead of being resigned to a gradual wrangling with sinful nature throughout this life that would only be complete in the next, he did not believe that the sinful nature of the flesh inevitably had to continue in this life. A complete, holy life could be received by the believer here and now as a result of the work of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit. This state of fully repudiating sin, of fully living into the divinely given gift of righteousness, occurred as a distinct event of grace after one’s initial justification and conversion. Wesley himself often favoured calling it the state of “perfect love,” truly dead to sin and alive to Christ and to one’s fellows. Such a state was not an achievement of the believer, but a second gift of grace received by faith. Nor was it necessarily permanent; it could be lost by the relapse of the believer into sin. But it was, or could be, a complete gift, a whole gift, just like the Reformers had described justification. Holiness teaching and practice detonated massive existential ordnance throughout nineteenth century evangelicalism, not only in the dramatic

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numerical surge of the “Methodist juggernaut” itself,3 but also by influencing a variety of other denominations and movements.4 Holiness became a powerful confirmatory experience for those who underwent undulations in their Christian life following conversion. It was the experience of a “second revival” that continued to stoke the fires of Christian passion through the ups and downs of life, and it endowed that struggle with deeper meaning. The whole shift to sanctification as a realm of Christian experience, furthermore, was one powerful defence to the crisis of Christian orthodoxy posed by Enlightenment, deist, and modernist skepticism. Much of the revival energy of the post–Civil War period in America was fuelled not only by the typical goal of fostering new conversions, but additionally by a passion for holiness, by the urgent desire to intensify commitment among languid Christians, or, in a classic phrase, to “Christianize Christianity.”5 From the perspective of holiness Christians, those who remained content simply with their original conversion experience were missing out. Those believers were remaining at the level of mere head – of intellect and belief – when a holistic reception of salvation could transform their heart and daily practice. In Simpson’s words, only when the believer received the second blessing of holiness as a distinct crisis experience could they truly “know all the meaning of [God’s] sufficiency and grace,” could they “live a heavenly life on earth,” and have “the Shekinah glory shine … through with unclouded light into the sanctuary where we abide in Him.”6 Believers who remained content with initial conversion and belief in justification by faith did not tap into the vital energy, power for living, ennobling mission, and full drama of salvation that Christ offered through the Spirit in holiness. A leading voice in adapting sanctification teaching to the American context, and in stimulating its transdenominational flow, had been Phoebe Palmer (1807–1874). A Methodist, Palmer, together with her sister Sarah Lankford, organized the famous Tuesday afternoon meetings for the promotion of holiness in their New York home beginning in 1836. Later Palmer edited the widely circulated periodical Guide to Holiness, and published the influential book The Way of Holiness in 1845. Influenced by currents of Romanticism and mysticism, Palmer developed a distinctive idiom of sanctification that spoke of “consecration” and “laying all on the altar.”7 Palmer also intensified Wesley’s teaching both by purging sanctification entirely of the notion of progress and in denying that the state of holiness required experiential or evidential confirmation for authentication. Holiness was a crisis state, like conversion, that one had either received or not. The altar sanctified the gift. The reception of holiness was not contingent on feeling or showing anything, though it

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would become objectively evident, but simply on taking God’s command on faith and accepting it as a complete event. Palmer further heightened the significance of holiness for the Christian life. Although conversion was an indispensable initial stage, for Palmer, it was not as if holiness was a pleasant addendum or an additional option for the bored. Holiness was the goal of the Christian life: “it is absolutely necessary that you should be holy, if you would see God … If you are not a holy Christian, you are not a Bible Christian,” she declared.8 The outcome was that Christians who remained with their initial conversion experience or who struggled with holiness were seen to have lacked faith in the reality of Christ’s promise. These Christians became viewed as pseudo-Christians or inferior Christians. In another cycle of evangelical adaptation and improvisation, Palmer’s distinctive constellation of holiness teaching would eventually overflow the boundaries of her own Methodist church, as her followers became malcontent with Wesley’s constraints. Her teaching would influence the founding of a number of dedicated holiness churches, such as the Church of the Nazarene, although many of these undervalued the crucial mystical, apophatic, and ascetic dimensions of Palmer’s own program.9 Palmer’s holiness practice also decidedly influenced the most aggressive of the evangelizers and zealous of workers among the poor – the “blood and fire” of the Salvation Army, founded by William and Catherine Booth in 1865. An ingenious organizer, Catherine (1829–1890) had been inspired both by Palmer’s distinctive holiness teaching and by her example of female public leadership. Under Commissioner George Scott Railton, the Salvation Army blitzkrieged into America in 1880. With its characteristic paramilitary paraphernalia, brass bands, memorable kettle bells, gauche advertisements, populist idiom, and female preachers, the Army’s earliest exploits in the US elicited ridicule for their naiveté – a reputation not helped when one of their early banners proclaimed by mistake that they would “Attract the Kingdom of the Devil” and not “Attack” it. By 1888, nevertheless, the Salvation Army had already recruited an estimated 638 officers and fortified 246 congregational corps in the US. Within a decade, the Army – excelling at Gilded Age publicity, good or bad – was one of the most potent forces for social work in US cities, and illustrated the immense social power and ramifications of holiness teaching.10 Simpson and his C&MA sympathetically followed and applauded the Army’s progress with intense interest.11 Into the late nineteenth century, holiness teaching surged into a conservative torrent that drew from many streams of the evangelical movement. While Palmer was tinkering with Wesley’s doctrine, the so-called Oberlin

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perfectionists were disseminating the teaching in Reformed accents. Earlier in the century, Charles Finney had published his Views of Sanctification (1840) and his inheritor, Asa Mahan, published the influential Baptism of the Holy Spirit (1870). Holiness, deriving from Quaker roots and tinged with Presbyterian influences, emerged from the magnetic husband-and-wife duo of Philadelphia glass baron Robert Pearsall Smith (1827–1898) and Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911), converts of the great 1858 revival. The couple’s meteoric rise to celebrity revivalist status culminated with Hannah’s publication of The Christian Secret to the Happy Life (1875), widely popularizing the holiness movement. Evangelical renown came with a cost, however. While Hannah remained connected to holiness ministry throughout her life, a disgraced Robert was ousted from public ministry after innuendo surfaced that he had sexually propositioned a female follower to consummate her spiritual instruction. Later in life, he was rumoured to have lost his faith after returning to proselytizing for glass.12 (Exacting holiness seems to have also provoked reaction from the Smith children: their oldest, a divorced Mary, converted to beauty instead and married the legendary Jewish Harvard art critic – and adulterer – Bernard Berenson, while their youngest, Alys, wed atheist philosopher – and philanderer – Bertrand Russell.)13 For Simpson, in any case, this experience of holiness, “second blessing,” or “second conversion” – Christ as sanctifier – became integral to his Fourfold Gospel, and was deeply intertwined with his other views of theology and spirituality. Simpson sought to lead tepid and generic believers, whom he called the “great multitude of Christians [who] have not gone further than John’s baptism,” into a “deeper” Christian life, a “full” reception of the Christian life. While acknowledging Christ as saviour was still the first step, and an absolutely critical step, Simpson came to believe that this was not the entire victory that the Lord had in store for the abundant life of believers. Most evangelical Christians, in his assessment, were still wandering and lived life only half full. If they embraced entire sanctification, they would be led into a “greater transformation than the Reformation” itself.14 While many antecedents of Simpson’s life to that point contributed to his own transition to entire sanctification, especially his own incessant quest for honouring God in his spiritual life, an inflection point seems to have been his encounter with one of the most widely circulated holiness treatises (that “musty old book,” he called it), William E. Boardman’s The Higher Christian Life (1858). Boardman (1810–1886), another Presbyterian pastor who had been trained at Lane Theological Seminary, wrote in an ecumenical idiom to promote the

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experience of what he called “full salvation” or “second conversion” as the “glorious heritage of all denominations.”15 For Christians who had experienced a “first conversion” that made them right with God for salvation, Boardman taught that a “second experience, distinct from the first – and as distinctly marked, both as to time and circumstances and character as the first” – could further liberate the believer from the limitations of sin in the present and empower them for service, mission, and behaviour “holy in heart and life.”16 Given Simpson’s chronological imprecision and theologically infused remembrances, it has been debated when precisely his conversion to holiness teaching transpired, but it was likely that he read Boardman’s book over a period of time during his Louisville pastorate, and that his new beliefs in holiness were consolidated by the Whittle-Bliss Revival of early 1875.17 Personal entrance into the “deeper life” was one aspect that had launched Simpson on new trajectories during that tumultuous time at Chestnut Street Presbyterian. Having received sanctification, he began to view the denominational church that had not undergone such an experience as unconsecrated and cold.18 Experiencing holiness helped Simpson to resolve some longstanding tensions in his own life. It interpreted for him, and ostensibly allowed him to overcome, why he had still felt seasons of emptiness, meandering, dissatisfaction in his Christian life, even though he was a successful pastor and a moving preacher. Sanctification, then, became the dominant lens through which Simpson viewed his own life. It became as much of a before and after threshold as his original conversion. Later, he regarded his life between the time of his conversion and the time of his Spirit-filling in Louisville as irredeemably deficient: “before that for years my life had been very full of cross purposes.” Prior to intimately knowing the “indwelling Spirit in my heart,” Simpson recalled not understanding how to live a proper Christian life. He had read and studied about sanctification, but couldn’t implement it. When he received the fullness of the Spirit as a gift, however, “every word was so clear … the doctrine became as plain as salvation” had been.19 As Simpson narrated it a decade later, during those tumultuous years in Louisville, he had “floundered for ten months in the waters of despondency,” and he was only able to emerge from them “just by believing Jesus as my Sanctifier.”20 Recalling the memory of the event in 1885, Simpson narrated that, in the middle of his life, he had “received the Holy Spirit” in a way he had not before, and as a result he could truly understand what the Christian life was about. In actuality, the transition to this way of believing and acting was much more gradual than Simpson’s later recollections. Nevertheless, the memory of his

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previous life and even his ministry now seemed to him radically inadequate: “I saw how weak and insufficient for service I had been in the old way.” When he received the second blessing as a distinct crisis experience, he thought he had been truly empowered to live the Christian life to its deepest, most profound meaning, and to anticipate the heavenly life even now.21 As a result, Simpson fretted about those Christians (like his former self ) who did not have the “Holy Ghost personally welcomed and dominant in [their] heart.” He lamented all the time he had spent as a partial Christian before he “knew what it was to have a personal, Divine Presence living and manifesting His reality in my brain, my affections, my will, my body, my thought, my work – the indwelling Holy Spirit … until I gave Him the house and became no longer the owner of the house, but a lodger in it, and He the proprietor taking care of me and using me.”22 For Simpson, the pre-sanctification Christian life had now become a vacant one; there were “deeper” truths that had to be unearthed than even the “primary truths of the gospel,” and these more profound realities went beyond the “average experience of the Christian.”23 Like many of those in his conservative evangelical coalition, Simpson (self-) consciously viewed the history of the unfurling of doctrine in the church as revolving around different facets of the Christian experience in its various ages. Different eras had illuminated different aspects of gospel truth. Their own age, such evangelicals thought, was the special age of sanctification under the sign of the Holy Spirit. This, in turn, explained for them why certain edges of their teaching on this topic seemed novel to other theologians and believers. Even when the “primary truths of the gospel” about faith and justification had been recovered by the Reformation, as Simpson described it, that era was still one of “formalism,” during which “the deeper truths of Christ’s indwelling and wholly consecrated life had not yet been unfolded as they have been during the past century.”24 That task of unfolding the truths about the deeper Christian life, they believed, had been left for their generation. It was therefore partially understandable that other Protestant and evangelical Christians might not initially grasp the significance of this newly disclosed truth. But just like those who followed Luther and Calvin in recovering the gospel truth of conversion and of justification by faith, according to Simpson and company, other Christians should not resist the illumination of the Holy Spirit in having further deepened the church’s knowledge about the reality, power, and depth of sanctification. Once disclosed, these new truths had to be received, accepted, and practised by the church as the Holy Spirit was making them available.

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Sanctification flavored Simpson’s teaching throughout the 1880s and for the remainder of his ministry, becoming the second pillar of his Fourfold Gospel. In using the language of “consecration,” Simpson described this event of sanctification as a necessity of the authentic Christian life. This led Simpson further and further away from other evangelicals who viewed sanctification in gradualist terms, or as secondary to conversion. “We must also recognize the obligation of this step,” Simpson wrote in 1885, “not as an optional privilege for a few select Christians, but as the duty of all whom Christ has redeemed – not as something we may do, if we like … but something which it is dishonest not to do.” “There is no other Christian life recognized by the Scriptures,” he resolved forcefully. The conclusion he drew from this was that “all faithful Christians must be consecrated.”25 The implicit corollary, of course, was that Christians who had not discovered this consecration were unfaithful and their forms of Christian life “defective.”26 At the same time, this holiness was not something for which the Christian had to struggle on their own. Full sanctification resembled justification in that it was to be received as a complete gift of grace by faith. It was a different gift, and it required a further choice to receive. But it was due to Christ’s work in the lives of believers, not to any of their own efforts. Entire sanctification had its source in the atonement, and, like conversion, it was not a gradual process but an event of “death and resurrection.” One died, and then one lived. Simpson did describe the human aspect of the reception of sanctification as having the same definitiveness as conversion, an act “as definite as possible, and so strongly marked that it never can be forgotten or questioned.” Like the event of one’s conversion, the event of one’s holiness should be impressed existentially and specified to a given crisis time. This moment would represent the “complete and definite surrender of our whole being to God, to own us, dwell in us, purify us, mould us and make out of us and our life all that His love and power and will can design and do.”27 In one of his articles on sanctification from 1885, Simpson grounded his teaching exegetically in God’s command in the New Testament to be “holy” and to be “perfect.” This one, highest command, in fact, interpreted all the divine commands in the scriptures from the Levitical law and holiness codes to the moral imperatives of the New Testament for righteous living, whether from Jesus or from Paul. Against sanctification gradualists, Simpson argued, “It is strange that He should demand it of us, and require us to be holy, even as He is holy, seeing He has given us His own holiness,” if what was being demanded was not possible to accept. To be holy was to fully discard the “old

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life” and to receive Christ within oneself through the Spirit, in order to let him do the full work: “It is enough to know that [sin] is without and Christ is within. It may show itself again, and even knock at the door and plead for admittance, but it is forever outside while we abide in Him. Should we step out of Him and into sin we might find the old corpse in the ghastly cemetery, and its foul aroma might yet revive and embrace us once more.” In this way, “God has provided for us a full sanctification … So let us put on our beautiful garments and prepare to walk in white with Him.”28 As long as the believer was truly and fully abiding in Christ, they would be liberated from sin, would receive the power to live the promise of God to be perfect and holy in their own life. In his teaching, Simpson differentiated sanctification from what he considered to be common misconceptions. These clarifications gave an illuminating picture into his multifaceted view of holiness. First, it was not collapsible with conversion. Simpson affirmed that it was a “great and blessed thing to become a Christian” initially and that “to be saved eternally” evoked “eternal joy.” But Christ intended a further step in this very life, Simpson added. With conversion by itself, the “heart has not yet gained entire victory over the old elements of sin.” Such victory would be the additional gift that the Spirit offered to believers in sanctification. Simpson used the image of seeds and full flower, as well as the metaphor of building a house and having the owner come and dwell, fill, and decorate it, as illustrations of the relationship between conversion and sanctification. Conversion erected the necessary structure; sanctification was like the family coming to make the structure a home. The result of believers who did not press on to the next step after conversion was that their Christianity would typically become “cold and formal” – a vacant, barren house, scarcely hospitable. He further distinguished sanctification from ethics. Although the deeper Christian life would certainly manifest the ethical shape of the New Testament, the gift of holiness was not to be conflated with general cultural notions of good character or progress in socially acceptable morality. This was the case because, next, sanctification was not a work of the believer or a habit that the believer cultivated on their own initiative. Nor was sanctification the “work of death,” by which believers prepared to meet the Lord at the end of their life. Sanctification was for the now. Lastly, sanctification should not be confused with an emotional surge or sentimental exuberance. It certainly included the celebration of joy as a fruit of the Spirit, but it went beyond mere joy by being grounded in the person’s will and by abiding through emotional fluctuations.29

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How did he characterize sanctification constructively, then? Primarily, for Simpson, holiness signified the biblical meaning of separation or quarantine from sin. The soul that had received entire sanctification was to be an actualized, pure refuge of grace in a sinful world. Sanctification was dedication to God. Here especially Simpson used the sacrificial language of “consecration.” As he described it, “a sanctified Christian is wholly yielded to God to please Him in every particular … His one desire is that he may please God and do His holy will.” A sanctified believer would be united with Christ and so “conformed” to Christ as to have become an “impress” of him. Such conformity would entail submission and obedience to the will and command of God. To culminate and perfect all the preceding, sanctification would flower in love, the fulfillment of the law, both the love of God and the love of neighbour. In this way, Simpson’s view of sanctification encompassed the whole scope of the biblical thematics of law, of torah, from the initial ennobling edicts to Israel to the zenith of the law that Christ promulgated. Even though Simpson was clearly distinguishing the crisis event of sanctification from the initial conversion experience, the power of his teaching nevertheless came from the way in which he unified all these aspects of redemption in the completed work of Christ. The enticement of such teaching was that it centred all of these different aspects of Christian life in the one, triumphant accomplishment of Jesus in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Sanctification was part and parcel of the “redemption privileges” for the believer, just as conversion was. What was the creaturely side of this event? How was sanctification as gift to be received and decided for? Simpson outlined a phenomenology. The need for and provision of sanctification, first, had to be illuminated for the believer by “divine revelation,” seeing that Jesus could offer entire holiness as part of the work he had achieved. Then, the believer had to surrender. This was the moment of decision. The believer had to offer themselves, “thoroughly, definitely and unconditionally” to this holiness. Lastly, one had to abide in the doneness, the surety, the solidity of the reality of sanctification, not subject to variation in Christ’s triumph. When those steps had occurred, according to Simpson, “something has been done which can never be undone,” and within the believer waters of life will gush up to “great rivers of depth and power.”30 Simpson’s articulation of sanctification was located squarely within the broad current of holiness teaching that was coursing through conservative evangelicalism during the nineteenth century. But there was some debate as to where his precise position lay on the spectrum of teaching and how much of his thinking was idiosyncratic. In an editorial from 1899, Simpson posed

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the question regarding the C&MA teaching: “Whether we held the Wesleyan view, or what is commonly known as Keswick teaching” (in reference to the Keswick Conventions, discussed below). In response, Simpson ventured that his position was neither, exactly: “We believe that the Alliance teaching on the subject is neither Wesleyan nor, strictly speaking, an echo of even the excellent teaching given at the meetings annually held at Keswick.” While not wanting to court any discord between evangelicals who sought to teach scriptural sanctification, Simpson still thought his teaching was distinguished by its focus on the “Christ life”: the personal presence of Christ through the Spirit that conformed the believer to Jesus’s holy example.31 Simpson’s position has been interpreted as distinct from Keswick for prioritizing the “indwelling of Christ’s fullness in the believer” and for balancing the “power for service” and mission that sanctification generated with the “power for holy living.”32 In one article, Simpson responded to a woman who thought she had received sanctification, only to feel she had lost it again. Simpson thought her problem had been that she had not used her sanctified life for service, imploring, “we keep [sanctification] only as we use it for Him.” When her former troubles returned, Simpson chastised her that her experience was not being used to serve the Lord, but the sanctified life was being frittered away at mundane entertainments like attending the theatre. “No! No!,” Simpson bellowed, “God will not suffer the precious life that it cost His Son so dear to be prostituted to an impious world.”33 The Keswick Conventions, held in the English Lake District annually since 1875, had been kindled by the ministry of the Smiths and shepherded out of the Oxford and Brighton meetings by the evangelical contingent of the Church of England, represented by T.D. Harford-Battersby and Evan Hopkins. Keswick became an “epicenter” for magnetic spiritual meetings of thousands, revolving around the “promotion of practical holiness” experienced in faith, and the original conventions in England became the template for an entire global network of spiritual gatherings. As a transdenominational enterprise, Keswick itself encompassed various theological tensions, especially over the element of “crisis” and the claim to “sinless perfection” in sanctification.34 So part of the ambiguity of Simpson’s precise position lay in the pluriformity of Keswick itself. At the same time, Simpson’s own terminological usage around sanctification was typically occasional, rhetorical, pastoral, and pragmatic, not intellectually fastidious. Simpson careened back and forth among the terms “Christ life,” “deeper/victorious life,” “rest of faith,” “consecration,” “fullness of the Spirit,” “cleansing/purity,” “second blessing,” and “Christian

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perfection.” Still, when carefully compared with the teaching of the great Cambridge New Testament scholar and later Anglican Bishop of Durham, Handley C.G. Moule (1841–1920), a renowned and representative Keswickian, a convincing argument has been made that the teachings of Keswick and the C&MA were largely isomorphic, even if the precise idioms were distinctively flavoured. Even with distinct aspects and emphases, Simpson could be seen as having massive overlap with the Keswick view of holiness.35 One aspect of the confusion was how various teachers related the “complete event” character of sanctification with the notion of “spiritual growth.” If spiritual growth transpired, how could sanctification be a complete event? To attempt to clarify this issue, Simpson himself, in a hairsbreadth distinction, taught that while sanctification did have an objective, complete character to it, believers still did “grow from sanctification into maturity.” They did not “grow into” sanctification, but grew out of an achieved sanctification into the maturation of appreciating it. The “deliverance from corruption” was final, but that event was also the source for the “command to grow” into the riches of perfection. The event of sanctification could not have the nature of a progressive departure from sin, for Simpson, because of its reality as unification with Christ. In the experience of sanctification, the believer had already “become united to Christ in so divine and personal a sense that we become partakers of His nature,” exegeting the famous passage from 2 Peter 1:4 in ontological language that verged on the classical tradition’s doctrine of deification or theosis.36 Where would be the place for sin in such a life, then? Within the realm of perfection, however, there was still room for maturation, or fully delving the abundance of perfection, and that is where the concept of growth legitimately came in. A favourite illustration of this for Simpson was the book of Joshua. Indeed, Simpson feverishly read Joshua as an extended allegory of the entire Christian life and as the archetype of sanctification. There was entering into the land of promise, in which the promise was secure and complete, and then there was also “possessing the land,” which was the deployment of the march of armies. The goal was not to always be on the march but to abide, living in the realm of blessing that is the person of Christ himself, “the true substance and supreme inheritance of the land of promise.”37 Later in his career, having undergone more decades of life experience and finding that even the promised conquest of the promised land came with its setbacks, Simpson refined his teaching, conceding that there was a “progressive as well as an instantaneous side to sanctification.” Without slipping back into the old Reformed gradualist

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view of holiness, he did elaborate the progressive aspect due to his experience that there were “many painful and humbling lessons to be learned” on the way to having “our self-confidence … entirely eliminated,” incorporating a sagacious view of human nature.38 Yet his belief that sanctification, like conversion, did also have an instantaneous dimension never wavered, and it was part of his spiritual teaching and practice till the end. By its very nature, this view shaped an orientation that set Simpson and his spirituality apart not only from obviously profane practices of the larger culture, but even from other Protestant evangelicals who did not share such an actualized view of the Christian life in holiness.

The Great Physician While holiness became the crux of Simpson’s independent ministry and an evangelical watershed of his age, a third, crucial aspect of his gospel teaching was the aspect for which he became most renowned (and infamous) in the larger culture, and occasion for opprobrium even from other evangelicals. This most controversial of all the components of Fourfold Gospel teaching was divine healing: Christ as the great physician. For Simpson, believing in God’s provision for physical healing was deeply integrated with his vision for conversion, holiness-sanctification, the premillennial return of the Lord, as well as his evangelistic and cross-cultural missions urgency. In essence, Simpson applied a similar structure of intellectual argumentation concerning the crisis interruption of grace, grounded in a biblically literalist hermeneutic, to the work of Christ and the Spirit in relation to the physical body. Simpson negotiated his position on divine healing for the body in relation to both his Reformed cessationist theological upbringing and to the emerging Protestant liberalism, which downplayed dramatic intervention and trusted more in modern scientific and medical developments, as well as the immanent work of the Spirit through history and secondary means. Revisionist Protestants, and some evangelicals like the yMCA, “discovered” the body at roughly the same time, but they largely channelled their interest into “muscular Christianity,” inventing sports and championing the work of God through the cultivation of physical discipline and a strenuous life.39 Divine healing, by contrast, was another aspect of Simpson’s evangelical alignment that emphasized the direct, supernatural intervention of God in a modern age. This was an era of the body, when interest in medicine and biology and health was skyrocketing. Divine healing teaching emphasized the New Testament approach to the body, while

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the larger society fretted about the urban-industrial deterioration of the body, its cultural decadence and enervation, and its subjection to the discipline of an ascending, but still as yet unstable, scientific-medical knowledge about the body. Healing miracles, of course, had never disappeared from either Catholic or Orthodox Christian belief and practice. Most Protestant theology of the Reformation, however, while not excluding the possibility categorically, had thought the church’s need for such spectacular manifestations of divine power had largely terminated with the closure of the scriptural canon. When the perfect word of scripture came, the imperfect testimony of startling occurrences became superfluous. The dramatic events of the New Testament era had been required to credibly convince people to believe in Jesus and in the authority of his Apostles. Once their teachings were inscripturated and stabilized as text, such manifestations were no longer needed, or were only exceptional occurrences not to be solicited. Many Protestants associated such claims to direct, miraculous healing with uneducated Catholic superstition, unscriptural belief in the power of Mary and the saints, and erroneous ecclesiological claims that the Spirit guided the institutional church through such authentications of credibility.40 A further disincentive for Protestant practice had been the Enlightenment and deist attacks on miracles as intrinsically irrational or implausible in a Newtonian scientific worldview. While any orthodox Christian had to defend the plausibility of the New Testament miracles in their own time and place, in wrangling with the Enlightenment’s challenge to traditional Christian belief, Protestant leaders often tacitly adopted aspects of their combatant’s rationalism and sought to avoid multiplying problems for themselves unnecessarily. In this situation, a reemergence of belief in divine healing came in a spiritual form that was at least potentially palatable to other evangelicals through the pietists. Johann Albrecht Bengel, a New Testament scholar, Johann Blumhardt, Dorothea Trudel, and Otto Stockmayer began through the turn of the nineteenth century to reclaim the belief that part of Jesus’s victory over sin included redemption for the physical body. Trudel pioneered healing homes around Germany, advocating for the belief that healing was provided for in the atonement and was available to any believer who accepted it in the conviction of faith. The work of Trudel’s homes was often featured in Simpson’s periodicals, while Stockmayer came to speak in person at Simpson’s Gospel Tabernacle.41 Transmitting the faith healing movement to America was the conduit of Charles Cullis, a disciple of Trudel, whom Simpson had encountered at that

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fateful Old Orchard revival back in 1881. Cullis had become disenchanted with medicine after experiencing the excruciating, repeated failures of his medical training to assuage the “miseries of the afflicted” under his care. His book Faith Cures (1879) did much to popularize – and sensationalize – the faith healing movement in America. Along with Simpson, two of Cullis’s other influential converts to faith healing were the Boston Baptist A.J. Gordon (1836–1895) and R. Kelso Carter (1849–1928), both of whom would become prominent allies of the C&MA. Carter’s Atonement for Sin and Sickness (1884) was widely read, though hedged somewhat by his subsequent Faith Healing Reviewed after Twenty Years (1897). Gordon, a Simpson friend who often appeared in the C&MA periodicals, preaching at the Gospel Tabernacle, or teaching at Simpson’s Bible College – and at whose funeral service Simpson preached the eulogy – published The Ministry of Healing in 1882. The intellectual power of Gordon’s statement of the divine healing position was such that even the arch cessationist and antagonist of the divine healing movement, Presbyterian fellow evangelical, B.B. Warfield, was forced to acknowledge its quality.42 Although A.T. Pierson did not embrace divine healing as part of his own personal ministry, he nevertheless followed its progress closely and gave publicity to the ministry of his friends, Gordon and Simpson. Pierson’s book Forward Movements of the Last Half Century (1900) was something of an omnibus and magnum opus of the various facets of late-nineteenth-century conservative evangelicalism, and it included a chapter on divine healing.43 Pierson carefully documented the teachings and experience of a number of divine healing ministers, while also venturing his own appreciative correctives.44 Divine healing was the topic on which Simpson wrote, taught, and ministered more than any other of his conservative evangelical confreres during the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Simpson developed a highly integrated and differentiated theology of divine healing that was the basis for his appeal to the experiences and testimonies of those who claimed to be healed from a variety of ailments. From this theology, it can be seen how deeply embedded Simpson’s emphasis on dramatic, divine action in the world was throughout his thought, and throughout the religious culture that coalesced around his ministry. Already by 1883, Simpson described how “healing by faith in God … had become a somewhat prominent feature” of the work centred on the Gospel Tabernacle. As one aspect of his ministry, Simpson convened Friday meetings in his house, later at the Gospel Tabernacle, specifically devoted to divine healing. In these sessions, he claimed, many people had become “living

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monuments” to the reality of divine healing for the body. The number of cases “multiplied,” Simpson proclaimed, “beyond the power of contradiction or explanation.”45 Issues of Simpson’s periodical typically dedicated space to personal testimonies of divine healing, especially the testimonies of erstwhile skeptics.46 Simpson published the first version of his flagship title on the topic, The Gospel of Healing, in 1885, the same year that he travelled to London to deliver a keynote address to the international Bethshan Conference on divine healing. By 1887, he had overseen the publication of a compilation volume of powerful testimonies to the experience of divine healing, A Cloud of Witnesses. He followed that up with publications of messages given at his Friday healing and consecration meetings, Friday Meeting Talks, beginning in 1894. A compendium of his teaching was published posthumously by the C&MA under the title The Lord for the Body (1925). Simpson developed an intricate and encompassing biblical theology of divine healing to buttress his position. In that theology, he inverted traditional lines of thinking about the doctrine of creation to his own ends. Those suspicious of divine healing often charged its practitioners with impoverished doctrines of creation and a type of dualism. While other Christian leaders could see the doctrine of creation as supporting belief in the goodness of God’s work through medicine and other natural means of healing, Simpson by contrast used it to support his view that bodily sickness was not a part of God’s original design for his people. He argued that humanity’s prelapsarian state – as originally created before the fall into sin – was one of perfect health and bodily integrity, and so this must be the state that Christ would restore. Fascinatingly, Simpson even ventured that those who opposed divine healing had more in common with the ancient cosmological dualists, for human creatures were both body and soul and “any complete scheme of redemption would include both natures, and provide for the restoration of his physical as well as the renovation of his spiritual life.” This teaching was well integrated with Simpson’s hamartiology. The cause of sickness and suffering in the body – in the ultimate sense – clearly had to be sin and the devil, and so the existence of illness was the outcome of a distorted, corrupted creation, not something to be accepted from God’s point of view. God could allow sickness for certain ends, Simpson suggested, such as permitting Satan to test God’s people, for the correction and chastisement of wayward creatures, or for potentially “hundreds of meanings.” Since the ultimate reality of sickness, however, was a spiritual problem, a result of sin, the ultimate cure for sickness would not be found in biological or medical solutions. Those were, at best, partial and temporary

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remedies, because they did not deal with the underlying spiritual reality. As Simpson put it, with characteristic pithiness, “if disease came through the fall of man, it must be undone by the Saviour” in his redemptive work.47 The true antidote, Simpson pushed his logic, must be found in the work of God to restore to the original creation, and in the redemption achieved by Christ and manifest in the Spirit.48 The biblical foundation of divine healing was paramount for Simpson, and he unfurled a highly nimble interpretation to expound it. First of all, Simpson was often fond of cataloguing the many instances of healing that were provided by God in the scriptures, especially in the Old Testament even before the ministry of Jesus: Naaman, Hezekiah, Job, and some of the promises of Jeremiah were classic types in the experience of Israel that anticipated Christ’s later work of healing. At times, Simpson even employed what would have to be called allegory in his reading of healing into some biblical passages that dealt with “deliverance” or “salvation” in general.49 What was decisive, of course, was that Jesus’s earthly ministry so prominently featured healing miracles as part and parcel of his proclamation of the arrival of the kingdom. So did the apostles in the book of Acts. Even the denominational evangelical’s favourite apostle, Paul, had claimed healing. Simpson’s corresponding exegetical question was: when did the explicit scriptural witness seem to suggest that these would stop?50 Crucially, physical healing belonged to the work of Christ as “complete savior,” providing a full redemption for both body and soul, time and eternity. As Simpson put it, “God claims the human body as the subject of his direct redemptive will in the present life, and has made full provision for it in the atonement of Christ and the promises and ordinances of His Word.”51 To impugn healing was to impugn the completeness of Christ’s work. Salvation applied to the soul here and now, Simpson extended evangelical reason; why would it not apply to the body here and now as well? In a sophisticated nexus, Simpson integrated healing into the whole scope of the Lord’s historical work, from incarnation to ministry to crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. All of these had their bodily aspects, Simpson persisted, and so the redemption won by them would also have their bodily effects. In the incarnation, Jesus adopted the bodiliness of humanity. The reality of healing was grounded in the atonement: healing’s “foundation stone is the cross of Calvary.” If Jesus had suffered the whole range of the consequences of sin on our behalf, then that included bodily infirmity and sickness. His substitution was for our spiritual alienation from God and our bodily suffering. “Every inch of His flesh,” Simpson depicted viscerally, “was lacerated for us.” He “suffered to redeem

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every fiber of our body.”52 Furthermore, Christ’s resurrected body restored the wholeness of physical health. Simpson did not deal here with whether there was any appropriate analogical interval between the historical body and the resurrection body. But for him, nevertheless, it was Jesus’s risen body that could be the reality of life and healing for believers. Grounded in the resurrection, healing for believers here and now would give “foretastes of resurrection day,” in which physical healing would anticipate the perfect life for which the resurrection of Jesus was the down payment. Jesus’s resurrected body was, for Simpson, a “positive fountain of real vital energy,” such that Jesus’s vital resurrected energy, when accepted, “vitalizes” the believer’s own body.53 Through the ascension, lastly, in the power of the Spirit, this healed body of Jesus became available to the believer. Believers would become “members of Christ himself ” and Christ in us would become the “living body,” healing “in Jesus … we receive it as we abide in Him.”54 The latter aspect of his divine healing theology, the union with Christ, was a distinct aspect of Simpson’s evangelical thought. His emphasis bordered on a type of mystical spirituality that seemed to resonate with the transubstantiational realism of the eucharist in Catholic theology. Simpson himself made an elliptical parallel when he testified: “I never feel so near the Lord, not even at the Communion Table or on the borders of eternity, standing beside the departing spirit, as when I stand with the living Christ, to manifest His personal touch of supernatural and resurrection power in the anointing of the sick.”55 At one point, when he was commenting on the seriousness of responsibility for service that the gift of healing entailed for the recipient, Simpson intimately described divine healing as having the “very blood of Christ flowing in your veins.” The mystical transmutation of our own natural blood for Christ’s healing resurrected and ascended blood was an “awfully sacred thing.” It was a “solemn thing to have the life of Jesus quickening your heart, and lungs, and nerves,” as Simpson described the experience of healing.56 A further passage crystalized the themes of Simpson’s teaching on divine healing, exemplifying the mystical unification character of his teaching: “Yes, Jesus has brought this into our practical and physical experience. Himself, the eternal life of God, with perfect body … becomes … [by] constant indwelling, the very life of our life, the strength of our frame, and the vital energy of our physical and spiritual being; so that it is not merely the healing of some petty disorder that we receive, but a new and full and effectual life.” Simpson described this experience in surprisingly earthy and fleshy ways; it occurred “in all our veins,” and by Christ’s “direct touch” of our body. The vital life

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of healing, he thought, surpassed and transcended the “mere natural and constitutional life.”57 Throughout his ministry, Simpson attempted to uphold a delicate balance. He didn’t want his teaching on divine healing to distract from his work with other evangelicals in evangelism and missions. So, in the architecture of the faith, he affirmed that “divine healing is not the most important truth of the Gospel.” It should be held in its “subordinate place” to the truths of conversion and sanctification, which would then be the basis for Simpson to work across denominational and theological lines in ministry. At the same time, Simpson truly believed that divine healing was a “truth that God has shown to us,” and so C&MA people should – in gendered apologetics – “hold it fearlessly and confess it manfully.” While not the central truth of the gospel, Simpson continued to view it as an important one, and one that was having a transformative effect on the vitality of Christianity during this period of revivalist resurgence. “The subject of Healing by Faith in God is receiving a great deal of earnest attention at this time,” Simpson wrote, and so the topic was “forced on the attention of the Christian world.” He envisioned the “proliferation of divine healing” as “becoming one of the touchstones of character and spiritual life in all the churches of America, and revolutionizing the whole Christian life of thousands.” Divine healing had a “profound bearing upon the spiritual life” and those who had received it did not do so “without being a holier and more useful Christian.” Not only were similar lines of theology between holiness and premillennialism and conversion interwoven with his theology of divine healing, but those who had embraced and received divine healing were themselves more effective and powerful communicators of the gospel.58 To defend this practice, Simpson had to differentiate it from what he saw as many other false contenders, as well as shield it from the criticisms of other evangelicals. He saw that the reality and power of divine healing could also be “in great danger of being paraded and imperiled or perverted by its friends.” This teaching and practice was “very solemn ground” and had to be protected from being made a “professional business or a public parade,” as in the example of many charlatans. Divine healing “must not be used to exalt man” was Simpson’s fundamental criterion. It had to be used “for the glory of Jesus Christ alone.”59 In clarifying his teaching on divine healing, which readily became grist for public spectacle, Simpson first wanted to distinguish his teaching from any of the other heterodox “spiritualisms,” “magnetic healings,” or “mind cures” that were not based directly on a rigorous interpretation of the scriptures. That included, for him, anything that resembled the Shakers, or

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the Swedenborgians, or other heretical movements in the view of mainstream evangelicalism. Mary Baker Eddy, whose famous Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures marked the foundation of Christian Scientism in 1875 and played on similar themes as divine healing, came in for particular scorn from Simpson. He reviewed Eddy’s book in 1885, with unexpectedly detailed attention to its arguments given how jaundiced his conclusions about it were: “we are shocked that such a system could have the least weight or influence among Scriptural Christians, or ever those professing to have clear, logical views upon any subject,” he ridiculed. Most importantly, Simpson viewed Eddy and Christian Science as “utterly antagonistic to the Scriptures,” and furthermore, “vague and confusing, but wherever doctrines and principles are clearly stated, it is a little like Buddhism … but much like English Deism and Idealism, combined with German Pantheism” – all terms of evangelical obloquy, of course.60 For Simpson, Eddy’s creed was clearly platonism and gnosticism, an idealism that denied the reality of creation and incarnation, and so could only be “anti-Christian in its teaching.” The vehemence of Simpson’s denunciation can be traced to the fact that the press had often associated him with Eddy as but two variants of the same healing movement, which infuriated him to no end.61 Simpson also sought to distinguish his teaching from any type of spiritualism. By that, he meant healings, cures, miracles, or startling overrides that were based on generic spirits or forces, and not explicitly the Holy Spirit of the Bible. This included anything resembling the occult, incantations, voodoo, witchcraft, Indigenous tribal spirituality, or the other major world religions. Interestingly enough, Simpson did not deny the potential “power” of these multifarious spirits. That many of them had a certain reality and efficacy he readily admitted: “there can be no question that great multitudes of spiritualistic phenomenon are real.” Nonetheless, he only associated them with “demonic” power, or with the activity of “evil” or “unclean” spirits, collapsing many culturally denigratory judgments with religious ones. The spirits were real, but in addition to good and righteous ones, there were negative and destructive ones. “They are all of the nature of devil worship,” Simpson would conclude, “and those who know them best are the readiest to acknowledge their horrible reality and power,” in addition to “their cruel and monstrous wickedness.” More controversially in his context – though unsurprising given his other views – was that Simpson placed his antagonism to the traditions of Catholicism in this same category. Simpson did not deny many of the miracles, apparitions, or dramatic intervention stories that Catholics had long claimed to experience, accusing them of residual irrationalism or superstition as had

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other Protestants. He instead associated these activities with the demonic. Simpson especially condemned the efficacy he saw attributed to the “image of the Virgin”: in that case, “we see no difference between the Romanist and the Spiritualist, and we should not wonder at all if the devil should be permitted to work his lying wonders for them, as he does for the superstitious pagan or the possessed medium.”62 At the same time, Simpson faced many detractors himself. For one thing, he had to respond to the professionalizing class of doctors who zealously guarded their prerogatives in medicine, to public officials who blamed the divine healing movement for many of the deaths that occurred under their care, and to secularizing skeptics who thought that any claim to divine action was bunk. Even worse, Simpson had to fend off often acrimonious attacks from his fellow evangelical Protestants on his other flank, either outright cessationists or those who simply were more willing to trust in natural means as authentic paths of Christian discipleship. To the criticism that the age of miracles was past and belonged to a different “dispensation” of biblical experience than the current one, Simpson parried that this was nowhere stated explicitly in scripture and that especially the testimony of Acts would seem to suggest that miracles were expected to blend into the age of the church. To the correlative argument that the miracles of Christianity had only been needed to testify to the truth of Christ and the authority of the scriptures, and so were no longer needed, Simpson riposted that the need for validation of Christianity was as great now as it ever was with the rise of skepticism and materialism and the wide need in the world’s cultures for testimony to the truth of the gospel. The critics pointed out that while there might seem to be many authentic testimonies in divine healing, there were also empirical, demonstrable cases of failure. Simpson remained impervious to such “insidious confusing sophistries.” Those cases could all be understood within the overarching framework of divine healing, and they were mostly due to the fault of the penitent. Such cases, Simpson wrote in the apologetic mode, were the result of “defective knowledge,” or “unbelief in some practical and subtle form,” or “disobedience to God in some way,” or “failure to follow consistently the teaching of the Word and the Spirit.” In this joust, Simpson applied a similar logic to divine healing as he did to conversion: there were “failures in the spiritual life” in that respect too, people who seemed to be converted or sanctified but in reality were not – but this “in no way disprove[d] the reality of the divine promises or the sufficiency of Christ’s grace” in those cases. Neither did various human failures disprove divine healing in all cases.63

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The two most powerful arguments in evangelical circles against Simpson’s version of divine healing, and the most challenging for Simpson to navigate, were cogent theological ones. The first could be stated starkly and with existential force: people still ultimately died. And so, the reasoning went, because believers still had to face death, even after Christ’s resurrection and ascension, total bodily healing ultimately must be something eschatological, something after bodily death, and not primarily for the now. It was a potent argument, and Simpson proffered a creative response. For him, the word of God presupposed the fact of death just as the word of God presupposed the reality of healing. The believer, therefore, had to keep these two distinct. Death was one reality, the limit that scripture assumed to human life. Other disease and suffering prior to death were another matter. Simpson’s teaching on divine healing did not propose any escape from the former. “All that Scriptural faith can claim,” Simpson qualified, “is sufficience for health and strength for our life work and within its fair limits,” that is, within the outer limit of death. But – in a deeply confused assessment, from the medical point of view – when it came to the preparation for death, Simpson thought that his view of healing could influence how the believer died: “when the close comes why need it be with painful and depressing sickness, as the rotten apples fall in June from disease … Why may it not be rather as that ripe apple would drop in September, mature, mellow, and ready to fall without a struggle.”64 The other cogent theological argument with which Simpson had to contend was the belief in submission to divine providence. Especially for those influenced by the Calvinist stream of evangelicalism with its high view of divine oversight, sickness was something that, if it occurred, happened within the sphere of God’s providence, would teach the believer something, and would ultimately redound to God’s glory. Believers should accept this passively, and use the opportunity for spiritual edification and training. Illness was the will of God for a time in this life, to which the believer should submit. Simpson, however, viewed this as an overly formal and sterile view of God’s providence, and one not sufficiently inflected by the person of Jesus. It did not give sufficient attention to the goodness of God’s providence, to God’s character as revealed in the life of Jesus, according to which the “normal state” that God desired for all his “faithful children” was that of “soundness” and “integrity” in entire “body, soul, and spirit.” Simpson did not deny that sickness could potentially be used by God for teaching and chastisement. The goal, however, was always restoration in the now. He reasoned: “there is an immense amount of vague and unscriptural misunderstanding with respect to the principles of

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Christian discipline. We do not believe that God chastens an obedient child simply to make it good.” It was, rather, God’s will that his children should be delivered from their bondage, prospered, and blessed in all aspects of their life. It was a detraction from, rather than a homage to, the true divine majesty, according to Simpson, to assume that God’s will for his cherished children was not to extend gracious mercy to heal them. This “presumption” that God intended his children to suffer was a “wonderful mockery” that really traded on “unbelief ” draped as “virtuous resignation.” Simpson, lastly, responded to this argument with the jab that if those who advocated for submission truly believed it, they should at least be consistent. They shouldn’t be relying on any “unscriptural” means of treatment like medicine and drugs, in lieu of “scriptural” divine means; they should simply employ no means whatsoever and honestly acquiesce to their condition.65 The shift from passive resignation in suffering, as occurring within the sphere of divine providence, to actively claiming God’s beneficent promises for abundant life in both body and soul was a decisive one. Consonant with the broader reconfiguration of the Reformed and Puritan heritage that was going on in many aspects of American intellectual life at the time, the upsurge of resisting and rejecting pain and suffering cohered with a widespread cultural fascination with health, wellness, and body movements to produce an environment that was receptive to the divine healing message of liberation from agony and infirmity. Pain no longer had to be endured, and so should not be endured. The devotional association between acquiescence to pain and spiritual obedience to the divine will was being severely challenged. Even when the successes of medical science were still spotty and unreliable on the whole, the introduction of anesthesia for surgery, the wide availability of painkillers, and true developments in medical practice like open-heart surgery were all developments that had given hope for the prospects of palliative treatments and the alleviation of pain. In this context, divine healing teachers offered a “tensile theology” with “devotional disciplines” that “served as means for marking out and maintaining what they saw as a scripturally sound, personally beneficial, and culturally savvy method of dealing with fleshly infirmities.”66 Divine healing was a theologically endowed and authorized resolution to resist pain and suffering. (While Simpson never took this step himself, this was precisely the same structural logic that those like E.W. Kenyon – disciple of A.J. Gordon and reader of Simpson – would use to launch the tradition of “prosperity gospel”: some of God’s promises spoke of the faithful being “rewarded” and “blessed” in strikingly material and concrete terms. So some

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pentecostal and holiness teachers began to teach that material promises could also be claimed as a mode of “dominating faith.”67) This practice and language of “claiming” would be key to Simpson’s devotional spirituality, and would have repercussions throughout the evangelical world. Claiming exhibited the delicate balance between divine will and human action that this wave of evangelicalism was aiming to achieve. It was not the case, for Simpson, that believers could claim whatever they wanted, according to their own desires. The object of the claim had to be that of divine promise and revelation. But when such a benefit was promised and revealed, as Simpson had been convinced that bodily welfare in this life was, then such an “inheritance” had to be boldly “demanded” from the Lord by an active decision of the believer in faith, with reckless abandon: “claim it as His covenant pledge, as your inheritance, as a purchased redemption right, as something already fully offered to you in the Gospel, and waiting only your acceptance to make good your possession.” It was one thing to “ask Christ” as an “experiment” on behalf of a “future perhaps,” as Simpson would criticize traditional evangelical devotional practice. It was another thing radically to “take Christ as your Healer” as a “present reality” in a “very deliberate and final step.” Simpson would interpret this event of claiming as something like a speech act.68 He even explicitly compared it to the “I do” vow of marriage, as both were likewise the “signalizing and sealing of a great transaction,” and depended for their meaning “upon the reality of the union which it seals.” To truly claim this promise was for it to be so; to speak it fully was to enact it. This was not because of the whim of the believer, of course, but because of the present reality of the divine promise and objective availability of Christ’s work of redemption. Questions could precede this step, but they could not follow. For that in itself would have signified not having done the act in the first place. With questions “forever settled,” this event was to happen “solemnly, definitely, irrevocably … on God’s promise, with the deep conviction that it is forever.”69 In the most controversial aspect of Simpson’s teaching, this living into the pledged reality of divine healing seemed to exclude relying on any “natural means” for healing. Natural means were all those ways of healing that used human knowledge, medicine, science, and experimentation to heal, as opposed to direct divine agency. A real divide here was evident between Simpson’s supernaturalism and the willingness of other evangelicals and Americans at large to use developments in medicine or knowledge as additional tools of God to accomplish the same ends. When he was a fresh

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and vehement convert to divine healing, Simpson seemed to signal his belief that natural means were prohibited for true believers: divine healing was the “divine prescription for disease, and no obedient Christian can safely ignore it. Any other method of dealing with sickness is unauthorized. This is God’s plan.”70 In an 1885 article, Simpson contrasted the presentation of the body for healing to the Lord and the presentation of the body for healing to “secular” and “worldly” medical cures as almost like contrasting offerings of worship: “A body thus presented to God,” by contrast, “will not be placed in the hands of a godless physician, deluged with poisonous drugs, or tortured with surgical experiments. Nor will it be left to be the victim of impure humor and enfeebling infirmities.”71 The salient issue for Christians, according to Simpson, would be who got the glory. Even though healing by claiming the promise of Christ involved the active decision of the believer, the efficacy and reality of the outcome could only be attributed to God. In the case of modern medicine and other means, humans would attempt to confiscate and usurp some of the glory. The believer who recognized the reality of divine healing would “at once abandon all remedies and medical treatment. God has become the physician, and He will not give His glory to another.” The contestation between God’s glory and human glory cohered with the whole dichotomy of grace and works, spirit and flesh, supernatural and natural prevalent in this religious sensibility. Mixing “natural and the spiritual, the earthly and the heavenly, the works of man and the grace of God” would be like expecting “to harness a tortoise with a locomotive,” in one of Simpson’s famously vivid rhetorical images.72 Not content just to present the positive case, Simpson countered the arguments that were typically offered by other evangelicals in support of using natural means for healing. Searching the scriptures, the exclusive basis for true authority, Simpson found that God nowhere supported “medical means” and that believers had “no right to infer” that drugs were divinely sanctioned means for healing. Simpson had become so convinced by the basic pattern of scripture that he would not be dissuaded: “God has not prescribed medicine” in any discernable way in the Bible. By contrast, God had provided a biblical way of healing: “He has prescribed another way in the Name of Jesus, and provided for it in the atonement, appointed an ordinance to signalize it, and actually commanded and enjoined it.”73 The other theological arguments that evangelicals had put forward in favour of natural means were possible as far as they went, but for Simpson they were not founded on the rock of scripture, and so were, at best, always uncertain.

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Simpson later came to nuance this absolutist view through subsequent experience. As his teaching progressed, Simpson grappled with the role of natural means, and in later writings embedded hints that he was growing more hesitant to categorically rejecting them: “We do not imply that the medical profession is null, or the use of it is always wrong. There may be … innumerable cases where faith is not possible and medical means have a limited value.” Again, he later conceded, there were “instances where faith cannot be exercised. And if natural means have – as they do have – a limited value, there is ample room for their employment in these cases,” even though there was a “more excellent way.” That natural and medicinal means were available through God’s providence, Simpson eventually tolerated, but they were only partial and temporary remedies in any case. They did not deal with the problem of malady in a radical enough way.74 Insofar as natural means of healing and medical science were “true and really established,” Simpson nuanced, “Divine Healing has no quarrel with it.” Even here, though, Simpson couldn’t resist the jab that the “contradictions of its own leaders render it very difficult to determine” (a cheap shot that would be dramatically countered by the transformation of medicine in the twentieth century, to be sure). Despite whatever benefits natural healing gave, it also had an “absolute limitation.” These were inferior and sub-biblical approaches, to be used “where His people are not ready to go farther and adopt His full way, on account often of misapprehension.” Prayer while under medical care could still be used by God to heal as an emergency measure. But this was only a tepidly faithful approach: “Divine Healing is not in any sense natural. It works on another set of chords altogether. It comes through spiritual forces, not natural functions. It is the direct, supernatural agency of God without means.” Ordinary tendencies of believers to rely on normal and natural means was “where Christians err.” Simpson concluded that, in this, most of his fellow evangelicals did not have a “right understanding of the Word of God.” Those believers “limit the power of God by their unbelief.” But the “blessed truth” of divine healing, which “has so long been obsolete, so perverted and denied that many fail to grasp it,” was being reclaimed by faith in Simpson’s generation, and he believed it would become an inalienable, even if subordinate, part of the Christian heritage.75 Simpson epitomized his teaching and practice of divine healing, and integrated it with the other themes of his Fourfold Gospel, in the following paradigmatic and pregnant passage:

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The true doctrine of complete redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ is most humbling, holy and practical; it exalts no man, it spares no sin, it offers no promises to the disobedient, it gives no strength for selfish indulgence or worldly ends, but it exalts the name of Jesus, glorifies God, inspires the soul with faith and power, summons to a life of self denial and holy service, and awakens a slumbering Church, and an unbelieving world, with the solemn signals of a living God and a returning Master.76 Having unfurled this sophisticated and differentiated biblical theology of divine healing that had its crucial basis in the ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – and as an anticipation of the resurrection body – Simpson clung to this teaching throughout his ministerial career.77 This aspect of his teaching would prove most controversial among other evangelicals, but it would dramatically influence not only the holiness movement but also the pentecostal movement from the US to Canada and throughout the world.78 Many of Simpson’s early followers claimed to have been truly healed, as they understood it in their own context. And even others who didn’t have the same experience found his teaching powerful and compelling. It would be anachronistic to evaluate Simpson’s teachings by the astounding progress of medical science in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, there remains the cultural question: if Simpson had been more influential in his rejection of medical means within evangelicalism, would that not have recklessly and deleteriously hindered some of the life-extending medical research that did in fact develop? During Simpson’s era, medicine as a profession was still quite unstable and unreliable, about as likely to hurt as to help, and that was one significant contributing factor in the fascination with divine healing. At the time, moreover, divine healing probably saved some patients from the worst abuses of medical quackery or pseudo-science then on offer, while most of the truly remarkable advances of medicine still lay in the future. But medicine was on the verge of making those tremendous strides – including as one of the most effective tools of the Christian missions that Simpson championed. Simpson’s theology, in this case, simply prevented him from anticipating or interpreting this reality. Within Christian culture, moreover, the problematic nature of Simpson’s teaching became evident both in restricting and limiting God’s action to the exotic sphere of activity outside of natural medical developments, and in promoting an overly realized eschatology of

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bodily healing – insufficiently attentive to the not-yet dimension of redemption and so inescapably bound, in many cases, to disappoint and disillusion expectant believers wherever illness continued in its affliction.

Apocalypse of the Lord A final, essential element in the matrix of late-nineteenth-century conservative evangelicalism in general, and of Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel in particular, was the doctrine of premillennialism: Jesus as “coming king,” as Simpson sloganized it. Premillennialism concerned Christian beliefs about the end times (eschatology) and how the human story of the world in history would conclude in relation to the biblical kingdom of God. Some Christians were especially absorbed by what role the return of Jesus would play in the story of the world’s culmination and whether certain biblical prophecies, if as of yet unfulfilled, allowed them to anticipate it. A key component of eschatological intrigue revolved around the biblical emblem of the “millennium,” a thousand-year period of the reign of Christ that would close the curtain on the world’s history. The belief that this term referred to a literal, historical period that would occur on earth became a position called millennialism. In the early church, various theories circulated about how to interpret eschatological ambiguities, and among those who took the literal view, premillennialism was one viable option. Gradually, however, the view that the millennium should be interpreted symbolically, allegorically, or spiritually (in the manifold senses of scripture) – and not literally – came to the fore. The symbolic view of the millennium then became entrenched as the predominant position of the church for centuries. Virulent millenarianism in its various iterations, however, never entirely disappeared. Periodically, certain Christian leaders and theologians captivated by the eschatological imagination had difficulty restraining the temptation to fix end times doctrine to specific dates and events in history that had occurred or were occurring. These leaders thought they could predict the end of the world based on rigorous interpretation or calculation, and especially during times of dramatic historical change or dates of chronological significance their teachings would often entrance followers. In America, one notorious case was William Miller, a Baptist convert preacher who made fastidious calculations of all the temporal references in scripture from Genesis onward. Miller attempted to harmonize the entire chronology of the Bible and to coordinate his scheme with the prophesies therein. As a result, Miller became

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convinced that he knew for certain that the end of the world was coming in March of 1844. Excitement surged as Miller propagated his teaching in an estimated 4,500 lectures in front of maybe half a million people between his “discovery” in 1831 and the ominous year 1844, but a “great disappointment” arose when the days came and went. Undeterred, Miller tried to recalibrate to consider previously overlooked variables like a “tarrying time,” and ventured again that 22 October 1844 was the day of the Lord’s return. And anticipations commenced once again. Even after a few more botched attempts, Miller died in the assurance that the day of Christ’s return could potentially be predicted, and was sometime soon, only he did not yet have the calculations sufficiently precise enough. Attempts to predict the specific date of Christ’s return would have a spectacular career in America; Miller was not the first and would certainly not be the last.79 Thus far, the success rate for predictions has held steady at zero per cent. By contrast, the Westminster Confession, in which Simpson had been raised and trained at Knox College, dealt laconically with matters of eschatology, blending a determined agnosticism about the dates and times with a fierce commitment to expectancy nonetheless: “As Christ would have us … certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment … so will He have that day unknown to men, that they may … be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen.”80 Still, as Reformed theology reached the shores of America, millennial expectation and urgency played an influential role in shaping the whole national identity, because the question continually recurred whether America herself was a bearer of some special millennial role. The Puritans from John Cotton to Cotton Mather probed this sphere of speculation, as millennial associations with America’s identity continued to infuse the political rhetoric surrounding liberty and destiny up through the Revolution.81 In this case, as in many others, Jonathan Edwards shaped American theology through the sheer power and beauty of his intellectual program. His optimistic version of “postmillennialism” became the dominant position within American Protestantism – with nuances – for over a century. The “post” in postmillennialism meant that the coming of Christ was expected to occur after the thousand-year reign of the millennium had taken place. Until such time, there would be a gradual progress and expansion of Christian faith and an increasing conformity of the world to kingdom values that would ultimately usher in the return of Christ. This view exercised a profound influence on American culture, as its adherents were compelled to

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transform the entire world, including sinful social structures, by ameliorating society. Abolitionism, educational reform, temperance, women’s rights, prison reform, social work, missions societies were all movements that drew at least some inspiration from this social view. This was an eschatology ideally tailored to the new republic: “with all of America intoxicated with Arminian selfdetermination, an air of optimism about the perfectibility both of humanity and society prevailed,” and so postmillennialism “complemented nicely the Enlightenment’s sanguine appraisal of human potential.”82 Simpson was part of the generation of evangelicals, however, who transitioned from postmillennial to largely premillennial beliefs, with considerable ramifications for American culture. A basic change in eschatological beliefs may seem marginal compared to larger societal trends. However, as one early convert to premillennialism (though later a de-convert), David Brown, wrote, the premillennial orientation “stops not till it has pervaded with its own genius the entire system of one’s theology, and the whole tone of his spiritual character, constructing … a world of its own.”83 At the turn of the century, premillennialists in America would indeed fashion a religious and cultural world of their own. While postmillennialism continued to influence currents in Protestant liberalism and the social gospel, and took political form in the progressive program of Woodrow Wilson, revivalist evangelicals began to emphasize that the broader society was clearly deteriorating, not improving. The transition from postmillennialism to premillennialism has often been interpreted in the broader cultural understanding as a withdrawal. That was not quite accurate. Premillennial evangelicals didn’t withdraw from holding revivals, ministering to the society, interacting with their society, or even from championing certain social ministries. The crucial shift was in how they interacted. There was a dramatic shift in the perceived stance of premillennial Christians toward the aggregate of American civilization that was more antagonistic and confrontational. Even while America institutions were pluralizing, and beginning the process of secularization, the postmillennial tendency was largely to baptize manifestations of the emerging cultural order. Premillennialists, by contrast, saw storm clouds. They adumbrated apostasy and declension, and emphasized mostly decay and degeneration. The way they interacted with the culture would continue to drive them apart from the major trends in American society at large.84 Premillennialism has been highlighted by many religious historians as the decisive element of what became the “fundamentalist” coalition in the twentieth century. It was certainly an important element, and a transformative

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element, but as Simpson revealed, premillennialism was also situated within a larger network of trends and relationships that were shaping an emerging conservative evangelical culture, such as holiness, divine healing, and revivalist innovations. Eschatological doctrine was one node in greater web. In one sense, premillennialists had built-in mechanisms to shield their beliefs from disconfirmation. Despite the brazenness with which some of them volunteered specific predictions, they could always fall back on the dodge that no specific dates were given in the Bible. All the while, premillennialists were resourceful at discovering new pessimistic signs and new historical events as the true referents for their prophecies; there was never a shortage of gloomy material in human and natural history as grist for the prophetic mill. Nevertheless, because of the uncertainty of specific predictions (precisely when it was the very specific predictions that gave their claims sociological energy) and because of the continual disappointment of particular prognostications, premillennial beliefs could never have sustained themselves merely on their own. They required the religious energy derived from other practices and beliefs, the affirmation of other conversions, the success of missions, the validation of holiness, the radical confirmatory signs of something like a divine healing singularity, or a remarkable act of God in order to reinvigorate the constant expectation. The premillennial aspect, even on its own, was nevertheless an intoxicating one. The transmission and popularization of premillennialism in the American context had been energized especially by the work of James H. Brookes (1830–1897), a Presbyterian minister from St Louis and friend of Simpson’s. Taking over what came to be called the “Niagara Bible Conferences,” Brookes shepherded these meetings to explore various prophecy and millennial themes, along with publishing the journal Truth from 1875. Through Brookes’s ministry, D.L. Moody was won over to a mild version of premillennial teaching and continued to disseminate it at his own Northfield Conferences in Massachusetts, while other centres proliferated. A kind of classic origin story for premillennialists in America was the providential encounter of A.T. Pierson with George Müller on a train in 1878. Pierson invited Müller to spend ten days with him in Detroit, and was converted to premillennialism after being left dumbstruck by Müller’s forcefully persuasive interpretation of the Bible.85 Having been initially converted to the premillennial position back during the Louisville Revival in 1874 under the influence of Whittle, an avid premillennialist, Simpson himself attended the Niagara Bible Conference gathering in 1877 at Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where he claimed to have had a visceral vision of the “wretched Chinese.” The vision

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led him for a time to consider becoming a full-time missionary to China, but in any case demonstrated the intimate connection that Simpson maintained between premillennialism and his commitment to missions.86 At that time, his shift had not yet permeated his theology and ministry in the way it later would, and he was still hopeful that the institutions of the church would improve. It was his subsequent conversion to divine healing, the resignation of his Presbyterian ministry, and his declining confidence in the capacity of a worldly church and a tainted society to effect true spiritual change that seemed to precipitate his more concerted dalliances with premillennialism and prophecy.87 In an 1885 retrospective, Simpson described his own transition to premillennialism. A key factor was the implausibility of the amelioration of society that postmillennialism had promised. “I came to see,” Simpson confessed, “that the idea of the growth of a spiritual millennium was unscriptural; the world was becoming worse and worse.” The widespread acceptance of the gospel and the social spread of Christianity was “nowhere recognized in the Bible as the personal coming of Christ.” As Simpson would later crystalize it, “a holy, happy world will not be waiting to welcome its King” when the time comes.88 Another key inflection point for Simpson had been reading his old childhood influence H. Grattan Guinness’s hefty 700-page tome – complete with detailed charts and tables – on premillennialism, prophecy, and how the biblical predictions all had identifiable historical referents, a work so formally prodigious in scholarship that Guinness was elected fellow of two Royal Societies, even by those who mostly thought the content of the work bunk.89 This encounter set Simpson off on his own prophecy vigil. His scheme attempted to associate all the biblical prophecies to known historical events, in order to be able to calculate the corresponding dates. Like all of his cohort, it was manifestly evident to Simpson that the papacy was the whore of Babylon figure of Revelation 17, so much so that he was oblivious as to how much this was an extra-biblical assumption given his movement’s own hermeneutical principles. This identification, in any case, provided one of the keys to reading all history. Simpson employed the prophecy group’s ingeniously meticulous calculations, which relied on literalist or quasi-literalist (day-year) interpretations of biblical numerology, to decode the mesmerizing “encyclopedic puzzle” of the Bible.90 Taking Roman Emperor Justinian I’s reign as the time of the final apostasy of the church, Simpson inferred that the “first blow” the whore of Babylon had suffered occurred 1,260 years later in 1790, the year of the French Revolution. The “second blow” had come in 1870, when Rome

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had been stripped of the Papal States. These events had all been elaborately (and, tortuously) coordinated with the prophecies of Daniel’s symbology for the beasts, the empires, the weeks, Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, together with Revelation’s seven scrolls and vials. These identifications eventually led Simpson to float the year 1920 as a “date that may be marked by one more probably fatal stroke in the complete destruction of the ecclesiastical system [of Rome], whose temporal power has already passed away.” In general, Simpson tended to be more circumspect and flexible about his specific prognostications than some of his fellow interpreters. The sections of prophecy “still future,” he qualified, “must be interpreted reverently and carefully.” But about the broad contours of the scheme he was utterly convinced. “This is all very plain,” he wrote earnestly, “if we are willing to believe our Bibles as they read.”91 Of all the “signs of the times” that Simpson associated with biblical prophecy – the political, the Jewish, the intellectual, the moral, the religious – he suspected that they were all converging during his generation. The prophetic cycle was rising to crescendo, and the end was near.92 The outcome of this doctrine, for Simpson, was not merely speculative. It was eminently practical. Premillennialism, most importantly, gave impetus for believers both to evaluate their own spiritual situation and to engage in evangelism and mission with desperate resolve. “Let us work and watch as men who wait for the Lord,” he urged, as those who “are perhaps closing the last generation and century of the Christian age. We can hasten the coming of the Lord.” The premillennial return of the Lord, then, inspired the hope of the whole work of the church. It was the “glorious culmination of all other parts of the gospel.” Reorienting Christian spirituality and practice around this expectation, Simpson affirmed that believers continually lived under the “power of the gospel of the future and the blessed and purifying hope of Christ’s glorious return.” The literal view of the millennium, and of Christ personally returning before its advent, had to do with the entirety of the Bible in the believer’s life, Simpson taught: “If this be not a literal coming … and millennium, then we do not know what our Bibles mean.”93 Simpson, therefore, thought that this doctrine was crucial. Nevertheless, he still placed it fourth in priority among his four cardinal doctrines, below conversion, sanctification, and healing, and for the first decade or so of the C&MA, he refused to make it a condition of membership, as long as those who dissented from it did not foster controversy or disunity. In a trend towards evangelical enforcement of the boundaries, however, later in the history of the C&MA those who did not subscribe to premillennialism were demoted to

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“auxiliary members” of the body, though Simpson was always insistent about promoting leniency when it came to issues on which he thought scripture was not absolutely clear.94 With premillennialism, the circle of the Fourfold Gospel was complete – from the beginning of the Christian life to its end. Simpson was often viewed as not much of a systematic thinker, but a pastoral theologian who emphasized practical ministry even when that overflowed the bounds of the church’s theology. There was some truth to that. An analysis of the elements of his Fourfold Gospel, however, also revealed that Simpson’s ideological program demonstrated a high degree of interrelation. Premillennialism influenced his views of gospel conversion, the church’s mission, and divine healings were a sign of it. Sanctification related to divine healing. And so on. The interrelation was discernable from all the elements of the Fourfold Gospel’s underlying reliance on dramatic, supernatural divine activity and grace. They were also all unified, significantly, by his program’s grounding in an intensified biblical literalism, one that increasingly refused to coordinate the claims of scripture with other emerging scientific knowledge about the world or to regulate the interpretation of scriptural meaning in accordance with the doctrinal and confessional heritage of the church. This novel devotional and spiritual package, therefore, was itself reinforced by the older heritage of evangelical sensibilities. Since Simpson believed that this package, the full gospel, had been finally made known in his own age, it was likely that he and his fellow conservative evangelicals were living in the turning point of the ages. If the end was near, the conscience of Simpson’s hearers would be pierced to confront their eternal destiny with belief, while those who were already believers would be inspired to more active evangelism and missions. Participation in the conditions for the hastening of the end of the world and the culmination of history gave Simpson’s followers a deep and profound sense of meaning – personal involvement in a project of epic historical and spiritual proportions, in the midst of an alienating world.

CHAPTER EIGHT

To the Ends of the Earth

All four doctrinal elements that Simpson combined into his Fourfold Gospel were crucial in animating his thought, but the larger goal had always been evangelism and missions: to announce the basic message of Christian salvation to anyone and everyone who hadn’t heard it and to welcome into the fold those who hadn’t been reached by the institutional church’s traditional programs. Conversion, the deeper life, divine healing, and premillennial belief all drove towards practical outcomes. They would all lead every believer into more engaged work in missions and would serve as signs to the world of evangelical Christianity’s power. Even in receiving divine healing, for example, the purpose was not merely to claim Christ’s promise of restoration for one’s own body, but always also to be equipped to go out and participate in Christ’s activity in the world as a result. To fail to take this last step of service and ministry would be to undermine the significance of one’s being healed, even though Simpson considered that an important experience on its own. As the early C&MA would describe its practical ethos, this organization existed “for the purpose of uniting Christian fellowship and testimony, in a purely fraternal alliance … consecrated Christians in the various evangelical churches … uniting their effort in the special aggressive work of world-wide evangelisation.”1 Simpson challenged his readers: “Are thou doing what the Master expects to spread the Fourfold Gospel, or art thou wasting much strength on worldly or lifeless methods of Christian work.”2 In this way, the doctrines of this emerging stream of conservative evangelicalism would be put in service to transmitting that faith to the ends of the earth.

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Beginning from Jerusalem That witnessing would begin from what was, for Simpson and the C&MA, the Jerusalem of the Gospel Tabernacle in New York City. The Gospel Tabernacle was the independent mission congregation at the origin of Simpson’s work, from which the other structures and ministries of the C&MA would be launched. During its early sojourns, the Tabernacle migrated between locations at the Caledonia Hall, the Grand Opera Hall, the 23rd Street Armory, the Abby Park Theatre, and Madison Square Garden, as well as under portable gospel tents on the street during the summers. The Tabernacle found its first long-term rental location in 1884 on 23rd Street. By 1889, the congregation had expanded to the point where it was able to purchase its own space. Designs for the Gospel Tabernacle materialized in a property on the southeast corner of 8th Avenue and 44th Street. The floorplan included theatre seating with a main stage and capacity for up to 1,000. The building was pledged by faith giving. Probably recalling his Louisville funding debacle, Simpson hoped to dedicate the space to the glory of God free of debt. The congregation didn’t quite reach their goal initially; by the following year, $20,000 was outstanding on a total mortgage of $140,000. But that was still a very significant portion raised by faith pledges. Throughout the 1890s, the Gospel Tabernacle was an active congregation. They held services twice on the Sabbath, midweek services on Monday and Wednesday nights, daily chapel at 4 p.m., and the famous Friday meetings at 8 p.m. focused especially on divine healing and anointing ministries. Simpson preached there regularly throughout his career, though he also hosted a rotating cavalcade of other evangelical preachers in his pulpit over the years. By the turn of the century, the Tabernacle boasted an active membership of 1,400, a total cumulative membership passing through its doors of 2,000, and had welcomed a host of other guests and attendees to special events.3 Another ministry intimately connected to the work of the Gospel Tabernacle from the earliest years was the Manhattan retreat centre and divine healing house called Berachah Home. The title Berachah came from the Old Testament Hebrew word for “blessing” in 2 Chronicles 20:26. This “house of healing” and “valley of blessing” was designed as a space for rest, respite, and rejuvenation in general, as well as to promote and practise the teachings of divine healing specifically. At services, meetings, and conventions, Simpson would preach about divine healing, offer prayer, lay hands on folks, and anoint with oil. But a dedicated space to the ministry of healing provided a forum for

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Figure 8.1 Inside of the Gospel Tabernacle, New York City, New York.

withdrawal. Berachah, through its consecration of place, facilitated a holistic formation in the teaching and practices of divine healing. By the 1890s, an estimated thirty such healing homes had been established in the United States among practitioners of the divine healing movement, including centres such as Cullis’s Faith Cure Home in Boston, Mary Mossman’s Faith Cottage at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, Sarah Beck’s Kemuel Home in Philadelphia, Carrie Judd’s Faith Rest Cottage in Buffalo, and the House of Healing in Brooklyn, along with Simpson’s Berachah in Manhattan. Women were very often the founders or the managers of these homes, suggesting that the divine healing movement harnessed changing notions of female-embodied spirituality, mental strengthening, and physical rejuvenation during this transitional period of gender views, even as the allure of these spaces also drew on the ubiquitous nineteenth-century American cultural icon of the home. “If the associations and examples of an earthly home have often led the young heart to emulate and follow the good and great,” Simpson wrote about Berachah Home in an editorial, “how much more may this … be the case in a household where Christ lives in the bodies and spirits of all.” Even with this connection to the home, however, Simpson still contrasted the natural form of rest that was

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available in the familial home with the superior supernatural and spiritual rest that the faith home would provide.4 Simpson had established the first iteration of Berachah in his own personal home at 331 West 34th Street in 1883. By 1890, Berachah obtained its own building dedicated to the ministry at 250 West 44th Street, with a carefully designed floor plan to house 100 guests in a curated environment of retreat. Berachah Home would be a place where “the power of the Lord is present to save, sanctify, and heal in a most glorious and abundant measure.” Such spatial removal for these purposes was even compared to something like a new monasticism. For the evangelicals of the Alliance, of course, the old Catholic monasticism included many grave abuses. But Simpson averred that at the heart “of the Monastic life there lies,” as with “every error,” also a powerful “great truth.” In this case, the truth that evangelical houses of healing could learn from the monastic life was that “we need retirement and separation for a season of communion with God.”5 Indeed, faith houses have been analyzed as truly “sacred spaces,” in which the entrants could detach themselves from worldly and secular patterns of living and thinking with regard to health and healing, in order to be re-catechized and reoriented according to the practices and beliefs of a common rule of life among those who likewise experienced and believed in divine healing.6 As Simpson illuminatingly wrote in 1886: The advantages of such a home are very great. It affords to persons seeking a deeper spiritual life or divine healing, a season of entire rest, seclusion from the distractions of their ordinary life, and often from uncongenial surroundings. It brings them into an atmosphere full of fresh and simple faith and love. It brings them face to face with persons who are constantly receiving the touch of God in their souls and bodies, and whose living testimony is full of inspiration and encouragement. It brings them directly under careful and personal religious teaching from God’s word. And, above all, it is the home of God, where He has chosen to dwell, and manifest Himself to His children, and where He will meet in some way … each of His waiting children.7 All the key aspects of the healing homes were evident in this passage. They existed as a place of removal from tainted society, a place of encouragement, of formation and training in the ways of divine healing, and an encounter with consecrated space and time.

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The daily operations and care of Simpson’s Berachah House were given over to Sarah Lindenberger, a longtime deaconess of the Alliance. Lindenberger, a prominent woman in the early history of the movement, wrote often about the work of Berachah House in the C&MA periodical, and she published her own book on divine healing, under the auspices of the Alliance publishing operation, entitled Streams from the Valley of Berachah in 1893.8 The same pages that described the work of Berachah featured a cavalcade of testimonies to healings that had taken place there or were associated with that work. Testimony was a key ingredient in Simpson’s ministry, but especially in the work of divine healing. “The value of testimonies upon this subject cannot be questioned,” Simpson wrote. “They are entirely Scriptural. And they often bring the Gospel down to the personal level and contact of the sufferer as mere abstract teaching cannot do.” On the other hand, Simpson strove to avoid sensationalism: “But they should always be simple, modest, as impersonal as possible, and illustrate principles.” Still being influenced by a type of Baconian evidentialism, Simpson argued that the testimonies for divine healing were irrefutable evidence of its reality. Testimonies could further be used against those evangelicals who denied contemporary divine healing by comparing them to the miracles of Christ recorded in the Bible: “The evidence on which rest the genuineness of hundreds of cases, at the present day, of healing the most virulent diseases by the direct power of God, through the prayer of faith, is far more clear and conclusive than is the evidence on which rests the genuineness of the miracles of Christ.”9 Furnishing evidence, testimonies also circulated widely to spread beliefs and practices of divine healing by forging a common experience and cohesive group identity. Simpson’s ministry in New York included within its portfolio a multifaceted program of what could be called social work. In contrast to the prevailing view of later twentieth-century fundamentalism that there was a “great reversal” or a marked curtailment of social activity, which had come to be associated with the social gospel and Protestant revisionism, those of Simpson’s generation at the turn of the century were still animated by a profound social concern. A fully yawning chasm had not yet emerged between individual salvation and social transformation, as it would to a greater extent in the modernist clashes of the subsequent decades. Holiness, especially in Simpson’s early ministry, still retained its social dimension. The victorious life still included lifting people out of poverty and weaning them off of vices that were causing considerable social disintegration. The Salvation Army was the paradigmatic holiness movement in this respect. As Simpson described it, “The Salvation [Army] is God’s protest

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against religion for the classes, and God’s plea for the gospel for the masses.”10 But Simpson’s C&MA was also significantly involved in social concern, and the engagement with social concern by those in Simpson’s cadre belied the standard narrative that premillennialists were necessarily apathetic abandoners of social ministry due to their belief that the world and society were simply deteriorating before the return of Christ. Some premillennialists, who espoused what has been called “antagonistic premillennialism,” did indeed believe that any endeavour to improve the world socially was a demonic distraction and a compromise with a false gospel. Refracting the spectrum of premillennial relationship to social concern, however, revealed that others, even if they had relinquished the notion that society could be perfected into the kingdom, never gave up on providing social welfare, offering relief to those who were suffering, and alleviating the effects of social corruption as part of the responsibility of their own discipleship and as a manifestation of the consecrated life. Simpson has been interpreted as an emblematic example of this type of “relief or symptomatic premillennialism,” and others in his network acted likewise.11 While certain varieties of premillennialism led decisively away from social and cultural concern, it has also been shown that nineteenth-century “historicist” premillenialists (i.e., those who believed that prophecies were fulfilled in history, similarly to Simpson), had actually forged bonds with robust social activism and reconfigured the dichotomies of time and eternity, heaven and earth, body and spirit to ground social reform. To these premillenialists, part of what it meant for historical events to anticipate the arrival of the millennium was for them to manifest social justice.12 Simpson certainly undertook social engagement on different terms, and expected different outcomes, than did the earlier evangelical social activists, the social gospelers, or the secularizing social workers like Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago. He did not envision large-scale structural change or press for broad political reorganization. Even while prioritizing individual salvation as paramount, however, Simpson’s ministry still had significant social ramifications, often confronting traditional social demarcations and social hierarchies. Sometimes, this could be more accurate of the Alliance in rhetoric than in practice, when their congregations typically attracted those from the middle classes. But among the Alliance’s multifaceted activities, there were consistently “rescue missions” to the poor, “highway missions,” havens for prostitutes or “fallen women,” visitations to prisoners, mitigations of the domestic violence and economic drain associated with alcohol abuse,

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extensions of love and concern to suffering individuals, and a host of benevolent auxiliary ministries. Individual Alliance members were also inspired to serve extensively with hospitals, almshouses, and charitable institutions all over the city. On an organizational level, C&MA social work centred around Berachah Orphanage, a mission that aided street kids and served those who “have nothing, the fatherless orphans, the destitute widows and strangers.” Such ministry, as Simpson saw it, provided opportunity to live out the gospel mission, “to help and do good, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, to help the needy” in service of Christ.13 Even if a somewhat functionalized view of social concern, Simpson still recognized the reality that believers “cannot present the gospel to a hungry man with any hope of success until you have ministered to his physical wants.” To live the Christ life fully would be to also have Christ’s special relationship to the poor and lowly, to “make the poor feel that you care for them, and that [Christ] has given you new views of life and duty” towards them.14

Expanding Horizons From the work in the Jerusalem of the Gospel Tabernacle in New York, Simpson’s influence spread throughout the Judea and Samaria of North America. Originally concentrated in the urban centres of the Northeast and Canada, but also with outposts in rural areas, Simpson’s ministry proliferated. The expansion of the C&MA movement was fuelled chiefly by the Alliance’s practice of holding “conventions,” protracted events of revival, retreat, spiritual, social, and communal formation that had their prototypes in the old Scottish holy fair communion festivals and the new ecclesial configurations pioneered by the camp meeting movement. The granddaddy of the Alliance conventions was the perennial one at Old Orchard, Maine, in the summer. It was out of the energy of the Old Orchard Conventions that the first institutions of the Christian Alliance and the Evangelical Missionary Alliance had originally been forged, and every August for decades the C&MA held its enlivening national gathering there. During the height of the Alliance’s presence, around the turn of the century, the Old Orchard convention attracted as many as 10,000 people to the open air grounds: Alliance folk from around the country, Christians from various denominations, local residents, and curious onlookers seeking entertainment or intrigue.15 These gatherings often generated vast sums of money given for the stated purposes of evangelism and missions – an aspect the media loved to fixate on fetishistically. The 1896 Old

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Orchard and New York conventions raked in an astonishing $112,000 and $122,000, respectively, in one week (somewhere in the vicinity of $3 million in 2019 adjusted figures).16 Simpson’s conventions were part revivalistic evangelicalism leading to conversion or recommitment, part conduit for exploration of the distinctive teachings of the Fourfold Gospel, and part mobilization for dedicated Christian service. The conventions drew people out of comfortable places and routines, surrounded them with like-minded believers for communal fellowship and existential encouragement in uniquely curated atmospheres of transformative experience, and served as sacred times of spiritual summit designed to reinvigorate whatever had become torpid and complacent, revivifying dry bones. According to one admirer, the Alliance conventions blended the “fervor of the old time camp ground, the sweet fellowship of the Keswick meetings, the strong message of the best Bible conferences, the inspiration of prophetic gatherings, the aggressive note of evangelistic campaigns, and the world vision of missionary convocations” all together in one potent spiritual amalgam. Moreover – again from the perspective of a devoted participant – they were a classic expression of Simpson’s own alluring ministerial ethos, “his simplicity, his humility, his graciousness, his freedom, his brotherliness, his deep insight into truth, his conservatism, his breadth of vision, his passion, and his supreme devotion to Christ to pervade the very atmosphere.”17 Another participant described the earliest Old Orchard conventions in the following way: “the waves of blessing began to roll in at high tide and continued to increase in power and fullness until the very end.”18 A typical program for a convention looked something like the following: 6.30 am: Prayer meeting 8.00 am: Meeting for the workers 9.00 am: Quiet Hour Service 10.00 am: Messages on Deeper Truth and Life [the distinctive Fourfold Gospel] 1.30 pm: Children’s meeting 2.00 pm: Missionary address 3.00 pm: Biblical address on some spiritual theme 5.00 pm: Meeting for inquiry [question and answer, probing] 7.00 pm: Youth meeting 8.00 pm: Evangelistic revival service.19

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The conventions would also include special times dedicated to anointing of the sick, baptizing converts, and private devotion time. All the elements of Simpson’s spiritual program cohered, and yet there were also times during the convention apportioned to different interests and different demographics. As Simpson himself extolled the significance of the Old Orchard conventions for his ministry, “Old Orchard has done more to establish our work than a thousand [other] meetings could have done.”20 Along with the Old Orchard convention, a second annual national convention was typically held during autumn at the Gospel Tabernacle in New York. Flowing out of that, Simpson was peppered with invitations to hold similar gatherings in places like Brooklyn, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto. Initially, these were held in conjunction with the work of local ministers and associated with various Protestant churches. As the C&MA developed its own organizational infrastructure, local chapters of the Alliance would typically hold their own conventions and districts their own regional conventions, all leading up to the two national ones. By 1890, C&MA branches or affiliates were hosting fifty such conventions throughout the US, including conventions in Ohio, Bluffton, Pennsylvania, and Grand Rapids, with a significant presence in Canada as well. With providential fittingness, the C&MA convention based at Oberlin, Ohio, met in Charles Finney’s old church.21 What attracted people to these conventions, in Simpson’s assessment, was that they didn’t only focus on doctrinal or informational truth (although that was important). They were manifestations of “power” and concretizations of existential reality: “The great intention of these gatherings is not however simply to speak the truth, but to show it forth in living power.” The shift, according to the partisans, was from learning about Christ, as one did in so many other Christian meetings, to encountering Christ himself, “impressing not so much His truth as Himself upon us. Most of us have been weaned away from mere doctrines and statements of truth … to have our hearts resting on Him.” In stirring existential language, Simpson described the lure of the conventions: “we are here to open our beings and drink in His life in all its fullness.” Those who had felt their being cracked open and Christ’s water deluging them would want to return to the fount again and again, and bring others along with them. All in all, Simpson wrote towards the end of his career, the liturgy of the conventions were among the “vital centers of Alliance work.”22 Even while the excitement of the conventions overflowed the strict boundaries of the Alliance movement, they also left more stable Alliance

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communities constituted in their wake. That the Alliance was reticent to identify itself as a denomination meant that its own formal membership was fluid, but stable C&MA local churches (called “auxiliary branches”) still emerged for those who saw the Alliance as their primary spiritual home. For those who wanted to identify first and foremost with the Alliance and its Fourfold Gospel teaching and spirituality, membership cards were sent out to concretize that belonging. Within the first five years, an estimated 7,000 membership cards had been mailed out across the country.23 In addition to individual allegiance, Alliance congregations were established in various cities around the nation to foster common fellowship, worship, and spirituality. Experiencing a period of “enlargement” and concomitantly increasing institutionalization, Alliance churches were particularly numerous in New York, Pennsylvania, New England, Ohio, and later in California, becoming bicoastal.24 Compared to that, the spread of affiliated Alliance branches into the frontier West and the rural South was more sluggish. As Simpson reported in 1890, “work in the South and West has been very imperfect,” especially because the ministries often had an urban feel to them. Nonetheless, by 1900, C&MA conventions had popped up in western cities from Minneapolis to Denver, Helena, Spokane, Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma.25 That same year, an estimated 182 stable Alliance auxiliaries had sprouted all around the country in cities from San Diego, California to Portland, Maine; from Boone, Iowa, to Norman, Oklahoma Territory; and from Rock Springs, Wyoming, to Fort Worth, Texas.26 If the Alliance movement expanded across America, it also immediately demonstrated the already transnational character of evangelicalism by establishing itself across the Canadian border. John Salmon, who embraced divine healing and Fourfold Gospel teachings at a Buffalo Alliance convention, pioneered the establishment of Alliance branches north of the border.27 The first Canadian C&MA convention occurred in February of 1889 and attracted an audience of “several hundred.” An Alliance outreach centre, Bethany Home, was founded in Toronto under the leadership of Mrs R.I. Fletcher and Mrs Griffiths. By 1898, there were Canadian Alliance branches in Hamilton, Galt, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough, Maxville, Wiarton, and Brandon, Manitoba. The influence moved both ways, as both Salmon and W.H. Howland, former mayor of “Toronto the Good” and first president of the C&MA in Canada, became prominent figures in speaking at US Alliance events.28

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Across Cultural Divides In an era when racial lines were hardening once again in America and racialized violence was intensifying, Simpson’s ministry showed a capacity to transcend certain cultural divisions. Reconstruction’s vision of a universal homogenous citizenship that included blacks in theory had largely been abandoned in practice. In the North, white workers feared competition from black labour, while middle-class whites spurned any legitimate social integration. In the South, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case of 1896, adjudicated by libertarian-minded justices, upheld legalized segregation under a “separate but equal” mutiliation of the Fourteenth Amendment – despite the lone, scathing dissent of a converted evangelical John Marshall Harlan. That decision, in practice, allowed a highly unequal and often vicious Jim Crow exclusionary system to entrench itself in the South. Simpson’s own work with the black community extended back to his Presbyterian ministry.29 With his ministry in the Alliance, it became even clearer to Simpson – at least in the ideal case – that the work of the gospel should transgress society’s racial boundaries. Simpson launched a concerted effort for his almost exclusively white ministry to reach out to African Americans in the 1890s. In a racially coded view, but one with values he himself esteemed, he thought that blacks were attracted to the Alliance ethos due to its “warm spiritual life,” one that was particularly “adapted to the temperament of these dear people.” Visiting some of the black Alliance branches in person, Simpson reported that these members appreciated the “heart-stirring truths,” the “deep spirituality,” and the supernatural dynamism of the movement. At the same time, the C&MA recognized that their meetings were still wrestling with racial integration. One editorial on ministry among blacks commented in 1898 that “because of past oppression” causing them reticence in mixed gatherings, “the colored people … feel somewhat backward, and will not press their way into conventions” of predominately white participants.30 Alliance work among blacks thus began along the still-segregated Sunday lines. Simpson and the C&MA, nevertheless, enthusiastically supported black leaders in ministry to their own community and often featured their work in Alliance reports. The Alliance had further invested in educational centres for black students at Boydton, Virginia, and the Lovejoy Missionary Institute in North Carolina.31 Simpson editorialized that some of the “best” Alliance branches were among blacks in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and he praised the efforts of local leaders there. By at least 1908, the leaders of black Alliance

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branches were welcomed into the white national gatherings and their members had begun to participate in some of the regional conventions with white folks as well. At the annual national council of that year, Simpson touted “some of our most gifted and faithful colored brethren” as celebrated pioneers of Alliance work. One key early Alliance leader was Peter Robinson, a hotel waiter in Pittsburgh where the African American C&MA was vibrant. Robinson delivered a speech at the Alliance convention, which Simpson variously described as a “remarkable address,” a “blessing to many,” and an “earnest exhortation.” When Robinson died in 1911, Simpson expressed his “deep sorrow and sympathy” that left him bereft of words “to express our deep sense of his value and of our loss.” “Rev. Peter Robinson,” Simpson eulogized, “was a man of real genius, and extraordinary oratorical gifts.” Simpson lavished praise on his “fervid piety” as one of the C&MA’s “most loyal” leaders. Apparently Robinson had died during one of his own C&MA conventions, spiritual ecstasy perhaps taking its physical toll. He was memorialized by the Alliance for having departed life doing what he loved: praising the Lord with the cry, “Hallelujah! Jesus is Victor,” a “flaming spirit,” for whom “only eternity can reveal how many shall rise up to call blessed” his life and memory.32 Other highly regarded Alliance black leaders were Serena Brown of Cleveland and E.M. Collett, who became foremost of the Alliance’s black workers after the death of Robinson. When Brown died in 1906, Simpson proclaimed her a “woman of remarkable spiritual gifts” who had a “commanding power” in leading spiritual gatherings. The testimony to Brown’s ministry evidenced some beginnings of church integration, as Simpson described her as leading “large meetings where both white and colored women were glad to sit at her feet and catch the sacred fire from her fervid lips.” Brown was furthermore lifted up as an exemplary Alliance saint for her daily practices. On a meagre washerwoman’s salary, she had consistently given “noble” missionary offerings, and her commitment to spreading the gospel rendered her “one of the most blessed types” of Alliance heroes and among the “richest heritage of the Alliance.”33 Collett shepherded a ten-week Alliance campaign in Philadelphia in 1911, and delivered a “most impressive address” to the Alliance national council on the results. In the C&MA’s official annual report of that year, Collett catalogued a whole host of Alliance activities among African Americans in Lenoir, Greensboro, Ayr, and Asheville, North Carolina – including a “great new tabernacle” being erected in Winston-Salem – as well as flourishing ministries in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Homestead, Pennsylvania. Praising not only Alliance leaders, Simpson also occasionally – though not often – commented

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on black leadership in American society, as when he lamented the death of Booker T. Washington (whose mediating, gradualist program of selfadvancement he preferred to the more aggressive one of someone like W.E.B. Du Bois). He described Washington’s legacy as “phenomenal” and eulogized that “his life and character” made the “highest things” possible and “furnished a splendid ideal for his people,” as well witnessed to the “possibilities of true worth on the part of every race and every class.”34 Simpson viewed the type of self-affirmation and self-improvement program of someone like Washington as desirable for the health of American society. Looking forward to the “highest things” possible for black people in America, however, did not for Simpson involve a very deep recognition of how those potentialities were being curtailed by a prejudiced society. The positive relationship of Simpson and the Alliance to those of the black community whom they were able to engage did not result in calls for political or structural change, as the C&MA’s premillennial beliefs disinclined them to optimism that such action would amount to much anyhow. Simpson rarely commented on the contemporary social and political conditions, the legal hurdles, violence, and voter suppression that African Americans endured during the period. On lynchings in particular – and there were thousands of cruel, gruesome, wanton, and brazen ones all around the country but concentrated in the South during Simpson’s career – there was a deafening silence. In one passage, where Simpson referenced a series of lynchings elliptically and tersely, he issued no specific moral evaluation or political comment; these events merely served for him to illustrate, generically, the deteriorating situation of society with its violence.35 Simpson never elaborated on who was doing the lynching, why, or what allowed it to continue. Simpson’s defenders probably would have pointed out that social and political change were not his primary bailiwick; his concern was to save personal souls and lead them into the various facets of deeper individual Christian life. This was belied, however, by the fact that Simpson was willing to comment vociferously on certain political and social issues when they fit his agenda, such as on temperance and prohibition, or on American wars when they fit into his prophetic scheme for world history. On some moral and political issues, then, Simpson did enter the fray of public discourse. Just not on lynching. In her own crusades against lynching, the tireless Ida B. Wells, herself influenced by the revivals of D.L. Moody, became trenchant in her reproach of such cowardly white evangelical silence at the suffering and oppression of African Americans.36 In this context, although Simpson never consciously

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entertained the belief in white superiority of some other conservative evangelicals, he did squander a crucial opportunity to actually combat it by failing to concretize the witness to the reconciliatory power in society of his version of Christianity. Such Christian faith, if authentic, would have to have some social consequences, even if this was not Simpson’s primary emphasis. Nevertheless, the transformative effect on those who became involved in Simpson’s ministry on the inside, within the sphere of the Alliance, should not be underestimated. Typified by Simpson’s somewhat patronizing but honest and sincere refrain, “our dear colored brethren,” the C&MA did believe in black affirmation, advancement, and personal and spiritual (if not political) empowerment, inspired by a radical multicultural vision of the gospel. In an era of retrenching segregation and violence against blacks, Simpson’s commitment to at least partial and incremental integration, to encouragement of black talent, and to the prominent affirmation of black ministry was a countercultural pocket that challenged many of the other Christian churches and sectors of the larger society who had wholly compromised with American cultural hierarchies. Broadly speaking, when the majority of white evangelicals in this era “largely accepted the racial assumptions of the communities in which they lived,” Simpson in some ways subverted debasing assumptions and prejudices, especially about African Americans, and challenged the racialization of such cultural assessments.37 Across other cultural barriers, too, Simpson pioneered mission work among the unprecedented “teeming masses” of immigrants and foreigners who were often characterized as flooding America’s shores or cramming into America’s cities during this period. The C&MA laboured with particular focus among German, Italian, and Jewish immigrants. American leaders and elites were ambivalent about this influx of immigration. On the one hand, the rapidly expanding industrial economy seemed to necessitate stockpiles of cheap labour. On the other hand, traditionalists fretted about the dilution of American culture, the decline of free landholders in favour of wage labourers, the ostensible crime and degrading poverty of the new populations, and especially about the pernicious influence on republicanism of an alleged Catholic hierarchicalism. Alliance work with immigrant and cultural minority communities exhibited some of the same ambivalences as the larger culture. Holiness theology sanctimoniously condemned some of the cultural practices of these groups as sinful or tainted – though, this was not entirely dissimilar to the cultural negotiation that conservative evangelicals felt they had to undergo in their own country among their own people. Even if they were often more

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ready to point out the logs in the eyes of other cultures, they also never spared the speck in the eyes of their own; every culture had its idols to iconoclast. With messianic pretensions, these ministries also sought to “liberate” the majority of these immigrants from the tyranny and darkness of their Catholic faith. Evangelicals never really appreciated how deeply that faith was engrained in immigrant culture. Some Catholics did experience such a liberation in joining the Alliance or other evangelical missions. Many others, however, resented the cultural condescension, found shelter in the identity of their local parish, learned the profound intellectual heritage of their church, and thrived on its rich devotional life, even during a period when the Catholic Church in America itself was increasingly seeing conflict between its traditionalists and those who promoted greater degrees of Americanization.38 Despite behaving in culturally arrogant ways toward immigrant communities, Simpson and the Alliance ministries still served them. They freely offered them aid when they were in trouble, were much more willing to engage immigrants on their own terms and in their own surroundings than the larger culture was, and embraced what cultural practices they could without violating their theological principles. In a radical step for the time, the Alliance conducted its evangelism and ministry in the language of the immigrants, not requiring or expecting that they learn English. This represented a significant step towards a vernacular enfranchisement and idiomatic empowerment on behalf of immigrant groups, as well as something of a modest cultural hospitality. Already by 1887, Simpson had commissioned early Alliance leader A.E. Funk to charter a German-speaking affiliate of the Gospel Tabernacle in New York. Simpson himself exulted that in America the true “praise of God” would be resounding “both in German and English.”39 The Alliance opened its first mission among Italians in a squalid tenement house in Little Italy in 1890. Within five years, they opened a church for Italian believers, in Italian, on 112th Street, as well as a social service home for Italian girls at Tivoli-on-the-Hudson. A dear friend of Simpson’s, and a beacon of the Alliance in its early years, was the Italian evangelist Michele Nardi. A labour contractor, Nardi had been converted through Simpson’s ministry and had enrolled in the Alliance’s Missionary Training College. Upon his death, the Alliance mouthpiece lauded, “his testimony for his Lord stood out with a peculiar brightness. His singular, radiant joy in the Lord, and his unwearying devotion to the task of proclaiming Christ’s Gospel … made our brother’s life a shining testimony … [of ] perpetual praise,” in honour of which Simpson compiled the memorialization, Michele Nardi, the Italian Evangelist (1916).

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In additional to these focused ministries, Alliance-affiliated rescue missions, orphanages, and relief work like the Door of Hope, the South Street/Catherine Street Mission, the Colby Mission, and the Eighth Avenue Mission often served immigrant populations as well.40

Communicating the Message To broadcast his message and disseminate his ministry, Simpson unleashed a veritable tsunami of printed words. Over the course of his career, Simpson churned out hundreds of published books and thousands of pages of printed sermons, tracts, pamphlets, poems, hymns, assorted ephemera, and essays in Alliance periodicals, all in addition to the formal institutional communications of the Alliance (though it bears saying that many of his writings were recycled and his same words were reprinted in various forms). During the zenith of the age of print, publishing was an essential part of Simpson’s ministry and evangelism. Between the dominance of letter writing and oral rhetoric in the early Republic but before the real rise of the image in picture and film and the broadcasted sound of the radio, print was king. Like revivalists before and after, Simpson developed an idiomatic fluency and cultural dexterity in adopting what was a crucial medium of communications and deploying it for evangelistic purposes: the word of God preached in changing conduits of words. His shift to large volumes of public propagation seemed to have been entangled with his changing views of theology and ministry. Simpson viewed his capacity to write large volumes of material as having been supernaturally imparted to him through his experience of divine healing. The Lord for the body was also the Lord for the mind. And Simpson believed that the indwelling, mystical presence of the Lord in his mind was what had supernaturally sharpened him, equipped him, and enabled him to perform a steady regimen of published writing – as he described it, “numberless pages of matter constantly.” Certainly, in his later career, having the very earthly help of Emma Beere, Louise Shepherd, Harriet Waterbury, and Dr J. Hudson Ballard as editorial assistants probably didn’t hurt either.41 While at one point Simpson had been tempted to commercialize his writing as a way of providing a salary for his family, he eventually decided that consecrating his writing as a ministry to God’s service was more appropriate. So all the proceeds from selling his publications went back into supporting Alliance ministries. Somewhat incongruous with his more radical views of “faith work,” and his castigation of the traditional, denominational churches

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for relying on “worldly means” like charging for things to support their ministries, Simpson’s publications – except for the tracts to be distributed freely – did charge up front for service. To his credit, though, that cost was often kept quite low. The periodical sold for between $1 and $1.50 for a year’s subscription, with discounts for ministers, and books were often sold for 10 cents. The periodical also sometimes ran at a loss, and in the early years Simpson had to invest his own personal funds for operations, though later the magazine expanded into advertising to offset costs.42 The centre of Simpson’s publishing dominion was the Alliance publishing house, originating back in 1883. After 1900, the press supported a printing and wholesale operation up at their new suburban grounds in Nyack, while they still operated a retail store and book room in Manhattan. The Alliance publishing house generated income for other Alliance ministries, but it was only on the initial, more modest wave of what in the twentieth century would become a massively enlarging commercial empire of evangelical publishing that merged economic and spiritual networks. Even with their innovations in doctrine, practice, and ministry, Simpson and the Alliance were steeped in a long tradition of Protestant print culture that shaped their writing ministries. Centred on the Bible, but a culture that also celebrated literacy, text, and the word in general, the Alliance’s reading and print culture, as with its supernaturalist doctrine, came to focus more narrowly on thematic religious concerns, but still luxuriated in various types of literature, reading, and learning as spiritual practice. Simpson published his first collection of sermons as a book in 1883. Within the next few years, he had also published a range of volumes: The Gospel of Healing, The King’s Business, The Fullness of Jesus, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Inquiries and Answers, and In the School of Faith. Some of his more influential titles, which he continued to pound out indefatigably and which synthesized a number of Simpson’s various themes, were: A Larger Christian Life (1890), Walking in Love (1892), Is Life Worth Living? (1899), Life More Abundantly (1912) and The Holy Spirit, or Power from on High, in two volumes (1894–96), which many conservative evangelicals regarded as an enduring statement of pneumatology. These books were often collages or patchworks from his earlier sermons or essays.43 Simpson was often at his literary best in the Alliance periodical, crystalizing a potent message with explosive compaction in his accessible and pithy editorials. By 1900, the C&MA journal had an estimated 10,000 subscribers across North America and Europe. The hard copy itself was often used as a physical evangelistic tool, when Alliance folk would buy subscriptions to

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distribute in their communities as a form of ministry – as for example when one Mrs Irwin founded an Alliance affiliate up in Wiarton, Ontario, by doing so.44 In any case, for Simpson writing was a ministry. Through the thousands of pages of the printed word, the hope remained to use this cultural medium of communication to reach as many as possible and to become all things to all people. Despite their largely pejorative view of the current trends in the culture, conservative evangelicals like Simpson often became masters of what they saw as the providential technological advances in communication and transportation that facilitated the spread of their teaching. This was an area in which, despite their general condemnation of the modern world, these leaders made their peace with it and benefitted from modernity. The culture of subsequent fundamentalists often survived and thrived, even when embattled, through the communal identity virtually forged in diffuse circumstances using the medium of the printed word. For Simpson, communicating directly with what he fondly referred to as his “scattered Parish,” his “Parish in print,”45 published material functioned not only as a didactic outlet for his distinctive teachings, but even more so as catalyst of and source for devotional practice, an occasion of communal formation, and an evangelistic tool. The periodical functioned to bind together many doctrinally and experientially like-minded conservative evangelicals across other ecclesial, geographical, and cultural distances.46 Another crucial aspect of Simpson’s communications ministry was his hymns. Together with the intellectual electrification that accepting Christ as the great physician of his body and mind had jolted through him, he also claimed that in this process the Spirit had gifted him with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” to compose and share. Hymns had been a decisive component of evangelical lived religion from the start, often fostering a conducive atmosphere for the reception of the word at revival meetings, as well as being embedded in the individual spiritual lives of believers. Hymns were gateways into the vitality of religious experience. They were distillations of whole distinctive religious cultures and portals into emotive spiritual worlds. By pairing the descriptive content of the word with the aesthetic and affective evocation of music that touches something elemental and transcendent in the human person, Christian hymns have: “created and sustained community, expressed fundamental human aspirations, invigorated religious convictions … promoted religious fellowship among disparate peoples, allowed otherwise inarticulate people to voice their most ardent longings, summarized … the recondite opacity of doctrinal formulas, comforted the grieving, [and] nerved vast numbers for religious and social service.”47

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At the same time, this musical tradition of the churches has also provoked – spitefully and humorously – reactions of bemusement, parody, satire, and disdain for its intermittently complacent pieties, trite spiritualities, saccharine sentimentality, and sometimes just downright bad music. The key musical movement of which Simpson was a part was the transition from classic hymns to “gospel songs,” which emerged in significant numbers within the matrix of the urban, mass revivalism of the late nineteenth century. Even more so than hymns, which also often drew on certain popular forms, the gospel songs were especially written for the common taste. They focused on “popular, highly rhythmic tunes,” energizing texts of “intimate, emotional character” that foregrounded the individual’s relationship with God. They were written “more to the popular liking,” and, as the preface to Ira Sankey’s wildly successful hymnal stated, were “calculated,” explicitly and intentionally, “to awaken the careless, to melt the hardened, and to guide inquiring souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.”48 That contrast was often exaggerated. Neither were the old hymns devoid of narrative forms or emotional appeal, nor the new gospel songs absent of doctrinal content. But there was, nevertheless, something of a shift in form and emphasis from the didactic and intellectual to the populist and emotive. Simpson expressed the purpose of hymns for his ministry clearly when he wrote in an editorial about “the need of a collection of hymns expressing more completely the fullness of the gospel, and containing at once a sufficient number of old hymns and tunes to constitute a suitable book of worship and praise for ordinary church services, a sufficient number of bright, new gospel hymns for evangelistic services, and a fair variety of special hymns on divine healing, consecration, [and] the Lord’s coming.” There would be both old hymns and new gospel songs. Classic hymns invoked the identity heritage of Christianity, while novel hymns highlighted new doctrinal emphases. The initial hymnal of the C&MA, therefore, would situate the Alliance within the broader stream of evangelical Protestant Christianity, providing resources for ongoing evangelistic work, while it would also forge in worship novel expressions of the Alliance’s distinctive Fourfold Gospel teaching. The hymnbook was placed under the editorship of divine healing teacher R. Kelso Carter and suggestions for the classics were solicited from all the readers of the C&MA magazine. The first version of the Alliance’s Hymns of the Christian Life appeared in print in 1891 and included 455 hymns. A second version was published in 1897, a third in 1904, and a hefty compendium version in 1908. In the preface to the original Hymns, Simpson elaborated the countervailing principles involved. On the one hand, referring to the emerging genre of

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gospel songs, he wrote that the “people will have new tunes and hymns that move in a more spirited time” than the relics of their father’s age. On the other hand, he qualified, that should not lead us “to relegate all the old hymns to the dusty past”; “the safest path lies in the middle of the road, avoiding either edge.” Within such a “wide stretch of territory … the careful explorer will find much that is good, and possessing that rare quality, endurance.” Thus, in his hymnbook Simpson presented some of the (by then) classics in the heritage of American hymnody, like “All Hail the Power,” “Jesus Lover of My Soul,” “How Firm a Foundation,” “Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing,” “Rock of Ages,” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” alongside novel compositions concerning distinctive C&MA themes and with updated tunes by Kelso and Simpson, such as “Now I Feel the Sacred Fire,” “Depth of Mercy,” “Waiting on the Lord,” “The Sanctifying Power,” “Healing in Jesus,” “What Would Jesus Do?,” and “My Jesus I Love Thee” by C&MA friend A.J. Gordon.49 Simpson himself didn’t have any formal musical training, but in the idiomatic intellectualism of the nineteenth century he had tried to learn violin on his own. Sometimes the tunes came to him organically, but he also had help in musical composition from his daughter, Margaret Mae Buckman, who was often a soloist at Alliance conventions, from secretaries Louise Shepherd and May Agnew Stephens, and from Carter, among others. By the end of his career, approximately 178 of the hymns in circulation around the Alliance were Simpson originals, and they delivered a pragmatic revivalistic and evangelistic punch. According to one music scholar, disparaging of his hymns even while appreciative of his intentions, Simpson was “neither a great hymn-writer” in terms of artistic, deft poetics, “nor a competent musician.” Simpson was a “sincere” hymnist trying to encode his theological message in a moving way, but nevertheless “not equal to the task” of imitating the truly talented gospel songwriters of the time like Philip Bliss. Simpson’s hymns showed a predilection for stark trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed), utilitarian use of language for blunt theological purposes, hackneyed expression, haphazard use of rhyme, and a monotonous overdose of anaphora or epistrophe. The rhythms and melodies were often cumbersome for congregational singing. Such pejorative evaluations reflected a true and honest assessment from trained, professional musicians, elite theologians, and clerics of the denominations who often disparaged the popular songs in favour of traditional hymnals or classical music.50 But such an elite-common dynamic also often missed the point: the gospel songs worked. They were effective and alluring avenues into a broad-based, revivalist, evangelical spirituality for a wide range of common

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folks. Simpson’s hymns thus embodied the movement of gospel songs that functioned “to articulate a structure of the world,” give a theological rendering of one’s experience through participation in the act of singing the hymn, and so to “create a community with its own specific identity” that revolved around shared supplication, testimony, and exhortation.51

Educating for Mission Through all of his ministry, publishing, and hymns, Simpson was also a teacher and an educator. Simpson emphasized education for praxis, teaching for practical enaction, and not merely for the sake of learning as such. Nonetheless, in a variety of venues and for the purposes of a number of ministerial situations, he did sustain a multifaceted teaching and learning ministry. Simpson taught first from the pulpit as a preacher who combined moderate intellectual depth with a deep well of emotion and a host of inspirational concrete examples. Beyond the pulpit, he was also a teacher in his forceful written work, and through the images that he embedded in his publications. Many of his essays, articles, and his later books were didactic and informative, and ranged into topics supplying a multifaceted Christian education. While he always kept evangelism, world missions, and the Fourfold Gospel at the forefront, still for the workers who were engaged in the midst of these ministries Simpson offered wide instruction on many topics and further exploration of other Christian doctrines, traditions, and practices. One series in the 1890s, for example, explored the lives of the church ancestors of the first few centuries (before it had become irredeemably corrupt) and served to connect the very recent development of the Alliance with the long history of Christianity. These sketches included profiles of those like Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Cyprian, martyrs like Perpetua and Felicitas, and even a few later figures whom evangelicals could find palatable, like Bernard of Clairvaux. Because of the “unprincipled, dissolute and criminal” environment of the church at the time, of course, these figures had to be sanitized of their catholicizing tendencies, but they contained enough pure doctrine and spiritual exemplarity to be worth studying. In these sketches, there was an emphasis on heroic missionaries from the early centuries, such as Patrick in Ireland, Augustine in England, Columba in Scotland, and Boniface among the Germans, as prototypes (in some ways) for Alliance foreign missions.52 In addition to the pulpit and the page, Simpson taught formally in the classroom at his newly founded New York Missionary Training Institute

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(Mti, later Nyack College). Of all the institutions that Simpson pioneered for his new forms of ministry, probably none was more emblematic than this educational endeavour. Tracing its origins to the preparation and training that Simpson had given to prospective workers associated with his Gospel Tabernacle in 1882, the Mti merged Simpson’s distinctive theological teaching and Christian instruction with a pragmatic emphasis on aggressive missionary and evangelistic tactics. The mission of the school was to be a venture “where godly and consecrated young men and women can be prepared to go forth as laborers into the neglected fields,” about which Simpson was so concerned. Although the school included some traditional educational elements, the curriculum would also be different from Simpson’s own intellectual formation back at Knox College or his work with Centre College in Kentucky. Intellectual formation was not spurned, but it would be subordinated to training in practical engagement; the theoretical would always be in service of the practical. At the Mti, there would always be “ample opportunity for actual Mission work in the wide field afforded by a great city.” Students would receive an eminently practical education “by being employed in actual Mission work as leaders of meetings … and by the special evangelistic work connected to the Institute.”53 Using militaristic metaphor and with premillennial resolve, Simpson described the ethos of this institute: “We do not compete in this institute with the regular theological seminary and the ordinary methods of … the gospel ministry.” Instead, he suggested, the Mti would mobilize a “band of irregular soldiers for the vast unoccupied fields to supplement the armies of the Lord in the regions they cannot reach and work they cannot undertake.”54 The Mti’s first “irregular soldiers” were enlisted in October of 1883. By 1885, the school enrolled thirty students and was beginning to send missionary graduates abroad. While there were many pressures for the Alliance to permanently adopt a simple one-year curriculum at the Mti, Simpson himself also defended the role of the full three-year course of study. Within a few years, this full program included a threefold field of study: (1) a literary department, which could also be seen as a practical communications and persuasive skills department, (2) a theological department, which looked more like a standard seminary program, and (3) a practical department for functional skills and ministry practica. In the literary field, students took courses in English, rhetoric/public speaking, logic, moral philosophy, natural science, ancient and modern history, and the geography of biblical lands and of mission fields, often supplementing the rudimentary educational preparation with which many students entered.

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In theology, students took courses in evidences/apologetics, Bible exposition, nt Greek, systematic theology, church history, pastoral theology, and Christian biography. In practical studies, students took courses in Christian experience, preaching, evangelism, personal work, missions, Sunday School teaching, and worship leading.55 As Simpson wrote in an early advertisement for the school, “it will not aim to give a scholastic education, but a thorough Scripture training, and a specific and most careful preparation for practical work … to qualify consecrated men and women.” Coming from a variety of backgrounds, the academic facility of the students was uneven, but they were almost all dedicated and motivated, and they sacrificed. “The students are intensely in earnest and work,” Simpson reported, “with a zest that makes their instruction a delight.” To prepare for service, “they have given up all for Christ, and this work means all to them. They have put their lives in it, and many of them spend many extra hours in daily toil to be able to devote their afternoons to this work.” Initially, out of funds from Simpson’s other ministries, the school offered free tuition and fees, which students returned through their internships in various programs, though they also had to work to cover expenses and housing.56 Itself patterned on H. Grattan Guinness’s East London Training Institute, Simpson’s Mti was one of the earliest freestanding Bible colleges in America. Between 1880 and 1915, an estimated sixty of these training colleges budded to train evangelical social workers, foreign missionaries, Bible study leaders, and Sunday School teachers, as the beginnings of a parallel educational structure to the established liberal arts colleges and emerging research universities. Simpson’s Mti predated the emergence of some of the more famous and influential of these institutions, such as the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, the Gordon Bible Institute of Boston, BiolA in Los Angeles, and Elmore Harris’s Bible Training School in Toronto.57 The interconnections between this network of institutions, still, were revealed by the fact that A.J. Gordon, A.T. Pierson, T.C. Easton, George F. Pentecost, and C.I. Scofield all taught at the Mti at one time or another.58 The conservative evangelical distrust of established seminaries and colleges that led them to begin to establish their own network of institutions was twofold. First, the major colleges were in the process of being re-patterned on the archetype of German research universities, and in the process becoming gradually liberalized and secularized. Second, these educational institutions were not practical enough, and required substantial amounts of resources that typically depended on denominations, sponsorships, or private wealth. The Bible college movement

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emerged in conservative Protestantism to hone their educational institutions very intentionally on Biblical literacy, spiritual renewal, communal formation in this religious culture, and evangelistic efficacy. By the turn of the twentieth century, these schools were still miniscule compared to the number of students enrolled in public universities, liberal arts colleges, and mainline theological seminaries. But they nevertheless became the “headquarters” for the conservative evangelical movement (which, it has even been said, “owed its survival to the Bible institutes”), as they gained disproportionate influence within their communal networks, and turned into the primary institutional sites of a religious and educational counterculture and missionary zeal that would resurge with a vengeance later in the century.59 On the basis of his pulpit, his pen, and his professoriate, therefore, Simpson as educator further developed his teaching, especially his teaching on the Bible, into a robust educational program. Some other outcomes of such efforts were his Christ in the Bible series, a full commentary on the whole of scripture that was taught to the Mti students and eventually published over the period from 1888 to 1910 in twenty volumes, never fully completed. This series taught a christological reading of all of scripture, and sought to instruct the believer and the Christian worker “to unfold the spiritual teachings of the Scriptures, especially with reference to the Person and work of Christ.”60 For the average C&MA believer, Simpson unfurled what he saw as the fundamental meaning of the Bible, which came down to: “Christ on every page.”61 Simpson’s Bible teaching also encompassed the whole range of topics and passages, including his lectures on the brazenly erotic meanderings of the Song of Songs, which had often puzzled and mortified canonical exegetes. Simpson took the traditional exegetical strategy of applying the lover and beloved to the relationship between the Lord and Israel or the Lord and the Church, and, for Simpson especially, the intimacy between the Lord and the individual soul of the believer. The raw and pulsating sexuality of the original Simpson thought was “beautiful,” though he was also quick to qualify on behalf of the text that it represented the lover “in the days of his purity … and true to his single bride.” Still, this passage represented the paragon in scripture of interpreting the “meaning of earthly affection by the heavenly reality.”62 In addition to such teaching for adults, lastly, Simpson’s teaching also included material focused on the pedagogical development of children. Every issue of the Alliance publication included a “Sunday School lesson” and a “Children’s Corner” written by a top-tier Alliance writer, sometimes Simpson himself. The children’s lessons were accessible but also substantial, not trivializing children’s learning but

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introducing them early on to topics as challenging as missions work or the Lord’s Supper. All in all, education was integral to the early formation of the Alliance, and a priority of Simpson’s ministry.63

Disciples of All Nations All these aspects of Simpson’s program gravitated toward expression in the worldwide expansion of the gospel through missions, which remained the deep and abiding concern. Although the dramatic diffusion and cultural indigenization that would forge evangelical Christianity into one of the truly global faiths of world culture would not intensify until subsequent decades, Simpson was at the forefront of a historic upsurge in foreign missions interest among Euro-American evangelicals, and the C&MA laid some of the crucial groundwork for the spread of global Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century.64 Beginning from the Jerusalem of New York, Simpson initially had hoped and expected that the proclamation of the message and the opportunity for all peoples on earth to hear the gospel would be a project accomplished in his own lifetime. International, cross-cultural missions had been an emphasis of Simpson’s spirituality throughout his life, but his urgency and dedication to this task had been galvanized by his departure from Presbyterianism, due to what he perceived as its lethargy on missions work, and by his ideological shift to premillennialism, according to which the worldwide diffusion of the gospel would herald the return of the Lord. The Missionary Alliance, one half of the organization that had been formed by Simpson and company at Old Orchard in 1887 and merged into the C&MA in 1897, was explicitly dedicated to this task of the “speedy proclamation of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.” With a nimble and mobile mission philosophy, the Alliance concentrated especially on “unoccupied” or “neglected fields” of evangelical mission that the more cumbersome institutional machinery of the major denominations had not yet entered. Especially in its early years, Alliance missions operated rough-and-ready. Their goal was “to give the Gospel as rapidly as possible to all races and tongues,” and this precluded a focus on “educational and institutional” establishment in favour of “aggressive” work that did not attempt to “transplant our denominational organizations to heathen soil.” As a result, the C&MA was often one of the earliest evangelical organizations in a number of global regions with only scattered previous Christian presence (other than travellers), and they networked with other prominent missions that were proliferating during the same period, like the

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China Inland Mission.65 During the decade of the 1890s, the C&MA raised, and then distributed, almost $1 million in contributions towards the cause of foreign missions, with ample sums being harvested at its conventions.66 A commitment to missions, additionally, was one of the areas in which Simpson’s shared devotion with his wife, Maggie, helped to reconcile the two after the bumpy patches during their initial transition to New York City and independent ministry. Despite her earlier reservations about A.B’s new ministry and her concerns about his initial desire to hold divine healing meetings in their private home, Maggie eventually came to embrace the various aspects of the Fourfold Gospel teaching and to reach equilibrium with her husband’s views of ministry. She never found it easy having to tend to all the household practicalities while living with an unstable, idealistic, impractical dreamer, but she did become involved in many public leadership roles for the C&MA. In particular, Maggie came to evidence a deep concern for its missions efforts. Involved in the ministry for years as member of the board, financial secretary of the International Missionary Alliance, and leader of the Junior Missionary Alliance for youth, Maggie periodically spoke at Alliance conventions and proclaimed the message of how her heart had come “to live on missions, morning, noon, and night.” Her work of decades in the International Alliance included corresponding with, interviewing, and counselling missionaries, and raising and curating funds, all without any formal “remuneration.”67 While the C&MA’s vision for missions was grand, the first missionary enterprise that they actually administered imploded. Launched under Simpson’s auspices, three graduates of the New York Mti departed for Africa in 1884. These three attempted to establish a missionary outpost at Cabenda, but right away they ran into trouble with the Portuguese authorities. A further setback occurred when the group squabbled with local chieftains, causing them to travel farther inland up the Congo River despite the fervent apprehensions of one of the group. Shortly thereafter, a beleaguered John Condit, “the leader of the little band,” succumbed to yellow fever. After trusting in the Lord for his healing, Condit had agreed to take medical means as a last resort, only after his fever had worsened dramatically and it was too late to prevent his demise. Back home, Simpson eulogized Condit’s seemingly futile sacrifice, whose “brave and ardent young heart is at rest on his Master’s bosom, having given all he could – his life – for Africa, the land he loved so well.” Disillusioned, the rest of the group fled Africa and returned west after only four months. Simpson, in response, scolded them for their lack of faith, even while attempting to affirm

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that he was “not insensible to their trails and difficulties.” Still, he could not “approve of their retirement from the field,” he wrote, for he was convinced “with patience and tact, and God’s blessing upon simple and courageous faith, a station could, by this time, have been fully established.”68 More significant even than death or deprivation, Simpson believed sternly, was the obligation and exigency of the mission. Yet any mission still required resources, not just faith alone. Since the Alliance prioritized the “most difficult and remote” fields, those who went often had to expect and depend on friendly local people and accommodating local circumstances when they arrived. The Alliance’s early missionaries were not promised any salaries, but only given stipends to cover the most primitive expenses. These stipends become more stable and comfortable as the Alliance matured, but especially in the early decades, those who went as missionaries were required to make considerable sacrifices. Simpson’s first effort at deploying international missionaries, then, had resulted in catastrophe. By the time the International Alliance had formalized as a movement to support missionary endeavours, however, some lessons had been learned. The missions supported under its auspices were more fruitful. The first missionary dispatched formally under the Alliance was Helen Dawlly of Buffalo, who sailed for India in October of 1887 to partner with the Baptist Berar Mission. Dawlly became part of establishing a thriving network of Alliance ministries at Bombay that eventually grew to include an orphanage ministry, as well as evangelism, deeper life teachings, and a satellite Berachah Home for rest and healing.69 Six other candidates volunteered and were accepted to go on mission for the Alliance in its earliest years: to China, Mary Funk, Dr William Cassidy (who died on the way), and his wife L. Cassidy (who carried on the mission in his absence); and, to try again in central Africa, Mathilde Becker, Helen Kinney, and L. Kaverau. From these humble beginnings, Alliance missions work expanded rapidly. Within a decade, there were thriving mission fields in India, China, Japan, Soudan, Congo, Haiti, Venezuela, and Palestine. The mission in the Holy Land was pioneered by Lucy Dunn of the Pittsburgh Alliance and Eliza Robinson of the Gospel Tabernacle, and then for a number of years overseen by the important early Alliance figure (and designated Simpson biographer), A.E. Thompson. By 1912, Alliance missions had proliferated, supporting an estimated 263 missionaries organized into seventeen fully operational “fields,” with 288 auxiliary “stations” dotting the landscape in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. Alliance work had equipped and empowered 386 native workers among their own people and had recruited over 5,200 formal members of the C&MA worldwide.

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Along with their successes and expansion, the missions also continued to take their tolls and extract sacrifices. By the turn of the century, some forty missionaries had died in the field, including some who had refused medical treatment in favour of divine healing.70 The backlash against Christian missions and foreign imperialism in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 was particularly lethal; in that event, the C&MA lost thirty-six martyrs in its north China mission: twenty-one missionaries, twelve children, and three Chinese Christian workers.71 Throughout the remainder of his career, Simpson continued to view global missions as central to the C&MA identity and as an indispensable task of the church. His emphasis on missions interlaced with so many other aspects of his ministry, as well as his leading cultural and theological analyses. Conventions raised money for missionaries and inspired the recruitment of new ones. The C&MA periodical constantly featured not only broad, informative descriptions of various missions fields, but also personal letters from Alliance missionaries describing their idiosyncratic situations and distinctive experiences and soliciting requests for prayer on a variety of topics and funds to accomplish a variety of tasks. Simpson also saw missions as demonstrating the continuing need for new, experimental institutional expressions of evangelical Christianity. Other churches, Simpson lambasted, were overly obsessed with “organization.” While Simpson must have learned something from the complete lack of organization of his first, failed missionary endeavour, still he continued to comment that “organization is only valuable in so far as it molds and preserves some vital principle which is worth preserving.” By contrast, organization “without life” devolves into “an immense machinery without an engine to move it or any material to feed it.” In the evangelical world, he thought, there was “far too much machinery,” whereas “a simple organization which God has given us in this Alliance is not sufficiently formal to become a human organization and yet is sufficient to unite in one great brotherhood, and utilize for the most extensive, glorious and permanent results the spiritual force which today God has developed in all parts of the church and the world.”72 At the same time, in terms of cultural analysis, Simpson repeatedly interpreted the remarkable technological, scientific, and cultural developments of his generation – steam, rail, telegraph, travel, knowledge, awareness – as providentially given primarily for the sake of global Christian mission. All these marvellous developments God had orchestrated for sincere Christians to use as means to evangelize the world, thus bringing them to the precipice of the end times. In this way, for Simpson, the recovery of the doctrine of

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the Spirit and holiness, premillennial urgency, and advancements in culture, wealth, and technology all converged to make his era the great age for world evangelization: “No previous generation has had such facilities and appliances for giving the Gospel to mankind as have we. Divine Providence has furnished us weapons for our warfare such as men in apostolic ages never imagined.” Cultural awareness and the revolutions of transportation and communications were the particular reasons why “the great world never has been brought so near,” and such proximity was divinely ordered and spiritually opportune for mission and conversion. The transformation of scope and scale in the Gilded Age, the compression of space and time, bringing the far world near and the future age more proximate, all conspired for the sake of world missions. Encapsulating this program, Simpson began to speak – at least as early as 1896 – of his slogan: “The Whole Gospel for the whole world.”73 In 1893, Simpson embarked on his own first global tour of the Alliance mission fields in Asia and the Middle East. Even as members at home fretted about the continuity of the work there while their leader was absent, Simpson justified his trip as “wholly at the bidding of the Master,” and as important in order to “regulate and arrange the word committed to his hands in connection with the evangelization of the world … for the glory of God, the advancement of the gospel, and the hastening of the coming of Christ.”74 This trip would also be a great source of encouragement for those in the field, both missionaries and their local partners. In letters back home, Simpson described how the work of the Alliance there had to navigate politics and culture. These letters were a fascinating glimpse into the contemporaneous missionary mindset among other cultures, simultaneously open and bombastic. While their missions were “quiet” and “humble,” the work was threatened by the “jealousy of the Turkish authorities” and “suppressed” if it attracted “undue public attention” in Muslim lands. Simpson pompously trumpeted his claim that he encountered many Muslims who showed interest in Christianity, but were often dissuaded by threats of reprisals or persecution by their families or conscription into the army by the Ottoman authorities. Muslim lands were particularly exoticized for Simpson, both because of the risks of evangelization there due to Islamic law, and because of how he was convinced that the Ottoman Empire figured into the unfolding of biblical prophecy and the end of days.75 In his excursion to India, Simpson claimed to report on the testimony of Indian Christian converts who thanked the American Christians back home because they “have sent us the gospel which has saved us from our heathen idolatry, and bought us cleansing through the precious blood of Jesus.” The

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convert whom Simpson quoted claimed that, under the radar, as many as 30,000 Telugu converts had joined Christian missions in the past twenty years. Many of the converts, Simpson noted, had been pariahs and Dalits, suggesting how Christianity was cutting across traditional social divisions in Indian society. Simpson reported to his American readers how their efforts had supported a local Alliance church that had grown to 700 members, was led by a native Indian pastor, and was publishing its own Alliance periodical. According to Simpson’s experience, the very same characteristics that were making Alliance spirituality increasingly strange and marginal in American society were precisely what was making it decidedly attractive in Indian society: its emphasis on the dramatic experience of the Holy Spirit, on the surge of divine power, and on the spectacular witness of divine healing. His encounter with Indian culture evidenced Simpson’s difficult combination of religio-cultural superiority with a desire to promote Christianity as a kind of vernacular enfranchisement. On the former, Simpson commented: “If any one wishes to see the hollowness, foolishness and filthiness of Hinduism and heathenism, let him look through the Benares temples on the Ganges.” All around India, there were “hundreds of [temples] … they were all disappointing and disgusting … these abominable shrines.” Ridiculing and flattening the Hindu spiritual sensibility, Simpson wrote that “millions of men, women and children are worshipping as divine the most indecent and obscene things … they take pleasure in things that seem to us to have no interest or charm, but are utterly depressing, revolting and hideous.” Not much could be salvaged, in his view: “God help us speedily to lift this sunken land from hell to heaven!” On the other hand, Simpson also extolled missions that practised significant degrees of enculturation, at least for how Christian missions generally operated at that stage. He praised a Baptist mission that piggybacked on native Indian “Malas,” a cultural and religious festival, in order to hold camp meeting-style Christian revivals. He continually pressed for the need to operate in the vernacular, to exhibit cultural fluency (even while castigating local religious practices), to translate the scriptures, and especially to empower native workers: “the real work of winning and holding India for Jesus must ultimately be done by the people of India themselves,” he summarized. At a time when the “three-self ” view of local agency in missions was only just ascending, Simpson was already promoting that trend in practice.76 Simpson’s view of missions as a form of intercultural encounter, then, exhibited characteristics of both the emerging extension of a cultural imperialism that sought to transmit America’s “moral empire” around the world, and

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the unexpected way in which the transmission of the Christian message would unleash ramifications of idiomatic empowerment among local people groups in various parts of the world, according to the dynamics of their own reception of that message. Simpson was at the vanguard of a dramatic intensification of Christian missions from Europe and North America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – begun sporadically a century prior – one that would eventually reshape Christianity into the world’s most multicultural faith. Animated by his own Fourfold Gospel to engage seriously and committedly in missions ventures, Simpson would have been disenchanted that the seeming success of world missions after his time did not presage the premillennial closing of the age. At the same time, he would not have been surprised that, in the twentieth century, it would prove to be the charismatic vector – the emphasis on the Holy Spirit, the Spirit’s power, and the dramatic supernatural enabling of the Spirit’s gifts – that would inspire the most dynamic and flourishing communities in the spectacular and momentous emergence of Christianity in the developing global south.77

CHAPTER NINE

When the Day of Pentecost Came

As Simpson joined and led the turn-of-the-century movement of Christians on mission to the world, he was expecting an epochal outpouring of the Spirit of revival. He wasn’t quite prepared for what he would get. He trusted that his own teachings would all come to fruition: those concerning the recovery of the remarkable gifts of the Spirit, the restoration of the ethos of the primordial church, and the power with which the Spirit would endow believers. But he was not anticipating that the most spectacular of the gifts of the Spirit, the practice of speaking in tongues, would assume a distinct life of its own. He was not expecting that a whole new movement of pentecostal Christianity would coalesce around the belief that speaking in tongues was the true baptism of the Spirit, representing the next stage in the “full gospel,” the next step in the recovery of the early church, the further plunge into the deeper Christian life, and a necessity for the authentic and holistic Christian life – just as Simpson had thought holiness and divine healing were. A startling irruption of speaking in tongues across North American evangelicalism and across mission communities around the world transpired that would eventually challenge Simpson’s own parameters of ministry, and test the very boundaries of evangelicalism itself. As the larger story of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Christianity continues to be told, the most dramatic role that Simpson will likely have played, the one for which he will likely be most remembered in all of this, will be as a precursor of the pentecostal and charismatic movements, which have become some of the most dynamic forces in Christian history and global spiritual experience. Simpson, despite his ambivalence and reservations about the precise forms the movement would assume, became one of the key facilitators of pentecostalism’s rise after the turn of the century, and through this left an indelible impact on his subsequent world. Out of

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nineteenth-century revivalism and the evangelical matrix, Simpson was among an essential group of figures whose supernaturalism, holiness theology, biblical literalism, independent ministries, and experiential spirituality provided the resources for the emergence of pentecostalism as a distinct form of Christianity, which would end up becoming the most potent conduit for the spread of the faith in many of the societies that Simpson was attempting to reach, and a transformative influence on global religion.1

American Originalism: Recovering the Apostolic Church A crucial aspect of Simpson’s program that would adumbrate and influence subsequent pentecostalism was his attempt to restore the early church. Attempting to recapture or repristinate the envisioned purity and paradigm of “the” New Testament church, and to circumvent the long centuries of accretions and adaptations between contemporary believers and the apostles, had itself been one recurrent motif throughout the entire history of Christianity. Neither Simpson nor the pentecostals were the first to promote this orientation. In America, the “primitivist” or “restorationist” impulse assumed something of a lodestar in the cultural imagination in a variety of settings.2 The colonial New England Puritans, for one, fancied themselves as implementing the original biblical community in the wilderness.3 When the Stone-Campbell restoration movement that became the Churches of Christ was launched out of the convulsions of the Second Great Awakening, they similarly proclaimed a return to the original church: “The precepts and examples of Christ and his Apostles are sufficient … The government of the church, like the gospel itself, is exceedingly plain and simple. If we advert to the New Testament, we shall plainly see what is the nature of the christian church [and] the mode of constitution, communion, government and discipline.”4 And yet, the particular form that Simpson’s recovery took, with its dramatic supernaturalism and miraculous spiritual power, would have sweeping ramifications for the pentecostals. The attempt at return, however, was never so plain and simple as Barton Stone would have it; it was just as complicated as it had been for the entire history of Christianity. It entailed a few intractable problems. From a simple list of attempted recovery projects, first and foremost, it could be seen that various restorations of the early church never quite looked the same. The early church itself, as portrayed in the New Testament, was neither uniform nor devoid of conflict. And what was the principle of recovery? Was everything

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that the New Testament church was portrayed as doing normative, or only what was explicitly enjoined as such? These questions drove interpreters into the thickets both of hermeneutics and of discriminating the work of the Spirit in subsequent eras of the church. History continued to unfold; when was the church authentically adapting to new circumstances, or when, and to what extent, was it departing from its original constitution? The recovery of the apostolic church led to certain common emphases, but also to vehement disputes about what precisely was required. The restorationist impulse was neither able to extricate itself from the entangling influences of the various individualisms and utopianisms proliferating in America, nor able to prevent the unleashing of – in an indelible phrase – a “veritable rampage of theological innovation and liturgical experimentation.”5 Simpson often positioned himself as faithfully recovering the doctrine and experience of the apostolic church vis-à-vis a complacent denominational evangelicalism. Being convinced of the urgent need for believers of his time to return to the apostolic church, Simpson defended what seemed at the time like innovations. To him, those who dismissed such teachings as historical innovations or as alien to the (by then) traditional Protestant confessions of faith were simply not taking the New Testament church seriously enough. All of these, as he understood it, had been a progressive attempt to more fully inhabit the dynamism and exemplarity of the earliest Christian community. A crucial facet of this transition was the way of reading the Christian scriptures. Simpson was a part of one hermeneutical shift within evangelicalism that came to see more of the description in the book of Acts – and not just explicit commands – as paradigmatic for the modern day church. Unlike some of the commands of Jesus or the didactic passages of Paul, there was often no direct imperative tied to the description of events in the earliest church. There was no explicit charge to imitation. The examples of the early church, however, could potentially be taken this way, deriving normative doctrine for the church from narrative. It was this shift that gave Simpson a platform from which to critique what he saw as the impoverishments of the denominational church of his day, and to propose that the church further venture into its apostolic heritage by embracing more of the supernatural power and miraculous experience of the early church. Instead of attempting to harmonize his own hermeneutics with those of the Protestant Reformers, Simpson simply charged that even the Reformation had failed in this regard. It had only been an incomplete Reformation. Despite the laudable and significant recovery of the doctrine of salvation, Simpson insisted,

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it “must be sadly confessed … that the Reformation Churches have not fulfilled the full promise of their early and glorious beginning.” The Reformation churches, while admirable in many respects, had not yet fully returned to apostolic Christianity: “is it not a time for earnest thought whether even that glorious Reformation did not lack some things which would have saved it from even partial failure?” What was needed was “the secret of something better,” which was, “the RestorAtion of the simplicity, purity and power of Apostolic Christianity.” As Simpson saw it, the “apathy and coldness and formalism” of historic Protestant Christianity could be attributed to a “deficiency in Luther” himself, due to his fixation on “teaching only justification,” rather than teaching the full range of the power and gifts of the Spirit.6 The Reformation had recovered the true doctrine of salvation, and had defended the biblical word against the corruptions of history and tradition. But it had not fully recaptured a holistic teaching and practice regarding the Spirit, and in that sense had not yet fully restored the purity of original Christianity. Simpson, therefore, still looked forward to the further deepening and completion of the true reformation of the church, where the power of the remarkable work of the Spirit would be present and undeniable. In a potent description, Simpson catalogued the progressive recovery of the gospel that he saw as setting the stage for his own time and his own ministry. What his teaching represented was the fullest and most encompassing recovery of the apostolic gospel in the church’s history so far. “We want it all,” Simpson thundered, plundering the fragments of the true gospel that he thought were strewn about in various pockets of the history of Christianity. “We want the dead Christ; we want the risen Christ; we want the reigning Christ! And we say this Glorious Gospel is no new thing.” The pattern of history, as he narrated it, was a progressive extending of the “telescope of divine revelation,” from Luther to Whitefield to Palmer to “the gospel of divine healing,” of which Simpson was a leading advocate. These were not new teachings, according to Simpson, only recoveries of very old, buried teachings gradually uncovered and clarified. “It is no new thing: it is the old Gospel of the Apostolic Church come back again … And we are only beginning to open it.”7 The drama was in the return. In a telling phrase, he claimed the “old time religion of Pentecostal days” was simply being recovered, restored, and celebrated. As part of that restoration of “pentecostal days,” Simpson believed that the Holy Spirit had personally and directly “originated the Alliance,” in order to manifest in his age what could only be called “an attested copy,” a true facsimile, of the very same community “of apostolic times.”8

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Unleashing the Spirit The whole of this hermeneutical shift to the narrative of the apostolic church took place within a spiritual and experiential context of intensifying captivation by the specific role of the Holy Spirit. Never absent from the church’s historical experience or thought, the Holy Spirit had nevertheless often been associated primarily with applying the work of Christ. The Spirit had also been associated with church structures and truthful transmission, but not with novelty and charismatic intervention or with an initiative in the life of the community. The danger in the latter emphasis, according to traditional church practice, had been heresy, excess, and extremism, where the most vigorous proponents of the Spirit had been labelled “Montanists,” “radicals,” or “enthusiasts” of various kinds. Those who had even seemed to prioritize the experience of the Spirit over against the determinate word of scripture were seen by other evangelicals as having been led astray into doctrinal calamity. Through the nineteenth century, in any case, many evangelicals, particularly those in the Wesleyan stream, saw themselves as attempting to restore what they saw as a proper word-Spirit balance and an appreciation of the distinctive contribution of the Spirit. As Simpson described this trend, “the last twentyfive years have witnessed the revival of two or three wonderful truths.” Among those, foremost was the “doctrine of the Holy Ghost in personal holiness, power for service, and in the revelation of truth.” To Simpson’s mind, the elaboration of the Holy Spirit was a theme that “God has been writing … on the Church of His Son for the last quarter of a century as never before,” and he himself had been a part of that script.9 Often Simpson’s more radical teachings and experience came to rely on his emphatic accent on the Holy Spirit. Already having set out on his new ministry, in 1886 Simpson reprimanded the denominational church, “The Holy Spirit is not a vague something.” Instead, Simpson exhorted his fellow evangelicals to recognize the Holy Spirit, not just in doctrine but in spiritual life, as “a real living person as you are, distinct as you are, full of heart and love and approachableness … a living, concentrated, actual personality.”10 In his entire new ministry, both at home among the nominal in America and among those unaware of the gospel abroad, Simpson proclaimed: “The one great need of the work both at home and abroad is the Holy Ghost, in His … power and manifestation.”11 Simpson and the Alliance even began to use the adjectival language of “pentecostal” to describe the distinctive character of their own ministry as especially emboldened and enabled by the Spirit. In 1896, the

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C&MA held a “Pentecostal missionary meeting” and there was a “pentecostal” “spiritual fervor” that was animating them.12 Already at the dawn of the formation of the Alliance in 1886, Simpson was speaking in language deeply anticipatory of what his pentecostal inheritors would adopt.13 The language of “Pentecost” and “rain” and “outpouring” became increasingly integrated into Simpson’s thought and ministry. According to Simpson, for most of evangelical Christianity in his day, “the day of Pentecost is too often spoken of as a thing of the past, and the day of fire as something yet in the future.”14 The retrieval of living faith, the irruption of springs of fresh spiritual water, the vivification of previously desiccated institutions, and the ministry to all the world before the end of days with the conversionary impact of “signs and power” were all indications for him that the day of Pentecost was today, and the day of fire was now. The special role for the Holy Spirit that Simpson saw in his teaching and ministry he came to associate with the biblical phrase “the baptism of the Spirit,” and he employed that language in new ways that departed from his tradition. Though Simpson never embraced the subsequent pentecostal equation of baptism of the Spirit with speaking in tongues, he did clear the way for that teaching by untethering the baptism of the Spirit from baptism with water and interpreting the Spirit’s baptism within the framework of his crisis theology as a distinct experience in the Christian life. In a distinct idiom and with idiosyncratic associations, Simpson opened up a whole new theology of baptism in the Spirit as an experiential facet of the deeper or higher Christian life. Indeed, the “baptism of the Holy Ghost” was among the key “present truths” that Simpson advocated the Alliance had special responsibility for.15 In his teaching and experience, Spirit baptism was a necessary holiness experience in the life of the believer. Although the Spirit was present and illuminating the believer in some inchoate manner when they were converted and baptized with water, there was still a subsequent experience when the Spirit “fully” began to dwell “within the converted heart” and transformed it into the “temple of the Holy Ghost.” Simpson played on biblical prepositions to make his case. In conversion, the Spirit was “with” the believer; in Spirit baptism, the Spirit distinctively came to be “in” the believer. This was Simpson’s way of upholding the crisis, dramatic nature of Spirit baptism, while also accounting for the meandering nature of the spiritual life over the course of years. In the Spirit-filled life, Simpson described, there are “Pentecosts and second Pentecosts … great freshlets and flood-tides” in an ongoing process of conforming to the divine life, “breath by breath and moment by moment.”16

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The creation of, or return to, a more emphatic view and experience of the Holy Spirit, together with the concomitant imitation of the range of experience of the early church, all entailed a recovery of the dramatic activities of the Spirit described in that experience. Simpson called for the reinvigoration of a “supernaturally empowered church” that to him looked much more in conformity with the practice of the church in the book of Acts, where all kinds of spontaneous gifts and remarkable events were typical. Such a church, expectant and open, would be vindicated by “signs and wonders,” and by “divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit” in a way almost entirely absent from the denominational churches.17 A progressive recovery of the fullness of the gospel and a deeper return to the reality of the apostolic church was what Simpson saw in his own ministry and teaching. The pentecostals, in their turn, would explicitly adopt this patterning of church history from Simpson and his cadre in order to interpret their own experience. The pattern readily became self-perpetuating and intensifying, as outpouring unleashed became outpouring incessant. More could always come, as the quest for the next level of spiritual intensity became endemic. Simpson proclaimed in his own ministry the coming of the “full glory of the Christian Age” and the “Pentecostal dispensation.”18 But what an entire “pentecostal dispensation” entailed was just as soon to be contested. Pentecostals eventually placed Simpson himself within the cascade of leaders who had continued to excavate truths of apostolic Christianity, but who had likewise not gone far enough in retrieving the true apostolic Christianity concerning speaking in tongues as an inheritance of every believer.

Tongues of Fire Was speaking in extraordinary tongues part of the normative recovery of apostolic Christianity, or was this only an exceptional gift that would come as the Spirit moved spontaneously? That was the challenge that the explosion of pentecostal Christianity would pose to the trajectory of Simpson’s ministry. Tongues represented one aspect of the early church’s experience about which the question was raised, by restorationist impulses, whether it should be recovered as a standard practice of the church. The question was difficult, because the description of this practice in the scriptures themselves was quite elliptical. Many within Simpson’s orbit, who with their emphatic literalist hermeneutic came to see all the gifts of the Spirit as a normative part of the church’s life, began to seek and yearn for this manifestation

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of the work of the Spirit in particular. If those influenced by Simpson’s theology longed for an outpouring of the Spirit that would be dramatized in tongues, pentecostals were the ones who would interpret the experience of tongues speaking as a state that both could and should be claimed by any and every believer. The necessity of tongues would become the distinctive characteristic of pentecostalism in its emergence as a movement. Following centuries in which this practice of the early Christian church was highly sporadic, pentecostals would come to claim glossolalia (ecstatic expression in heavenly/unknown “languages”) or xenolalia (speaking in unstudied foreign languages) as standard endowments of the Spirit, if the gift would only be acknowledged as such. There was the lingering theoretical question of whether tongues should be universally embraced, and then there was the practice. Once the practice seemed to have been authentically received by those who claimed “their pentecost,” the questions of interpretation became settled regardless. The interpretation of the Bible was then reciprocally reinforced by the event of having the dramatic spiritual experience. A harmony just had to exist between such events and the Bible. This had to be so because of how forceful it was; tongues seemed to be a revivalist experience of even greater intensity than conversion or the second blessing of holiness. To experience the gift of tongues was to experience the compelling freedom from linguistic constraints and the compelling freedom for primal, ecstatic expression as this overflowed from an encounter with the Spirit. This experience could be compared as a linguistic analogue to the way evangelical hymns and music had moved the soul, precisely in such an aesthetic and affective power of possibility. To speak in tongues was to derange the formal semantic rules of humanly learned and cultivated language such that in one’s phonetic projection no actual standard correlation between sounds and things occurred. What did occur was pure evocative expression. The practice became for its practitioners a freedom of utterance from linguistic ossification, traditionalism, and the oppressive aspect of the past, insofar as these were not open to the possibilities of the future and insofar as oppression could potentially be mediated through the linguistic orchestration of society. What was expressed was freedom, an openness of language as such to the future and an evocative anticipation of the kingdom of God. Simpson himself first wrote publicly about the possibility of contemporary believers speaking in tongues back in 1883, early in the development of pentecostal antecedents and just two years into Simpson’s new post-Presbyterian

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ministry. This was not the first time the question of modern recovery of speaking in tongues had been raised. It had already begun to percolate in holiness circles throughout the nineteenth century’s revivalism. Excommunicated out of Scottish Presbyterianism, Edward Irving’s ministry claimed an outburst of speaking in tongues in the 1830s, while the global appeal of tongues speaking was seen in the radical ministry of John Christian Arulappan (1810–1867), whose revival in Tamilnadu in India from 1860–65 included claims to speaking in tongues.19 The Methodist William Arthur’s work The Tongue of Fire at least seriously raised the question within mainstream, anglophone evangelicalism by 1856.20 At the time of Simpson’s new ministry, nevertheless, the possibility of speaking in tongues was still very much on the fringes even of the most innovative and aggressive evangelicalism, and Simpson’s defense of it was viewed as extreme. During this nascent stage, Simpson was primarily responding to objections about his divine healing teaching. Since, in terms of biblical exegesis, the two were often paired, if healing ministries were simply accepted on the same terms as they were in the early church, Simpson’s detractors argued, then everything described in that experience would also have to be accepted as actions to imitate in the contemporary church – including the seemingly wild and disorderly gift of tongues. Critics intended this charge as a reductio ad absurdum. If one accepted the teaching on healing as Simpson exposited it, then one had to accept tongues too, and that was plainly ludicrous. Venturing to remain consistent and double down on his emphatic literalist hermeneutic of healing in the case of Mark’s snakes and poison too – with some degree of contextual loosening but without giving up the literal possibility – Simpson himself responded that in the Spirit’s power: why not! “We see no reason why a humble servant of Christ, engaged in the Master’s work, may not claim in simple faith the power to resist malaria, similar poisons, and malignant dangers,” insofar at these tricks were not used for spectacular self-aggrandizement or “vain display” but directly for the universal testimony to the gospel.21 Simpson, at any rate, was unflinching in his embrace of all the detailed activities of the early church. Simpson riposted to his detractors that he was willing to take the whole package, for he was beginning to think it was the true assemblage of the Spirit: “We admit,” he conceded, “our belief in the presence of the Healer” would entail the adoption of “all the charismata” of what he tellingly called in 1883 “the Pentecostal Church.” As a result, Simpson saw no reason to obviate any or all of the gifts attributed to the Spirit, including the most remarkable ones depicted in the scriptures.22 He countered that the decline of tongues

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speaking in the church, just like the decline of healing, had not been due to God’s providential guidance, but only to the infidelity and lethargy of a worldly and corrupt church: “the Gift of Tongues was only withdrawn from the Early Church as it was abused for vain display, or as it became unnecessary for practical use.” As a consequence, Simpson anticipated the restoration of the gifts of tongues during his lifetime. The gift “will be repeated,” he claimed, as long as the church would rediscover its true self and “humbly claim” the use of the gift “for the universal diffusion of the Gospel.”23 Already by the early 1880s, therefore, Simpson predicted that speaking in tongues as a manifestation of the Spirit would return to the evangelical church, once the church ceased neglecting the ministry of the Spirit, returned to all of the charisms of the early church, and was open to using such gifts for witness, testimony, and spiritual power, for ministry and mission, and not for some personal spiritual celebrity. Throughout his independent ministry, Simpson embraced at least the possibility of the gift of tongues as a special manifestation of the Spirit, but this was also an open ambivalence that derived from his biblical hermeneutic and his reading of church history. On the one hand, Simpson wanted to affirm, “we would not dare to discourage any of God’s children from claiming and expecting [the gift of tongues] if they have the faith to do so and can see the warrant in His word.” This sign could potentially aid the spread of the gospel, even though it was not strictly necessary for such: the gift of tongues “certainly was not intended in these cases to be the original channel for the preaching of the Gospel, but simply a sign of some supernatural presence in the heart of the speaker.”24 Still, the charismata of spiritual gifts catalogued in 1 Corinthians 12 belonged “to the church of Christ through the whole Christian age,” Simpson affirmed. All these gifts were intended by God “to be zealously sought, cherished and cultivated by Christians,” not only in the days of the early church but even now. Tongues were, in this sense, “a real opening of the doors between the earthly and the heavenly.” In contrast to other evangelical opponents of charismatic practice, crucially, Simpson castigated cessationism, the belief that the more spectacular gifts of the Spirit had intentionally ceased when the New Testament canon was formalized. That teaching was “one of the lies the devil sugar-coated, candied and crystallized in the form of a theological maxim,” he concluded, which had attempted to enervate the church of its spiritual power and vitality. For Simpson, the door had been opened for an enthusiastic return to the practice of tongues within evangelical circles.25

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At the same time, however, Simpson qualified his early endorsement of this gift with some demurrals. Even before the major controversies erupted, he exercised caution regarding what he saw as possible emotional extravagances and chaotic degradations of the practice. In 1892, Simpson wrote that he would respond to the tongues question “carefully, fearlessly, yet cautiously.” To the question of whether the gifts of tongues should be sanctioned unreservedly, Simpson hedged that there was also potential for misuse. When some C&MA missionaries, employing some quintessential Simpsonian logic, queried whether they should forgo the “worldly” practice of natural foreign language study in favour of the “divinely inspired” practice of tongues speaking, Simpson did not dissuade them from tongues, but also advised them to continue their foreign language education. Tongues had the temptation to be a “showy gift,” Simpson alerted, and should be kept in its proper place as the “least honored” of all the supernatural endowments of the Spirit in the community, certainly underneath the more edifying gifts of teaching, preaching, and prophesying. Although he envisioned the gift of tongues as being restored, Simpson would also not advocate it obsessively. When that gift authentically came, it would be accompanied by a humble spirituality, interpreted within the constraints of the scriptures, and vindicated by a life of holiness and consistent devotional practice. Simpson’s mediating position on tongues would eventually set him up for a confrontation with the emerging pentecostals who were more unapologetically celebratory and uninhibited.26 All in all, Simpson thought the Alliance should “encourage those who have a definite faith for this gift [of tongues] … to claim it as boldly as they can.” But Simpson also wanted to ensure that his ministry did not “consider it a lack of faith on the part of any worker who has not received this special gift.”27

The Floodgates Open The momentum for incessant revival, for constant conversion, and for the electricity of the early church soon overflowed the boundaries of the holiness movement, just as the holiness movement itself had once overflowed the denominational evangelicalism that had nurtured it. Those who craved an even more intense experience in the spiritual life began to fixate on the nature of Spirit baptism and on the relative absence of the gift of tongues speaking in the church, even among those groups who were theoretically open to it.

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In 1900, Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929) travelled from his Bethel Healing Home in Topeka, Kansas, to the eastern United States to schmooze with holiness circles. He visited both A.J. Gordon’s ministerial legacy in Boston and Simpson’s Alliance ministries, just recently removed to Nyack. In his own life, Parham had gone from Congregationalist to Methodist to independent holiness evangelist and healer, and his ecclesial wanderlust kept him moving. While he deeply respected Simpson, publishing the latter’s writings in his own Apostolic Faith, Parham left his encounter with the C&MA displeased. The purity of the apostolic gospel and the zenith of the spiritual life had not yet been recovered. “I retuned home,” Parham wrote, “fully convinced that while many had obtained real experience in sanctification and anointing that abideth, there still remained a great outpouring of power for the Christians who were to close this age.” Although Simpson and his cohort had “deep religious thought” and the “power of the Holy Ghost,” they had failed to sufficiently distinguish the special nature of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and thus had obscured the full range of the gifts to be recovered. With deep irony, Parham further accused those like Simpson of fostering a sectarian spirit by erecting their own church “Zions” and “colonies,” as they were “denouncing and un-Christianizing all others” in their own institution building. Simpson and company, most importantly, had not yet recovered the full experience of the book of Acts, the true “apostolic faith,” because of the rarity of speaking in tongues among them, unlike the earliest Christian community.28 Despite the criticism, Parham absorbed much of the sanctification, healing, and hermeneutical teaching of Simpson and Gordon. But over and above what he inherited from them, Parham pressed on to the centrality of tongues speaking. He began to teach that the true baptism of the Spirit would necessarily be authenticated by speaking in tongues, which would become the crucial pentecostal association between the two. On New Year’s Day 1901, Agnes Ozman (1870–1937) – who counted Simpson among her dear spiritual teachers and was formerly a student at the Alliance’s Missionary Training Institute29 – instead of a hangover nursed an ecstatic spiritual experience. She became the first among Parham’s students at his Topeka Bible College to receive the gift of tongues, xenolalic speaking and writing in what was thought to be Chinese. After this initial breakthrough, tongues proliferated among the group. From his experience of the phenomenon in Topeka, Parham carried his teaching to Houston, where he preached that a monumental outpouring of the full and authentic work of the Spirit was about to transpire. One of his

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hearers there was the peregrinating black holiness preacher, William J. Seymour (1870–1922), another churchly nomad who had been baptized Roman Catholic and raised Baptist but continued to quest after the experience of experiences. In a case of the rapid transmission of these beliefs, Seymour stayed only six weeks before he preferred to move on to his own ministry out in Los Angeles. Kicked out of other holiness churches, Seymour established a base in an abandoned building in industrial lA at 312 Azusa Street. It was here in 1906 where the famous revival erupted that concentrated on speaking in tongues, along with fervent prayer, spiritual songs, healing of the sick, the full ministry of women, and the profligate transgressing of racial boundaries. Increasing in intensity, the Azusa Street Revival soon attracted the notice of the secular press, including the Los Angeles Times, and lured thousands of pilgrims from around the world to partake of this new manifestation of the special gifts of the Holy Spirit.30 Azusa was not the first explicitly pentecostal event, as the origins of pentecostalism have been more adequately described as “complex and varied, polycentric, and diffused … nuanced and multicultural.” But with the Azusa Revival, pentecostalism coalesced around a deep symbolic moment of self-definition and an emblematic nativity story of a distinct global movement.31 During the early years of the twentieth century, Simpson himself had been preparing for an unprecedented revival – though not quite what occurred with Azusa Street. By 1906, Simpson intensely believed that he was living through a truly novel and expansive movement of the Spirit in history, which also likely portended the end of days. The Alliance magazine breathlessly covered revivals that were seeming to pop up everywhere: in Wales, in Toronto, in various US cities including New York, and especially, when it came, the one at Azusa Street. Simpson initially extolled the Azusa Street Revival as a “remarkable manifestation of spiritual power” and an “increasing revival,” while at the same time recommending restraint concerning the surpluses of “credulity and fanaticism” also being reported. Affirmative of the emerging self-aware pentecostal movement in general, Simpson had already begun to bristle at some of the particulars. In preparation for the annual Alliance council that year, Simpson argued that special endowments (i.e., tongues speaking) were wonderful gifts, if truly given, but “not essential” to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which could be distinctly received by the believer without any necessary accompaniment of these specific “supernatural gifts.”32 He further warned his readers to guard against “fanaticism, human exaggeration, or spiritual counterfeits,” but, then again, he also denounced the “naturalism” and “worldliness”

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that would entirely preclude such astonishing supernatural gifts altogether.33 Simpson was attempting to uphold a delicate balance. By taking an initially and largely positive orientation to the emerging movement from Azusa Street as an authentic spiritual empowerment, Simpson diverged from many other prominent holiness and conservative evangelical leaders of the time who savaged and berated the pentecostal revivals as chaotic and unbiblical, aberrations from true gospel order. Unlike most of the partisans themselves, however, while affirming the character of Azusa on the whole, he still cautioned against extremes and refused to equate the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the gift of tongues speaking as such, an equation that was rapidly becoming the doctrinal and experiential heart of pentecostalism. Those who were experiencing the gift of tongues, and connecting it doctrinally to Spirit baptism, began to overflow the boundaries of their own originating church communities. The experience was so intense, so visceral, so palpable for those who underwent it that they could only assume that those who hadn’t were suffering some grave lack. The association became paradigmatic: speaking in tongues would inevitably accompany a real and full baptism of the Spirit, these folks argued, because without that particular gift one’s spiritual experience had simply been impoverished. This claim quickly began to conflict with the ecclesial communions out of which many of the early pentecostals came, because even ones that were open to the experience of tongues refused to make such an association. Pentecostals thus began to forge their own church organizations, which would compete over doctrine and members with the churches they had left. Although a number of pentecostals chose to remain in local, independent congregations, over the next couple of decades a number of new church bodies arose preaching the distinctively pentecostal message, including the largely African American Church of God in Christ, pioneered by C.H. Mason; the Church of God in Christ (Cleveland, Tennessee) led by A.J. Tomlinson, who had studied with the C&MA for a time; the Pentecostal Holiness Church; the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, founded by the flamboyant and entrancing Canadian-born evangelist, former missionary to China, and devoted A.B. Simpson reader Aimee Semple McPherson; and what became the largest of them, the Assemblies of God, chartered in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1914.34 Most of the larger pentecostal churches had some connections with the ministry of the C&MA or Simpson personally, and initially the multiple parties hoped to get along. Very soon, however, the equanimity of Simpson would be tested by the new movement under the strain of doctrinal, experiential,

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and organizational divergences. This became the “most serious crisis” and the “greatest problem” for Simpson in the early twentieth century; and the pentecostal challenge would eventually render asunder the C&MA itself.35

A Personal Pilgrimage While the pentecostal question became a challenge for all those involved in Alliance ministries, it was first a challenge to Simpson himself in his own personal spiritual journey. When ostensible occurrences of tongues flashed to prominence after the turn of the century at Topeka and Azusa Street, Simpson began an even more intense personal exploration of tongues and the array of spiritual gifts, about which he wrote poignantly in his diary. By May of 1907, he confided to his journal that he felt led to “set apart a time for prayer and fasting” about spiritual gifts, and he beseeched God to “seal him with a special anointing of the Holy Ghost.” After many spiritual revolutions in his life, Simpson betrayed the sense that he didn’t want to miss out on the full range of intimacy with God and life in the Spirit, if indeed tongues was to be a part of that. Aware and self-conscious of the dramatic proliferation of tongues in his circles, Simpson yearned for God to “show His will about it, and give to me all that He has for me – and also for the work.” At the next Alliance national council, Simpson recorded that “there were several cases of the Gift of Tongues and other extraordinary manifestations.” Simpson, again, exercised a believing discrimination. Some of the cases of claims to tongues were “certainly genuine,” in his estimation, and reports of others were “undoubtedly well authenticated instances of the gift of tongues in connection with our work and meetings.”36 Others, however, “appeared” to him – in a classic observation – “to partake somewhat of individual peculiarities and eccentricities of the subjects” who underwent them. Simpson saw not only the authentic “working of the Sprit,” but also much that seemed to him to betray a “very distinct human element, not always edifying or profitable.” Simpson wrote that he felt directed to return to the “divine order” that structured “the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 12–14.” While “the reality of the gifts” in some cases was clear, and should not be impugned, Simpson was also “led to pray much about” the gifts and to seek earnestly “God’s highest will and glory in connection with” the particular one of tongues.37 As always, discernment and testing were needed. Intriguingly, this was the same assessment denominational evangelicals had earlier applied to Simpson’s own teaching and ministry.

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As the pentecostal movement was howling, beginning to divide evangelicalism at large and to provoke controversy within the C&MA itself, Simpson was gravely troubled about the public “unity of our work.” Personally, even while his ministry was embroiled in controversy, Simpson yearned to receive God’s full blessings, whatever they may be. “I smote with all the arrows,” he wrote, and “claimed … in faith that nothing less than His perfect and mighty fullness might come into my life.” At the perennial Old Orchard convention that year, Simpson was reminded of his earlier healing there, and he queried whether God still had another drama in store for him yet. Would his experience of claiming divine healing for the body be replicated and then heightened by claiming the experience of tongues? There in the woods and serenity of Old Orchard, Simpson “pressed upon” his Lord a “new claim for a Mighty Baptism of the Holy Ghost in his complete Pentecostal fullness embracing all the gifts and graces of the Spirit for my special need at this time and for the new conditions of my life and work.” Being convinced that he had believed and claimed “all,” and that he was authentically “resting in Him,” Simpson discerned a prodding to consider Acts 1:5, which in turn unlocked an experience of the “Coming of His Spirit to me in great power.” Simpson became sure that he had “already received the most wonderful manifestation of His presence.” And yet, the tongues didn’t come. Even with God’s “mighty realization,” Simpson “felt there was More.” For the incessant revivalist, there was always more. Moving on from feeling “timid” about “dictating to the Holy Spirit who is sovereign in the bestowal of his gifts,” Simpson applied the same claiming of divine promises that he had to healing to the gifts of the Spirit. He forcefully claimed all the gifts; and yet, the tongues, in particular, didn’t come. Inspired by Zechariah 9:12, Simpson begged for a “double portion of the Spirit. Double all Thou hast ever done for me … all Thy gifts and Thy graces.” Simpson prayed, preached, pleaded, cajoled, was given scriptures, and waited. He wrote that he received consolation, affirmation, “holy laughter,” a divine “fever” in his bones, a “baptism of divine love and power,” a “great spiritual blessing,” an assemblage of spiritual gifts – but no tongues.38 For Simpson himself, the tongues never came; pentecost would remain in the past. In terms of Simpson’s actualized theology of divine promises and blessings, and in the context of his restorationist ecclesiology of the replication of the experience of the early church, the failure to receive the gift of tongues must have come as a crushing blow. Although he did not explicitly phrase it that way, it would have been difficult for him to process spiritually. The year

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1907 in his diary trailed off in anticlimactic ambiguity. Five years later, in 1912, Simpson returned to his journal entries after much had “come and gone.” The outcome, he conceded with years of hindsight, was that “no extraordinary manifestation of the Spirit in tongues or similar gifts has come.” A number of his friends and co-workers had enjoyed and savored “such manifestations,” but Simpson himself had been “resigned” to “a life of … fellowship and service.” All along, he believed that his own spirit had been ever “open to God for anything He might be pleased to reveal or bestow.” But he had been left with what he called merely “the old touch and spiritual sense.”39 As one who had undergone a series of escalating spiritual transformations in his life, this seeming non-answer could only have been a shattering disappointment. Simpson’s intimacy and relationship with God had been maintained and enriched even through, precisely through, the ambiguity. But he had never reached the summit of an experience that the Bible described and for which he had asked, sought, and claimed. The ecstasies of his supernaturalist and revivalist spirituality collided with the monotony of the mundane. Late in his life, Simpson now had the experience of the other side of the valley in the mysterious providence of God: a spiritual experience that was supposed to be available but had only been chosen for some.

A House Divided The irruption of the pentecostal movement proved so fissiparous for Simpson and for the Alliance because so many elements of their theology gravitated toward the expectation of pentecostal or similar experience, as many of those who later joined the movement out of the Alliance were fond of haughtily gloating. C&MA belief and experience meant that tongues could be expected as the next occasion of revival, even if their exercise was subject to certain biblical constraints. Indeed, many of the early pilgrims to Azusa Street and those who claimed to receive tongues either came from the Alliance or had C&MA/Fourfold Gospel connections of some sort. A full two dozen of the earliest and most prominent leaders of the Assemblies of God had come out of the Alliance, including Alice Flower, the wife of the first general secretary.40 To claim tongues in itself did not necessarily put one outside the Alliance, if one did not also accept the “initial evidence” teaching that tongues were required for baptism of the Spirit and if one was comfortable with the restraints on charismatic expression that the Alliance eventually adopted. And yet, the divisions continued to widen between those who saw tongues as the inevitable

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trajectory of the whole gospel, and so viewed its absence as a serious deficiency and those who saw tongues, even if they were open to them in theory, as disordered and fanatical, at least as they manifested themselves in the emergent pentecostal movement. From 1907 through about 1912, with reverberations continuing, the pentecostal controversy wrenched the Alliance, fomenting controversy and fostering defections. Part of the Alliance’s susceptibility to pentecostal inroads was due to its own loosely held organizational structure and transdenominational orientation. Even while the practices of the C&MA already suggested an incipient and creeping formalization, the local branches still maintained a high degree of flexibility, and the oversight of the central leadership remained minimal. This left many local branches widely permeable to pentecostal practices, if one of their leading local members espoused them. By the turn of 1907, Ivey Campbell, one of the earliest Alliance eyewitnesses of what was going on at Azusa Street, returned to her home branch in Ohio. At Azusa, she had experienced Spirit baptism with tongues and upon her return promoted the experience among Alliance groups in Akron and Cleveland. Soon glossolalic experiences were breaking out, and up to fifty members there underwent pentecostal baptisms. The initial response of Simpson and other leaders was uninhibitedly enthusiastic. They believed that their constituents had received an authentic and enriching spiritual experience. Simpson’s second, Henry Wilson, led an investigatory trip to Ohio and concluded that “all were in perfect accord with the testimony given by those who had received their Pentecost, and expressed themselves in thorough sympathy with the experiences witnessed in their midst.” Simpson himself further affirmed that the Alliance reception of pentecostal experience occurred in a “deep spirit of revival” unalloyed with “fanaticism and excess.”41 These initial stirrings seemed to suggest that a pentecostal stream could be encouraged and contained within the Alliance movement, as long as those who claimed their pentecost did not separate themselves into some superclass of believers, and those who did not claim it avoided stifling those who did. At the Indianapolis branch, however, the banks overflowed, and adumbrated future torrents for the Alliance. When Glenn Cook returned from Azusa Street and tried to foster pentecostalism there by conducting “tarrying meetings,” his views of ministry conflicted with those of the Alliance superintendent, George Eldridge, who at first saw the entire movement as radical and frenzied. Eldridge outright banned the meetings due to concerns about spiritual elitism. As a result, half of the branch simply abandoned the Alliance

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to join the Apostolic Faith movement. That same summer, Simpson came to Indianapolis to preach at the regional convention where he attempted to heal the breach. By then, however, the schism seemed to have become irreparable after harsh words had been exchanged in both directions. The Indianapolis branch of the C&MA never quite recovered.42 Superintendent Eldridge himself later personally flipped sides. After transferring out to California and remaining faithful to the Alliance through the initial tongues controversy, Eldridge was converted to the pentecostal position after visiting Azusa Street for himself in 1910, and by 1916 it had led him through a painful struggle to resign from the C&MA. He eventually came to see the Alliance’s restraints on pentecostal practice as a dilemma between “obeying my beloved Church and obeying my Lord.” Under those terms, Eldridge felt he had to do the latter, even if it caused a “mighty struggle” within him “to sever … official relations with old friends.”43 The hemorrhaging continued as the spiritual intensity – and the ecclesial stakes – increased. Pentecostal experience continued to proliferate in various pockets of the Alliance. The Beulah Park convention in Ohio, an Alliance perennial, in late 1907 became the scene of still further pentecostal outpourings, the “greatest” and “most marvelous” of their kind in the Alliance experience thus far, as Simpson himself described it. Tongues were explored at the Missionary Training Institute, at the summer convention at Old Orchard, and at the Gospel Tabernacle itself in the fall convention. At the latter, Simpson recorded many astonishing “signs and wonders,” while other reports alleged miraculous healings, tongues, believers “slain” in the Spirit, Holy Spirit melodies, and even episodes of spontaneous levitation associated with an unprecedented manifestation of the Spirit’s power.44 After these happenings, a number of prominent Alliance members and leaders who experienced tongues departed, once Simpson refused to go in the direction of universal encouragement and normativity of tongues. Among those who departed were Daniel Kerr, Alliance pastor at Dayton, Ohio; David McDowell, pastor of the mission in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania; Minnie Draper, a beloved, long-time healing minister at the conventions in Rocky Springs, Pennsylvania, and former member of the C&MA executive board; David Myland, a Canadianborn evangelist; and Claude McKinney, an evangelist in Akron, Ohio.45 Those who eventually embraced confessional pentecostalism in its full initial evidence doctrine believed that the tepid ambivalence of the C&MA was hindering the complete recovery of original Apostolic teaching and experience, and therefore felt that they had to separate themselves from those who occluded

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this resplendent truth of the faith. Simpson, for his part, expressed “deep sorrow” at the exodus, “originating, we believe, in extreme leaders of what is known as the Pentecostal movement, to turn away godly and useful members of the C&MA from their loyalty to the work and the faithful support of [the C&MA’s] foreign mission workers.”46 Indeed, many of the most devastating losses for the Alliance were sustained overseas, where the spiritual potency and emphatic supernaturalism of pentecostal experience exercised a particular allure in different cultural situations and were vectors for the transmission of this type of theology and practice. W.W. Simpson (1869–1961) – no relation to A.B. – became a foremost example. An Alliance missionary in southwestern China since 1892 and instrumental to the C&MA’s expansion there in the early years, W.W. Simpson had initially scoffed at a tongues outpouring among his Chinese disciples in 1908 as “demonic.” In the intervening years, many of the Chinese believers embraced charismatic practice, if not the specific pentecostal ecclesiology. W.W. demurred until he and his wife, Otilia, themselves received their tongues during a C&MA convention, under the influence of pentecostal widow itinerants Maggie Trevitt and Lizzie Williams. From that C&MA convention, a charismatic revival broke out throughout the region of Taozhou, Gansu Province that attracted about 100 Chinese followers. By the end of 1912, W.W. wrote to the C&MA back home that “the Lord … is working with us and confirming his Word with these same mighty signs of old.” Such experience led him to reevaluate the Alliance’s stance on Spirit baptism and tongues speaking as normative. Two years later, he resigned from the C&MA and joined the Pentecostal Missionary Union. He eventually became a famous missionary for the Assemblies of God in East Asia, where he networked with the social and evangelistic ministries of Nettie Moomau and Ma Zhaorui. During his two-year charismatic phase while still aligned with the C&MA, W.W. Simpson grew increasingly hostile to its reticence. Tensions with those he called “the opposers” grew until he believed that the C&MA had to choose either/or: his pentecostal work or other C&MA workers’ non-pentecostal work. If the C&MA did not “permit the work to be entirely Pentecostal,” he threatened, “and if they go against me[,] the great body of the Churches, all the really spiritual ones, will join me in an independent Pentecostal work.” W.W. looked back on his eventual split from the C&MA bitterly, writing that “while in the C.M.A. I had naturally conformed to their ways,” but upon his departure, “I was free to do as the Lord wished. This vision was the Lord’s instruction to do just like the early preachers did from Pentecost onward.”

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He wrote a personal letter all the way to President A.B. Simpson himself, imploring him to “stop fighting against God in turning down the teaching that the Lord baptized people in the Holy Spirit now just as He did on the day of Pentecost.” W.W. sanctimoniously lectured A.B. that if he would “only humble [himself ] to seek the Lord for this mighty baptism, you’ll get it and then you’ll know what I am talking about,” and he blasted as a devolution to a “past dispensation” A.B.’s contemplative spirituality, his interpretation of the “baptism of love,” and his “still small voice” on tongues. In the end, W.W. entirely blamed the C&MA for his departure, “because they required us to subscribe to unscriptural teaching about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.”47 India was another C&MA mission field that became entranced by the pentecostal outpouring. The Indian Alliance, the C&MA’s organ in that country, gave reports of the unbridling of the more radical gifts of the Spirit among its Indian constituency concurrent with the goings-on at Azusa Street. Much of the action centred around the Mukti (Salvation) Mission founded by the remarkable Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922), the renowned women’s education advocate, celebrated Christian convert, and translator of the Bible into vernacular Marathi, who also had ties to Keswick. The C&MA had numerous interconnections with Ramabai, who eventually entrusted her Mukti Mission to its auspices after her death, and whose American biography was published by the Alliance printing house.48 Ramabai became sympathetic to pentecostal practices after hundreds of Indian girls in her school seemed to have received the miraculous gifts of the Spirit from 1905–08, including tongues speaking, which she interpreted as the Holy Spirit forging an authentically enculturated form of Indian Christianity. Ramabai never fully embraced what became the distinctive separatist pentecostal teaching of initial evidence, but broader charismatic influences radiated out from her Mukti Mission to Alliance circles throughout the subcontinent. A number of Western Christian leaders sympathetic to pentecostalism undertook pilgrimage to Mukti to witness the outpouring there, including T.B. Barrett, Albert and Lillian Garr, and C&MA stalwart Carrie Judd Montgomery, who was on a many-sited tour of Alliance mission outposts.

Counteractions As pentecostalism continued to siphon off members from the Alliance (who in turn sometimes absconded with property and resources), and as Alliance commitments, structures, institutions, and identity were contested in the

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process, Simpson found himself on the other side of the fence from when he had left Presbyterianism. At one time, C&MA folk had clearly thought of themselves as on the very vanguard of Christian innovation in mission and ministry and recovery of the apostolic integrity in doctrine and experience. Now, the pentecostals were gleefully appropriating that mantle for themselves. Simpson became increasingly trenchant in his critique of the shape the pentecostal movement was taking. He came to think that the pentecostals’ fixation on speaking in tongues, to the neglect of holistic views of spiritual gifting, biblical spirituality, and mission, had diverted what was initially a “genuine movement of the Holy Spirit” into something riddled with “extravagance,” “excess,” “serious error,” “wildfire,” and “fanaticism.” Simpson’s building polemic against pentecostals had two primary targets. First was the centrality of the initial evidence doctrine. In this teaching, pentecostals promoted speaking in tongues not just as one gift among others that some believers might receive, but as the necessary sign that any believer had truly received the baptism in the Spirit as a distinct event. Tongues were the evidential manifestation of this experience. Without receiving tongues, believers, whatever their other gifts or experiences, had not received a full and authentic apostolic baptism of the Spirit. The two, inalienably, went together.49 For Simpson, this was an unbiblical association. Already by the end of 1906, while fervour at Azusa was still in crescendo, Simpson opposed those who linked Christian baptism of the Spirit exclusively with the gift of tongues, associating this doctrine with “one of the evils … against which the apostle Paul gave frequent warning.” Simpson warned his own people to “stand in wisdom as well as love in an age of increasing peril,” which an egregious profanation of the authentic gifts of tongues signalled.50 Pentecostals had turned one possible avenue for the Spirit to work in the believer into the only one. It was a “pernicious error,” Simpson thought, to consider the reception of the Spirit by the believer contingent on the manifestation of particular gifts. Various believers could receive the baptism of the Spirit in different ways, with different gifts. Simpson further disparaged the initial evidence teaching as “rash and wholly unscriptural,” guilty of fixating on one “mere manifestation of the Holy Ghost” above the larger scope of the Spirit’s “higher ministry of grace.” In his annual report to the Alliance Council in 1907, Simpson at the same time encouraged a “year of the Holy Spirit,” even while castigating the doctrine that tongues were “essential evidence” of Spirit baptism as “extravagance, excess and serious error.” While continuing to acknowledge many authentic cases of the gift of tongues, Simpson’s accent shifted to the negative. He thought it “very sad” to

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see so many earnest Christians “running after some man or woman” in order to obtain the gift of tongues, and becoming seemingly obsessed, in “wildest excesses,” with “seeking some special gift rather than the Giver Himself.”51 Christ and the Spirit should be sought directly – not any particular gift that they might choose to sovereignly distribute. The lure of tongues among the Alliance folk was demonstrated by the fact that Simpson’s cautionary magazine editorials about Azusa received strongly worded, “considerable correspondence,” and “some criticism” from a number of subscribers. Sympathy for the emerging pentecostals ran deep in pockets of his readership. In response, Simpson reaffirmed his posture of “entire openness to all that God has to show and to give in the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s promised enduement,” including authentic cases of the gift of tongues. At the same time, Simpson would not yield from the “inspired warnings which the Holy Scriptures themselves present against the undue magnifying of any one gift or the seeking of any kind of power apart from Christ Himself.” Simpson took the “very sensitiveness manifested regarding caution or criticism” as evidence of the “need for sobermindedness” among many of the partisans.52 Even by 1910, when the C&MA had lost a number of members to the pentecostal movement, Simpson was consistent in declaring “wholly false” the view that his organization opposed tongues categorically. “We recognize all the gifts of the Spirit,” he still maintained after many losses, “as belonging to the Church in every age.” What he opposed was only the “teaching that this special gift is for all” believers, or that it was exclusively “evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.” These views he condemned as “extreme” and “unscriptural,” and his ministry would not abide them.53 On a second front, Simpson campaigned against the emerging pentecostal movement as divisive and schismatic – both sins against Christian unity and friendship, and thus charges tempting for restorationist groups to brandish. According to Simpson, pentecostals had succumbed to the “evils of the apostolic age,” during which tongues had become a source of division, controversy, and self-aggrandizement. Their teaching had undermined Christian unity and represented a “narrow” and “uncharitable” attitude toward non-pentecostal Christians. In a shift of the hermeneutical centre of gravity from Acts to Paul, but one that also seemed inflected by Victorian sensibilities, Simpson highlighted that any gift of the Spirit had to be governed by self-control, respect for order, and love. To the pentecostals, Simpson was “quenching the Spirit,” although certainly not as much as many other mainstream evangelicals. To Simpson, conversely, these were simply biblical principles that had to

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mutually interpret and co-determine any practice of tongues speaking. The issue of tongues speaking became a dramatic social fault line. Many of those influenced by pentecostalism within the Alliance thought that more urgency should be placed on the matter of tongues speaking, and also tried to move and expand Alliance communities in the direction of pentecostalism. In his leadership, Simpson thought that the Alliance in its current organization already included room for “all the Scriptural manifestations of the Holy Ghost,” and that extra emphasis was unwarranted. Zealous pentecostals Simpson came to distrust. They regarded themselves as “more highly gifted spiritually than others” – not that dissimilar to how Simpson had treated denominational evangelicals during the period of his break – and he believed that those who were fixated on the “elite” status of speaking in tongues all too frequently did so in a spirit of “smallness,” “meanness,” “gossiping, criticizing, back-biting, slandering and condemning other Christians.”54 As a reaction to obstreperous and elitist tongues seekers, Simpson began a process of tightening control and centralizing authority within the Alliance that made him and his church relatively more wary of them. In 1912, the national council at Boone, Iowa, adopted a “reversion clause” to its constitution, which stipulated that any Alliance property would automatically revert to the parent society if it ceased to be used as initially intended. The pentecostal controversy had sent Simpson scurrying back to the very types of organization and control that he had started the Alliance to avoid. Another dimension of the early response of the Alliance to the pentecostal controversy was to try and keep those who had received the gift of tongues, but who also repudiated the initial evidence doctrine, within the fold. A number of prominent early leaders of the Alliance experienced the gift of tongues, at one point or another, and yet maintained their loyalty to Simpson, who hadn’t, and to the Alliance ministries, with the latter’s caution. John Salmon, the major force in the Canadian C&MA, received the tongues at the Alliance’s Beulah Park convention in Ohio in 1907. For a short time, he seemed to waver, but after a while saw the wisdom in Simpson’s restraint. An Alliance stalwart, Robert Jaffray, practised tongues while out on mission in Wuchow, China, but never saw any reason why that should lead him to abandon his C&MA loyalties. Harry L. Turner, a future president of the C&MA, had received the tongues at one point in his life. By the end of Simpson’s career, there were still emphatically charismatic folk worshipping in Alliance conventions. As late as 1917, when John Coxe left the Alliance for pentecostalism, Simpson was at pains to maintain that the “great number of cases … of speaking in

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tongues has been wholly genuine and in perfect harmony with godly sincerity, simplicity, and love.” Those who practised the gift of tongues in this way, Simpson assured, would always be heartily welcome in the Alliance. On the other hand, wounds of the controversy still festered: the gift of tongues also had “been abused, [and] exaggerated until allowed to run into fanaticism and error. It was for this reason, no doubt, that the Holy Spirit placed the discerning of spirits immediately before the gift of tongues,” Simpson added pointedly. Eventually, the latter sensibility would outbalance the former, when, as a whole, the Alliance shifted mostly (though never entirely) away from charismatic practices, especially under the (early) vigilance of its famous twentieth century preacher and spiritual writer, A.W. Tozer.55

Harnessing Divine Power Amid all the rhetoric that suffused the charismatic controversy, none was perhaps more intriguing or indicative of this type of evangelical spirituality than that of “power.” According to Simpson, in the modern age, a considerable amount of the gospel’s credibility, its existential significance and its missionary allure, its transformative reality and its personal liveliness, came down to power. Being a biblical term, the word “power” also encoded in its semantic range associations from a Gilded Age America in which the harnessing of physical power and energy had made tremendous strides, as it endowed the term with a cultural currency. There was the power of steam and coal and iron and steel; there was locomotive power and industrial power, communications power and electrical power, all of which was exerting a dizzying impact on how people lived, worked, played, and related to their environment. Simpson had his pulse on this development in culture. In 1917, during the course of the Great War that was unleashing the tremendous and terrifying capacity of that power, Simpson commented that “nothing … more distinguishes our modern civilization and the industrial progress of our day than the improved methods by which man has been able to discover and utilize power.” Simpson would use this cultural development as an analogue for his supernaturalist Christianity, when he continued that an even more “tremendous difference” than that between the agricultural and the industrial world marked the “mighty forces which Christianity has introduced in comparison with all merely natural religions.” What was eminently characteristic of the gospel was that it brought “power with its message and reveal[ed] a new force in the spiritual world, more marvelous and mighty than all man’s discoveries and

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developments of electricity or steam.” In an uncanny choice of words while ordnance was shredding its way through millions of young bodies, Simpson described the Spirit’s power as having the efficacy of “divine munitions.”56 Despite the comparison with actual weapons of war, the power of which Simpson spoke was clearly a spiritual power, a personal power, and he differentiated this term from physical power or political power such that it was not directly functioning as a cipher for the wielding of those types of leverage. Simpson was not interested in literal munitions or in gears of political machinery. He was primarily interested in personal transformation, in communal formation, and the witness to the active reality of the divine. But at the same time, Simpson thoroughly believed that this spiritual power would have concrete ramifications in the world; it was, as he wrote, “a force as real as the currents of electricity or the power of dynamite.” This force was a spiritual “tidal wave of life and power” that would surge the church to a “true and normal height of holiness and power that shall last till the Master comes.” This power would tingle like the breeze, jolt like the lightening, overwhelm like the typhoon, destroy like the tornado, and build up like engineering. It would convert, make pure in a dismal world, heal, equip, and convict. In a compendium passage, Simpson described the essence of the various facets of his message in the idiom of power: “The gospel we are called to preach is a gospel of power. The power of Christ’s atoning blood, saves; the power of His grace, keeps; the power of His love, satisfies; the power of His Word, overcomes; the power of His joy, gladdens; the power of His holiness, sanctifies, and the power of His peace, quiets.”57 All of vital Christianity came down to power. Throughout his independent ministry, Simpson had drawn on the language and lessons of power as crucial. The proper use and implementation of spiritual power had been what was at stake in the pentecostal controversy, and the experience of that power in the event of tongues was what drew so many to the new movement. Before that, however, power had been what Simpson had found lacking in the denominational evangelicalism of his time. “The trouble with the modern church is it is looking for everything but the power of the Holy Ghost,” he judged. The “modern church” channelled certain kinds of power, he conceded; it was “rich in the power of education, scholarship, eloquence, executive ability, wealth, and social influence.” But those were all “worldly” powers. The modern church, in many cases, had “lost the power that wins souls and develops saints,” and so was “in danger everywhere of becoming simply a social and religious club.” A great deal of Christian work in Simpson’s time had “everything else but divine power.” The problem with so

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much of circumambient Christianity, not even to mention the broader culture, he repeatedly charged, was that it had been sapped of its divine efficacy to do the remarkable things that divine agency should entail.58 The heart of the contrast between an empowered and disempowered Christianity, for him, circled around that aspect of divine agency, or the question of the supernatural. When Simpson decried the paucity of power in the modern church he blamed the “tendency of our age,” which was “to rationalize Christianity more and more and eliminate the supernatural,” as much of “so-called Christian work has.” “Power, supernatural power!” represented the “most unique and impressive feature of the gospel,” Simpson boomed.59 The question of power, therefore, was caught up in the major realignments that Protestant Christianity was undergoing in a secularizing and modernizing age, divorcing the natural from the supernatural. The increasing demarcation of these realms from one another, characteristic of the modern mentality, meant that they were increasingly viewed as an exclusive dichotomy. And the influence flowed both ways. The modern view of power as brute force to bend something to its will had oozed into the biblical connotations of power as capacity, and this seepage influenced Simpson’s expectation that true power would always mean spectacular singularities and not mere signs that could be interpreted. This, in effect, meant elevating certain human vehicles of “power” that seemed dramatic over and above other potential ones that seemed mundane. In this respect, power and the supernatural were indicative of that other feature of Simpson’s ministry that would shape twentieth-century American religion, in addition to his role in the emergence of pentecostalism: his participation in the communal ethos that would shape nascent fundamentalism. In the lead up to the modernist-fundamentalist battles, the questions of modernity provoked a split right down the middle of evangelical Christianity in the United States, and Simpson was embroiled in that battle too.

CHAPTER TEN

Defending and Innovating the Faith

The pentecostal controversy, at the time, was only one peripheral node in a much grander negotiation between Christianity and the modern world. Beginning earlier in the century, but escalating especially throughout the final decades of Simpson’s career, Protestantism as a whole was undergoing a massive realignment in America. Having enjoyed rapid growth and wide distribution in the early Republic, evangelicalism had ascended to a position of cultural prominence during the antebellum period. Never was the entire country populated with religious practitioners or church members, nor was there an absence of a range of religious backgrounds, whether Catholic, Jewish, First Nations, African traditionalist, Enlightenment freethinker, skeptic, Unitarian, or nonevangelical like the liturgical Episcopalians – not to mention various forms of religious inventors or experimenters like the Mormons. Nevertheless, in the antebellum period, evangelical Protestantism – through its revivals, preachers, theologians, and especially through its voluntary and activist societies – had set the moral, spiritual, and cultural tone for the nation in a way unparalleled before or since. After the Civil War, that canopy would be toppled. Epochal intellectual and cultural shifts destabilized the Protestant consensus, eventually bifurcating American Protestantism into two broad streams, so-called mainline Protestantism and conservative evangelicalism. Simpson began his ministerial career within an evangelical consensus, tinkering with it, attempting to rejuvenate and revitalize it by making it more experiential, more evangelistic, more adaptable; he would end his career waging rhetorical war against a new, emerging form of modern Protestantism. Of course, this was not the first revision to infiltrate Christianity in America. The New England Puritans, who dominated the intellectual and educational culture of the first century and a half of America’s colonial history,

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saw every quibble with Calvinist orthodoxy as a shaking of the foundations. But in spite of their staunch fortifications, rationalism from without and Arminianism from within had forged inroads. When the Enlightenment came to America leading up to the Revolution, that movement had led a number of people to believe in a more remote deism or a natural religion purged of many of the distinctive elements of Christianity, leading to one of the low points of active Christian religious participation in the entire history of the nation. In a herculean effort, Jonathan Edwards had been able to harmonize the major features of the Enlightenment and its scientific outlook with orthodox Christianity in a way both intellectually satisfying and existentially beautiful. Into the early nineteenth century, the philosophical framework of Scottish common sense realism had allowed evangelical Protestants to integrate successfully the scientific developments of the time, to interpret straightforwardly the words of the Bible in a literal, individual way, and to adapt eminently to the democratizing, frontier political culture of the new Republic. While this common culture also had notable dissenters and betrayed cracks, most ferociously on the biblical/moral issue of slavery, it had pervasive plausibility in antebellum America. In the postbellum period, that plausibility began to unravel. The intellectual and cultural challenges that confronted evangelicalism during this period were much more extensive, disconcerting, disorienting, and influential than anything American Protestantism had encountered previously. Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), detailing evolutionary descent by natural selection, ricocheted around American scientific and social thought. Together with developments in geology and paleontology, these ideas seemed directly to destabilize the scriptural account of creation and the origins of humanity, to rattle the Baconian hermeneutic that had previously allowed evangelicals to elegantly synthesize their science with their faith, and to erode some of the most cogent apologetic arguments of design upon which evangelicals had relied throughout the Enlightenment. A number of evangelical and Protestant intellectuals initially showed facility in reconciling their theological convictions with Darwin’s teaching under some version of theistic evolution, even while hedging on the theoretical and provisional character of Darwin’s science and cautioning against the conflation of properly scientific and philosophical questions. At the same time, however, this scientific development seemed to subvert the straightforward faith of average evangelicals, and certainly many Christians did not emerge from their encounter with Darwinian science reading their Bible quite the same way.

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Whereas the Enlightenment, as with Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, had attempted to edit the scriptures based on exterior philosophical arguments or the posited construct of “natural religion,” the influx of historical criticism of the Bible in the late nineteenth century, especially from German universities, interrogated scripture’s canonical unity and coherence from within the text itself. Confidence in the Bible as directly the word of God, as opposed to an indirect, composite testimony to the experience of God, began to be questioned. Higher criticism, likewise, came in varying dosages. Not all evangelicals spurned every facet of higher criticism, nor did every finding disconfirm the reliability of the scriptures; some findings upheld them. Still, on the whole, there was a throbbing pressure among Protestant intellectuals and theologians to view the Bible more and more as component fragments from widely disparate historical experience, which gradually eroded an innocent and secure confidence in the unity, coherence, and literalism of the Bible. Under these influences, the Bible came to be viewed more like other pieces of religious literature and not so much as a strictly singular divine oracle. All the while, Romanticism’s affinity for beauty, the emotions, and the natural world could lead either towards or decisively away from traditional religious practice. The rise of pragmatism in American intellectual culture lost faith in the very idea of ideas. A growing pluralism emphasized the relative character of all human societies. The first ever World’s Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893 exposed the American public to a range and depth of religious practice and thought never before encountered, especially when Swami Vivekananda, articulating an enlightened Hinduism, stole the show. The influx of Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, and Chinese immigrants populated society with believers who were shaped by intellectually sophisticated faiths of their own, and who were not always interested in being converted or revived. A dramatic increase of myriad social problems convinced many Protestants to focus more on social betterment and moral responsibility than explicit Christian conversion as such, uncoupling the intimate antebellum relationship between the two. Evolving Protestant negotiations with all these trends and changing circumstances flowed together into two broad streams. This story has often been portrayed as those who accommodated and revised (the modernist liberals) and those who preserved and resisted (the conservatives or narrower fundamentalists). While that was true on certain aspects of the question, it was also true both that Protestant modernists evidenced certain aspects of conservatism and that conservative evangelicals were also innovators who embraced novel methods and doctrines in their quest to defend the faith once delivered to the

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saints. As one historian of evangelicalism aptly summarized, those belonging to Simpson’s coalition did provide the “shock troops of conservative evangelicalism during the twentieth century,” and yet they “often went into battle for beliefs which they perceived to be part of the ancient deposit of faith but which in reality went back far less than a hundred years.”1 There were also, it should be noted, those in both camps who defied simplistic categorization as one or the other, but the broad streams did have powerful currents.

Two Ministers in Hell’s Kitchen The career trajectories of two ministers became emblematic of the divergent paths within American Protestantism at the turn of the century. Both Simpson and his contemporary Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) would make their pastoral careers in the great metropolis of New York, ministering among people of the lower and middle classes, but each would derive very different lessons from that experience about how Christianity should move forward in a changing and disruptive era. Both were innovating, in their own ways, how Christian structures should minister to the new society. Simpson emphasized divine supernaturalism and was ideologically narrowing towards what would become fundamentalism; Rauschenbusch pioneered what became known as the social gospel – Christian work for the amelioration of social structures – and was theologically improvising toward Protestant liberalism. For a few years, Simpson and Rauschenbusch would minister a little over a block from each other on the threshold of Hell’s Kitchen. In 1885, Rauschenbusch had been called to be pastor of the Second German Baptist Church in the city. By 1890, he had succeeded not only in growing his church, but also in lobbying American tycoon John D. Rockefeller – who was by then transitioning to the stage of his career where lavish works of philanthropy hoped to atone for the sins of Gilded Age business – to endow a new building for his church at 407 West 43rd Street. Shortly before that, Simpson’s Gospel Tabernacle had found its home on the corner of 8th Avenue and 44th Street, the two churches about 0.3 miles from each other. There is no known evidence that the two ever met in person. In close proximity, nevertheless, they would have encountered and ministered to the same social carnage and squalor of the urban scene. Both of them would eventually depart the city: Rauschenbusch to a theological professoriate at his alma mater, Rochester Theological Seminary, and Simpson to Nyack up the Hudson, where the Alliance joined the exurban flight. It was Simpson, however, who would still

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continue to minister to urban New York, commuting daily to the Gospel Tabernacle for the remainder of his career. Removed from living in the heart of the city, Simpson’s outright concern for social work noticeably diminished towards the end, though he never relinquished it. From the perch of the seminary’s tower, and by then considerably deaf, Rauschenbusch elaborated an entire program for what he called social Christianity that captured the imagination of the Progressive Era; he dedicated his most famous book to his Hell’s Kitchen congregation.2 Rauschenbusch came from the experiential pietistic world of his imposing father, August. From early on he struggled somewhat with the constraints of theological orthodoxy, but he himself had undergone a powerful conversion experience that kept him within the Baptist orbit. Even though he later embraced higher criticism of the Bible, Rauschenbusch never relinquished a fervent devotion to Jesus as the animating centre of his social program. While a pastor in Hell’s Kitchen, Rauschenbusch’s experience of social suffering had led him to undergo a profound transformation of his Christian identity. Intellectually, Rauschenbusch began to come under the influence of German revisionist theology, especially Adolf von Harnack, and studied the Germantrained social economist Richard Ely. He was shocked by muckraking exposés such as Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives; found inspiration in the Christian attention to the social question exemplified by the Salvation Army; tested politics through Henry George’s “single tax” crusade; and dabbled in various socialisms (though not without ambivalence), including Marx, which were then percolating into America through Britain. His fixation with the social question and the reorientation of his theology around the theme of the kingdom of God led Rauschenbusch to found the periodical For the Right and to charter the Brotherhood of the Kingdom in 1892 to promote Christian social ministry and thinking. The magazine and the Brotherhood were something of liberal Protestant mirror images of the conservative evangelical structures that Simpson was assembling. In 1907, Rauschenbusch published his Christianity and the Social Crisis, a tour-de-force grounding of Christian social concern in the Hebrew prophets and the historic ministry of Jesus, an investigation into the church’s lack of social involvement, and an interrogation of specific church practices like its real estate holdings, its allocation of finances, and its capitulation to rampant commercialism. Timed perfectly with a surge of public curiosity in an era of reform and progressivism, this book became a nonfiction bestseller in America. Writing partially on the basis of his experience with the poor and wretched

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who were living and dying in Hell’s Kitchen, Rauschenbusch argued that the “stake of the Church in the social crisis” was vast. The operation of the commercial and industrial system in America, he averred, was “dominated by principles antagonistic to the ethics of Christianity” and hostile to the enaction of the kingdom of God here and now. “If the Church has not faith enough in the Christian law to assert its sovereignty over all relations of society,” and thereby bring society more into conformity with kingdom values, then “men will deny that it is a good and practicable law at all,” he warned. In the end, Rauschenbusch said presciently, “if the Church cannot conquer business, business will conquer the Church.”3 Rauschenbusch furthered his social program for Christianity through his Christianizing the Social Order (1912) and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917). The divergence of the two evangelicalisms wasn’t as radical yet as it would later become. As pastor, Simpson himself was fully aware of the severity of the social question when he observed in 1883 about the disparity of society, “the strongest contrasts can be found in New York, but none is more striking than the proximity of vice and luxury, wealth and misery.”4 And he was inheritor to a long tradition of revivalist and holiness social action. For his part, Rauschenbusch still circulated in the orbit of D.L. Moody’s revivalism and J. Hudson Taylor’s missions, as when he applauded their work after a visit up to Northfield. He collaborated with Ira Sankey, Moody’s revival musician, on the German Baptist hymnal, and was – surprisingly to many Baptists – open to the gift of tongues speaking in the church within Pauline constraints. Simpson and Rauschenbusch shared an antipathy toward Catholicism and an orientation to the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. But Rauschenbush was scornful about extreme holiness theology, quipping after a summer visit to the camp meeting grounds in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, “the engine that whistles too much has no steam left to pull the train.” And he was ambivalent about premillennialism. He appreciated the fervour, agreed that it properly diagnosed the world situation, and thought it more reminiscent of the revolutionary posture of the early church, but lambasted its neglect of efforts to herald and anticipate the kingdom in social transformation even now. Not that he was a postmillennialist, either. But he agreed with that school’s work through social structures. Simpson would not have been able to tolerate the entanglement of the social gospel with biblical higher criticism and German liberal theology, nor would he have agreed that social structures were themselves spheres of the arrival of the kingdom instead of the supernatural empowerment of individual conversion.5

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Emerging Protestant Revisionism Simpson and Rauschenbusch were two representative individual examples. But they were both part of a larger transformation in the American Protestant landscape. In the early stages of his career, Simpson primarily defined himself as part of a holiness movement that critiqued the spiritual languidity and lethargy of denominational evangelicalism. Towards the end of his career, Simpson would find himself having to take a primarily defensive posture against an emerging Protestant revisionism. To get a sense of what Simpson was contesting in his perceived defensce of the faith, it is helpful to explore the contour of the revisionist movement that was taking shape. Tremors had pulsated earlier in the century when Congregationalist theologian and pastor Horace Bushnell unleashed his view that the inspiration of the Bible was not literal but cryptic and polyphonous, encompassing a range of meanings and invoking a host of images to convey broad truths. After the Civil War, with the rise of pragmatism and Romanticism in culture and with the incursion of higher criticism and Darwinian science in the universities, some Christians returned to Bushnell, taking elements of his program and adapting them to new intellectual and socio-cultural situations. Washington Gladden (1836–1918), for example, longtime pastor at First Congregational in Columbus, Ohio, viscerally experienced his era as undermining traditional orthodox doctrines like the substitutionary atonement, the literal inspiration of scripture, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Reading scripture as metaphor was one way he could adapt. His 1899 book How Much Is Left of the Old Doctrines? chartered a program for revisionist, progressive Protestantism much the same way that A.T. Pierson’s Forward Movements would do so for conservatives the following year. In this work, Gladden played with some of the already hackneyed slogans. He argued that he himself was not a “liberal,” if by “Liberalism” what was meant was “mainly criticism and denial,” or “defiance of all wholesome restraints and conventions.” At the same time, he also described his own position as not “orthodox,” if by orthodoxy one meant adhering to the letter of the classic creeds or doctrines of the church’s history. Gladden still identified fiercely with Jesus, and as a Christian, but he described himself as “a new kind of Christian.” Favouring the organic metaphors of Romanticism, Gladden argued that Christian doctrine had to grow adaptively: “If Christian doctrine is a living thing, it must be undergoing changes.” This was because the “enlargement of our knowledge, and the change in our point of view,” inevitably had to lead to interpreting the Bible differently. New knowledge

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led to new interpretive criteria to evaluate what the Bible was supposed to mean. Gladden’s animating pastoral concern was the perception that new scientific and historical knowledge were foisting an either/or decision on modern believers. If they were forced to choose between science and belief, Gladden feared that Christianity would come out on the losing end. By contrast, he sought to show that “one may be a Christian without denying any of the well established facts of modern science.” He wanted to enable the “intelligent Christian,” the one who “may stand in the presence of modern thought, and accept everything that has been proved by science or history or criticism, and not be frightened by any of it; firmly believing that the great verities of the Christian faith will still remain untouched.”6 Many of those who embraced something like the “new theology” that Gladden articulated also embraced the social gospel embodied in Rauschenbusch, though not every participant adhered to every aspect of both programs. Antebellum postmillennial evangelicals, of course, had led and fostered a whole host of progressive social reform movements. Abolition had been the closest analogue where antebellum evangelicals eventually sought large-scale structural change, the entire elimination of the slave system, and political mobilization on a broad scale. With the rise of industrial and urban America, however, socially minded evangelicals were encountering many more situations that could not be reduced to individual decisions. These were social problems generated on massive scales, cutting across individual decisions, and seemingly unable to be remedied except by collective action. This was dramatically evident in cases such as sanitizing public waste, reckoning with the pollution spewing from large-scale industries, and the interconnection of public works programs like water, transportation, and utilities. During this period, humans, animals, the natural environment, and the built environment were all interacting in unprecedented, complex, and intertwined ways – ways that simply overwhelmed the bounds of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian libertarian (the old liberals) yeoman farmer democracy. The social gospelers believed that Christians had to tackle the problem at a massive structural level. And they might have to revise long-held political or social dogmas in the process, just as the new theology was challenging theological and intellectual ones.7 It was a remarkable aspect of American religion how rapidly this movement of Protestant revisionism went from obscurity to ascendency. Even into the 1880s, traditional evangelicalism was still in the driver’s seat and the main stimulus of Protestantism’s continued growth in America. Within a few decades, Protestant revisionism would take hold of the major centres of power

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and leadership in American Christianity. Because a large swath of people in the pews and on the grassroots level were not avowed modernists, it would take another few decades before what became known as the fundamentalistmodernist controversy finally settled control of the denominational and educational infrastructure in favour of the revisionists. But already by the turn of the century, the revisers had grasped the initiative. One index suggested the rapid change: in 1892, it was estimated that only 662 of the 100,000 or so Protestant ministers in America (less than 1 per cent) were “deeply committed” to the social gospel. By 1934, one questionnaire of 21,000 ministers (who they surveyed was also telling) estimated that 95 per cent were and 51 per cent favoured a “drastically reformed capitalism.”8 Simpson already sensed that the winds were changing at the end of his life. He was living in a different time and would have to fight different battles from when he was a young minister. As a culmination of this trajectory of his ministry, Simpson published The Old Faith and the New Gospels in 1911, a rejoinder to books like Gladden’s Old Doctrines. There he diagnosed the general problem with which he would contend: “The present generation has witnessed a simultaneous attack upon the foundations of our faith on half a dozen different lines.”9

The Bible under Fire The first and last line of defence – the absolute foundation of conservative evangelicalism – was, of course, the Bible. Simpson had been galvanized against the more radical claims and implications of higher biblical criticism through his training at Knox College by Presbyterian professors who were both consummate scholars and deep believers in the Bible’s complete inspiration. Although he had abandoned other aspects of the Westminster orthodoxy that he had received at Knox, Simpson never wavered from their defence of the integrity of the scriptures. Already by 1882, shortly after Simpson had launched his independent ministry and much earlier than the rancorous battles over biblical interpretation that would erupt in the Protestant churches, Simpson was warning against the evisceration of the Bible. Aware of the influence of German theology filtering into America, he asked: “Have we gone too far in saying that modern thought has grown impatient with the Bible … What part of the Bible has it not assailed? The Pentateuch it has long ago swept from the canon as unauthentic.” The outcome, Simpson saw, was that “different men assail different portions of the book, and various systems level their batteries of prejudice at various points; until … the Scripture is torn all to pieces,

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Figure 10.1 Simpson’s sermon notes on the Good Shepherd.

and cast to the four winds of heaven, and by even the most forbearing of the cultured Vandals of what is called modern thought, it is condensed into a thin pamphlet of morality, instead of the tome of teaching through which we have eternal life.” In defence, Simpson rehearsed in detail the available apologetic arguments about the manuscript variety and attestation of the Bible in relation to all other ancient literature that “substantially agree,” and across which “the variations between the different copies are so slight as not to affect any essential fact or doctrine.”10 Later in 1889, Simpson’s warning against biblical unfaithfulness intensified. “There is a dangerous tendency to drift from evangelical moorings,” he claimed, “even in the most conservative churches.” The problem Simpson faced was theological colleges and seminaries that were beginning to appoint faculty who dabbled in the higher criticism. Dabbling was enough to make them suspect to Simpson by this point, regardless of the particular balance of interpretations that any professor claimed to uphold. Although by then Simpson was already critical and often dismissive of the denominations, it still grieved him when

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the classic evangelical denominations seemed to be abandoning their heritage as they welcomed professors or teachers who embraced the “new theology” or who did not adhere to “any positive or exact doctrine of inspiration.” This would be their downfall, according to Simpson. When these appointments became a trend at many formerly conservative institutions of learning, Simpson adumbrated that “revolution is not always progress in the Christian Church and … we are approaching the troubled waters and eddying currents of a whirlpool, where the certainties of the faith will be lost sight of and the old cry of Pilate, what is truth? will become the watchword.” Christianity, in the coming years, had to “look for its most dangerous foes” internally, the wolves clad in sheep’s clothing, “rather than from open infidelity.”11 Sartorial deference could no longer be trusted. Given his own educational background, Simpson never outright rejected biblical scholarship as such, and he often relied on the best evangelical work in it to buttress his own positions. He never rejected “lower criticism,” which included textual work on the best manuscripts, awareness of new developments in the context of the Bible, and fresh, up-to-date translations of the Bible. For Simpson the “researches of modern criticism [which] have developed much rationalism and speculation” had to be differentiated from the “real and solid progress” of what he called “sacred criticism.” Sacred, faithful biblical research, Simpson enthused, could shine a “full beam of light on the dark interval which separated the days of the Apostles from the days of Irenaeus and Clement,” and could furthermore “answer, most satisfactorily, questions of critical doubt raised by skeptical scholars.” True, authentic scholarship – unbeclouded by antagonistic presumptions – entailed that every discovery would “only confirm … the faith of the Church in its accepted Scriptures” and would disprove blatantly “willful skepticism.”12 Evangelical churches that hired ministers tainted by higher criticism, or seminaries that hired professors who peddled it, were therefore selling themselves out. One example of this trend that Simpson commented on in public was when the Episcopal priest R. Heber Newton (1840–1914), pastor of All Soul’s in New York, published The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible (1883) championing higher criticism. Simpson lambasted this previously evangelical church who facilitated one of its ministers “publicly preaching against the supreme authority and full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.” And he chided those in the church who aligned with “great delight to the people who are only too glad to have somebody of consequence throw doubt upon the sanctions of Christianity.” It was “still more sad,” for Simpson, “to find even the secular press obliged to protest against the

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helplessness of a church” to act against such a false minister. Newton was, in fact, eventually charged with heresy, but his bishop, the popular Henry Codman Potter, waffled.13 For Simpson, the “unfriendly scholarship in the name of Higher Criticism” was one crucial ingredient of the poisonous cocktail of modernism that was sickening true Christianity, as it was “directed against the authority, integrity and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.”14 It was especially pernicious because its vector of approach attempted to claim utmost respect for the Bible. It was much more problematic, therefore, than the “old infidelity” of the Enlightenment, which had explicitly targeted the “destruction of the entire Bible.” The new infidelity of biblical scholarship worked more subtly and deviously, Simpson thought, gradually dismantling the authority of the Bible under the guise of respect for its difference and pluriformity. Simpson cautioned that this scholarship “professes the greatest respect for the Bible and its teachers” using entrancing words. But, in fact, “while sailing under the colors of the Bible,” this criticism was truly the Bible’s “most dangerous foe,” and “the great adversary” was “fighting his last and best battle against Christianity, not from the outside but from the inside, with a pirate captain and hostile crew on board the ship of professed Christianity.” Because the practitioners of the novel higher criticism devoted such careful and scrupulous attention to the text, its peculiarities and contours, this could be used as a subterfuge to dismantle the elevated doctrine of the Bible overall with pieces of the Bible itself.15 Since the Bible was the ultimate foundation for and justification of Protestant revivalist Christianity – intellectually and existentially – any overhauling of this foundation was deadly serious. Using the vivid imagery of piracy, Simpson was basically warning that partisans of higher biblical criticism were marauders for Satan. Further, if the scriptures “cease to be the infallible Word of God,” he inferred, they would simply “take their place with the human literature of other ages and nations,” and their spiritual authority would be null and void. Satan would have triumphed against the church of Christ, and the Bible would be demoted, no longer holding “authority for our conscience or our conduct.” It would become “wholly subordinate to our own reason and innate ideas.” Simpson thought this evisceration by unfaithful biblical criticism was merely a reflex of a declining, apostate age. The scholars were tampering with the Bible’s authority because they wanted to enshrine the authority of themselves. Despite the critics’ rhetoric of faithfulness to the details of the Bible, “Satan knows that a Bible full of holes” would cease to be a “whole or Holy Bible.” Through his condemnations of the critics,

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Simpson showed that he had read up on the most recent developments of biblical criticism, even if his readings were often quite superficial, and that was itself an interesting fact about conservative evangelicalism. Simpson also offered counter-arguments. His riposte to the critics was at once circular and existentially potent as an identity consolidation. Christians experienced the Bible as the absolute word of God, and the Bible itself testified that it was the true word of God. For Simpson, therefore, true believers simply had to start from this position and could not reason towards or against it. That was axiomatic. In terms of the Bible’s historical accuracies, Simpson largely swept aside the excruciating details, arguing that the broad strokes of the history of the Old and New Testaments were accurate and had been demonstrated as such by many discoveries. The portrait of Jesus in the New Testament was so raw and compelling as to defy invention.16 The criticism of the Bible was just the first stone in the landslide as true Christianity began to erode. Next, “so-called Christians” under the regime of the “New Theology” would attack the doctrines of the “person, deity, atoning work and resurrection of Jesus Christ,” turning Jesus into merely an inspired religious leader, and the supernatural accomplishment of salvation into a mere process of personal self-discovery. Simpson editorialized that this was happening right in proximity of his own Gospel Tabernacle with the preaching and teaching of Lyman Abbott (1835–1922). A Congregationalist minister, Abbott penned many articles through the pages of The Christian Union and The Outlook that promoted a social-reform, humanitarian, and evolutionary view of Christianity. When Abbott was installed as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in 1888, succeeding his former editorial companion and mentor, Henry Ward Beecher, Simpson fulminated against the content of his inaugural sermon. According to Simpson, that sermon wavered between viewing redemption as the developmental progress of the soul, the atonement as a moral example, and the eschaton as universal salvation, views which “no one has [even] attempted to harmonize with the gospel.” The sermon by Abbott, he decried, was “so diametrically opposed to what is generally understood as evangelical Christianity” that he was incredulous how a Protestant church could “practically … place the seal of their unqualified approval upon the principles so inconsistent with the principles of the churches of the Reformation.” Simpson suspected that they had simply acquiesced: for Abbott’s sermon had contained so many “bold and startling things … no one ever claimed represented Evangelical Christianity.” A formerly evangelical church pulpit was being commandeered to trumpet a flagrantly humanistic message.17

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Such a “humiliating compromise” of Christianity’s “truth and honor,” Simpson concluded, had “just been smoothed over with plausible rhetoric and unwholesome and sentimental liberalism” that was “disloyal to the most essential and sacred claims of a crucified Saviour and the Gospel of his redeeming love.” This wave was sweeping the churches, Simpson forewarned; Abbott was just one canary in the coal mine. “The spirit of rationalism and free thought had grown in the churches and pulpits” to such an extent that “the enemy the Church of God has to contend with to-day for the Bible, is not without but within the church.” The church’s enemy within was a revisionist tide, a “theological system that aims to eliminate the supernatural from Christianity” in favour of whatever was fashionably “plausible and rational.” Simpson’s antagonism to the new theology disclosed not only his solemnity but also his humour, as he ridiculed and satirized some of the implications.18 Not only at the level of doctrine was Simpson concerned. His emphasis on Christian mission meant that he was primarily concerned that such a shift would sap the faith of all its authentic dynamism and potency. If the “prevailing drift of religious life in this country, which is running rapidly into intellectual rather than spiritual lines,” were allowed to crest, Christianity would be evaporated of “all its force and fire.”19 It would lose its power. What he saw as the essential supernatural element of Christianity had been reduced to the merely natural.

Harbingers of the Monkey Trial While the Bible was the primary battleground, there were many other trenches, another key one being evolution. In the earliest years after the appearance of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), a number of evangelical leaders anticipated that traditional Christianity could be reconciled with the scientific view of evolution in various ways and to varying degrees, as long as science was kept within its proper sphere.20 But as the divide between liberals and conservatives widened, as positions entrenched, and as animosities intensified, evolution became a line in the sand. Even then, some stalwarts among the conservatives were open to entertaining the truth of some aspects of evolutionary theory. But the loudest voices in conservative circles were given over to adamant opponents like Billy Sunday, William B. Riley, and John Roach Straton, who refused to negotiate at all with modern science. In a precarious alliance, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time failed populist Democratic presidential candidate and lion of the “cross of gold” speech, became the celebrity face of this antievolution campaign.21 Bryan did denounce evolutionary teaching as

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undermining biblical reliability, and suspected that amoral education would erode the civilizational pillars of American society. Yet he joined this cause not primarily to debate scientific truth but to champion the democratic right of the people, in the public education they paid for, to determine their own educational standards and content, as well as to thwart the elitism of ostensible specialists and experts.22 In any case, for this group evolutionary thinking became a compendium and concentration of all the ills of modern society and “modernism.” The most (in)famous incident took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, where antievolution evangelicals suffered a major cultural defeat, embarrassed on their own terms of rhetorical combat by skeptic and defence lawyer Clarence Darrow in the Scopes Monkey Trial.23 A little more than a decade before Scopes, when the fate of evolution among conservative evangelicals was more uncertain, Simpson found himself categorically on the condemnatory side. Without fully understanding the evidence upon which Darwin originally based his theory, Simpson parroted a number of arguments that had been ventured by its detractors – including some in the scientific community – questioning its soundness. He first attacked evolutionary theory not on its own scientific grounds, but on the weaker grounds of association. Supporters of the evolutionary model had extended evolutionary thinking far beyond strict biology. Epigones of Darwin had drawn many inferences unwarranted by the science as such, which had “led to an attempt to explain everything in the universe, not only in the world of matter and nature, but in the world of mind, morals, society, politics, and even religion, on the principle of evolution and development.” On that point – that evolution as science had often been extrapolated to make meta-scientific claims – Simpson made a deft point. This response was part of a more potent weapon in the conservative arsenal to bombard the “creed of science,” dogmatic scientism, or the endowing of science and its results with quasi-religious status, in a way that often left actual scientific results as collateral damage. The believers in such a “new faith,” Simpson wrote back in 1882, had “formulated” a “confession of scientific faith,” where science usurped the role as ultimate metaphysical explanation of all creation and ultimate arbiter of all meaning. This “Gospel of Science,” Simpson declared, went beyond anything truly empirical in method and had become a “fine parody of Christianity, and a fine medley of man’s imagination; a Tower of Babel … pretending to reach to Heaven.”24 To further his cause, Simpson strove both to condemn evolution as unproven and insufficiently scientific, and to demonstrate its irreconcilability with the gospel. In the

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former line of attack, Simpson zeroed in on gaps in the data – many of which Darwin himself acknowledged – while skipping over the evidence that Darwin had in fact marshalled. As a result, Simpson remained buoyantly and naïvely confident that additional research on purely scientific grounds would fail to unearth further evidence in support of the evolutionary hypothesis, and would eventually discredit it altogether. Eventually, he believed, true biblical science would win out. Simpson furthermore conscripted other eminent scientists or philosophers, such as Isaac Newton, who were believers in the divine design of the universe, in order to mount the apologetic argument that evolutionists were both overextended in their thinking and unrepresentative of the scientific community. When Simpson turned to expound the biblical account of creation, which was the final authority on all matters of truth, he actually did leave open a qualification for the “true place of evolution” that many of his fundamentalist successors would not. There could be a “place for a modified doctrine of evolution or development,” Simpson allowed, “as a method by which the great First Cause or Creator accomplishes much of his work, and especially by which He carries on the great processes of nature and providence under His divine supervision.” That was, of course, precisely the account of theistic evolution on which many of the more open evangelicals had been working, but Simpson mostly ignored their efforts. In any case, Simpson didn’t see the “extreme” partisans of evolution being willing to accept that theistic possibility, and as a pastor he still had to deal with what he saw as the deleterious outcomes of evolutionary teaching on faith and culture. He claimed to observe a domino effect in those who accepted that teaching, such that they “ended up abandoning the Christian religion and even belief in God” by the end. So it was pastorally preferable for him to unreservedly oppose the versions of evolution that circulated, and to ignore any of the mediating positions. Any account of evolution, nevertheless, had to be squared with the literal reading of Genesis 1–2, and not the other way around. The major shortcoming of these views of evolution, according to Simpson, was their methodological exclusion of the supernatural. Creation, for him, described fundamentally a supernatural event of the direct action of God, and to make sense of their faith believers had “continually to believe in a God who can make things out of nothing.”25 In some ways, certainly, Simpson’s interaction with evolutionary thought represented a traditional Christian doctrine of creation. Even here, however, there was innovation. Antievolutionists had to further define and circumscribe what creationism claimed or did not claim in relation to scientific knowledge

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in ways that prior Christian tradition had not done. Evolutionary theory was a new phenomenon in the history of science, and so the response to it, either for or against, also included novel adaptations of Christianity to other avenues of potential knowledge and decisions about the nature of that relationship. Nor was Simpson entirely anti-science. As with many conservative evangelicals (at least among their leaders, if not always among those in the pews), he had a much more complex relationship with science in general than the specific terms of the evolution debate, or the later pejorative view of fundamentalism, suggested. True, an emphatic literalist reading of the Bible functioned as an evaluative criterion for scientific knowledge; the relationship was not one of reciprocal interpretation or illumination. That was the key hermeneutical point undergirding his position. And yet, where he did not think that developments in natural science directly challenged the reading of the Bible, Simpson often followed these developments with great enthusiasm, care, and interest. While science, in one aspect, was a vehicle for unfaithful repudiation of the Bible, it was also, in another respect, a providential tool of God’s design to be embraced as an anticipation of the kingdom. Simpson, despite his supernaturalism, still retained some vestiges of the older view from his Reformed scholastic theological heritage that the natural world was also a book of God – when rightly interpreted by the scriptures, of course. He noted that in his era science was “leaping forward with gigantic strides,” and “every week brings some new discovery that almost takes away our breath.” Each new (authentic) discovery, according to Simpson, was an inspiration of the Spirit as a “stepping stone to clearer light and wider knowledge of nature’s mysteries.” Such scientific developments were part of Christ’s plan of “getting these forces and agencies ready for His kingdom and His reign.”26 Innovations in the sciences themselves were to be welcomed, as long as they didn’t pretend to contradict the traditional faith of the scriptures. When Simpson turned to developments in astronomy, as opposed to biology, he was much more approving. This type of science, he praised, could disclose just how “majestic and glorious,” the creation was, “incomparably greater when seen with the eye of science and under the magnifying lenses of the telescope of the astronomer.” The stupendousness of developments had been able to inspire the human mind “to weigh those mighty orbs, to span that vast immensity, to tell how far those worlds are hung from our little planet, and how long their light has been in travelling across the mighty space of immensity.” Such discoveries of astronomy were “so stupendous that the mind reels under the weight, and the brain almost sinks in the effort to

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realize their magnitude.”27 In this case, Simpson was highly appreciative of the developments of science, because he thought they all redounded to the grandeur and glory of God. It was only when science seemed to contradict a literal reading of the Bible that it erred and had to be challenged. Simpson didn’t entertain the possibility that scientific knowledge could enrich his reading or help show him how to rightly interpret the Bible, but as long as direct conflict was kept off the table, science could be of immense value.

Improvising to Conserve With regard to historic orthodox doctrines, the scriptures, and evolution, Simpson keenly envisioned himself as defending the old faith once delivered to the saints. He even employed the language of “conservative” for his position, whereas earlier in his career he had preferred the language of “bold” or “aggressive Christianity” to describe his approach to ministry, and had derided the “cold conservatism” of the denominational church structures.28 Even here, nevertheless, it was also evident that Simpson was innovating. This had to be the case for evolution because it was a radically new scientific and epistemological context, deciding how the Bible spoke one way or another, for or against. But, even if it didn’t seem that way to Simpson, he was also innovating when it came to his view of the Bible itself. The radical phase of Simpson’s Christian journey had departed from the historic Protestant denominational buttresses for scripture’s authority, until Simpson had been left alone with himself and his Bible. At the time, he thought this got him closer to authentic Christianity. What is also did was to make the text of the Bible bear the full weight of evidentiary support for his beliefs. Under this weight, the Bible had to be perfect, flawless in every respect, lest his beliefs collapse under the pressure. In this context, Simpson and his cohort continued to make more and more aggressive claims for the scope of scripture’s reference and perfection, including the spheres of social commentary, historical accuracy, and modern scientific precision. This was an “emphatic literalism” that would become a default among holiness and other conservative evangelicals. In response to the critics of the Bible, every aspect and every facet of this rollicking and rugged text had to be defended as absolutely errorless and binding on the believer in the same way. Scripture, in this teaching, was believed to be “inerrant,” a newly fashionable term with the finesse – but ultimately conjectural caveat – that this inerrancy applied to the “original autographs.” Scripture’s inerrancy was

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taken to apply to the scope of any field of knowledge, not just the realms of faith and morals. Simpson’s cadre believed that this was a traditionalist position. In actuality, it was something of an innovation – even if it took its inspiration from previous Christian reverence for every letter of the scriptures. Centuries of Christian hermeneutics had interpreted at least parts of the Bible as cryptic and allegorical. Previous thought had developed a multilayered theory of interpretation that included spiritual, moral, and eschatological meanings. Of those layers, the foundational literal level was not always where the Bible’s truth primarily resided. While the historic Reformers had returned to the literal level, they too realized that certain aspects of the gospel message had to critique other potential implications of literal interpretation of the Bible, while they also cleared wide space for the metaphorical and typological significations of the plain sense. Levelling this entire contour to the same homogenous scientific referent of truth was done for the professed sake of saving the Bible from its critics. But those of Simpson’s generation who adopted this way of reading were not just defending the faith but also innovating it – and with this particular innovation, especially, they were also inviting a whole host of problems for themselves with regard to new social, historical, and scientific knowledge. Added to this was the incongruity that the faith Simpson was championing as ancient included a number of elements that dated back no more than a century. The latter three-fourths of the Fourfold Gospel, after all – even while all drawing on threads in the church’s history – were quite novel in the specific formulation and emphasis in the Christian doctrinal architecture that Simpson had given them. In those cases, Simpson interestingly viewed his own innovations as both a restorationist return to earliest Christianity and as appropriate developments for the church’s understanding once the experience of the Holy Spirit had been fully enjoyed and articulated. Ironically, the more cautious of the new theologians said something similar about their own teachings; the devil, as always, was in the details. The new emphatic literalism in reading the Bible in Simpson’s generation, under the guise of old ways of defending it, merged together with the new conservative emphasis on premillennialism to fuel one of the most innovative teachings of the movement: dispensationalism. Originally an Irish export from the Plymouth Brethren and the ornate exegetical schemes of John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), dispensationalism was one of the more persnickety debates that circulated within conservative North American evangelicalism during the end of Simpson’s time and in the transition to the next generation of conservative evangelicals.29

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Within premillennialism there emerged fierce debates about the precise details of prophecy as they related to the return of Jesus and the end of the world within the emphatic literalist hermeneutic. The two primary orientations of the historicists and the dispensationalists (or futurists), with some internal variation, emerged and jockeyed for prophetic supremacy. The historicists believed that many of the great prophecies of Daniel and Revelation had already occurred in human history and could be identified and attached to specific actors. Dispensationalists, by contrast, elaborated a detailed outline of various discrete eras, or “dispensations” of the world’s history (most commonly, seven such), each with its respective divine arrangement and human responsibility. Scripture passages, including prophetic references, could refer to the particularities of different dispensations, and so had to be interpreted according to the correctly corresponding and elaborately delineated dispensational rules. A crucial distinction was a separation between one arrangement for the church and another arrangement for the people of Israel, under which differing schemes the believing church would be astonishingly “raptured” before the rest of prophetic events unfolded. While most of the prophecies in scripture were still waiting to be fulfilled in future dispensations, or with the great tribulation, the sudden arrival of the rapture could occur at any moment, without warning or precedent. Simpson identified himself with the historicists, because he believed that this view cohered biblically with his interpretation of church and secular history, but he was not entirely consistent with the purists of either position. He also blended language from the dispensationalists, adopted their distinct arrangements for Israel and the church, and speculated about a “partial rapture” of the church under the time of the great tribulation.30 Historicists believed many of the preconditions for the event of Christ’s return had already been fulfilled, but there were also the outstanding prophetic signs of the Jewish nation, the evangelization of the world, and the preparation of the church. Participating in movements towards actualizing these signs would hasten the arrival of the end times. Other “signs,” however, already indicated that prophetic forces were converging and the end was near. These signs were crucial for Simpson’s relation both to society at large and to the rest of Protestant Christianity, for they were mostly pessimistic. Anticipatory signs included epic natural calamities, the dissolution of great empires, the rise of an ungodly socialism, but also the excesses and indulgences of an unchastened consumerism, a “great apostasy” in the Christian church – which he identified with the theological revisionists – and an unparalleled moral degradation that

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would be matched in intensity only by the scintillating holiness of the small, faithful remnant. At the same time, the positive increase in knowledge, the transportation revolution, technological wonders, and how those wonders facilitated the spread of Christian missions, were also signs that the end was near because of the increasing global interconnection of believers and the possibility of all tribes hearing the gospel. Constantly on the lookout for signs, after one textured catalogue of the details of Bismarck’s escapades in Germany, together with what he saw as a demonstrable increase in natural disasters, Simpson assured his readers: “signs, these all are, of a solemn time, and signals in some sense of His nearer coming.”31 Although Simpson never fully adopted the detailed dispensationalist schemes and believed that certain prophecies had already been accomplished in history, the relative influence of dispensationalist rhetoric on him was not surprising, given the prominent role that the American baron of dispensationalism, C.I. Scofield (1843–1921), played in the Alliance. An uncanny figure to have become one of the most popular conservative Bible teachers in the nation, Scofield lived a life of reinvention, the kind made only in America. Something of a rapscallion in his earlier years – some would say throughout his life – Scofield had moved south to join the Confederate Army during the Civil War, before becoming a deserter from the cause of rebellion. In the aftermath of the war, he managed to finagle his way into being appointed US district attorney for Kansas at still a young age, though he was soon forced to resign after having become embroiled in one of the Gilded Age’s classic bribery and kickback scandals with the railroads. An alcoholic, he abandoned his first wife and child, but then experienced an archetypal conversion experience under the revivals of Moody and the mentorship of James H. Brookes of St Louis. Taking up his own pastorate in Dallas at First Congregational, he married one of his congregants.32 In 1909, he published his Scofield Reference Bible with Oxford University Press, which included the text of the King James Version along with copious and meticulous notes about dating, dispensations, and prophetic schemes. Since he himself was largely a self-taught Bible student, Scofield’s edition of the Bible was also designed, despite its exacting level of detail, to be populist, straightforward, and accessible. The Scofield Bible became one of the best-selling books in America, ensuring the survival of its publisher and influencing how whole swaths of conservative evangelicals and pentecostals read and interpreted their Bible and related it to their culture and their times.33 Scofield was deeply connected to the Alliance for a few years, especially after

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he retired to Long Island to work on his second edition. He served as an early board member of the C&MA, spoke at the Gospel Tabernacle and Alliance conventions, and taught periodically at the Mti school in Nyack. Simpson’s C&MA periodical featured prominent advertisements for the Scofield Bible, and Simpson himself provided an endorsement for “our esteemed brother C.I. Scofield,” voicing his “deep appreciation of this splendid work” and lauding “the spirit of reverence which pervades the whole.” Simpson wrote to his readers that Scofield’s version of the Bible was “worthy of the highest praise and the widest circulation.”34

Junia’s Daughters The innovations of dispensationalism were leading conservative evangelicals to become more antagonistic to the culture, as their preoccupation with scripture as a scientific and literal “compendium of facts” was creating an insular intellectual identity, alienating that subculture from larger trends in American intellectual life.35 While Simpson was being influenced by and spreading around these beliefs about prophecy, he was also experientially innovating with an area that was in tension with an emphatic literalist reading of the Apostle Paul: the role of women in public ministry in the church. Throughout Christian history, women had comprised the majority of believers, and played crucial roles as congregants, social workers, martyrs, mystics, nuns, and transmitters of the faith to the next generation. Yet their roles as public teachers or officially sanctioned leaders had been almost entirely circumscribed up to Simpson’s time, with few exceptions. In America, however, the decentred and experiential nature of the evangelical revivalist tradition had begun to inspire women to preach in public, feeling compelled to do so on the basis of their inner conversion experience. And evangelical social activism had been an influential contributing factor in the nascent women’s movements of the nineteenth century, even when the expansion of leadership roles for women was seen as a feminized extension of the morality of the home into the public realm.36 A major intensification in the public extent of women’s ministry came with the holiness movement, whose urgency for evangelism and sanctification led them to give public homage to many women who seemed to exemplify those ministries. The C&MA was a leader among the other faith missions and independent ventures of this era, accepting women, for the first time in American history, not only as ministers’ wives or as social workers, nurses, or

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teachers to other women and children, but as full-fledged “equal partners” in the gospel work to the whole world. At home, women often assumed unprecedented roles in the work of branches, conventions, evangelism, and teaching. Simpson’s Missionary Training Institute and the deployment of Alliance workers in foreign fields were remarkable in that they fostered the education and service of women in Christian mission under the same terms as men. Not every field in which these women were deployed conformed to this ideal in practice, depending on the local circumstances. Sometimes women were still funnelled into traditional “women’s work,” such as homemaking, cooking, cleaning, organizing gatherings, running orphanages, and “filling gaps” in ministry when men were unavailable, as opposed to engaging directly in evangelism and teaching. But in a variety of fields, women ministered fully as evangelists and teachers.37 Simpson had evolved somewhat on his view of women’s roles from his earlier Presbyterian pastorate. That change was largely on an experimental and functional basis. The more that Simpson became involved in independent revivalistic ministries, discerned the Holy Spirit being poured out on empowered women, and encountered the power of the ministry of “consecrated women” – and the more urgently that he sensed the need for the world’s evangelization to happen now – the more he supported women assuming a public role. As Simpson experienced the power of women’s ministry, his eyes were opened to the dramatic role that women had played in scripture, over and above the classic prooftexts on the topic of women in ministry in the epistles. He noted the powerful female leaders in scripture: Deborah among the Judges, for example, and, most especially, the women who were co-workers or deaconesses with the Apostle Paul: Priscilla, Phoebe, Persis, Euodia, and Syntyche. “Ever since Anna announced the incarnation, and Mary Magdalene heralded the resurrection,” Simpson inferred the mission of women from their testimony, “woman has been God’s special instrument for publishing the glad tidings of salvation.” Phoebe, for example, “too, has her ministry” in the Bible. As a result, “God be thanked for the enlargement and restoration of woman’s blessed ministry” in Simpson’s own time, “and let our beloved sisters awake and fulfill in these days the vision of three thousand years ago.” Women were crucial leaders of Alliance home branches and mission fields. They preached before the mixed congregation at the Gospel Tabernacle, as when Simpson lauded the sermon of renowned healing speaker Mrs K.H. Brodie there in 1890: “No lady who has ever spoken among us in the name of the Lord has ever left a profounder impression for the truth and the Lord.”38

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Still, there were those pesky prooftexts. Notwithstanding all the other places where the gospel community generally seemed to transgress the gender divide, Paul seemed to have been clear and explicit in those passages that women should not formally teach men in the church, should not be public in the ministry, and should acquiesce to male ecclesial “headship,” as “they are commanded to be under obedience.” For someone who was also engaged in a ferocious battle for the literal integrity of the Bible, those texts were something; one had to be delicate with one’s hermeneutical manoeuvers during times of war. Many dimensions of patriarchal society, norms, and culture, certainly, had conspired to place women in a subordinate and dependent status in the church over the centuries. But, for Protestants, there was first and foremost the straight, plain sense reading of these passages of scripture. In a refreshing display of hermeneutical honesty from an evangelical leader, Simpson admitted that these passages simply flummoxed him, given his experience of the ministry of women. “Satan has kept me tongue tied by those … verses many times,” he conceded. In that case, what was the authority for women to teach in mixed congregations, as they did – and without taking the euphemistic title of “women’s teacher,” as was happening in many other denominations that were flirting with the line but not crossing it? Simpson concluded: “The passages mean what they say, but they do not say that the women of the C.A. must not preach or teach in the churches.” They had to be coordinated with other passages that “distinctly recognize the right of woman to prophesy in public.” Ultimately: “The great question is, whether the sister has anything worth saying. If she has a message from God, God forbid that anybody should stop her delivering it, and there are plenty of Scriptural and womanly ways in which a true woman can represent her Master and speak for the edification of His people.”39 Exegetically, Simpson was begging the question here. But it did show how, even as he was engaged in defending the Bible from its critics, there were also novel ways in which his experience and his view of the work of the Spirit was leading him to reinterpret it. Simpson’s view of women in ministry during the middle phase of the C&MA development has been most aptly characterized as a “restricted freedom.”40 He never relinquished the ontological ordering of creation that Paul seemed to promulgate: the cascading “headship” of God, Christ, man, woman. Nor did he think that women’s ministry could be formalized in the “pastoral office and the official ministry of the Christian church,” in what he designated a “strictly ecclesiastical sense” as ordained pastors, elders, or bishops, which is the meaning he deciphered

Figure 10.2 Portrait of Margaret Simpson.

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from those troublesome texts. Those were the restrictions. Already that was an interesting stance, for in practice the Alliance had been largely decentring the importance of such offices anyway. They were not the heartbeat of the C&MA’s ministry and meetings; “lay” ministries were. And other than the technically ordained office of pastor, to which limitations applied – in a finesse of truly medieval scholastic calibre – Simpson gave wide latitude to women as teachers, preachers, evangelists, and leaders with “equal liberty” as men. Deeply respecting the spirituality, intelligence, heart, and talents of women and pragmatically seeing in their empowerment by the Spirit calls to broad work in the church’s mission, Simpson envisioned “infinite room for proclaiming a broad message of salvation” and women’s prophetic ministry of “edification and exhortation,” a ministry whose “admissions and permissions” even men in authority could never “rescind or abrogate.” Those were the inalienable liberties. Towards the end of his career, Simpson pushed these innovations even further, although more tentatively in public. He declared the question of women in formal ministry an “open question” that could be left for local branches to decide. By the end of his career, women were celebrating the liturgical actions of the C&MA in baptism, the Lord’s Supper, weddings, and funerals, as well as taking the formal role of congregational “pastors,” which they did in substantial numbers for the next few decades of the Alliance’s history.41 At the same time, Simpson tried to integrate his view of the unity of women in the body of Christ and their empowerment to minister with the fundamental difference of the sexes he saw portrayed in the biblical picture. That led him to some fudging, for example, by suggesting that when women were prophesying, they should conform to feminized social expectations: “the less formal her testimony is, the better.” When women were speaking in public to men, they should do so “in the spirit of feminine modesty” that would give them “more power” to be received by men. They would proclaim the gospel in “their sweeter and gentler way” than men, and they would speak in “womanly ways” of the gospel. And their prayer and prophesy in the church should be in a “modest and seemly manner.”42 A concrete example of a woman who exercised such liberties in the early Alliance was Carrie Judd Montgomery (1858–1946). Raised an Episcopalian, Judd had been healed by faith and became intimately involved in the C&MA’s Buffalo branch as “recording secretary,” as well as in the Alliance conventions. She opened her own healing house there in Buffalo, published books and articles that were advertised in Alliance literature, and fashioned a noted ministry of speaking and preaching. When Judd was married to businessmanturned-faith-healer George Montgomery in 1890, Simpson officiated their

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wedding and composed a poem for the couple as a wedding gift. In the early years, Montgomery was a regular presence in the Alliance, including when she delivered at length a powerful sermon to the C&MA general convention on the text of Zechariah 9:7. Eventually, Montgomery roamed west with her husband to Oakland, California, where she inaugurated new ministries and joined up with the Salvation Army for a time, before becoming involved with the Azusa Street Revival, experiencing Spirit baptism, and becoming an Assemblies of God minister.43 A final, surprising aspect to Simpson’s teaching on gender was his feminization of the Spirit. There were precedents for this in the Christian tradition, hearkening back to the feminine Hebrew form of ruach in the Old Testament. But it had been uncommon among Protestant pastors, and seems more reminiscent of twentieth-century feminist theology than a late-nineteenth-century proto-fundamentalist. Genderizing the Trinity, Simpson ascribed both masculine and feminine aspects to the Christian God. Christ took historical form as male, but also encompassed “all the tenderness and gentleness of woman” in himself, and “combined … the nature both of man and woman” in his person, in order to invite both into salvation. In addition to the feminine aspects of the Son, the Spirit was especially the divine person who “meets all the heart’s longing for motherhood.” As the comforter, the Spirit was “our heavenly Mother,” who provides for all aspects of our “nurture, training, teaching, and the whole direction of our life” with motherly care. Showing “considerate gentleness and patience,” the Spirit was the aspect of the divine feminine.44 In the realm of gender, too, Simpson was pushing some boundaries to uphold the traditional faith.

An Enchanted Supernaturalism In all of these respects, then, Simpson found himself in the intriguing position of having developed a “radical Christianity” that improvised on much of his inheritance from denominational evangelicalism at the beginning of his career, to having defended what he saw as central tenets of the faith from other illegitimate innovators towards the wane of his ministry. What was driving this dynamic of defences and innovations, as Simpson and other conservative evangelicals were increasingly alienated both from evangelicals open to broader intellectual and cultural currents, and from other sectors of American society at large? Conservative evangelicals found themselves in the paradoxical situation of having formerly been out on the forefront of change in regard to the institutional churches, but still within America’s

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mainstream because of society’s broad Protestant consensus, to now being on the defensive of America’s predominant intellectual and cultural change in an increasingly complex and diverse society. Into the twentieth century, those of Simpson’s cadre were in the process of being viewed, and were beginning to view themselves, as more of a beleaguered and marginal outgroup. Such feelings fuelled their own sense of being a holy and separate remnant called out of a tainted society. There were, of course, also cross-currents. Evangelicalism at large was experiencing pressures of both “narrowing” and “broadening.”45 On the whole, Simpson was consolidating and coalescing more around the narrow position. The final three of Simpson’s four pillars of the gospel all factored into this consolidation. All three of these beliefs – and their social and practical manifestations – facilitated the process of alienation from the larger trends in culture during this period, while at the same time evangelical revisers and other Protestants were more open and eager to negotiation with emerging cultural trends, directly tackling the dramatic social problems of turn-of-the-century America, and integrating new knowledge and awareness in science, history, and comparative religion into their religious view of the world. These were developments that conservatives of Simpson’s sensibilities largely resisted. This was not only due to Simpson’s premillennialism, which was one doctrinal and cultural marker within a larger network of conservative doctrines and practices, although that was influential. Ideologically, Simpson’s shift also included an intensifying, emphatic biblical literalism distinguished over against other forms of knowledge and more stringent views of a costly Christian rigorism, all of which operated as mutually reinforcing. Undergirding these doctrinal and intellectual concerns was a deeper one that related not just to doctrine, but also to Christian ethics, spirituality, and mission more generally. That concern was supernaturalism. An avowed sense of interaction with the transcendent infused all of these aspects of conservative evangelicalism. The divergence of conservative evangelicals from Protestant revisionists cannot be reduced to one aspect of their increasingly bifurcated moral and religious frameworks, for this divergence involved contestation points across the spectrum of Christian teachings and with a variety of concerns. Behind most of these contestations, nevertheless, was a supernaturalist versus naturalist orientation. Supernaturalism, the belief in a transcendent reality that interacts with the world, lay at the basis of crucial conservative beliefs: in God as direct actor in the world, in the Bible as the “oracles” of God’s truth, in Jesus as manifesting divine authority and transacting a divine exchange in the atonement, and in the divine transformation that believers experienced in their lives, or what Simpson called “the supernatural in personal religion.”46

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The stark contrast between what was “divine” on the one hand and what was “of man” or what was “worldly” on the other hand was key to understanding the dynamics of this division and the formation of conservative identity. Simpson often saw the evacuation of supernaturalism as the key decision in modern thought’s evisceration of meaningful Christianity. The more theologians open to modern developments focused on the historical, natural, and immanent processes as spheres of the divine, the more Simpson seemed to emphasize the dialectical divine intervention and activity as the proper place of Christian emphasis by contrast. Dramatic supernaturalism unified the other elements of the conservative doctrinal package. It further entrenched the conservative evangelical mentality into radically sweeping and tidy dichotomies: either/or, natural/supernatural, true/false, light/dark, sacred/secular, flesh/spirit. And, lastly, it further alienated conservative evangelicals from those who were more and more focused, whether in religion, culture, or science, with demystifying processes and understanding them on human, historical, and material terms. Even for those who still believed in the transcendent or divine realm, and so refused to reduce interpretation to the human or natural arena, the cultural and intellectual pressure of the age was to interpret trends according to their human and natural aspects, not their divine. The supernatural became, in his later career, one of the most recurring motifs of Simpson’s confrontation with other Protestants. Simpson castigated the emphasis on divine “immanence” that he saw in the revisionist Christianity (not always entirely fairly to those leaders). Against the idea that God worked primarily through historical and natural means, Simpson thundered that the foundation of authentic Christian faith had to be a “Supernatural Religious Experience.” The conservative evangelical experience of God seemed to interrupt historical, natural, and immanent experience in dramatic and singular ways. This contrast had long been a part of Simpson’s teaching, and had stimulated his own development of doctrine in entire sanctification, divine healing, and premillennialism. But the stark contrast between radically earthly and heavenly sources of the spiritual life become more emphatic and polarized in his skirmishes with the modernizers. “We are not to look for any help or nourishment to our spiritual life from earthly sources,” Simpson highlighted, “but to draw all our strength and supplies from Heaven … as Christ did from His Father.” Not only did this imply a negative relation to what was “sinful” in the world, but it even more so entailed eliminating “every merely natural feeling and quality.” To live the Christian life, according to Simpson, was “to become filled with God,” to the exclusion of anything natural and earthly. “Dying to what was natural,” every aspect of life was to undergo

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this transfiguration, which Simpson saw as the denial of the natural instinct. “Thus our tastes, affections, desires, endowments and even the good in us,” he averred, “shall pass into the New Creation, and become quickened with the anticipation of the world to come.”47 The earthly had to be disruptively overthrown for the heavenly to arrive. By the end of his career, Simpson came to utterly believe in his dualisms; and there could be no compromise with the innovators. For Simpson, the contrast between those who embraced traditional Christian supernaturalism and those who explored natural interpretations of creation, the Bible, and Christian life became absolute. “These are the days which try men’s hearts,” he resolved. “Who is on the Lord’s side? is the cry, and there can be no compromise. The Bible must be wholly true or a rope of sand. Christ must be everything or nothing.” Simpson recognized that an all-or-nothing withdrawal and separation from a hostile culture, and even from hostile Protestant intellectuals, would invite ridicule and exclusion from mainstream society. The time had come, he warned his flock, “when fidelity to Christ and the Gospel of a supernatural Christ in human life will surely bring criticism, rejection, scorn, and usually, separation from many of the best men and the most venerable forms of Christian teaching and work.” But Simpson’s band of believers would only influence revisionist Christians and the larger culture by stalwart fidelity.48 Anticipating the fundamentalist-modernist battles of the 1920s and ’30s, he projected that this withdrawal would have to include the formation of separate institutions like schools. The educational situation in America, Simpson evaluated in 1911, was such that “most of our public schools and colleges are dangerous if not fatal to faith.” The time had come when independent institutions, fostering distinct Christian identity had to be founded and organized. The withdrawal from the culture, however, also exhibited the paradox of attempting to cling to former cultural authority. During the previous century, evangelicalism had been intimately associated with American identity. By the end of his ministry, traditional evangelicals had seemingly become sojourners and pilgrims in a strange land. Just as Simpson was slamming apostate Christian thinking and encouraging departure from their institutions, he was also decrying the wane of authentic Christian influence on the larger culture, as if evangelical Christianity was both a beleaguered faithful remnant and yet also entitled to supervise the broader cultural agenda. This dynamic would be a governing one of evangelicalism going forward. Already in 1907, to take one classic example, Simpson bemoaned the popular emergence of a “Christmas

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without Christ.”49 The ironies of Christ in Christmas in America were legion. In colonial America, the devout New England Puritans could not have kept Christ in Christmas, of course, because they did not celebrate Christmas; Christmas was a corrupt popish festival with no explicit warrant in scripture. In the nineteenth century, the prominent image of Christmas became “Santa Claus” (a popularized figure from the Catholic hagiographical tradition) wrapped in the American flag by the Thomas Nast cartoon and ensconced in the American kingdom of mammon by L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902). In any case, the jeremiad about Christmas without Christ in America served to reveal the awkward situation of conservative evangelicals who careened between viewing themselves as relics in a hostile society and as the authentic representatives of American society writ large. All of these dynamics within American Christianity towards the end of Simpson’s ministry raised the crucial question of the situation of conservative evangelicalism within “modernity.” What was the relation between Simpson’s ministry and modernization? The farraginous constellation of historical changes and trends typically associated with the “modern” were all intensifying during this period and exercising pressure on Simpson’s Christianity. Typically, all these modern trends have been associated with the disenchantment of traditional worldviews, and eventually with the erosion of belief in secularization, although that view has tended to overlook the complex ways in which various religious traditions have adapted to or channelled the modern, as well as the vitality of entrepreneurial spiritualities that have arisen within it. In many ways, modern trends did challenge evangelicalism. Certainly, this was a period where the movement at large underwent both an internal crisis of identity and a dramatic diminishment of its previously held cultural authority in the Anglo-American world. In this situation, there was a temptation simply to dismiss movements like Simpson’s as antimodern, the residue of archaic cultural forms encrusting the emerging, and eventually triumphant, form of new societies. And yet, the various ways in which Simpson was not only defending the traditional faith but also innovating it suggested that there were variant paths through modernity itself. The dramatic emphasis on divine agency, action, and relationship that permeated Simpson’s doctrine, ministry, and spirituality meant that this sector of evangelicalism represented an enchanted supernaturalism within the increasingly circumscribed, immanent frame of modernity. In this way, Simpson’s brand of conservative evangelicalism has been superbly characterized as an “enchanted modernity.”50 While an enchanted

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supernaturalism was often at the centre of Simpson’s contestation with revisionist Protestants, at the same time Simpson also embraced much modern scientific knowledge, unabashedly employed the latest technological innovations, structured his movement on bureaucratic patterns of organization and mobilization, shared his age’s obsession with quantification, relished enterprising forms of ministry, and flourished initially in urban settings. His fixation on “power” certainly had a decisively modern valence. Even deeper than his adoption of modern forms of life, moreover, was Simpson’s stark dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural itself. This very contrast, no doubt, drew upon certain biblical polarities between the flesh and the spirit. It had precedents in Christian tradition, and resulted in a comforting, if also stifling, clarity. But deployed as such, under the precise terms of supernatural and natural, and wielded so starkly, Simpson’s rhetoric tacitly traded on a dichotomy deeply embedded with the frameworks of a modern, secular age itself. To emphasize such a dramatic immanent-transcendent contrast was already to operate on secularizing terms.51 Such an enchanted supernaturalism, still, was what truly propelled the distinct emergence of conservative evangelicalism, as it contested the very ground of modernity with those who had become disenchanted. Waging conflict over the same battleground was what made the contest so fierce. And this resulted in the deep alienation of conservative evangelicalism not only from revisionist Protestantism but also from the larger shifts in American culture during the early twentieth century, while it was still desperately struggling to shape that culture. Conservative evangelicals experienced God as an active, dramatic personal presence interacting with them individually and with their world cosmically, but that spiritual sensibility was becoming increasingly challenging for many others. Embracing aesthetic, experiential, intuitive, and creative forms gave this type of spirituality its dynamic allure, especially when the limitations of modernity became more evident. In one sense, then, the conservative evangelicalism of Simpson’s era carried forward into modernity the possibility of an enchanted worldview from previous eras of history. As these same conservative evangelicals accepted the very quarantining of a natural sphere and prioritized an interventionist supernatural one, however, this very concession was to have done more than defend the traditional faith; it was also to have innovated it by bargaining with the very terms of the modern world it was ostensibly challenging.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Race Run

A.B. Simpson was enmeshed in the most crucial trends in American Protestantism during his day, but he was not, for the most part, a pioneer. In theology and doctrine and ministry, Simpson was first and foremost a synthesizer, a popularizer, a communicator, and an inspirational figure. Even where he was innovating, he was also drawing on others who came before him and others in his network. Simpson did unify the aspects of the Fourfold Gospel into a distinctive devotional package that became a vivid symbol of this particular religious culture, and his own independent ministry certainly anticipated the rise of nondenominational or parachurch evangelicalism into the twentieth century. Through his inheritors, moreover, the forms of Christianity Simpson typified would reach millions more around the world. That would have been enough legacy for a lifetime. All this remained in the future, however, as Simpson’s own life and ministry came to a close in the 1910s. He did not live to see those remarkable turns himself. At the end of his life, Simpson was witnessing two predominant trends: first, the seeming wane of the influence of conservative evangelicalism in favour of modernism and secularization, and, second, the heightening of premillennial expectation, as there were dramatic signs that the end of times was near. Both of these trends exacerbated the divide between Simpson’s sphere and the larger culture and accelerated their separation from worldly influences, entrenching themselves in isolated pockets and awaiting the final curtain. And yet, these same trends also had the effect, whether intentionally or not, of having conservative evangelicals interact in lasting ways with that very culture they decried.

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Political Theology On a day-to-day basis, in his preaching and his writing, Simpson did not often comment on politics explicitly and thematically (in the narrow sense of candidates or parties or policies or legislation), except insofar as to illustrate some point he wanted to make about the corruption of society or the need for conversion and holiness. In contrast to subsequent views of evangelicalism as reducible to political posturing, politics was not a primary arena of concern for him. He largely disciplined the focus of his public ministry on the teachings of the Fourfold Gospel, evangelism, and the support of cross-cultural missions – all of which, of course, did have broad implications for politics in the grand sense of public life – and he tended to avoid inserting himself into situations or debates that might compromise that animating centre. At times of great national crisis, particularly presidential contests, economic convulsions, social upheavals, or times of national warfare, however, Simpson did enter into the political fray. On these occasions, he took the opportunity to elucidate some of his views about how the supernatural work of God through Jesus and the Spirit interacted with the architecture of political and social organization, the unfolding of human history, and the fate of nations. He mostly commented on epic events in world history, since these were either potential signs of prophetic fulfillment or emblematic moral lessons for his flock. In all these cases, Simpson ardently strove, as he himself assessed the legacy of his public ministry during the course of the First World War, to avoid any explicitly narrow partisanship, thinking this would compromise the integrity of his message. In the American context, Simpson continued to reiterate that, in theory, Christianity was neither Democrat nor Republican. On directly political questions, he would not tell his constituency how to engage their civic responsibility: “It is not the place of the pulpit to dictate what your duty as citizen is,” he wrote on the eve of the 1916 presidential election determining the United States’ entry into war; “your own enlightened judgment and conscience must show you this.”1 In the many presidential elections that Simpson underwent during his decades-long ministry, he absolutely refrained from endorsing any specific candidate from his public platform. “We are not called to express political opinions in this Journal,” Simpson commented after one election. Instead the Christian view would be, firstly and fundamentally, to trust in God’s general providence: “we are sure that all loyal citizens and all true Christians, will earnestly pray that God may guide in selecting the officers who will hold the destinies of the closing years of this

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century.”2 Most importantly, Christian commitments should not be sacrificed for any political advantage. “Let the Christian men who put politics before principles BewAre,” he admonished his readers after one political contest.3 After the bitterly contentious and dramatic realignment election of 1896, in which Republican William McKinley defeated the populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan, Simpson urged all his readers, of whatever political persuasion, “to rise above the heat of political passion.” Faith in God’s “overruling and controlling power” had to surpass any investment in the fates of specific political outcomes. Besides that, Christian grace should “subdue the prejudices and passions of men,” so that after any rancorously fought political contest “all parties united in true patriotic and national feeling for the fulfillment of the great trust committed to us as an enlightened nation.”4 After what Simpson admitted was “much intense feeling,” he wrote that he hoped and prayed such intensity would “now be allowed to drop and the country to go forward in a career of steady progress and prosperity … marked by greater sacrifices and services for the spread of the gospel, and evangelization of the world, than the Church of Christ has ever known.”5 Loyalty to the king of kings had to take priority, and there should be no ultimate “hope in politics” of any particular orientation. Even those leaders who seemed to evidence certain Christian virtues were not to receive the same loyalty as loyalty to the kingdom. “How much worthier is His thorn crowned head to wear the crown of glory than even the best of earthly rulers!,” Simpson concluded his 1896 election coverage, in a subversive riff on Bryan’s legendary “cross of gold” speech.6 Yet, at the same time, Simpson did not deny that the Christian message had political and social ramifications in the broad sense of what could be called a “moral politics.” While the Christian’s dual citizenship always had to order their primary allegiance to the heavenly city, Christians also had an earthly citizenship to which they were responsible, subject to the clear dictates of the scriptures and the sacred right of conscience. Citing the locus classicus Romans 13:1 on the believer’s “twofold citizenship,” Simpson maintained the traditional Christian attribution of “divine authority” delegated to all rightly constituted “human governments” and the general “obligation of loyal citizenship” to them. “Loyalty to God involves corresponding loyalty to national authority,” Simpson stated. That did not mean that “unrighteous” authorities might not be changed in “form” under extreme circumstances, as in the American Revolution for example, but rather that the fundamental “principle of government” abided even then. The first and last bulwark was the supreme “law of conscience,” against which “human authority has no right to require its

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subjects to violate.” Whenever fundamental conscience was at stake “even life itself is not too great a price to pay for that liberty,” Simpson contended, having learnt the political lessons of modernity. In general, Simpson practised the responsibilities of citizenship when his Gospel Tabernacle celebrated and observed the national days of thanksgiving or prayer that US presidents called for during his lifetime.7 What did all this mean for the role of America in God’s designs? Many Christians, from the Puritans forward, had attempted to interpret a special place for their nation in the unfolding of God’s ways with history. For Simpson (unlike some subsequent fundamentalists who couldn’t resist the conflation of their patriotism with their biblical literalism), America as such could not play the role of actor in the divine drama, because America was not explicitly mentioned in the scriptures. “It does not flatter our national vanity,” Simpson responded to those who sought to endow the United States with a special role in God’s design, “to find that the United States do not appear to be mentioned anywhere in the prophetic page.” This was because, he further argued, God primarily used peoples, and not political institutions. As a result, the United States as an entity was not, and could not be, a Christian nation, according to Simpson. In theory, “no nation can be called a Christian nation, not even our own,” because the only true Christian nation was Jesus’s coming kingdom – while, in practice, America’s many sins of greed, frivolity, indulgence, and licentiousness hindered the nation from being sufficiently sanctified or holy. Notwithstanding the manifest transgressions, Simpson was still convinced that the “Anglo-Saxon race,” the people of America and of her progenitor, Great Britain, were the closest the world had seen to the enactment of believing societies, because of their commitment to liberty of conscience and because of their association with Protestant Christianity. As special nations, their endeavours, even when not perfect, typically embodied the righteous and just side in the clash of world empires. Their special status further derived from their having been historically more “friendly to God’s chosen people,” and if these nations would play a decisive role in God’s providential unfolding it would be because they would assist in the restoration of Israel.8 In the religio-political rhetoric of the English tradition, it had often been the constitutional legacy and the allowance for the rise of democracy that were credited as the special divine blessings bestowed on the British and American nations. Simpson didn’t quite see it that way. While democracy had been the best system of government established thus far in human history, he was careful not to place his trust in any such human system. Only the kingdom of God finally warranted such loyalty. Democracy was just one more stage on

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the way to the final world conflagration. Consonant with Plato’s teaching, but primarily stemming from his reading of prophecy, Simpson merely thought democracy was the “last form of human government,” and its final trajectory would be “anarchy” and “license.” Democracy, according to Simpson, would finally result in “liberty gone mad” under the torment of human sinfulness. Even with the relative responsibilities that believing citizens had to their nation, Simpson made it clear that, in view of the end that the Lord was bringing to history, he ultimately had “no hope for any kind of politics” or government, democracy included. Democracy itself would eventually be the vehicle of the “frightful tragedy” which would see “Satan” “leaping into the saddle and driving the horses to the last tribulation.” All the current and admitted achievements and merits of democracy and of the American nation were only a “temporary makeshift.” Democracy only fleetingly adumbrated what was true of all human projects; they were “going to end in the colossal failure of all the ages until He shall come whose right it is to reign” once and for all.9 Many of these aspects of how Simpson’s conservative and premillennial evangelical faith interfaced with politics and history were evident with crystal perspicuity in Simpson’s interpretation of the events of the Spanish-American War (1898), the national experiment in extra-continental imperialism. As war clouds with Spain darkened, Simpson conceded that it had often been the “sword” of nations that had been at work in “opening up the world to the Gospel, preparing for the seed of his kingdom.” He suspected that this might be the case in relation to Spain and her former empire, towards which territory the United States was looking with covetous eyes. Simpson’s was not a view of outright militarism, as with some in the nation’s leadership whom he spurned. War and empire should never be embraced lightly, he qualified, for “the spirit of Christianity is pre-eminently for peace.” Peace should always be sought fervently by Christians, first and foremost, and wars had to be scrutinized for their righteousness. War, nevertheless, was sometimes providential and necessary: “God has also a providential purpose in dealing with sinful nations,” Simpson wrote, “and sometimes war is one of His scourges.” War could be employed by God as a means either to punish “crimes against liberty and humanity,” such as those committed by apostate nations, or as ways to open up new fields for the gospel. As war with Spain seemed ever more certain, Simpson prayed: “If war is to come as part of God’s mysterious providence, God grant that it shall be one of the wars of the Lord, and that it shall not only result in the interest of humanity but in the opening of these fair regions to the blessed Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”10 Thus, Simpson encouraged his C&MA congregation to support the war efforts, because it seemed to be

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serving both punitive and missionary ends, even while, in this case, the war also clearly appeared to have an aggressive and expansionist character. After a bombastic Teddy Roosevelt – envious of having missed out on the glory of the big one of the Civil War – had galloped up San Juan Hill with his Rough Riders to swift victory – preceded, of course, by the black Buffalo Soldiers regiment – Simpson praised the nation’s gratitude to the “God of Battles.” Simpson believed that in this case the Lord had transferred to America “His battle-axe and weapons of war” and delivered the Spanish to their blow, in order to “break down the barriers by which Satan has kept out the Gospel from these oppressed myriads.” If US ambassador (and former personal secretary to Lincoln) John Hay called this “a splendid little war” for American interests, Simpson himself dubbed it a “brief, decisive war” for kingdom ones.11 Even here, however, where Simpson so thoroughly came around to support the conduct of this particular war, and temporarily fused nationalistic purposes with kingdom ones, it was a strategic and not a permanent collusion. There were also glimpses of his resistance to a categorical identification of the nationalistic and the Christian endeavours. He qualified that, “as earthly government,” the United States had “been far from true to the highest ministry of Christian nations,” and he still counselled his followers that, even in favourable times, they had to be “looking above all human politics and policies.”12 That said, in this situation it was evident how even his largely separatist and eschatologically oriented faith had very much here-and-now ramifications in his public ministry and platform. A final example of Simpson’s uninhibited entry into the political fray as a pastor through his moral politics was his support of the temperance movement, then later of outright prohibition. With the prohibition movement’s eventual failure and the festive return of Americans to drink, ignominy was subsequently heaped upon it. Still, this was one of the truly monumental social reform movements in American history. Along with abolitionism, temperance has hardly ever been exceeded in terms of its scope, longevity, grassroots participation, political mobilization, and socially transformative ramifications. As a program for American reform, exemplarity, and the perfected society, “going dry was the city on a hill at its most ambitious.”13 Early temperates mostly campaigned against public drunkenness and the available quantity of hard liquor. Intoxicated on its small victories, the temperance movement became more aggressive as it confronted more dramatic social carnage in the industrial and urban era and became entangled with many anxieties surrounding race, immigration, class, and religious division. The dominant position eventually

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became teetotalism (complete abstinence from all alcohol whatsoever), and the political objectives shifted from altruistic individual moral persuasion to the implementation of an expansive law enforcement program interpreted as a progressive improvement of society. For evangelicals during the Gilded Age, especially holiness folk, temperance became one of their primary activities outside of church, absorbing much of the social energy that had been spent in antebellum abolition. Simpson never made temperance a centrepiece of the Alliance ministry, as other evangelicals had, but he still supported it. He corresponded with Frances Willard, the indomitable leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, who turned the organization into an omnibus of social causes, and who had been inspired, in part, by Simpson’s holiness teachings. For a number of years, Simpson printed a temperance column in the C&MA publication, and many lay Alliance members were regular contributors to temperance. When formal prohibition laws began to be entertained by the States, Simpson encouraged the passing of any legislation that would “restrict that most awful curse on our land.” (The fervour of temperance even made for strange bedfellows: Simpson praised the Muslim Sultan of Istanbul when he curtailed the liquor trade in his city.)14 Towards the end of his life, Simpson reflected on the social developments of his age with the “progress of national temperance” being among the “most wonderful.” He hoped to “rejoice” soon that his country had been “redeemed from the shame and curse of its long record” of alcoholic imbibing. The culmination of such progress would be to force this decision of abstinence on the entire society: “the prospect of accomplishing … the great objective of the entire abolition of the liquor traffic by federal action,” Simpson commended, would herald a “stupendous advance in the spirit of the nation and the uplift of American politics.”15 In this case, in telling people what they could and could not drink, Simpson had no problem getting political. With such seeming moral clarity behind it, the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment would have been savored as an epic victory for him; it would be a pyrrhic victory, however, when the political pendulum swung back and ended prohibition thirteen years later.

Missions Revisited While events in the political and larger historical world during the rise of the C&MA and Simpson’s public ministry astounded, events in the Christian world were no less significant, and were closer to Simpson’s direct concerns.

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The era of Simpson’s ministry was an era of unprecedented advances in church (at this point, still largely Protestant) ecumenism and the dramatic proliferation of cross-cultural missions. The two often went together during this period, and were convergent trends. Illustrative was the formation of the United Church of Canada in 1925, joining together that nation’s Methodists, Congregationalists, and the bulk of Simpson’s former Presbyterian church (with some avid dissenters), an ecumenism forged out of the aspirations of a religious nationalism.16 Rapid spread and progress of missions by the turn of the century would have seemed to be something that liberals, conservatives, and all kinds of Protestants could celebrate together. When Simpson began to publish his Gospel in All Lands and to champion cross-cultural initiatives back in 1881, missions had still been on the periphery. By the end of his career, support for them had surged across Protestant denominations. Financial support for missions in America climbed 88 per cent between 1900 and 1914, and the United States overtook Great Britain as the largest contributor to world missions. The number of missionaries had burgeoned from hundreds when Simpson first started to thousands by the time of the Great War, often led by intrepid and courageous women. When Simpson attended the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in New York in the spring of 1900 with about 2,300 other participants, three US presidents presided over the celebrations: former president Benjamin Harrison, incumbent president William McKinley, and soon-to-be president (upon McKinley’s assassination) Teddy Roosevelt. Representing a broad Protestant ecumenism, President McKinley, a devout Methodist, praised the social, national, cultural, and spiritual achievements of Christian missions in a way that everyone at the time could affirm: missions had succeeded in making a “contribution to the onward and upward march of humanity … beyond all calculation.” In practical terms, according to McKinley, Christian mission had “inculcated industry and taught the various trades.” In social and global terms, missions “had promoted concord and comity, and brought nations and races closer together.” All in all, McKinley extolled, missions “have made men better.”17 Simpson himself editorialized that this remarkable conference had been “undoubtedly … a great blessing and a marked success.” It had been conducted on “conservative lines,” by the “older and more conservative missionary societies,” and Simpson cherished the “quickening of spiritual life and missionary zeal in the hearts of thousands of Christian people” that responded to missionary tales “full of power and inspiration.” He anticipated that this gathering would fertilize the bearing of fruit “both in consecrated lives

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and increased offerings for the evangelization of the world.” While Simpson emerged from the conference optimistic about the prospects for Christian missions, and while the conference resounded with a host of themes and aspects the C&MA could celebrate, even if they weren’t explicitly premillennial, major fault lines were already beginning to appear. In private, Simpson’s friend A.T. Pierson was grumbling that a liberal spirit and a levelling of world religions was beginning to percolate among the missionary leaders of the denominations, and Simpson had similar concerns.18 By the subsequent 1910 World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh – the landmark event of ecumenical-missions trends – Simpson had become even less sanguine.19 The C&MA sent delegates to be among the 1,200 or so representatives from all over North America and Europe who gathered at this monumental convention. Although Simpson praised the leadership of missionary statesmen and future Nobel Peace Prize winner John Mott, and although he acknowledged the occurrence of “so much that was good in the very highest [i.e., spiritual] sense,” nevertheless Simpson was much more wary than he had been at the New York conference. He diagnosed two poisons seeping into Protestant missions that he viewed as lethal. First was the shift of perspective among the leaders to view the Roman Catholic Church, though still egregiously flawed, as a true Christian church. The view emerging at Edinburgh was that the focus should not be on proselytizing missions to Catholic lands but in that case on ecumenical discussion, fraternal correction, and, where possible, cooperation. That trend Simpson could not abide, especially given his premillennial schemes that required viewing Catholics as a false church and the Pope as the antichrist.20 A second element was the creeping disposition “to recognize the good elements in the non-Christian religions and to adapt Christianity to them as supplementing what they lack.” The emerging university discipline of comparative religion, along with the increased exposure of various westerners to people of other major faiths, gave a platform for adherents of those faiths to speak on their own terms, with their own nuances, and not simply be puppeted to the public by Western representatives. The sensibility of respect, engagement, and distinguishing between positive and negative aspects of other world faiths had been on the rise in intellectual circles and was beginning to influence approaches to Christian missions and missiology. A number of Protestant missionaries had been returning from the field considerably impressed with the spiritual insights and religious culture of other world faiths, and instead of categorically condemning them were seeking more of a negotiation with them.

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Simpson balked at this trend. Christianity could “have nothing in common with paganism or Mohammedanism,” he wrote to his own missionaries; it must, by contrast, “wholly build on new foundations.”21 The rise of this compromise view of missions was something that had long troubled Simpson. In his own view of missions and religions, he did want to qualify that the “light of truth” could not be altogether denied for any serious person, wherever in the world, who had “turned their thoughts inward and upward.” With Romans 1, Simpson taught that what can generally be known of God was manifest throughout the world and among all peoples. Therefore, it was neither surprising nor controversial that “in the writings of the sages of Pagan nations there should be found aspirations after God as well as beautiful maxims relating to the moral life.” Nevertheless, for Simpson, it was a “special peril” of his age that “in seeking to candidly recognize the excellencies in Pagan religions,” Christians “will fail to see the radical defects of these systems, and hence will not press with becoming vigor the one gospel which men everywhere need.” As cultural and religious wholes, other religions had to be categorically displaced and replaced with the true faith of the gospel. Generic intellectual or moral achievements were not salvific. They could not replace the thematic gospel message and explicit conversion to Christ. The temptation to view what was good in other religions as a possible conduit for the God of Christ’s grace was in effect to deny the necessity of Christian mission altogether. He did not see, anyway, that both of these things could be true; their mixture would be simply “an unholy alliance of Israel and the Canaan world.”22 Simpson’s own view of mission theory, advanced in contrast to the “modernist” missionaries, evidenced a complicated and tortured dialectic between relationships to individuals and relationships to broader cultures, endemic to that age of American individualism and to the individualist tendencies of evangelicalism. About other cultures as such, or at least insofar as they were religiously infused, Simpson was categorically condemnatory and supercilious. Islamic society was “consecrated in lust and lies,” and its religious worldview “does not liberate; it enslaves.” Here Simpson saw an absolute contrast, admitting no sphere of overlap. Culture and religion were toggle realities: on or off, white or black, light or darkness, good or evil. In a recklessly sweeping generalization, “with few exceptions,” he bombastically proclaimed that “the religions of the world have no ideals or morals, no spirituality, no unpolluted conduct and character, no pattern to lift us.” Simpson referred to the Hindu traditions of Vishnu in India as “tale[s] of a vile, sensual wretch.” Absent the explicit knowledge of Christ, “there was no power … no love” in these places,

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and these people would have “no hope for the future, no bright heaven, no waiting loved ones to greet them there.” In these places and among these people, there was “only darkness and uncertainty.” In other cultures, according to Simpson, there was “little happiness” and “no light.”23 The clear benefits of missions, according to Simpson, would be to bring happiness, home, social elevation, education, material improvement, national progress, liberty from oppression for women and children, and personal character to societies where he saw little or none. Pretty much every non-Protestant culture, considered as a whole, came in for similar indictment from Simpson, even if the details varied. He related to individuals differently, however, although still in complicated ways. While viewing them as “lost,” he nevertheless believed that Christians actually owed a spiritual “debt” to people around the world, to minister to them, to show them “love” and “compassion.” Often this included meeting physical needs and alleviating situations of individual deprivation, and so did go together with humanitarian work, even if Simpson emphatically opposed the reduction of mission to it. He often saw the same spiritual/worldly binary at play in missions that he found in many other aspects of Christian life: “The one is spiritual and evangelistic, and the other educational, secular, conservative, and not unlike the worldly element in the church at home.”24 The missionary imperative itself betrayed a dual aspect: from the perspective of many people in the receiving culture, the view that they had to be saved, and their whole culture reconfigured, would have been demeaning. Simultaneously, the sending culture also believed that it was sharing with others a treasured gift of life, and many who converted also authentically viewed it that way, though frequently with critical feedback about how that gift was offered and observations about the cultural asymmetry involved. In tension with his view of other religious cultures as whole entities, Simpson vehemently countered the argument – much more prevalent and virulent during the age of social Darwinism, pseudo-scientific racial hierarchies, and unapologetic civilizational condescension – that individuals of other cultures were simply “not worth saving” (a position held by some Western intellectuals). Other authors in America wrote that “non-Caucasians abroad [were] stupid, ignorant, brutal – the offscouring of society,” and held that it would simply be “better to leave them to their inevitable fate, to be swept away” in a spiritual “survival of the fittest.” Against that position, Simpson vigorously affirmed the essential value of other people as created in the image of God. Such missions would bring the paramount gift of salvation, not as something given by Westerners, but by simply pointing to Christ.

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In a somewhat instrumental view, but with the outcome of vernacular promotion nonetheless, Simpson did think for the sake of missions that missionaries could and should adapt to the cultural practices, and especially the language, of foreign societies that were not explicitly religious. If missionaries “can better reach China by wearing Chinese dress and living in Chinese houses,” he remarked with approval, they should “give up the customs and comforts of [their own] civilization” in order to win them. A final, significant aspect was Simpson’s emphasis on cultivating native leadership. Once other folks became Christians, they should – in theory at least – be treated like anyone else in the community of Christ and their own leadership should be enthusiastically promoted. Local, native workers, Simpson instructed his missionaries, “especially should be afforded all possible help and encouragement.” As they matured and developed, “they should be allowed to bear responsibility, and the element of foreign teaching, pastoral care, and supervision be gradually withdrawn.” One of Simpson’s primary goals in mission was to foster local leadership: “evangelization of their own people by native agency is one of the most glorious fruits of Christian missions.” While not always the case in practice, it was Simpson’s ideal vision, and the rapid number of “native workers” that grew in the early years of Alliance mission fields was testament to how Simpson’s mission was much more willing to relinquish structures of power over ministry and to embolden local leadership than many other Protestant missions of the time.25 That in itself was something of a spiritual evaluation of other cultures. It led Simpson and his Alliance missionaries to encounter aspects of foreign cultures that pushed back against other of their preconceptions.

The Righteous Cause Cultural imperialism, the condemnation of worldliness and its deleterious effects, and Simpson’s expectations for signs of the end of the age would all collide in that monumental convulsion of Western civilization that was the First World War (1914–18). The final years of Simpson’s life and ministry transpired in the shadow of the Great War, and that conflict loomed behind all the efforts of his day-to-day work. The war itself would prove to be momentous, not only in human cost and politics among nations, but for the very foundations of Western culture. Decades of ebullient optimism in the tides of human invention and innovation cresting in the nineteenth century crashed hard upon the rock of realism as the so-called enlightened nations of the West

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succumbed to slaughtering one another with unimaginable efficiency and unprecedented ferocity. Also a watershed for people of faith, the First World War proved a dramatic catalyst for secularization and a crucial inflection moment in the de-Christianization of the West. The war accelerated already growing movements of disenchantment as its sheer carnage and the existential shock at human misery left many disillusioned with the fundamental story that faith told, in a way deeper than religious demographics could discern. By then practised at endowing wars with religious meaning, most evangelicals, though initially calling for peace and disarmament in Europe, eventually came to invest the war with immense religious significance as an outlet for evangelical activism and a defence of Christian civilization, though a small minority of evangelicals maintained a principled pacifism.26 Embracing the righteous cause of the war, however, led not to the triumph of Christian civilization, as they expected, but to an exacerbating and disordering of their relationship to their surrounding societies. At the outset of war in Europe in 1914, Simpson used his pastoral platform to vehemently reproach the lackluster nature of efforts for peace and to predict that this war would be a “stupendous catastrophe,” about which “no word” would be adequate “to express the gravity of the outlook but Armageddon.” The potential scope and severity of the war suggested to Simpson that the war was “indeed a solemn and unparalleled portent of still greater impending calamities and catastrophes,” engaging “the most perfect appliances of modern science” in an errant enterprise undermining “half a hundred years of peace.” The whole scenario displayed a “madness and wickedness” only equalled by the “seeming hopelessness of it all.” Given the hopelessness of going to war, Simpson’s initial reaction was to plead for peace. War as such – and despite his support for previous wars – was definitively “not Christian,” he lamented, not to mention “unreasonable and sinful.” Therefore, Christians of sober character should support any possible last-ditch efforts at peace. Against the idolatry of the battlefield and the militaristic demonic spirit now unleashed in European bellicosity, Simpson admonished his followers to “cherish and maintain the holy ideals of the Gospel and the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus.” As with other evangelicals (of that era), embracing the spirit of the meek entailed a critique of arms stockpiling. At least one positive outcome of this sinfully destructive war, for Simpson, could be disarmament: “a settlement as will in future wholly forbid and render impossible the enormous armaments which the great powers of Europe have been maintaining for the past quarter of a century.”27

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Simpson initially urged, then, that the appropriate response of his Christian readers was to pray, especially “for the innocent victims of this wholesale murder.” The divinely mandated role for believers, even those who would never have any direct connection to the war, was the “sacred ministry of intercession.” What the answers to these prayers would be, and how God would hasten his kingdom through them, Simpson believed could not be determined at the outset. While watching and waiting, the Christian’s primary duty was to “calmly trust” and to “confidently remember” the divine promises. If praying and trusting were the most appropriate spiritual responses, he urged, the political correlate to that spiritual posture was that he heartily supported – initially – the neutrality of the United States, even though for somewhat different reasons than the politicians did. As the guns of August blazed, Simpson wrote that there “should be much prayer” for the United States to “be able to maintain her neutrality, and that the new world … may remain a steadying force amid the convulsions that threaten the stability of the old nations.” He lauded the posture of the United States government, which was proceeding as a “neutral nation” and “with fair-mindedness and friendship.”28 At the same time, Simpson’s defence of US neutrality did not mean that he lacked political sympathies. From the outset he argued that the Allied forces were more in the right, and his particular sympathies with Great Britain came through immediately when he affirmed that the war had “been forced upon” a reluctant and defensive nation, “fighting for a principle essential to human liberty and all national government.”29 Simpson’s neutrality, but his blame of Germany, caused him grief with both sides. The war fractured an evangelical transnationalism that reverted to national loyalties in the fires of war. Those on the Allied side who had entered the war at the start were wounded by Simpson’s fence-sitting on what, for them, was clearly a righteous cause, and one upon whose altar they had already sacrificed many husbands, sons, brothers, and friends. From the other side, Simpson received much “painful correspondence from friends in Germany” about his pointed rhetoric “against their nation.” These letters chastised Simpson’s anti-Germanism and impugned his failure to consider the legitimate grievances of the German people. Simpson responded that he entirely “believe[d] in their deep sincerity” and that he “fully agreed” with them in acknowledging all the “splendid qualities of the German people and their great services to human progress in the past.” Still, Simpson challenged his friends that, as Christians, they could not blame him for “severely condemning the spirit of militarism,” which

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he thought was clearly more represented in Germany. In the end, Simpson sought to reach out to them through their higher, common loyalty to the kingdom of God. From that perspective, “God is judging all the nations, Great Britain as well as Germany, for many national sins,” and together all could unite in “prayer for the coming of earth’s true King and the happy reign of the Prince of Peace.”30 While promoting peace and urging American neutrality at first, Simpson primarily interpreted the outbreak of war as the abysmal failure of modernism and of modern society in its highest forms. In editorial after editorial, he bludgeoned this theme as the fundamental meaning of the war. Not that he relished the war’s destruction, but such bedlam became a validating reality for him, serving to vindicate not just Christianity’s doctrine of sin in relation to a secularizing humanism, but especially premillennial skepticism about the viability of human endeavours. In such a situation, humanity would be compelled to turn from the natural to the supernatural. To trust in the genius of modern civilization was now seen clearly as folly, and all sober minds would have to turn to the divine solution to human depravity. This was a judgment against all secular society. The sovereign God was contesting the hubris of contemporary culture: “never before have the boasts and ideals of modern civilization been so suddenly and completely shattered,” wrote Simpson in a characteristic assessment. To put it bluntly, “the forces of civilization have failed.” As a result of the sheer horror of this conflict, “the veneer of civilization has been torn off,” and what was revealed about sinful humanity was “the savagery of the Barbarian and the Hun,” implicating a disconfirmation of all “our boasted civilization and ethical progress.” The outcome was a “hideous failure in human culture and civilization,” involving all the supposedly highest achievements of human capacity, “all the forces of modern skill, education, genius, and wealth,” which were employed “in this frightful carnival of blood” where “the earth is being made a charnel house and a shambles.” The scolding conclusion: “Surely our boasted civilization has indeed collapsed.”31 As the war progressed, and as he ratcheted up his rhetoric about its historical-religious significance, Simpson came to the position that peace could no longer be the simple answer, that war could not be avoided, and that the Central Powers had to be crushed by those nations wielding God’s righteous sword. Within a few months, he was already qualifying his initial support for peace such that “an intelligent, thoughtful Christian cannot sincerely ask for peace without regard to such a settlement of issues involved as will remove the chief cause of war and place the future interests of the warring

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nations on such a safe, just, and permanent basis as will eliminate the dreadful conditions” that magnified the war. This would probably have to entail a “decisive victory” for the Allied forces. By 1915, Simpson could see the writing on the wall. The “awful vortex,” he anticipated, would eventually suck “even this peaceful republic” into the war, as its global scope cast a “portentous shadow over all peoples and lands.” For Simpson, as for many, a key event in turning American public sentiment decisively towards war was the sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915, when the attack of a German U-boat on the British passenger ship resulted in the death of almost 1,200 noncombatants. Echoing the outrage of most in the nation, Simpson called the Lusitania sinking an atrocity committed by “outlaws beyond the pale of civilization and the most fundamental laws of humanity.”32 As the “baptism of blood” and the “travail of suffering” continued unabated, Simpson foresaw “graver possibilities of worldwide entanglement.”33 The adjustment of his position from advocating peace and neutrality to advocating war and decision was not a massive shift, as he was never an outright pacifist; he could often interpret wars as instruments of God’s providential justice or chastisement, and he maintained political-national sympathies with Great Britain. Soon he came to see that the peace required in the scenario of this world war was “peace with righteousness and honor,” not a cheap, facile peace that non-commitment would bring. Simpson eventually came around to something of a Christian realist position, which was to say that there was “something worse even than war.” Other factors had to be considered, and a “peace maintained at the cost of self-respect, honor, and righteousness” was no true peace at all. There were also evangelistic reasons to go to war. Simpson was, as always, concerned about the fate of Christian missions and about the situation of the missionaries who resided in territory under occupation by the Central Powers. Defence of those interests could justify employment of the tools of war in extreme circumstances. Opportunities further abounded among the soldiers. “War itself is creating an extraordinary opportunity to reach millions of soldiers with the gospel message,” Simpson noted. The extreme experience of the war was opening many a solider to considering spiritual things, and Christians needed to seize the opportunity. Simpson applauded one of his former students, Leonard Dunn, who had enlisted as a military chaplain in the Canadian army. By the time Woodrow Wilson led the United States directly into the war in 1917, Simpson was prepared to support him wholeheartedly, gushing about how the “wise, strong, and gifted President” had handled the situation.34

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In a widely read essay from April of 1917, Simpson crystalized his thoughts on the role of Christians in the war. He acknowledged that many believers he knew were “perplexed” about their “duty as Christians in this time of national and world crisis” and about how to order their “true responsibilities and relationships … from the standpoint of the Bible … to our God, our conscience, and our country.” The entire outlook on this question, Simpson began, had to be grounded in the eschatological hope and fundamental truth of Christianity: “the spirit of the gospel aims at the utter and final abolition of war and all its causes. The supreme principle of Christianity is forgiveness, love, peace, and this is to be the character of … the Kingdom which our Lord is to establish on the earth at His coming.” This meant that Christians had to give their first and last concern to peace and love. However, that did not entail that war could always be avoided. Jesus had not yet come a second time to establish his kingdom visibly and irrevocably. Before that happened, the Lord was indeed working through “human society” by the “principle of love,” but at the same time sin and Satan were also still at work in the world. God allowed freedom, so people were capable of choosing principles countervailing those of the kingdom with all their destructive results. With most of the world still “unspiritual … confused and divided,” the Lord “still defers” in his activity to the corrupt decisions of people and their governments. In such a situation, war was “one of the agencies of national life and divine providence which God has overruled and used in every age.”35 Simpson then trotted out the whole array of prooftexts in the Christian just war theory arsenal to buttress his point that God can and does use war as one of his providential instruments. The prophecies of the end times convinced him, finally, that war would be one aspect of the Lord’s purposes in a sinful world and its history right until the very end. Was this particular war just? For the American nation, Simpson came to think so unreservedly. He argued that it was clear that this would be a war not undertaken for “aggression, conquest, or annexation” (notwithstanding his support for the Spanish-American War, conducted for precisely those reasons), but a war undertaken in defence of other nations and innocent life, a war begrudgingly accepted not lustily pursued. The Allies, furthermore, were clearly on the side of “principle” and appealed to the “highest sentiments of humanity,” while the actions of the Central Powers had been bellicose and corrupt. Every action of German aggression, to Simpson’s mind, had poured “another drop in the full cup of Teuton iniquity.”36 At no point did Simpson stop to think whether the theology he articulated here could become

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too complacent or hasty in its embrace of war. But in the context of such momentous world events, such self-probing and cautionary questions seemed inopportune. In any case, once President Wilson and the other American authorities had settled on joining the war, Simpson told his readers that it was the duty of Christians to support the government: “Now that the issue is decided, let all classes and races unite in strengthening the hands of our government and striking hard for the great principles of liberty and righteousness involved.” But, as always, Simpson urged his readers to put the whole situation in the light of their higher spiritual loyalty. No impulse or passion should cause believers to “forget our higher citizenship, our greater King, and the blessed Hope of the coming kingdom, which seems to be at the doors.”37

The Prophetic Fulfillment As the “the war of wars” ground on with all its “fearful carnage,” Simpson turned to biblical prophecy as the last possible resort to make sense of it all. Since this war had been the most “solemn crisis in the progress of history and the providence of God,” it must be some exceptional “sign of the times.” The excruciating experience of this event, Simpson diagnosed, was “too unique, startling, and unprecedented to be classed as an ordinary event of history.” As a “frightful world cataclysm,” it must be the “birth travail of a new age and its lurid light suggests the hope of the coming dawn.” Accelerating the premillennial urgency, Simpson concluded forcefully that this war must be a “time of prophetic fulfillment.”38 What that fulfillment might be was a question with which Simpson struggled for the remainder of the war and the remainder of his life. In an article from 1917, he tried to interpret the war according to his understanding of biblical prophecy. The prophecies of Daniel, especially, referred to this very moment, he thought. Since Daniel had given an “exhaustive” description of the significance of world history, speaking of “four great empires,” it seemed that the fourth empire was likely Russia, entangled in this great world catastrophe in its Revolution. Since Russia had been the “great persecutor of the Jews,” and since “Tubal, Meshech, Gomer, Rosh, Gog, and Magog – these are all Russian names,” it seemed to Simpson that this war signified the completion of the four great empires, and so the end of the time of the gentiles, the transition to the final stage of history. Through some creative computations, and using the day-year principle, Simpson determined that Daniel spoke of a time 2,520 years from King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon,

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which uncannily happened to be the year 1914, the outbreak of the war. Such timing just had to be providential, in Simpson’s view, and he sought the meaning of this enigma in the unprecedented war. Still, he made some proper caveats, doing so because while he thought that the Lord had given true, accurate hints in the scriptures that the diligent reader could decode, precise dates had also been kept hidden, and so could not be known for certain. The Lord had done this “for the very purpose of keeping us in a state of habitual readiness,” so the believer would be ever expectant and never complacent in their own knowledge of prophecy.39 While still cautious, Simpson became more and more convinced that the war bore immense prophetic significance for the turning of the age. This cataclysm was not yet directly the biblical “Armageddon,” as many other religious voices were clamouring. Ever the scrupulous – if selective – literalist, Simpson responded to those cavalier students of prophecy that Armageddon would be centred geographically on Palestine, and it would involve the Jewish people as a reconstituted nation. Nevertheless, Simpson was convinced that in this world-historical event preparations for the end were unfolding with alacrity. “We have reached a time of momentous significance in the history of the human race,” he pontificated.40 And because the year 1917, by biblical numerological calculation, was of particular “prophetic significance,” he was ecstatic with anticipation.41 It could only have been the zenith of providence, then, that in this year electrified with prophetic dynamism the city of Jerusalem fell once again to Christian control after centuries of Muslim rule. The two final signs for which Simpson had been waiting his entire life, and towards which his own ministries had been labouring, were, first, the preaching of the gospel to all the nations, and, second, the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. When General Allenby entered the holy city and recaptured Jerusalem for Great Britain, the second of those final signs, the reconstitution of Israel, seemed a highly probable event within a relatively short time. And Simpson’s prophetic clock ticked one stroke closer to midnight. Simpson could not restrain his jubilation or the fervour of his expectation at these developments. Earlier, he had hinted that the mystery of this war just might presage such a “strange fulfillment of prophecy concerning Israel,” and this was one reason why it had engrossed his imagination from the outset.42 Anticipating the prophecy was one thing; having it realized was another. “The greatest epoch of 2,500 years is upon us, brethren. It is upon us! it is uPon us!!,” Simpson raved to his flock after receiving the news about Jerusalem:

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“another dispensation is about to open, another age is about to begin.”43 This was the “best news in a thousand years,” and its significance “thrilled millions of hearts in the Christian world.” With the fall of Jerusalem and the “surrender of the Turk,” “the greatest epoch of history has begun. Let us praise, and watch, and pray.” The “desolations of Zion are ending at last,” he exulted, relinquishing any last constraints on his rhetorical sobriety; “God’s plans for Israel are culminating with accelerated speed … the significance of this event is impossible for the most intense language to exaggerate.” This prophetic fulfillment would be a “supreme consolation” for any anguish, suffering, or loss that Christians had experienced during the course of the war. By the Lord’s promise in Luke 21:24, the times of the gentiles were now completed, and the world stage was set for history’s final act. Now there were still those final steps to be taken. The gospel had to be preached to every people. Israel’s return had to be distinguished from Israel’s conversion (the final step). But however “gradual” the prophetic progression of these steps – he ventured it might be another twenty years or so – “the fact remains that we have entered a new zone and we are already in the beginning of the end.” For Simpson, these were truly “Maranatha days!”44 From here on out, although already having his sympathy, zionism would have Simpson’s unyielding loyalty.45

Legacies Simpson spent the end of his days eagerly expecting the end of all days. The events of the Great War and the recapture of Jerusalem had transfixed him with the prospect of the rapid arrival of God’s kingdom. He never lived to see his longings for Israel’s reconstitution as a nation materialize, but he spent his last years buoyant with anticipation. At the same time, he did not stop delivering jeremiads about the degeneration of American society, finding consolation in the belief that such trends further signalled the coming prophetic consummation. The shock of such exhilarating prophetic events, however, also overcame him; physically, he never fully recovered. Shortly after receiving the dramatic news about Jerusalem, Simpson began to withdraw from public ministry. The Alliance paper reported that at the turn of the year 1918 Simpson had begun “to feel the strain of over work.” At long last, he decided that it was “imperative” for him “to take a vacation,” in order to “get a complete rest and prevent a serious breakdown.” This was his first formal cessation of working ministry in thirty years. He spent time in reprieve at

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Nyack and ventured up to Clifton Springs, New York, where he had once sought restoration and holiness during his Louisville pastorate. The magazine reassured an anxious readership that “Mr. Simpson’s stand now is, as always, one of faith, and he is trusting in the Lord alone for renewed strength and vigor.”46 Friends nevertheless described Simpson as “subject to sleeplessness and high pressure upon nerves and brain.” Indicative of his declining health situation, he was forced to cancel an offer to speak at the Jewish Missionary Conference in Chicago in 1918, which must have been an agonizing decision for him given the topic and the times. While there were periods in the next few months when it seemed like Simpson might recover enough to take up some of his public ministry again, and while “every impulse of his heart would press him to take up his full share of service,” he was never again able to. “God,” the Alliance paper editorialized, was “holding [him] in quietness and prayer, and he is comforted to remember that.”47 His supporters were adamant to claim, to the last, that he never accepted any medical treatment. After years of regularly taking the 6:18 a.m. train into the city from Nyack and decades of working full days devoted to his ministry, Simpson finally seemed to be succumbing to physical weakness and weariness. The divine presence in his physical body was beginning to yield to inevitable mortality; supernatural invigoration faded before mundane decay. During 1918, Simpson attended the Alliance’s Annual Council, but gave over the leadership to VicePresident Ulysses Lewis. During these sessions, he announced that he would commit all his business affairs to the ministry for settlement. By 1919, the Alliance paper was desperately requesting prayers from Simpson’s flock for the restoration of his health.48 After suffering a stroke that year, Simpson was absent from both the Alliance National Council in Toccoa Falls, Georgia, and the major Alliance conventions for the first time since founding the C&MA.49 His ministry continued to expand, but it would do so as it passed into the hands of his followers. By 1920, the C&MA was operating cross-cultural missions in fourteen countries and home ministries in thirty-one US states and Canada. The same year that Simpson was first absent from the C&MA National Council, the leadership of his movement planned an ambitious program of expansion both at home and abroad – an enlargement of faith, as they called it.50 While retiring mostly to his home in Nyack, with his wife Maggie, his daughter Margaret, and his son Howard (returned from two years service in the Canadian army) by his side to care for him, Simpson nursed a “revivified” interest and intensity in prayer, especially in intercession. His

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Figure 11.1 A.B. Simpson funeral procession, Tuesday, 4 November 1919, Nyack, New York.

friends and associates from the Alliance who visited him claimed that through his struggles, Simpson constantly persevered and was comforted by quoting passages of scripture from memory and by singing classic hymns.51 After a life in gospel and mission, A.B. Simpson died on 29 October 1919, a Wednesday, at the age of seventy-five. He had spent the previous morning visiting with a missionary team from Jamaica before suffering a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. Having been a converted Christian for sixty-two years, an ordained gospel minister for fifty-four years, and pioneer of an independent ministry and mission for thirty-seven years, death still showed no deference to the consecrated over the unconsecrated. Simpson’s obituary in the New York Times eulogized him as “one of the leading evangelists” and proponents of “foreign missionary work” in the United States, and pithily wrote that “there was almost no end to Mr. Simpson’s religious activities.” Once again, the press fixated on all the money that had been raised at his revivals, though absent of cynical commentary this time. This, along with some edges of his divine healing teaching, had been one of Simpson’s few sources of public controversy during his entire career.52 Indeed, all available evidence suggests that Simpson accomplished a notable feat of eminent normalcy, avoiding the scandals that had dogged other celebrity evangelists: sexual indiscretions, nasty fraternal

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feuds, and a self-serving massaging of the facts. While the press did, at times, gin up controversy about his funding, there is no reason to think that his collections ever went anywhere other than the ministries for which they were explicitly given. His obituary in the Alliance publication cut to the heart of Simpson’s simple integrity when they summed up his career by praising “his deeply spiritual life, his profound conviction of the truth, his passion for souls, and his great faith in God.”53 Condolences and tributes poured in from many luminaries of the conservative evangelical world, demonstrating the scope of Simpson’s reach: Robert Speer of the Student Volunteer Movement; famed theology professor W.H. Griffith Thomas; Henry Frost, director of the China Inland Mission; James M. Gray, dean of Moody Bible Institute; future fundamentalist stalwart William Bell Riley; Charles Trumbull, editor of the Sunday School Times; P.W. Philpott of Hamilton, leading Canadian evangelist; Thomas Chalmers, president of the Jewish Mission; and John R. Mott, global missionary statesmen and leader of the yMCA, among others. The mantle of the C&MA itself was passed to Paul Rader (1879–1938), already pastor of the prestigious Moody Church in Chicago, who had been intimately involved in Alliance ministries in recent years. Rader would be among the next generation of revivalists and evangelists who transmitted the conservative evangelical faith to a beleaguered but resilient generation of believers. He would make a name for himself as a popular radio preacher in the age of the dial and would eventually pioneer gospel ministry into the era of silent films, to which millions of American began to flock during the 1920s.54 In the decade after Simpson’s death, the melee that had been brewing in the ranks of American Christianity between Protestant revisionism, conservative evangelicalism, and the larger American culture finally burst into open bellicosity in the fundamentalist-modernist struggle over intellectual terrain and denominational infrastructure, while the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 symbolized the wane of evangelical cultural standing and influence among American elites for the next few decades. All the while, evangelicals continued to preach their basic gospel message, to provoke conversions, and to engage in ministries at home and abroad. Charles Fuller (a convert under Rader) blared his Old Fashioned Revival Hour into millions of homes, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson appropriated and tinkered with Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel to turn it into a sensationalist foursquare one, and Billy Sunday turned his baseball celebrity into revivalist theatrics that fused evangelical traditionalism with American patriotism much more tightly than anyone of Simpson’s generation had done. Simpson

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had witnessed Sunday’s rise, as the big tent revivalist visited some of the students at Nyack, and participated in some of Sunday’s revival campaigns. While Simpson himself never embraced the same dramatics, he nevertheless commented that Sunday’s style simply presented his message with “with great interest and power” and his emphasis was on “plain and fearless gospel preaching.” From Sunday’s Philadelphia revival of 1915, Simpson wrote that he had “never heard a more simple, sane, intelligent, Scriptural, spiritual, and effective presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the most essential truths of the Word of God [!].” Acknowledging coyly that the “human element of intense passion and overwhelming appeal … were not lacking,” he was overwhelmed by the impression that the “marvelous results were due not the eloquence of man, but to the power of the Holy Ghost.”55 The revivalists kept reviving. Despite setbacks in the elite places of American learning, culture, opinion, and intellectual life, evangelicalism never went away; it transformed, and moved from the major cities of the Northeast and Midwest to the Western and southern frontiers, all the while forging new alliances with big business.56 The institutional ministry and movement that A.B. Simpson founded would continue to expand, not in dramatic demographic advances, but in incremental, steady progress throughout North America and to mission fields around the world, remaining to the present. Though the C&MA would later concede its actual status as an independent denomination, and while it would rejoin the neo-evangelical coalition that emerged with Billy Graham (who got one of his early starts at the C&MA Gospel Tabernacle in Tampa) and America’s “fourth great awakening” after the Second World War and amid the convulsions of the 1960s, Simpson’s legacy would be kept alive through the activities of that community. In the broader Christian world, the Fourfold Gospel reverberated down through the twentieth century as a package of teaching and practice that defined a unique approach to evangelical Christianity even for those who never knew Simpson’s name. Merging holiness, healing, and premillennialism by way of an emphatic biblical literalism into a supernatural, empowered Christianity in the face of an immanent, culturally beholden Christianity, Simpson had been a part of a major shift in evangelicalism, responding to new times and new crises. Though he never lived to see the dramatic outcomes, Simpson helped to shape the foundations of what would become fundamentalism and its battles, beginning in the 1920s, as well as the foundations of what would become a global pentecostal movement. Fundamentalism as such never assumed demographic gravitas, but insofar as some of its theological and

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spiritual impulses – without the combative insularity and separatism – were reconfigured in the neo-evangelical synthesis after the war, and certainly with pentecostalism and the charismatic movement, the second half of the twentieth century in America would be markedly evangelical and charismatic. At the same time, twentieth-century American Christianity would also be significantly transdenominational and parachurch, patterning itself on ministries like those that Simpson pioneered. Such reforged networks of Christians would become, along with Catholicism, the most vibrant forces in American Christianity by the end of the century. Even if Simpson’s prophetic belief that the restoration of the nation of Israel would considerably hasten the end of days still remains pending a century after he expected it, what he did not expect or could not have expected was that many elements of his distinctive configuration of Christianity would vibrantly return in an evangelical resurgence in American culture, all the while expanding prolifically around the world. Simpson helped to create the conditions for the world of twentieth-century evangelicalism that emerged out of the denominational evangelicalism of the nineteenth century; North American Christianity had been remade, and Simpson was one of those who had helped to make it.

Notes

Introduction 1 C&MA, 44:5 (1 May 1915), 66; C&MA, 48:15 (14 July 1917), 226. The primary, official publication of Simpson’s ministry went through a series of different titles from 1888 to 1919: Christian Alliance, Christian Alliance and Missionary Weekly, Christian Alliance and Foreign Missionary Weekly, Christian and Missionary Alliance Weekly, and Alliance Weekly. I cite all of these publications under “C&MA” and all sources are from the C&MA archives. 2 Hutchinson and Wolffe, A Short History of Global Evangelicalism, 1–24; Ward, Early Evangelicalism; Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism. All endnote citations are short-form; for the full detail of all sources, including the abbreviations of archival sources, consult the bibliography. 3 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain; Timothy Larsen, “The Reception of Evangelicalism in Modern Britain since Its Publication in 1989,” in Haykin and Stewart, eds., The Emergence of Evangelicalism, 21–36. For theological models: Timothy Larsen, “Defining and Locating Evangelicalism,” in Larsen and Trier, eds., Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, 1–14; McDermott, “Introduction,” and Noll, “What is an ‘Evangelical’?,” in McDermott, ed., Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology, 1–34; Neselli and Hansen, eds., Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. For historical sources themselves on this question as a tradition: Baird, Religion in America; Chalmers, On the Evangelical Alliance; Gregg, Evangelical-ism!; Dale, The Old Evangelicalism and the New; Gillie, Evangelicalism: Has It a Future?; Akers, Armstrong, and Woodbridge, eds., This We Believe. Most recently, in light of the wrenching allegiances of the 2016 US election: Laberton, ed., Still Evangelical? 4 McAlister, The Kingdom of God Has No Borders, 69.

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5 I owe this classic phrase to Balmer, Evangelicalism in America. 6 Balmer, “It’s Complicated,” 1–6, an unpublished manuscript graciously shared with the author. 7 Gloege, Guaranteed Pure, 11–14. 8 Brown and Silk, The Future of Evangelicalism, “Introduction,” and “Appendices A–C.” 9 Reynolds, The Evangelicals at Oxford, 25–33. 10 Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century. 11 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 1–17. 12 Wacker, Heaven Below, 1–17; Sutton, American Apocalypse, ix–7. 13 The Word, the Work, and the World (WWW), 5:1 (January 1885), 14; WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 43; all WWW from C&MA archives. 14 Hamilton, “The Interdenominational Evangelicalism of D.L. Moody and the Problem of Fundamentalism,” in Dochuk, Kidd, and Peterson, eds., American Evangelicalism, 230–80. 15 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 67–90. 16 Decisive points in the development of the “modern” have been variously attributed to the transition to more diffuse social relationships and multifarious tools (around the year 1000), or in the centuries beyond that to the rise of the universities, to nominalism in Christian thought, to the Reformation and print culture, to the scientific method, to the Enlightenment in intellectual culture, to the American and French Revolutions in politics, or to the intensifications of capitalism, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization after that: Hall et al., eds. Modernity; Appadurai, Modernity at Large; Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity. 17 MacDougall, The People’s Network, 6–11. 18 Edwards, New Spirits, 1–8; Hahn, A Nation without Borders, 233–500. 19 White, The Republic for Which It Stands, 3; Lears, Rebirth of a Nation; Leach, The Land of Desire. 20 Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, 53. 21 Finke and Stark, The Churching of America, 22–3, 156–96. 22 McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, 1–23, 141–78. 23 Simpson, A Good Southerner, xiii.

Chapter One 1 For brief, scholarly biographical sketches of Simpson’s life and influence: Balmer, “A.B. Simpson,” in Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism; Kucharsky, “Albert

notes to PAGes 19–22

2 3

4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

16 17

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Benjamin Simpson,” in American National Biography. For an orientation to Alliance historiography, see: Ayer, The Christian and Missionary Alliance; Reid, “Jesus Only,” 1–38; Reid, “Towards a Fourfold Gospel: A.B. Simpson, John Salmon, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada,” in Rawlyk, ed., Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience, 271–88. Campey, Very Fine Class of Immigrants, Appendix 1:137; Campey, An Unstoppable Force, Appendix 1:206. Mark Peterson, “The War in the Cities,” in Gray and Kamensky, eds., Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution, 200–1; Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 304–8. Richards, Debating the Highland Clearances; Bumsted, The People’s Clearances. Ewen Cameron, “Clearances of the Highlands and Islands,” in Lynch, ed., Oxford Companion to Scottish History, 97–8; Adams and Somerville, Cargoes of Despair and Hope, 213. Michael Anderson, “Scottish Population Patterns, since 1770,” in Lynch, ed., Oxford Companion to Scottish History, 487–91. Adams and Somerville, Cargoes of Despair and Hope, 213. From Lee Papers quoted in Campey, An Unstoppable Force, 27. Campey, An Unstoppable Force, 20, 4. Marjorie D. Harper, “Emigration from the Highlands and Islands, Post-1750,” in Lynch, ed., Oxford Companion to Scottish History, 228–34; James Horn, “British Diaspora: Emigration from Britain, 1680–1815,” in Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols., vol. 2: P.J. Marhsall, ed., The Eighteenth Century, 28–52. Campey, An Unstoppable Force, 27. Campey, Very Fine Class of Immigrants, Appendix 1:109, 111. Quoted in Moir, Enduring Witness, 37. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 189–203. Harold H. Simpson Fonds, Accession #4569, Series 1, Files 20–1, Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown, Pei) (Pei). From the parochial records of Rothes and Boharm, Simpson thought it probable that William the elder, twin brother of Alexander, was himself the child born of Walter Simpson (b. c. 1690) and Elspet Man (b. c. 1685), and baptized on 2 February 1733 in the Parish of Dundercas, Morayshire. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 202. Steele, The English Atlantic, 273–5; Campey, Very Fine Class of Immigrants, 106, xii, 99, 92.

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18 Adams and Somerville, Cargoes of Despair and Hope, 61; as told by Simpson, Cavendish, 26–40, 45, drawing on oral sources of family tradition. For a primary source account of an experience of shipwreck on the way from Scotland to Prince Edward Island see the story of the Elizabeth in Watson, Shipwrecks and Seafaring Tales, 25–9. 19 Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 534–5. 20 Campey, Very Fine Class of Immigrants, 29–30. 21 Stephen A. Davis, “Early Societies: Sequences of Change,” in Buckner and Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation, 3–21. 22 Prins, The Mi’kmaq, 1–41; Baldwin, Land of the Red Soil, 18–26. 23 Stark, Micmac Legends of Prince Edward Island, 6. 24 Ralph Pastore, “The Sixteenth Century: Aboriginal Peoples and European Contact,” in Buckner and Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation, 32–9; Prins, The Mi’kmaq, 43–132; Upton, Micmacs and Colonists. 25 Stout, The Divine Dramatist, 195–6; Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 310–14. 26 Bumsted, “1763–1783: Resettlement and Rebellion,” in Buckner and Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation, 158–60, 168. 27 Bumsted, Land, Settlement and Politics on Prince Edward Island, ix–xii, 12–26, 67–72. 28 Kerr, Historical Atlas of Canada, 53; MacNutt, The Atlantic Provinces; Clark, Three Centuries and the Island; Warburton, A History of Prince Edward Island. 29 Simpson, Cavendish, 47–8. 30 Simpson Fonds, Series 1, Files 20–1 (Pei). 31 Land Registry Record, 17 March 1791 (Pei). 32 Simpson, Cavendish, 62–70. 33 Ann Gorman Condon, “1783–1800: Loyalist Arrival, Acadian Return, Imperial Reform,” in Buckner and Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation, 184–5. 34 Trollope, North America, 2:77 (Burn). 35 Simpson Fonds, Series 1, File 39 (Pei). 36 “Cavendish in 1809 from a plan of Lot 23” (Pei). 37 Stewart, An Account of Prince Edward Island, 209. 38 Simpson, Cavendish, 55. 39 Stewart, An Account of Prince Edward Island, 243–4. 40 Simpson, Cavendish, 96; Simpson Fonds, Series 1, File 20 (Pei). 41 William Klempa, “Scottish Presbyterianism Transplanted to the Canadian Wilderness,” in Scobie and Rawlyk, eds., The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces, 4.

notes to PAGes 27–33

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

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Simpson Fonds, Series 1, File 21 (Pei). Simpson, Cavendish, 46. Gregg, History of Presbyterianism in the Dominion of Canada, 100. MacLeod, History of Presbyterianism on Prince Edward Island, 20; Stewart, An Account of Prince Edward Island, 286–7. For the larger religious scene of Atlantic Canada: Moir, The Church in the British Era, 127–42. Gregg, History of Presbyterianism in Canada, 60–2. Patterson, ed., Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 96. Ibid., 207. Susan Buggey, “James Drummond MacGregor,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, online edition (DCB) (University of Toronto and Université Laval, 2003), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macgregor_james_drummond_6E.html. MacLeod, History of Presbyterianism on Prince Edward Island, 20; Patterson, ed., Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 353–4. Robertson, History of the Mission of the Secession Church, 257; MacLeod, History of Presbyterianism on Prince Edward Island, 13, 21. Simpson, Cavendish, 151. Avonlea Women’s Institute, “Cavendish Past and Present,” 1, Simpson Fonds, Series 2, File 2 (Pei). Smith, Historic Churches of Prince Edward Island, 105, 9–12; see the pictures of what is now Princetown United Church, Malpeque, on 105–6, and Geddie Memorial Church on 71. Gregg, History of Presbyterianism in Canada, 256. Smith, Historic Churches of Prince Edward Island, 71–3. Gregg, History of Presbyterianism in Canada, 229, 575–6, 587. Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 166–78. Patterson, Missionary Life of John Geddie, 22. Phyllis R. Blakeley and Diane M. Barker, “John Geddie (1815–72)” in DCB, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/geddie_john_1815_72_10E.html. Patterson, Missionary Life of John Geddie, 29. Johnstone, Life of Rev. Dr. John Geddie and Mrs. Geddie, 12. Patterson, Missionary Life of John Geddie, 30–1. Johnstone, Life of Rev. Dr. John Geddie and Mrs. Geddie, 15. C&MA, 44:14 (3 July 1915), 210. Simpson’s death certificate, confirmed by his wife Margaret, erroneously states that his birth year was 1844, and some scholars have adopted this incorrect dating. It is likely that the correct date of birth, 15 December, was

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71 72 73

74 75 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

notes to PAGes 33–7

associated with the year of Simpson’s baptism, 1844. See Sawin, Life and Times of A.B. Simpson, from Christian and Missionary Alliance Church National Archives (Colorado Springs, Co) (C&MA), 202. Simpson, Cavendish, 87–91. Rubio, Lucy Maud Montgomery, 15–26. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 118. This is the official biography of Simpson written by another Alliance missionary, leader, and personal friend of Simpson’s. It is full of wonderful detail. At the same time, it is also highly slanted toward Simpson’s own theological views as its dominant historicalinterpretive paradigm and often retrojects Simpson’s memories, recollections, or opinions from later life – sometimes misleadingly, a few times just falsely – onto his earlier life, especially prior to 1881, when Simpson founded his new movement; see also: Simpson Fonds, Series 2, File 2 (Pei). Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 118–19; Hamilton Spectator, 30 May 1865; C&MA, 44:14 (3 July 1915), 210. De Jong and Moore, Shipbuilding on Prince Edward Island. T.W. Acheson, “The 1840s: Decade of Tribulation,” in Buckner and Reid, eds., The Atlantic Region to Confederation, 307–8; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 501–8. A.B. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 5, 10 (C&MA). Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 5–6 (C&MA). C&MA, 43:9 (28 November 1914), 129; Simpson Fonds, Series 1, Files 20, “Letter from A.B. Simpson” (Pei); Sawin, Life and Times of A.B. Simpson, 169–70 (C&MA). Louisa Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 4. Lower, The North American Assault on the Canadian Forest. Lauriston, Romantic Kent, 152, 176. Reid, “Jesus Only,” 52–3, quoting the MA thesis of John Leverton. Lauriston, Romantic Kent, 176, 186–91. Kerr, Historical Atlas of Canada, 5. Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 104–9, xi. Baskerville, Ontario, 54–123; Craig, Upper Canada; Conrad, A Concise History of Canada, 114–15; Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 27–8. Errington, The Lion, the Eagle and Upper Canada. Conrad, A Concise History of Canada, 6. Richard Cartwright, “A Journey to Canada” (c. 1779), in Talman, ed., Loyalist Narratives From Upper Canada, 45. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 1.

notes to PAGes 39–46

329

Chapter Two 1 Decennial Census, Chatham Township, Kent County (1851), Archives of Ontario (Toronto, on) (Aon). 2 Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 134–9. 3 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 4. 4 Chatham Township Land Records, County of Kent, Sale #4492, Ms 693, Reel 163 (pg. 679) (Aon); Sale#3430, Ms 693 Reel 190 (pg. 275) (Aon); Historical Atlas of Essex and Kent Counties, 80. 5 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 4. 6 Reid, “Jesus Only,” 55–6. 7 Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 21. 8 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 5–6 (C&MA). 9 Ibid., 6. 10 H.J. Bridgman, “William Proudfoot (1788–1851),” in DCB online, http://www. biographi.ca/en/bio/proudfoot_william_1788_1851_8E.html. 11 McKeller, “The Presbyterian Church in Chatham,” 12–18. 12 United Presbyterian Church in Canada, Minutes of Synod, quoted in Reid, “Jesus Only,” 53–4nn, 44–5. 13 Nancy Christie, “Introduction: Family, Community, and the Rise of Liberal Society,” and Marguerite Van Die, “Revisiting ‘Separate Spheres’: Women, Religion, and the Family in Mid-Victorian Brantford, Ontario,” in Households of Faith, 3–33 and 234–63. 14 Simpson, “My Story” in Simpson Scrapbook, 7 (C&MA). 15 Ibid., 7–8. 16 Ibid., 8. 17 Ibid., 7. 18 “Westminster Shorter Catechism,” and “Westminster Confession of Faith,” in Pelikan and Hotchkiss, eds. and trans., Creeds and Confessions of Faith, 2:601–62. 19 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 9–10 (C&MA). 20 Ibid., 10–11. 21 Ibid., 14–15. 22 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 26. 23 Ibid. 24 W.B. Owen (revised by Brian Stanley), “Henry Grattan Guinness (1835–1910),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, http://www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/33603. 25 Airhart, Serving the Present Age.

330

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53

notes to PAGes 46–58

Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 89–102, 105–9. Guinness, Preaching for the Million, 7. Reid, “Jesus Only,” 65. Guinness, Preaching for the Million, 7. Ibid., 10. C&MA, 34:15 (9 July 1910), 240. Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative, 1–32. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 5. Taylor, Sources of the Self. Lonergan, Method in Theology, 101–24, 235–44; Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 11–12 (C&MA). Ibid., 13 Ibid. Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 17. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting; Rossington and Whitehead, eds., Theories of Memory, “Introduction,” and “Part III: Identities,” 1–18, 215–97; Radstone and Schwartz, eds., Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, 1–9, 179–208; Adler and Leydesdorff, eds., Tapestry of Memory, ix–xxix. I owe this specific analysis about how Simpson remembered the details of the Marhsall text to Reid, “Jesus Only,” 71–3, and note 95. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 24, 7–10 (C&MA). Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 4–5. Walker, “John 3:1–2,” in Canada Presbyterian Church Pulpit, First Series, 126–32. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700), 173. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 14, emphasis emended (C&MA). Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 17. Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 7 (C&MA). Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety, 156–287; Cohen, God’s Caress, 242–70; Stout, The New England Soul, 32–49; Hambrick-Stowe, “Practical Divinity and Spirituality,” in Coffey and Lim, eds., Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, 174–88, 191–205. Doddridge, Rise and Progress, 38, 22. Ibid., 45–6. Ibid., 117–18, 277, 199, 270, 231, 268, 51, 61, 115. Ibid., 151–7.

notes to PAGes 59–67

331

54 Reproduced in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 19–22; Nienkirchen, “The Man, the Movement and the Mission: A Documentary History of the Christian and Missionary Alliance,” 80–2 (C&MA). 55 Beeston, “The Old Log School House,” 74–5. 56 R.D. Gidney, “Egerton Ryerson” in DCB, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ ryerson_egerton_11E.html. 57 Moir, Church and State in Canada West, chap. 2. 58 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 24–6; Reid, “Jesus Only,” 62–3, notes 71–73. 59 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 11 (C&MA). 60 Ibid., 9. 61 David Hillard, “John Williams (1796–1839),” ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/29521. 62 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 118–19. 63 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 10 (C&MA). 64 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 5. 65 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 10 (C&MA). 66 Ibid. 67 “Report on the Constitution of Knox’s College and on the Course of Study to Be Pursued Therein,” 2, Knox College Records, 101/0003, Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives (Toronto, on) (PCC). 68 Synod of London, Minutes 1869–1875, 7 May 1872, 4 May 1875, 42, 84, 79.097C (PCC); Canada Presbyterian Church, Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly, 1870–1875, 4–14 June 1872, 6; Sawin, Life and Times of A.B. Simpson, 189 (C&MA). 69 Lauriston, Romantic Kent, 362. 70 Louisa quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 4–5. 71 Lauriston, Romantic Kent, 362–3. 72 C&MA, 7:2 (10 July 1891), 18.

Chapter Three 1 Home and Foreign Record, 2:1 (7 May 1863), 196; “Report on the Constitution of Knox’s College and on the Course of Study to be Pursued Therein,” Knox College Records, 101/0003, 3–4 (PCC); Student Register for Knox College 1861–1862, Knox College Records, 601/0005 (PCC). 2 H.J. Bridgman, “Robert Burns (1789–1869)” in DCB, http://www.biographi. ca/en/bio/burns_robert_9E.html.

332

notes to PAGes 67–72

3 Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth, xiii–xviii, 296–349; Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, xiii–xvi, 14–47, 127–30; Barbara C. Murison, “The Kirk versus the Free Church: The Struggle for the Soul of the Maritimes at the Time of the Disruption,” in Scobie and Rawlyk, eds., The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces, 19–31. 4 Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 224–5. 5 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record (April 1855), 84. 6 Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, xiii–xvi. 7 Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 32. 8 Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, 111–26. 9 Fraser, Church, College and Clergy, 46, 5. 10 Student Register Book, 1861, 601/0005, Knox College Records (PCC). 11 Fraser, Church, College and Clergy, 61–6. 12 Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century; McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence. 13 Fraser, Church, College and Clergy, 6, 9, 14. 14 Robert Burns, “Knox College’s Preparatory Department” (23 March 1848); Henry Esson, “Critique on Dr. Burns Letter on Knox College,” Knox College Records, 101/0002 (PCC). 15 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record (December 1848). 16 Friedland, The University of Toronto, 1–42. 17 Fraser, Church, College and Clergy, 53–4, 34. 18 Allan L. Farris, “Michael Willis (1798-1879)” in DCB, http://www.biographi.ca/ en/bio/willis_michael_10E.html; Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 11–12, 19, 32–40, 108–9, 119–21, 136–9, 153–4, 168–9. 19 Fraser, Church, College and Clergy, 40, 63; “Students’ Missionary Society at Knox College” (c. 1852), Knox College Records (PCC); Student Missionary Society Letter Book, 606/0201, Knox College Records (PCC). 20 Reid, “Jesus Only,” 81–132. 21 Home and Foreign Record, 7:1 (1867): 229–32. 22 Reid, “Jesus Only,” 93. 23 Kemeny, Princeton in the Nation’s Service, 87–172. 24 “Eleventh Annual Report of the Buxton Mission,” Home and Foreign Record, 1:1 (September 1862): 297; Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record (January 1849): 39–40. 25 Quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 33. 26 Quoted in ibid., 32–3; Student Register Book, years 1860–1867, Knox College Records, 601/0005 (PCC). 27 Simpson, “My Story” in Simpson Scrapbook, 16–17 (C&MA).

notes to PAGes 73–9

333

28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 17–18. 30 Senate and Board Minutes of Knox College, 1859–1872, 2 December 1861 and 15 January 1862, Knox College Records, 102/0002 (PCC); “Subjects for the Examination of Students,” Home and Foreign Record, 2:1 (7 May 1863): 196. 31 Home and Foreign Record, 1862; James Hastie quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 29–30. 32 Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 39. 33 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 35; Bay Street Presbyterian Church Session Minutes (PCC); Student Register Book, 1862–1863, Knox College Records, 601/0005 (PCC); Senate and Board Minutes of Knox College, 1859–1872, Knox College Records, 102/0002, 10 February 1863, 25 March 1863 (PCC). 34 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 17–18. 35 Quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 33. 36 Simpson, hand inscription copied in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 22–3. 37 Contra: Bedford Jr, “A Larger Christian Life,” 34, who sees this as the beginnings of Simpson’s later premillennialism; Senate and Board Minutes of Knox College, 1859–1872, 25 March 1863 and 13 January 1864, Knox College Records, 102/0002 (PCC). 38 Simpson, “My Story,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 18–19 (C&MA). 39 Senate and Board Minutes of Knox College, 1859–1872, 13 January 1864, Knox College Records, 102/0002 (PCC); Home and Foreign Record (1864), 223. 40 Allan L. Farris, “Mark Young Stark,” in DCB, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ stark_mark_young_9E.html. 41 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 28. 42 True Banner and Wentworth Chronicle, 2 January 1865, 2, quoted in Reid, “Jesus Only,” 145–6. 43 Senate and Board Minutes of Knox College, 1859–1872, 6 April 1865, Knox College Records, 102/0002 (PCC). 44 Student Register Book, 1864–1866, Knox College Records, 601/0005 (PCC). 45 Toronto Leader, 8 April 1865, reproduced in Sawin, Life and Times of A.B. Simpson, 207 (C&MA). 46 Hamilton Spectator, 27 May 1865, 7 June 1865, 27 June 1865. 47 Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 41. 48 Presbytery of Toronto, Minutes (1861–1875), 79.103C, 152–3 (PCC). 49 Ibid., 169. 50 Canada Presbyterian Church, Rules and Forms of Procedures in the Church Courts (Montreal: John Lovell, 1865) (PCC).

334

notes to PAGes 79–89

51 Simpson quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 39–40. 52 Chatham Weekly Planet, 10 August 1865, transcribed in Sawin, Life and Times, 207–8 (C&MA). 53 Hamilton Spectator, 7 June and 8 June 1865. 54 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 79.100C, 179–80 (PCC). 55 Hamilton Spectator, 30 August 1865. 56 Hamilton Spectator, 17 August 1865. 57 Hamilton Spectator, 13 September 1865. 58 Hamilton Spectator, 6 September 1865, 11 September 1865. 59 Home and Foreign Record (October 1865), 380. 60 Sawin, Life and Times, 183–7. 61 Emphatically not the account in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 35. 62 Viscount Monck Files quoted in Reid, “Jesus Only,” 154–5. 63 Presbytery of Toronto, Minutes (1861–1875), 161–5, 79.103C (PCC). 64 H. J. Bridgman, “Alexander Gale” in DCB, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ gale_alexander_8E.html. 65 “History of Knox Presbyterian Church (1967),” Church Files, typescript (PCC); Bailey et al., The Presbytery of Hamilton, 64. 66 “History of Knox Presbyterian Church (1967)” (PCC); “Knox Presbyterian Church Historical Notes,” Church Files, 12 (PCC); Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 79.100C, 2 June 1862: 81–2; 8–9 July 1862: 437; 24 November 1862: 68; 15 April 1863: 68; 18 June 1863: 79; 13 January 1864: 121–2; 12 July 1864: 147–9; 24 November 1864: 160; 11 April 1865: 172, (PCC). 67 “Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Historical Notes,” Church Files, 13 (PCC); Home and Foreign Record, “Statistical Returns,” years 1862–1864. 68 Smellie, Memoir of the Rev. John Bayne, 50. 69 Quoted in Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 43–4. 70 “Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Historical Notes,” 2–3 (PCC). 71 Ibid., 5. 72 Hamilton Spectator, 14 May 1868. 73 Hamilton Spectator, “Knox’s Church,” 17 December 1868. 74 Boylan, Sunday School. 75 Hamilton Spectator, “Hamilton Canada Presbyterian Church Sabbath School Teachers’ Association,” 9 February 1866; “Sabbath School Teachers’ Association, 25 June 1867; Home and Foreign Record, Statistical Returns, 1873. 76 “Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Historical Notes,” Church Files, 4–5 (PCC); Hamilton Spectator, “Anniversary Meeting,” 4 April 1871.

notes to PAGes 89–96

335

77 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 10 April 1866, 205, 79.100C (PCC); “Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Historical Notes,” Church Files, 5–6 (PCC). 78 Hamilton Spectator, 5 January 1870. 79 Hamilton Spectator, 22 April 1870. 80 Hamilton Times, 16 October 1869, 5 December 1871.

Chapter Four 1 Quoted in Sawin, Life and Times, 173 (C&MA). 2 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, x. 3 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 11 April 1871, 399–403, 79.100C (PCC); “Knox Presbyterian Church, Hamilton, Historical Notes,” Church Files, 6 (PCC). 4 Simpson quoted in Simpson Scrapbook, 90 (C&MA). 5 Simpson, “Letter Off the Coast of Ireland” (16 May 1871), “Letter from London” (10 July 1871), “Letter from Geneva” (2 July 1871), “Letter from London” (4 June 1871), “Letter from Cologne” (8 June 1871), “Letter from Venice” (18 June 1871), “Letter from Rome” (20 June 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 9, 35, 32, 13, 16, 20, 26 (C&MA). 6 Simpson, “Letter Off the Coast of Ireland” (16 May 1871), “Letter from London” (4 June 1871), “Letter from Cologne” (8 June 1871), “Letter from Geneva” (2 July 1871), “Letter from London,” (9 July 1871,), “Letter from London” (11 July 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 9, 16, 29, 34, 35 (C&MA). 7 Simpson, “Letter Off the Coast of Ireland” (16 May 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 9 (C&MA). 8 Weaver, Crimes, Constables, and Courts, 47, 112–13. 9 “Letter from Venice” (18 June 1871), “Letter from Venice” (20 June 1871), “Letter from Geneva” (2 July 1871), “Letter from London” (4 June 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 9, 22, 24, 31, 12 (C&MA). 10 Simpson, “Letter from Geneva” (2 July 1871), “Letter from Venice” (20 June 1871), “Letter from London” (4 June 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 27, 30, 24, 12 (C&MA). 11 Simpson, “Letter from Rome” (25 June 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 27–8 (C&MA), emphasis original.

336

notes to PAGes 98–108

12 Simpson, “Letter from London” (9 July 1871) in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 33 (C&MA). 13 Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 40–5. 14 Simpson, “Letter from Basle” (11 June 1871), “Letter from Brussels” (4 June 1871), in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 17–18, 14 (C&MA). 15 I adapt here the pioneering work of this interpretation: Reid, “Jesus Only,” though Reid, mistakenly, can also underemphasize the differences and discontinuities in making his needed hermeneutical correction. 16 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 79.100C, 10 April 1866, 10 May 1867, 20 May 1869, 21 December 1869, 21 February 1871, 204, 232–5, 300, 325, 393 (PCC). 17 Moir, Enduring Witness, 131–4. 18 Quoted in ibid., 133. 19 Hamilton Spectator, 16 April 1868. 20 Ibid. 21 Hamilton Spectator, 21 April 1873. 22 Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 96–116. 23 Hamilton Spectator, 15 December 1873. 24 Hamilton Spectator, 17 January 1866. 25 Hamilton Spectator, “Hamilton Branch Bible Society,” 22 January 1873. 26 Hopkins, History of the Y.M.C.A., 7; Ross, The Y.M.C.A. in Canada. 27 Hamilton Spectator, “Young Men’s Christian Association,” 25 November 1868. 28 Evensen, God’s Man for the Gilded Age. 29 Hamilton Spectator, 25 July 1870. 30 Robert, Occupy until I Come, 52–92; Hamilton Spectator, 11 March 1872; Canada Presbyterian Church, Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly, 1869–1875 (Hamilton, June 4–14, 1872), 26 (PCC). 31 Philip D. Jordan, The Evangelical Alliance. 32 Evangelical Alliance, Documents of the Sixth General Conference, 7, 11. 33 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (1861–1875), 79.100C, 3 December 1873, 512–14 (PCC); Hamilton Spectator, 4 December 1873. 34 Presbytery of Hamilton, Minutes (186–1875), 3 December 1873, 512–15, 79.100C (PCC); Hamilton Spectator, 4 December 1873. 35 Hamilton Spectator, 15 December 1873. 36 Ibid. 37 Hamilton Spectator, 19 December 1873. 38 Boles, The Great Revival; Bruce, Jr, And They All Sang Hallelujah.

notes to PAGes 108–19

337

39 Share, Cities in the Commonwealth, 22–65; Yates, Two Hundred Years. 40 Potter, The Impending Crisis, 405–47; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 284, 293–6, 352–3; Channing, Kentucky, 93–109; Lincoln, “Letter to Orville H. Browning,” in Basler, ed., Collected Works, 4:532. 41 Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis; Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation; Lincoln, “Second Inaugural,” in Collected Works, 8:332–3. 42 Longfield, Presbyterians and American Culture, 91–115; Balmer and Fitzmier, The Presbyterians, 23–75. 43 Blight, Race and Reunion. 44 Channing, Kentucky, 136–51. 45 Presbyterian Church of the United States, Minutes of the General Assembly, 182–4, Presbyterian Historical Society (Philadelphia, PA) (Phs). 46 Weeks, Kentucky Presbyterians, 92. 47 Warren, The Presbyterian Church in Louisville, 26, 28 (Phs); Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church, 100 Years: 1848–1948, 16 (Phs). 48 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Impressive Ceremonies,” 3 January 1874; Christian Observer, 53:1 (7 January 1874), 4, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary archives (Louisville, ky) (lPs). 49 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Dr. A.B. Simpson’s First Sermon in His New Church,” 5 January 1874. 50 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church, 100 Years: 1848–1948, 17–19 (Phs). 51 Louisville Commonwealth and Observer,” 4 March 1874. 52 Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct, 167–81, 245–96; Rosenberg, Divided Lives, 3–35; White, The Republic for Which It Stands, 136–71; McDannell, The Christian Home. 53 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Mission of Women,” 16 November 1874; “The Woman of Samaria,” 16 November 1874. 54 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Mission of Women,” 23 February 1874. 55 Christian Observer, 53.1 (7 January 1874), 2–3, 53.2 (14 January 1874), 2 (lPs). 56 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Ideal Man,” 6 April 1874. 57 Synod of Kentucky, Minutes, #2850, 16–18 October 1874, 474–93 (lPs).

Chapter Five 1 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Is the Church of God to Have a Great Revival? As Answered by the Rev. A.B. Simpson,” 23 November 1874; Findlay, Jr, Dwight L. Moody, 164–91. 2 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Unity Prayer Meetings,” 10 January 1874.

338

notes to PAGes 119–28

3 Corts, ed. Bliss and Tragedy. 4 Whittle, ed., Memoirs of Philip Bliss, 52, 290–6, 355–6. 5 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Evangelists,” 8 February 1875; “Christian Unity,” 6 February 1875. 6 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Religious Movement,” 11 February 1875. 7 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Whittle and Bliss,” 21 February 1875. 8 Bliss, “Praise Meetings,” “Letter to Mother,” 16 February 1875, “Letter to Will,” 25 February 1875, “Letter to His Sister,” 18 March 1875, in Whittle, ed., Memoirs of Philip Bliss, 226–7, 244, 263, 258. 9 Finke and Stark, The Churching of America, 72–116. 10 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Evangelists,” 13 February 1875. 11 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Gospel Meetings,” 16 February 1875. 12 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Outpourings of the People,” 22 February 1875. 13 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Young Men’s Mass Meeting at Night in Public Library Hall,” 22 February 1875. 14 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Evangelists,” 13 March 1875. 15 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Churches,” 10 March 1875. 16 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Evangelists,” 13 March 1875. 17 Synod of Kentucky, Minutes, #2850, 14 October 1875, 504 (lPs). 18 Louisville Courier-Journal, “What Hath God Wrought?,” 6 March 1875. 19 Louisville Courier-Journal, “What Hath God Wrought?,” 1 March 1875. 20 Ibid. 21 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Sunday Services,” 5 April 1875, emphasis emended. 22 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Temperance Meetings,” 15 March 1875. 23 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Mass Meetings at Public Library Hall,” 19 April 1875. 24 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church, 100 Years: 1848–1948, 20–1 (Phs). 25 Ibid., 21. 26 Louisville Courier-Journal, “The Glory of the Latter House,” 28 May 1876. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., emphasis emended. 30 Synod of Kentucky, Minutes, #2850, 19 October 1876, 15, 12 (lPs). 31 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877– 1957, 9 June 1878, 30, 2000.117.04 79D (Phs); Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church, 100 Years: 1848–1948, 23 (Phs). 32 Louisville Courier-Journal, 1 October 1876. 33 Simpson, “Anecdotes,” in Simpson Scrapbook, 231–3 (C&MA).

notes to PAGes 128–37

339

34 Louisville Courier-Journal, “Preparing the Way of the Lord: Lessons Suggested by the Chicago Convention,” 26 November 1876. 35 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records 1877–1957, 9–15, 2000.117.04 79D (Phs). 36 Simpson, “A Solemn Covenant,” in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 82–3 (C&MA). 37 Louisville Courier-Journal, “In the Tabernacle,” 10 June 1878, emphasis emended. 38 Ibid., emphasis original. 39 Louisville Courier-Journal, 21 April 1879. 40 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 2000.117.04 79D, April–July, 1878, 23–33; 25 June 1879, 78 (Phs). 41 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 2000.117.04 79D, December 1878–May 1879, 54–76; 11 May 1880, 98 (Phs). 42 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 2000.117.04 79D, 14 April 1878, 23 (Phs). 43 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 29 September 1879 (Phs). 44 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 9 November 1879, 90–1, 2000.117.04 79D (Phs). 45 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 9 November 1879, 90–1, 2000.117.04 79D (Phs). 46 Simpson, “A Surviving Diary, 1879–1880,” 10 November 1879, transcribed in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 90 (C&MA). 47 Simpson, “Diary, 1879–1880,” 17–22 November 1879, in Nienkirchen ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 90–1 (C&MA). 48 Warren Memorial Presbyterian Church (Louisville, ky), Session Records, 1877–1957, 2000.117.04 79D, 12 July 1879, 80 (Phs). 49 Simpson, “Diary, 1879–1880,” 17–22 November 1879, in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 90–1 (C&MA). 50 Simpson, “Diary, 1879–1880,” 23 November 1879, in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 91–2 (C&MA). 51 Hamilton Spectator, 31 August 1870. 52 White, The Republic for Which It Stands, 136–41. 53 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1041–58; Holt, By One Vote; Quigley, Second Founding. 54 McCullough, The Great Bridge.

340

notes to PAGes 137–46

55 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1041–70. 56 Simpson, “Diary,” 23–7 November 1879, emphasis added, from Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 93–4 (C&MA). 57 White, The Republic for Which It Stands, 484–5, 193–6. 58 Brands, American Colossus, 289–91, 314–15, 328–9; Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 919–26. 59 Burchard, The Centennial Historical Discourse, 4–6, 17–19 (Phs). 60 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1154. 61 Presbytery of New York, Minutes, vol. 15: 1878–1883, 1 September, 6 October, 13 October 1879, 141–60 (Phs). 62 Simpson, “Diary,” 4 December 1879, in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 96 (C&MA). 63 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 15 December 1879, 447 (Phs). 64 Simpson, “Diary,” 15 December 1879, in Simpson Scrapbook, 159 (C&MA). 65 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 12 January 1880, 457 (Phs). 66 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Congregational Meeting Minutes, 1855–1910, 34th Annual Meeting 1881 (Phs). 67 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Sunday School Missionary Society Records, 1874–1898, 103–7 (Phs); Presbytery of New York, Minutes, vol. 15: 1878–1883, 2 May 1881, 312 (Phs); Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Minutes of the General Assembly (1880–1881) (Phs). 68 Simpson, “Diary,” 22 November–4 December 1879, in Nienkirchen, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 92–6, emphasis original (C&MA). 69 Simpson, “Diary,” 22 November 1879–13 January 1880, in Simpson Scrapbook, 152–67, emphasis original (C&MA). 70 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 122. 71 Gospel in All Lands (GAL), 1:1 (February 1880), 1–2; all GAL references are from C&MA archives. 72 GAL, 1:1 (February 1880), 1–2. 73 GAL, 1:1 (February 1880), 1–2, 6–7. 74 GAL, 2:2 (August 1880); GAL, 1:2–2:6 (March–December 1880). 75 Robert, Christian Mission.

notes to PAGes 148–59

341

Chapter Six 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

GAL, 2:1 (July 1880), 42. GAL, 4:4 (October 1881), 187–8. Ibid. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 158. Ibid., 157–9, emphasis emended. Locke, Old Orchard Beach; Old Orchard Beach Camp Meeting Files, Salvation Army National Archives (Arlington, vA) (sAA); Old Orchard Mirror, vol. 4 (16 July 1903) (sAA); A Centennial Celebration: Old Orchard Beach Camp Meetings, 1885–1989 (Old Orchard Beach, 1989); Jakeman, Centennial History of Ocean Park. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 75. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 6–8, 51–2, 59–63. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 162. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 75–6. Ibid. Ibid. Niklaus et al., All for Jesus, 41–2; Timothy Gloege, “A Gilded Age Modernist: Rueben A. Torrey and the Roots of Contemporary Conservative Evangelicalism,” in Dochuck, Kidd, and Peterson, eds., American Evangelicalism, chap. 10. WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 130. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 163. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 79; C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 8. GAL, 4:3 (September 1881), 138. GAL, 4:1 (July 1881), 43. Ibid. GAL, 4:4 (October 1881), 186–7; New York Tribune quoted in Nienkirched, ed., The Man, the Movement and the Mission, 102–3. GAL, 4:4 (October 1881), 186–7, emphasis original. Simpson, “Baptism and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” C&MA, 28:20 (17 May 1902), 286. Ibid. Ibid., 286–7. Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 461, 474 (Phs).

342

notes to PAGes 159–72

26 Ibid., 476. 27 Ibid., 476–9, 481. 28 Presbytery of New York, Minutes, vol. 15: 1878–1883, 7 November 1881, 344 (Phs). 29 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 481 (Phs). 30 Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 476–8 (Phs). 31 New York Tribune, “Anxious to Retire from His Church,” 7 November 1881; New York Times, “Mr. Simpson’s Farewell,” 7 November 1881. 32 New York Tribune, “Anxious to Retire from His Church,” 7 November 1881; Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church (New York, ny), Session Minutes, 1863–1892, 10 March 1881, 481 (Phs). 33 Papers quoted in Sawin, Life and Times of A.B. Simpson, 549–51 (C&MA). 34 Stoesz, Understanding My Church, 79–80. 35 WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 43. 36 Akenson, Exporting the Rapture, 51–89; Whittle, ed., Memoirs of Philip P. Bliss, 46–7; Fiedler, The Story of Faith Missions. 37 WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 45. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 167. 41 WWW, 5:2 (February 1885), 64. 42 WWW, 1:1 (January 1882), 2–3. 43 WWW, 5:10 (October 1885), 280; WWW, “Report of the Christian Convention at Old Orchard Beach, Me,” (Supplement 1887), 18–26; WWW, 4:2–3 (August– September 1887), 110–11. 44 Manual of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, 6–9; C&MA, 7:18 (6 November 1891), 274; C&MA, 16:13 (27 March 1896), 300; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 157; C&MA, 45:3 (16 October 1915), 39. 45 Van De Walle, Heart of the Gospel, 18–24. 46 WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 160. 47 Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism, 16–21. 48 Simpson, Earnests of the Coming Age, 72; Van De Walle, Heart of the Gospel, 41–5. 49 Simpson, The Christ Life, 17. 50 Finney quoted in Balmer, Evangelicalism in America, 32–3. 51 Balmer, The Making of Evangelicalism, 9–25.

notes to PAGes 173–80

343

Chapter Seven 1 “Westminster Confession of Faith (1646),” chap. 13, in Pelikan and Hotchkiss, eds. and trans., Creeds and Confessions of Faith, 2:601–62. 2 Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 5:165. 3 Noll, America’s God, 165–70. 4 Bebbington, Holiness in Nineteenth-Century England. 5 Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century, 6. 6 C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 5–6. 7 Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 200–7; Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 142–3. 8 Oden, ed., Phoebe Palmer, “Introduction,” 121, 186–7, emphasis original. 9 Smith, Called unto Holiness; Heath, Naked Faith, 25, 31. 10 Winston, Red-Hot and Righteous; McKinley, Marching to Glory, 1–37; Railton, Twenty-One Years’ Salvation Army; William Halpin, “Some Salvation Army ‘High Spots’ in the United States,” Halpin Papers, rG 20.114, Box 126/13 (sAA). 11 WWW, 3:1 (January 1883), 4; C&MA, 5:15–16 (17–24 October 1890), 232; C&MA, 8:8 (19 February 1892), 124; C&MA, 16:6 (7 February 1896), 132; C&MA, 18:3 (15 January 1897), 65; C&MA, 4:22 (30 May 1890), 337. 12 Pollock, The Keswick Story, 30–7. 13 Cohen, Bernard Berenson, 53–83; Melnick, Senda Berenson. 14 WWW, 3:1 (January 1883), 3; WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 1. 15 Boardman, Life and Labors of the Rev. W. E. Boardman, v–vi; Dieter, Holiness Revival, 49; Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, 135. 16 Boardman, The Higher Christian Life, 47, 52, 53. 17 McGraw, “The Doctrine of Sanctification in Albert Benjamin Simpson,” 51–211; Reid, “Jesus Only,” 262–89 and note 51. 18 C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 201. 19 C&MA, 25:15 (13 October 1900), 207. 20 WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 209. 21 WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 132; C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 5–6; WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 315. 22 C&MA, 25:15 (13 October 1900), 207. 23 C&MA, 47:18 (3 February 1917), 274. 24 C&MA, 26:16 (20 October 1906), 241; Simpson, Present Truth, 5. 25 www, 5:3 (March 1885), 82. 26 Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 24. 27 WWW, 3:1 (Jan 1883), 7; WWW, 3:4 (April 1883), 55; WWW, 5:3 (March 1885), 82.

344

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

notes to PAGes 181–90

WWW, 5:6 (June 1885), 172–4, emphasis added. Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 24–8. Ibid., 28–37. C&MA, 23:1 (3 June 1899), 8. McGraw, “The Doctrine of Sanctification in Albert Benjamin Simpson,” xii, 618–48; Gilbertson, The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, 42. WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 23, emphasis original. Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 207–10; Barabas, So Great Salvation, 15–38, 108–37, 157–60, 169–75; Pollock, The Keswick Story, 38–79. As argued in Van De Walle, The Heart of the Gospel, 92–110. Simpson, A Larger Christian Life, 137–50; C&MA, 5:14 (10 October 1890), 211–12; Van De Walle, “‘How High of a Christian Life?’ A.B. Simpson and the Classic Doctrine of Theosis,” 136–53. Simpson, The Land of Promise, 135, 53–115; C&MA, 4:8 (21 February 1890), 114–17. C&MA, 47:5 (4 November 1916), 65. Baker, Playing with God, 42–84; Putney, Muscular Christianity. Porterfield, Healing in the History of Christianity. Living Truths (LT) (March 1907), 150–64; all LT references are from C&MA archives. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 1–25; Gordon, The Ministry of Healing; Gibson, A. J. Gordon. C&MA, 18:2 (8 January 1897), 33–4. Pierson, Forward Movements of the Last Half Century, 398, 400, 389–91, 401; Gordon, The Ministry of Healing, 62–4. WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 46. WWW, 3:8–9 (August–September 1883), 131. WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 204; C&MA, 5:8 (29 August 1890), 122. WWW, 3:4 (April 1883), 57; Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 27; Simpson, The Fourfold Gospel, 46; Simpson, Discovery of Divine Healing, 18. WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 23. C&MA, 47:20 (17 February 1917), 310–12. WWW, 7:1 (July 1886), 52. WWW, 5:1 (January 1885), 17–19; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 47. C&MA, 5:8 (29 August 1890), 124. WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 204; WWW, 3:4 (April 1883), 55; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 50. WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 203.

notes to PAGes 190–202

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84

345

Ibid., 205. Simpson, Inquiries and Answers, 106–7. WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 17; Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 7–8. WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 17. WWW, 5:12 (December 1885), 349–50. Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 38–41; C&MA, 49:7 (17 November 1917), 98–100. Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 41–3; WWW, 7:1 (July 1886), 56; WWW, 7:2 (August 1886), 118. WWW, 7:1 (July 1886), 52–3; WWW, 3:10 (October 1883), 150–2; WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 172–4. WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 173. Ibid., 172. Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 15, 14. Bowler, Blessed, 15–25, 30–32. Austin, How to Do Things with Words. WWW, 3:5–6 (May–June 1883), 77–9, emphasis added. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 23. WWW, 5:3 (March 1885), 83; WWW, 3:5–6 (May–June 1883), 79; WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 174. WWW, 5:5 (May 1885), 154–8. WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 173–4. Ibid.; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 38–9; Simpson, Inquiries and Answers, 4, 20–2. WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 293; WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 37. WWW, 3:11–12 (November–December 1883), 172–4. WWW, 3:4 (April 1883), 55; WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 154–9; C&MA, 4:22 (30 May 1890), 338–42. For progress in Canada, see the excellent study: Opp, The Lord for the Body. Rowe, God’s Strange Work; Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More. “Westminster Confession of Faith (1646),” 33.3, in Pelikan and Hotchkiss, eds. and trans., Creeds and Confessions of Faith, 2:601–62. Holifield, Theology in America, 48–53; Bloch, Visionary Republic. Balmer, Evangelicalism in America, 69; Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 265–7, 335–7; Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 49; Abzug, Cosmos Crumbling. Brown, Christ’s Second Coming: Will It Be Premillennial?, 8, emphasis added. Moorhead, World without End; Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 48–55; Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 190–6.

346

notes to PAGes 203–10

85 Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 190–6; Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, ix–xix, 132–87; Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming; Williams, James H. Brookes: A Memoir; Nathaniel West, Premillennial Essays of the Prophetic Conferences Held in the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York City; Robert, Occupy until I Come, 103–8. 86 Pyles, “The Missionary Eschatology of A.B. Simpson” from Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, eds., The Birth of a Vision, 29–48. 87 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 119–20. 88 “The Second Coming of Christ,” WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 315; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 59, 56. 89 Guinness, The Approaching End of the Age. 90 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 58–9. 91 WWW, 3:7 (July 1883), 99–100, emphasis added; WWW, 3:8–9 (August– September 1883), 134; WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 316. 92 WWW, 3:8–9 (August–September 1883), 133, 135; WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 316; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 64–5. 93 WWW, 3:1 (January 1883), 1; WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 167–72; Simpson, Fourfold Gospel, 53–4, 58. 94 Sung, “Doctrine of Second Advent,” 147; Christian Alliance Year Book (1888), 50 (C&MA); C&MA, 18:11 (12 March 1897), 252; C&MA, 16:4 (24 January 1896), 84.

Chapter Eight 1 The Story of the Christian & Missionary Alliance, 3 (C&MA); obviously, this chapter cannot cover a fully orbed denominational, institutional, or organizational history of the early C&MA, so I have to limit myself to how some early aspects of Alliance history illuminate Simpson’s own ministry and priorities. 2 C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 6. 3 C&MA, 2:2 (February 1889), 23–4; C&MA 2:6 (June 1889), 83; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 156; C&MA, 26:2 (12 January 1901), 22; see the original floor plan image for the Gospel Tabernacle: C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 156. 4 Robinson, Divine Healing, vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1830–1880: Theological Roots in the Transatlantic World, 177–80, 249–60; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 156–7; C&MA, 4:7 (14 February 1890), 97; floor plan of Berachah Home: C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 155; Story of the C&MA, 22–4. 5 C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 145; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 208. 6 Curtis, Faith in the Great Physician, 139–66.

notes to PAGes 210–17

7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27

28 29

347

WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 186–7. Lindenberger, Streams from the Valley of Berachah. WWW, 5:6 (June 1885), 175; C&MA, 4:8 (21 February 1890), 120. C&MA, 16:10 (6 March 1896), 228. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 85–93; Moberg, The Great Reversal; Dayton, Rediscovering an Evangelical Heritage; Matthews, “Approximating the Millennium: Toward a Coherent Premillennial Theology of Social Transformation,” 61–71. Spence, Heaven on Earth, 1–73. C&MA, 13:7 (17 August 1894), 160; C&MA, 27:10 (9 March 1907), 111–12; C&MA, 29:8 (23 November 1894), 495; WWW, 5:12 (December 1885), 337. C&MA, 30:10 (6 June 1908), 155; WWW, 5:11 (November 1885), 312–14; Evearitt, Body and Soul, 59–78, 91–144. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 78–86; Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 15–16; Old Orchard Camp Meeting Files (sAA). C&MA, 17:8–9 (28 August 1896), 173; C&MA, 17:16–17 (16–23 October 1896), 377. Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 104–5. WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 130. Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 80. C&MA, 5:14 (10 October 1890), 211. C&MA, 8:1 (1 January 1890), 2; C&MA, 4:6 (7 February 1890), 81; C&MA, 4:8 (21 February 1890), 113; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 171. C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 157, emphasis added; C&MA, 50:18 (3 August 1918), 273. C&MA, 4:8 (21 February 1890), 128; C&MA, 4:11 (4 April 1890), 219. C&MA, 4:18 (2 May 1890), 273; C&MA, 5:17 (31 October 1890), 259–60. C&MA, 5:17 (31 October 1890), 266; C&MA, 21:2 (13 July 1898), 37. C&MA, 4:11 (4 April 1890), 219; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 184; C&MA, 4:23 (6 June 1890), 354; C&MA, 4:4 (24 January 1890), 57; C&MA, 8:1 (1 January 1890), 16; C&MA, 21:27 (26 October 1898), 406. Reynolds, Footprints, 1–54, 70–1, 75–80; Reynolds, Rebirth; see the Alliance obit for John Salmon: C&MA, 50:20 (17 August 1918), 305; Tonks, “History of the Christian and Missionary Alliance: With a Survey of the Work in Canada.” C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 10–11; C&MA, 4:7 (14 February 1890), 107; C&MA, 21:27 (26 October 1898), 406; C&MA, 4:3 (17 January 1890), 33. Synod of Kentucky, Minutes, #2851, 19 October 1876, 10 (lPs).

348

notes to PAGes 217–26

30 C&MA, 21:2 (13 July 1898), 41; C&MA, 23:17 (23 September 1899), 264; C&MA, 20:10 (9 March 1898), 228. 31 C&MA, 30:10 (6 June 1908), 157. 32 C&MA, 25:11 (15 September 1900), 151; C&MA, 36:15 (8 July 1911), 232; C&MA, 38:19 (10 August 1912), 297, emphasis emended. 33 C&MA, 26:8 (25 August 1906), 113. 34 Annual Report of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (1909–1910), 230; Annual Report of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (1910–1911), 79; C&MA, 16:18 (1 May 1896), 427; C&MA, 45:11 (11 December 1915), 161. 35 C&MA, 18:9 (26 February 1897), 198. 36 Giddings, Ida, A Sword among Lions, 129–35, 292. 37 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 57–8; Mathews, Doctrine and Race, 1–67; Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 121–4; C&MA, 51:20 (15 February 1919), 308. 38 O’Toole, The Faithful, 94–144; Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 127–94, 221–40, 294–320. 39 C&MA, 5:12 (26 September 1890), 187. 40 C&MA, 5:13 (3 October 1890), 203; C&MA, 42:23 (5 September 1914), 381; C&MA, 15:22 (27 November 1895), 348; C&MA, 25:14 (14 April 1906), 217. 41 Thompson, A.B. Simpson, 150–9. 42 C&MA, 18:2 (8 January 1897), 36. 43 Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 94–6; Story of the C&MA, 24–7; John Sawin, “Publications of A.B. Simpson,” in Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, eds., The Birth of a Vision, 279–305. 44 C&MA, 8:3 (15 January 1890), 44. 45 C&MA, 43:13 (26 December 1914), 193. 46 Charles L. Cohen, “Preface,” and “Religion, Print Culture, and the Bible before 1876,” and Paul S. Boyer, “From Tracts to Mass-Market Paperbacks: Spreading the Word via the Printed Page in American from the Early National Era to the Present,” in Cohen and Boyer, eds., Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America, ix–xviii, 3–38, 199–214. 47 Noll and Blumhoffer, “Introduction,” in Sing Them over Again to Me, vii–xvii. 48 Foote, Three Centuries of American Hymnody, 263–71; Susan Wise Bauer, “Stories and Syllogisms: Protestant Hymns, Narrative Theology, and Heresy,” in Mouw and Noll, eds., Wonderful Words of Life, 205–33. 49 C&MA, 5:17 (31 October 1890), 258; C&MA, 5:23 (12 December 1890), 363; Carter and Simpson, eds., Hymns of the Christian Life (1891), “Preface,” emphasis original.

notes to PAGes 226–34

349

50 Steiner, “The Contribution of A.B. Simpson to the Hymnody of the Christian and Missionary Alliance,” 59–75; Rivard, “The Hymnody of the Christian and Missionary Alliance,” 47–141; Olson, “The Hymnology of Rev. A.B. Simpson”; “Dr. Simpson’s Ministry in Song,” C&MA, 53:13 (20 December 1919), 206. 51 Sizer, Gospel Hymns and Social Religion, 18–19, 20–49. 52 C&MA, 5:17 (31 October 1890), 263. 53 Niklaus, et al., All for Jesus, 58–9; WWW, 3:3 (March 1883), 46. 54 Simpson, quoted in Ekvall, After Fifty Years, 91–2. 55 Wilkerson, “The History and Philosophy of Religious Education in the Christian and Missionary Alliance,” 1–39, 51–81, 161–231; WWW, 5:10 (October 1885), 270. 56 WWW, 3:7 (July 1883), 113; WWW, 3:10 (October 1883), 154. 57 Brereton, Training God’s Army, 55–77 (see especially the table from 71–7); Missionary Training Institute, Souvenir of the Twentieth Commencement (1 May 1902) (nyk). 58 WWW, 3:8–9 (August–September 1883), 139; W.M. Turnbull, “Dr. Simpson’s Educational Ideals” C&MA, 53:13 (20 December 1919), 216–17. 59 Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, 242, 183; Brereton, Training God’s Army, vii–xix, 1–13, 87–106, 41–9; C&MA, 16:20 (15 May 1896), 457. 60 Simpson, Genesis and Exodus, vii. 61 C&MA, 18:1 (1 January 1897), 4. 62 C&MA, 5:19 (14 November 1890), 290–4; C&MA, 5:20 (21 November 1890), 306–9; C&MA, 8:14 (1 April 1892). 63 Wilkerson, “The History and Philosophy of Religious Education in the Christian and Missionary Alliance,” 1–39. 64 Stanley, The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism. 65 Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vols. 5 and 6. 66 Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 101; Story of the C&MA, 7–11. 67 C&MA, 9:10 (2 September 1892), 157; C&MA, 11:17 (17 October 1893), 269; C&MA, 13:3 (20 July 1894), 67; C&MA, 26:19 (11 May 1901), 260; Tucker, First Ladies of the Parish, 95–103; C&MA, 57:50 (9 February 1924), 799, 805–8. 68 WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 220. 69 C&MA, 1:1 (January 1888), 12; C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 12. 70 C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 12; C&MA, 4:3 (17 January, 1890), 46; C&MA, 4:9 (28 February 1890), 129; Third Annual Report of International Missionary Alliance, C&MA, 5:15–16 (17–24 October 1890), 252; C&MA, 17:25 (18 December 1896), 576; C&MA, 5:18 (7 November 1890), 274; Pardington, Twenty-Five Wonderful Years, 106–7.

350

notes to PAGes 234–44

71 Forsyth, The China Martyrs of 1900, 82–4. 72 C&MA, 5:8 (29 August 1890), 116; C&MA, 5:9 (5 September 1890), 129. 73 C&MA, 4:12 (11 April 1890), 234; C&MA, 17:6–7 (14 August 1896), 133; C&MA, 17:4 (24 July 1896), 84. 74 C&MA, 10:1 (6 January 1893), 1. 75 C&MA, 10:11 (17 March 1893), 162; C&MA, 10:12 (24 March 1893), 178. 76 C&MA, 10:20 (19 May 1893), 308–9; C&MA, 10:14 (7 April 1893), 210; C&MA, 10:18 (5 May 1893), 277; C&MA, 10:19 (12 May 1893), 279–80, 292; New Testament printed in the Marathi language: C&MA, 10:21 (26 May 1893), 321. 77 Case, An Unpredictable Gospel, 209–55; Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations; Tyrrell, Reforming the World.

Chapter Nine 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

Cox, Fire From Heaven. Hughes, ed., The American Quest for the Primitive Church, 1–15. Bozeman, To Live Ancient Lives. Barton W. Stone, “Observations on Church Government (1808),” in Dickinson and Steffer, eds., The Cane Ridge Reader, 9. Balmer, Evangelicalism in America, 29. Simpson, Present Truth, 79–80, 143–4; WWW, 3:11–12 (November and December, 1883), 164–5; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 157, emphasis original. Simpson, Present Truth, 6–7. C&MA, 17:10 (4 September 1896), 219; C&MA, 48:8 (26 May 1917), 114. Simpson, Present Truth, 148; WWW, 5:7–8 (July–August 1885), 209. WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 138. WWW, 3:1 (January 1883), 1. C&MA, 16:2 (10 January 1896), 43; C&MA, 16:9 (28 February 1896), 211. WWW, 7:3 (September 1886), 131. C&MA, 5:14 (10 October 1890), 219. C&MA, 16:10 (6 March 1896), 228; C&MA, 17:6–7 (14 August 1896), 133. Simpson, “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, a Crisis or an Evolution,” LT, 5 (December 1905), 705, 709; Simpson, Romans, 149–84; Simpson, “Ministry of the Spirit,” LT, 7 (August 1907), 440; Simpson, A Larger Christian Life, 81. WWW, 3:5 (May 1883), 80; Simpson, Present Truth, 105–6. C&MA, 4:3 (17 January 1890), 86, emphasis added; C&MA, 52:7 (10 May 1919), 98–100.

notes to PAGes 246–54

351

19 Strachan, The Pentecostal Theology of Edward Irving; Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, 18–25. 20 Arthur, The Tongue of Fire, 67–87. 21 WWW, 3:10 (October 1883), 150–2. 22 WWW, 3:11–12 (November and December 1883), 172. 23 WWW, 3:11–12 (November and December 1883), 173–4. 24 “The Gift of Tongues” C&MA, 8:7 (12 February 1892), 98–9. 25 Simpson, The King’s Business, 335–6; C&MA, 20:3 (19 January 1898), 125–6; C&MA, 27: (29 June 1907), 303; Simpson, Earnests of the Coming Age, 118. 26 C&MA, 20:3 (19 January 1898), 126; Simpson, Apostolic Church, 148, 140; C&MA, 8:7 (12 February 1892), 98; C&MA, 20:6 (9 February 1898), 132. 27 C&MA, 9:15–16 (7–14 October 1892), 226–7; C&MA, 12:5 (2 February 1894), 13. 28 Sarah Parham, The Life of Charles F. Parham, 48; Parham, The Sermons of Charles Parham, 29, 30–2. 29 La Berge (Ozman), What God Hath Wrought, 23. 30 Robeck, The Azusa Street Mission and Revival; Alexander, The Women of Azusa Street. 31 Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, 36, 47. 32 LT, 6 (March 1906), 129. 33 C&MA, 26:12 (22 September 1906), 177. 34 Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God, vol. 1: To 1941; Van Cleave, The Vine and the Branches, 7, 26, 75; Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson; Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America. 35 C&MA, 34:2 (14 January 1905), 17; C&MA, 34:8 (25 February 1905), 117; C&MA, 34:9 (4 March 1905), 129; Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, 141–3; Wilson, “The Christian and Missionary Alliance: Developments and Modifications of Its Original Objectives,” 374. 36 C&MA, 27:23 (8 June 1907), 205. 37 Simpson, “Nyack Diary,” May 1907, in Nienkirchen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, Appendix A: 141–2. 38 King, Genuine Gold, 286–9, claims that this does not mean Simpson was “seeking,” but this argument is myopically semantic and decontextual – though King is certainly correct to keep in focus that Simpson was “open” to all the gifts and not only fixated on tongues. 39 Simpson, “Nyack Diary,” June–September 1907, 6 October 1912, in Nienkirchen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, Appendix A: 142–7. 40 Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God, 1:17–65, 197–216; Nienkirchen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, 41–51.

352

notes to PAGes 255–68

41 C&MA, 27:17 (27 April 1907), 201; C&MA, 27:14 (6 April 1907), 157. 42 C&MA Annual Report, Indianapolis District (1906–1907), 58 (C&MA); C&MA Annual Report, Indianapolis District, (1907–1908), 67. 43 Eldridge, Personal Reminiscences, 38–41. 44 C&MA, 28:12 (14 September 1907), 128; C&MA, 30:24 (12 September 1908), 402–3; “Report form the Missionary Institute, Nyack, C&MA Annual Report (1907–1908), 82; Frodsham, With Signs Following, 51–2; Bartleman, Azusa Street, 110–11. 45 King, Genuine Gold, see the impressively detailed charts in Appendices 1–3. 46 C&MA, 40:23 (6 September 1913), 353. 47 Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth, 42; Letter from W.W. Simpson to A.B. Simpson, 12 May 1914, Executive Committee Minutes of the Alliance Board of Managers, emphasis original; C&MA, 42:9 (30 May 1914), 130; “Notes from Kansu” C&MA, 39:22 (1 March 1913), 345–6; C&MA, 30:3 (18 April 1908), 38–9. 48 Fuller, The Triumph of an Indian Widow, 3–5, 41. 49 C&MA, 27:5 (2 February 1907), 49; C&MA, 26:24 (22 December 1906), 391. 50 C&MA, 26:20 (17 November 1906), 305. 51 C&MA, 27:5 (2 February 1907), 49; Simpson, “Gifts and Grace,” 302; C&MA, Annual Report (1906–1907), 5 (C&MA). 52 C&MA, 27:9 (2 March 1907), 97. 53 C&MA, 34:5 (30 April 1910), 78. 54 C&MA, 30:26 (26 September 1908), 430. 55 King, Genuine Gold, 55–192; Reynolds, Footprints, 289–90; Nienkirchen, A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement, 131–40; though on Tozer, compare King, Genuine Gold, 283–6, 289–90; C&MA, 29:4 (26 October 1907), 55; C&MA, 44:5 (1 May 1915), 65; C&MA, 42:16 (18 July 1914), 257; C&MA, 47:15 (13 January 1917), 225, 235. 56 C&MA, 49:3 (20 October 1917), 34; C&MA, 49:5 (3 November 1917), 66. 57 C&MA, 5:3–4 (23 July–1 August 1890), 38; C&MA, 16:3 (17 January 1896), 60; C&MA, 42:14 (4 July 1914), 231. 58 C&MA, 43:7 (14 November 1914), 97; C&MA, 44:25 (18 September 1915), 385. 59 C&MA, 44:25 (18 September 1915), 385.

Chapter Ten 1 Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 214; Szasz, The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1–83; Livingstone, Hart, and Noll, eds., Evangelicals and

notes to PAGes 269–83

2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

353

Science in Historical Perspective; for an absolutely riveting account of the rise of the pragmatist worldview and its disenchantment with the “idea of ideas,” see Menand, The Metaphysical Club. Evans, The Kingdom Is Always but Coming, 1–127. Rauschenbusch, Christian and the Social Crisis, 256. WWW, 3:7 (July 1883), 114. Evans, The Kingdom Is Always but Coming, 68, 71–2, 116–27. Gladden, How Much Is Left of the Old Doctrines?, 1–3, 5, 15–16, 58–9, 61, 63, 70, 77, 82. Evans, The Social Gospel in American Religion, 1–106; Dorrien, The Making of Liberal Theology, 1:111–334; Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform, 141–78, 171–2. Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 7. WWW, 1:2 (February 1882), 56, 53–5. C&MA, 3:17 (22 November 1889), 258. WWW, 5:1 (January 1885), 19–20. WWW, 3:2 (February 1883), 17. Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 7–8. Ibid., 30–4, 47–59, 87. Ibid. Ibid., 7–8; C&MA, 4:4 (24 January 1890), 58. C&MA, 4:4 (24 January 1890), 58; C&MA, 16:16 (17 April 1896), 373. C&MA, 5:2 (18 July 1890), 17–18; WWW, 5:1 (January 1885), 14. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders. The “cross of gold” speech, one of the most remarkable in American political history, called for dismantling the gold standard and embracing silver bimetallism as more equitable for rural farmers and small businesspeople. Kazin, A Godly Hero, 262–95. Larson, Summer for the Gods; Sutton, American Apocalypse, 168–77. Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 10–11; Simpson, “The Creed of Science” WWW, 1:2 (February 1882), 51. Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 13–18, 21–3, 28–9. C&MA, 16:9 (28 February 1896), 204–5. C&MA, 48:24 (15 September 1917), 370. WWW, 5:1 (January 1885), 14. Akenson, Exporting the Rapture, 1–6, 145–78.

354

notes to PAGes 284–98

30 Sung, “Doctrine of Second Advent.” 31 WWW, (October 1886), 251–2; Simpson, The Coming One, 183–93; C&MA, 4:12 (11 April 1890), 225. 32 Rushing, “From Confederate Deserter.” 33 Magnum and Sweetnam, The Scofield Bible. 34 C&MA, 35:11 (10 December 1910), 168. 35 Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, 55–62. 36 Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims; Hardesty, Women Called to Witness; Hassey, No Time for Silence. 37 Robert, American Women in Mission, 200–5; Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage, 85–98. 38 GAL, 4:4 (October 1881), 188; C&MA, 13:23 (7 December 1894), 533; C&MA, 45:15 (8 January 1916), 230; C&MA, 26:10 (8 September 1906), 154; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 177. 39 C&MA, 12:16 (20 April 1894), 43; C&MA, 24:12 (24 March 1900), 187, emphasis original. 40 Leslie A. Andrews, “Restricted Freedom: A.B. Simpson’s View of Women,” in Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, eds., The Birth of a Vision, 219–40. 41 King, Anointed Women, 15–39, 71–88. 42 C&MA, 6:13 (27 March 1891), 195; C&MA, 10:5 (3 February 1893), 69; C&MA, 45:19 (5 February 1916), 294. 43 Miskov, “Life on Wings: The Forgotten Life and Theology of Carrie Judd Montgomery (1858–1946)”; C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 171; C&MA, 4:21 (23 May 1890), 331; WWW, 8:1 (January 1887), 23; Montgomery, The Prayer of Faith (1881). 44 Simpson, When the Comforter Came. 45 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 67–90. 46 Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 160. 47 Ibid., 147; C&MA, 4:1 (3 January 1890), 7, emphasis added. 48 Simpson, The Old Faith and New Gospels, 154–7, emphasis added; C&MA, 4:23 (6 June 1890), 370. 49 C&MA, 29:5 (30 November 1907), 146. 50 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 13. 51 Taylor, A Secular Age, 1–211, 377–419.

notes to PAGes 299–311

355

Chapter Eleven 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

C&MA, 47:7 (18 November 1916), 98. C&MA, 16:25 (19 June 1896), 589. WWW, 1:5 (June 1882), 194, emphasis original. C&MA, 17:19 (5 November 1896), 420. C&MA, 17:20 (13 November 1896), 444. C&MA, 17:3 (17 July 1896), 61; C&MA, 17:20 (13 November 1896), 444. C&MA, 48:4 (28 April 1917), 50–1; C&MA, 17:21 (20 November 1896), 469. C&MA, 47:22 (3 March 1917), 338–40; C&MA, 47:7 (18 November 1916), 98. C&MA, 49:16 (19 January 1918), 243. C&MA, 4:7–8 (7–14 March 1890), 174; C&MA, 20:9 (2 March 1898), 204. C&MA, 21:2 (13 July 1898), 36; C&MA, 21:5 (3 August 1898), 108; C&MA, 21:7 (17 August 1898), 157; Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood, 1–42; Brands, TR: The Last Romantic, 3–18, 333–59. C&MA, 21:3 (20 July 1898), 53; C&MA, 20:12 (23 March 1898), 277. Morone, Hellfire Nation, 282, 281–317. C&MA, 4:17 (25 April 1890), 257; C&MA, 20:9 (2 March 1898), 204; C&MA, 8:10 (4 March 1892), 218; C&MA, 16:10 (6 March 1896), 229; C&MA, 8:17 (22 April 1892), 266. C&MA, 49:16 (19 January 1918), 241; C&MA, 49:8 (24 November 1917), 116; C&MA, 43:4 (24 October 1914), 49; C&MA, 51:17 (25 January 1919), 25 Airhart, A Church with the Soul of a Nation, 3–72. Ecumenical Missionary Conference New York 1900, 1:40; Merry, President McKinley, 1–34, 159, 200. Robert, Occupy until I Come, 292–3; C&MA, 24:16 (28 April 1900), 276; C&MA, 24:17 (5 May 1900), 294. Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910. C&MA, 34:14 (2 July 1910), 224. Ibid.; C&MA, 34:6 (7 May 1910), 96. C&MA, 4:27 (4 July 1890), 428–9; Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels, 159. Simpson, Missionary Messages, 89–91, 73–4, 80, 74–5, 144–51. Simpson, The Challenge of Missions, 58, 67–8; C&MA, 23:2 (10 June 1899), 22; C&MA, 10:18 (5 May 1893), 277–8.

356

notes to PAGes 309–17

25 Ekvall, “A Missionary Statesman, Part III,” C&MA, 72:35 (28 August 1937), 550–1; T.V. Thomas and Ken Draper, “A.B. Simpson and World Evangelization,” in Hartzfeld and Nienkirchen, eds., The Birth of A Vision, 195–218. 26 Treloar, The Disruption of Evangelicalism, 117–33; Jenkins, The Great and Holy War; Vance, Death So Noble. 27 C&MA, 42:19 (8 August 1914), 305; C&MA, 42:20 (15 August 1914), 321; C&MA, 42:26 (26 September 1914), 429; C&MA, 42:24 (12 September 1914), 387; C&MA, 43:1 (3 October 1914), 1; C&MA, 42:22 (29 August 1914), 353; C&MA, 44:4 (24 April 1915), 49; C&MA, 42:25 (19 September 1914), 401. 28 C&MA, 43:10 (5 December 1914), 145; C&MA, 42:24 (12 September 1914), 385; C&MA, 42:22 (29 August 1914), 353; C&MA, 42:21 (22 August 1914), 337; C&MA, 43:1 (3 October 1914), 1. 29 C&MA, 42:22 (29 August 1914), 353. 30 C&MA, 43:10 (5 December 1914), 145; C&MA, 43:8 (21 November 1914), 113. 31 C&MA, 43:3 (17 October 1914), 51; C&MA, 42:20 (15 August 1914), 321; C&MA, 46:3 (15 April 1916), 33; C&MA, 42:19 (8 August 1914), 305; C&MA, 43:9 (28 November 1914), 130; C&MA, 46:21 (19 August 1916), 323; C&MA, 42:22 (29 August 1914), 353. 32 C&MA, 43:1 (3 October 1914), 1; C&MA, 43:18 (13 February 1915), 305; C&MA, 44:7 (15 May 1915), 107. 33 C&MA, 46:14 (1 July 1916), 209. 34 C&MA, 44:23 (4 September 1915), 353; C&MA, 47:19 (10 February 1917), 289; C&MA, 46:21 (19 August 1916), 328; C&MA, 44:11 (12 June 1915), 161; C&MA, 43:10 (5 December 1914), 145; C&MA, 49:8 (24 November 1917), 116; C&MA, 49:11 (15 December 1917), 161. 35 C&MA, 48:4 (28 April 1917), 50–2. 36 C&MA, 45:8 (20 November 1915), 113; C&MA, 47:25 (24 March 1917), 385. 37 C&MA, 48:4 (28 April 1917), 50–2. 38 C&MA, 43:21 (6 March 1915), 353; C&MA, 43:13 (26 December 1914), 194; C&MA, 46:14 (1 July 1916), 209; C&MA, 46:21 (19 August 1916), 324. 39 C&MA, 47:22 (3 March 1917), 338–40; C&MA, 49:12 (22 December 1917), 178; C&MA, 48:14 (7 July 1917), 209; C&MA, 48:12 (23 June 1917), 178–80. 40 C&MA, 47:7 (18 November 1916), 98. 41 C&MA, 48:11 (16 June 1917), 161. 42 C&MA, 42:23 (5 September 1914), 369; C&MA, 43:18 (13 February 1915), 306. 43 C&MA, 49:20 (16 February 1918), 307, emphasis original (!).

notes to PAGes 317–20

44 C&MA, 49:20 (16 February 1918), 306; C&MA, 49:11 (15 December 1917), 167; C&MA, 49:12 (22 December 1917), 177–8; C&MA, 50:1 (6 April 1918), 1; C&MA, 50:23 (7 September 1918), 353. 45 Weber, On the Road to Armageddon; C&MA, 47:21 (24 February 1917), 321. 46 C&MA, 49:26 (30 March 1918), 411. 47 C&MA, 49:25 (23 March 1918), 385. 48 C&MA, 52:2 (5 April 1919), 15. 49 C&MA, 52:9 (24 May 1919), 129. 50 C&MA, 52:1 (29 March 1919), 15. 51 C&MA, 53:6 (1 November 1919), 81. 52 New York Times (30 October 1919), 13. 53 C&MA, 53:7 (8 November 1919), 97. 54 C&MA, 52:15 (5 July 1919), 225. 55 C&MA, 43:18 (30 January 1915), 273; C&MA, 43:19 (20 February 1915), 322. 56 McMullen, Under the Big Top, 1–30; Dorsett, Billy Sunday; Dochuck, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt; Gloege, Guaranteed Pure.

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Index

Abbott, Lyman, 277–8 abolitionism, 29, 70, 112, 202, 272, 302 Adams, Henry, 15 Addams, Jane, 212 Africa, 143, 145–6, 232–3 African Americans: black Canadians, 71; black churches, 16; Buffalo Soldiers, 302; in the C&MA, 217–20; Fisk University Jubilee singers, 150; freedmen in Presbyterian church, 116; lynching of, 15, 219; and traditional African religions, 265; in Whittle-Bliss revival, 122 aggressive Christianity, 11, 125, 143, 154, 162, 282 Allenby, Edmund, 3, 315 American Revolution, 19, 22–3, 37, 299 angels, 115, 129 Anne of Green Gables, 33 antievolution, 12, 278–82 Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, 70 apostolic church (apostles), A.B.’s teaching on, 260; and Bible, 275; C&MA as expression of, 244; and healing/miracles, 152, 154, 186, 189; lay workers in, 149; modern church comparison with, 235;

pentecostalism as expression of, 249, 256, 259; recovery of as paradigmatic, 170, 239–41 Aristotle, 13 Arminianism, 8, 171–2, 202, 266 Arthur, William, 246 Arulappan, John Christian, 246 Ashtabula River train disaster, 119 Assemblies of God, 251, 254, 257, 291 Augustine of England, 227 Augustine of Hippo, 45, 48, 69, 227 Azusa Street Revival, 250–1, 254–6, 258, 291 Ballard, J. Hudson, 222 baptism: A.B.’s adult (re)baptism, 158; A.B.’s as infant, 33–4; A.B.’s theology of, 74, 157–9, 177, 243, 258; baptism of love, 258; baptismal records of Simpson family, 22; C&MA’s practice of, 162, 290; Presbyterian practice of, 28, 101 Baptists: and A.B.’s adult (re)baptism, 158; and C&MA missions, 233, 236; and camp meetings, 151; in Canada West, 37, 64; William Carey as missionary, 31; as evangelical

388

Index

denomination, 10; explosion of in late nineteenth century, 16; A.J. Gordon as, 187; in Louisville Revival, 123; William Miller as, 200; Walter Rauschenbusch as pastor, 268–9; and Second Great Awakening, 122; Charles Spurgeon as, 96 Barrett, T.B., 258 Baum, L. Frank, 295 Baxter, Richard, 56, 69 Bay Street Presbyterian Church, Toronto, 74 Bebbington, David, 6–8 Beck, Sarah, 209 Becker, Mathilde, 233 Beecher, Henry Ward, 277 Beere, Emma, 222 Belleville, Ontario, 46 Bengel, Johann, 186 Berachah Home, 208–11, 233 Berachah Orphanage, 213 Berenson, Bernard, 177 Berenson, Mary (Smith), 177 Bernard of Clairvaux, 227 Bethshan Conference, London (1885), 188 Bible: A.B.’s doctrine of, 12, 92, 103, 254, 273–8; A.B.’s individual interpretation of, 152, 157; evangelical centrality of, 6–7; in A.B.’s ministry, 113, 161; Bible societies, 29, 102–3; in C&MA, 214; christocentric interpretation of, 112, 230–1; and divine healing, 188–9, 197, 211; in evangelical revivals, 120–1; and higher criticism, 267; and holiness, 176; inerrancy of,

281–3, 292, 294; and modernism, 271–8; in other Christian traditions, 9, 13; and pentecostal hermeneutics, 245, 254; in Presbyterianism, 27, 28, 66, 99; and print culture (logocentric culture), 223; and prophecy/chronology (decoding of ), 200, 203–5, 284–6; and science, 266–7, 281–2; in Simpson family, 42–3; and slavery interpretation as theological crisis, 109–10; study of at Nyack College, 229–30; teachers, 17; translation of, 258; and war/peace, 313; and women’s roles, 286–91 Bible colleges, 227–30 Bismarck, Otto von, 285 Blaine, James G., 140 Bliss, Philip, 118–22, 126, 165, 226 Blumhardt, Johann, 186 Boardman, Mary, 151 Boardman, William E., 151, 177–8 Boniface of Germany, 227 Booth, Catherine, 176 Booth, William, 176 Boston, Thomas, 56 Boxer Rebellion, 234 Boydton College, Virginia, 217 Breckinridge, John, 110 Breckinridge, Robert, 110 British and Foreign Bible Society, 103 Brodie, K.H., 287 Brookes, James H., 203, 285 Brooklyn Bridge, 137 Brooklyn Tabernacle, 124 Brown, David, 202 Brown, Serena, 218 Bruce, James (Governor-General Lord Elgin), 68

Index

Bryan, William Jennings, 278, 299 Buckman, Margaret Mae (Simpson) (A.B.’s daughter), 132, 226, 317 Buddhism, 146, 192 Buffalo, New York (C&MA branch), 215–16, 233 Burchard, S.D., 105, 132, 139–40 Burns, Robert, 67, 69, 70, 73–7 Bushnell, Horace, 271 business, 15, 136, 268, 270, 320 Butler, Joseph, 69 Buxton Mission, 71 Caesar, Julius, 66 Caledonia Hall, 161 Calvin, John, 27, 69, 85, 170, 179 Calvinism, 8, 171–2, 266 camp meetings, 108, 151, 213, 236, 270 Campbell, Ivey, 255 Canada: as A.B.’s homeland, 3, 39–44, 95, 112; C&MA in, 213, 215–16, 317; and education, 60–1, 68; evangelicalism in, 10, 199; and Loyalists, 37; pre-confederation Canada West, 35–8; relationship to superpowers, 37; religious culture of, 28, 33, 67, 76, 103; Stuart Robinson in exile, 110; Simpson family migration to, 19–24; Simpson family as pioneers in, 25–6 Canada Presbyterian Church (CPC): A.B.’s pulpit service in, 73; denomination of Knox Hamilton, 83, 87; ecumenical formation of, 67; evangelical ethos of, 70–1; General Assembly of, 104; Knox College as seminary of, 68; merger into United Church of Canada, 304; ordination

389

in, 79; organ controversy in, 99–102; as James Simpson’s church, 63 Cane Ridge Revival, 108 Carey, William, 31 Carter, Louis, 82 Carter, Miss (A.B.’s ex-fiancée), 82 Carter, R. Kelso, 187, 225 Cartier, Jacques, 23 Cassidy, Lizzie, 233 Cassidy, William, 233 Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, 25–30, 32 Centre College, Kentucky, 117, 228 cessationism, 8, 152–3, 185, 187, 193, 247 Chalmers, Thomas, 319 charismatic gifts, 237–8, 241, 244, 246–54, 258–60 Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, 23, 27, 28 Chatham, Ontario: A.B.’s dismal view of, 40–1; as A.B.’s hometown, 35–6, 39, 41; Chalmers Presbyterian Church in, 64–5; Chatham Grammar School, 61; education in, 60; Presbyterian culture in, 42; Simpson family’s church in, 54 Chestnut Street Church, Louisville, 105–6, 111–14, 124–35 China: A.B.’s missionary interest in, 142–3, 146, 204, 308; A.B.’s Presbyterian ministry and, 88; C&MA’s mission field in, 233–4, 257– 8, 261; Aimee Semple McPherson as former missionary in, 251; and pentecostalism in, 257–8; staple economy of, 14 China Inland Mission (CiM), 164, 232, 319

390

Index

Christ in the Bible, 230 Christian and Missionary Alliance Church (C&MA): after Simpson’s death, 320; annual council of, 250; in Canada, 216; and continuity with Presbyterian ministry, 98; conventions of, 165, 213–15, 253; dispensational influence in, 285–6; formation of, 168; and Fourfold Gospel, 167–9; German Gospel Tabernacle, 221; and H. Grattan Guinness’s support, 47; Indianapolis branch schism, 255; leadership transition, 317–18; Maggie’s role in, 81, 167; membership cards, 216; ministry with African Americans, 217–20; ministry with immigrants, 220–2; mission fields early on, 233; mission statement, 207; New York convention, 215; New York Missionary Training Institute (Mti) (Nyack College), 227–30, 249, 256; and Old Orchard, 151; and pentecostalism, 243–4; and premillennialism, 205; tongues controversy in, 254–62; women’s role in, 286–7; and world missions, 88, 231–7 Christmas, 294–5 church architecture, 30, 95, 113, 124–7, 156 Church of Church Scientist, 192 Church of England (Anglicanism), 5, 10, 37, 95, 123, 183 Church of God in Christ, 251 Church of God in Christ (Cleveland, tn), 251 Church of the Nazarene, 176

Churches of Christ, 123, 239 citizenship, 299–300, 313–14 claiming (as spiritual practice), 195–6 Clark, Helen (Simpson) (A.B.’s greatgrandmother), 22, 33 Clark, Margaret (McEwen) (A.B.’s grandmother), 33 Clark, William, Jr (A.B.’s grandfather), 33 Clark, William, Sr (A.B.’s greatgrandfather), 26, 33 class consciousness, 160–2, 167, 212, 268 clergy reserves, 37, 60 Cleveland, Grover, 140 Clifton Springs, New York, 128, 317 Collett, E.M., 218 colonialism, 23, 31, 34, 146–7, 234–7 Columba of Scotland, 227 common sense realism, 109, 266 communism, 93 Condit, John, 232 Congregationalists, 271, 277, 285, 304 conversion: A.B.’s personal experience of, 37, 44–51, 55–7; A.B.’s theology/ ministry of, 107, 119, 124, 127, 170–2, 235; analysis of, 48–9; C&MA’s ministry of, 170–2, 203, 207, 214; evangelical conversion narrative, 49; as evangelical essential practice, 4, 7, 319; and holiness (as second conversion), 10, 174, 180–1; and missions/other world faiths, 146, 306; and Presbyterian spirituality, 69–70, 140; and social gospel/ new theology’s views of, 267, 270; and Spirit baptism, 243, 245, 248; women’s experience of, 286 Cook, Glenn, 255

Index

Cotton, John, 201 Coxe, John, 261 creation, 188–9, 199, 266, 279–81, 294 Cullis, Charles, 151–2, 153–4, 186–7, 209 Cyprian of Carthage, 227 Danville Seminary, Kentucky, 117 Darby, John Nelson, 283 Darrow, Clarence, 279 Darwin, Charles, 279–80 Davis, Jefferson, 108 Dawlly, Helen, 233 debt, 87, 125–7, 129–30, 167, 208 de-confessionalization, 9, 55, 113, 152 deification (theosis), 184 Denver, Colorado, 216 disarmament, 309–10 dispensationalism, 283–6 divine healing, 4, 47, 151–4, 169, 185–200, 318 Doddridge, Philip, 56–8 Draper, Minnie, 256 Du Bois, W.E.B., 219 Dunbar, Hugh, 31 Dunn, Leonard, 312 Dunn, Lucy, 233 Eastern Orthodoxy, 186, 267 Easton, T.C., 229 Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York (1900), 304–5 ecumenism, 28, 60, 67, 101, 102, 304–5 Eddy, Mary Baker, 192 Edwards, Jonathan, 5, 24, 119, 171, 201, 266 Edwards, Rebecca, 16 Eldridge, George, 255–6 electricity, 15, 137, 263

391

Ely, Richard, 269 emphatic literalism (as biblical hermeneutic), 4, 12, 281–3, 292, 320 England (Great Britain): A.B.’s sympathy with in the First World War, 310–12; A.B.’s theological view of, 300; A.B.’s tour of, 95; capture of Jerusalem, 3, 315; as global superpower, 14, 37; Keswick Convention’s origins, 183; Moody’s campaign in, 119; trade with Canadian colonies, 34, 39 Enlightenment, 13, 174–5, 186, 266–7, 276 Esson, Henry, 68 Evangelical Alliance, 102, 104–5, 119, 141 evangelical memory, 51–5 evangelicalism: as A.B.’s background, 37–8; and American culture, 4, 116, 163, 172, 265, 294, 298, 306, 320; Bebbington’s model of (characteristics), 6–7; biblical literalism of, 273, 277; and C&MA ethos, 169–70, 214, 216; and Calvinism, 194; conservative movement within, 17, 182, 187, 200, 207, 246, 268, 270, 292, 295–6, 319, 321; and conversion, 49, 55, 119, 170; denominational nineteenthcentury form of, 67, 68, 102, 147, 163, 240, 263, 271, 272, 291, 321; and divine healing, 199; and free will, 196; and fundamentalism, 11–12; and individualism, 9, 306; ministry of, 131; and modern culture, 3, 131, 266, 295–6; and non-evangelical Christian traditions, 8–9, 192, 292; origins of, 5; and pentecostalism,

392

Index

238, 240, 246, 248, 253; polarities of, 5; and prophecy, 283; revivalism of, 46, 119; term, 5; third wave of (holiness movement), 10–11, 174, 248; and transdenominationalism, 4, 10, 119, 147, 152, 163, 248, 297; and world missions, 33 evolution, 4, 266, 278–82 faith missions, 163–7, 208 farming, 21, 25, 39–40, 136 fasting, 58, 252 Felicitas, 227 Finney, Charles G., 17, 46, 119, 171, 177, 215 firearms, 45, 127 First Great Awakening, 5, 24, 109 First World War, 3, 14, 262, 298, 308–16 Fletcher, R.I., 216 Flower, Alice, 254 Flower, J. Roswell, 254 Forward Movements of the Last Half Century (1900), 187, 271 Fourfold Gospel: as A.B.’s spiritual program, 167–70, 227, 297–8; and C&MA conventions, 214; and C&MA membership, 216, 225; components of, 172–206; evangelical influence of, 320; and Foursquare Gospel, 319; Maggie’s embrace of, 232; and missions, 207, 237; and pentecostalism, 254; and theological innovation, 283 Fourth Great Awakening, 320 Free Church of Canada, 67–8, 76, 83 Free Church of Scotland, 67, 104 freedom of conscience, 158–9, 276, 298–300

Frist Nations: in Canada West, 36, 37; in coastal Maine, 151; confiscation of land, 15; Mi’kmaq peoples, 23–4; spirituality of, 265; of Vanuatu, 62 Frost, Henry, 319 full gospel (ministry slogan), 65, 168, 206, 238 Fuller, Charles, 319 fundamentalism: A.B. as precursor of, 4, 11–12, 264, 268, 300; and Bible, 273; and Bible college movement, 230; and modernist conflict, 267, 273, 294, 319; nationalism of, 300; and premillennialism, 202–3; and print culture, 224; and science, 280, 294–5; social concern of, 211; and twentieth-century evangelicalism, 320–1 Fundamentals, The (1910–15), 11 Funk, A.E., 221 Funk, Mary, 233 Gale, Alexander, 83 Garfield, James A., 155 Garr, Lillian, 258 Geddie, John, 31–3, 88 George, Henry, 269 Germany, 14, 186, 285, 310–11 Gladden, Washington, 271–3 Gordon, A.J., 169, 187, 195, 226, 229, 249 Gordon, Peter, 30 Gospel in All Lands, 142–8, 167, 304 Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, The (1692), 50, 53 Gospel of Healing, The, 188 Gospel Tabernacle, New York: A.B.’s first independent ministry, 161–3;

Index

as base of C&MA, 208–10, 213; and C&MA autumn convention, 215; commute of A.B. to, 269, 317; and divine healing, 186–7; and faith missions, 208; and German mission, 221; and A.J. Gordon, 187; locations of, 208; and missionaries, 233; origins of, 161–3; as origins of Mti, 228; and patriotism, 300; picture of, 209; plans for permanent building, 208; proximity to Rauschenbusch, 268; and C.I. Scofield, 286; services in, 208; and tongues speaking, 256; and women’s ministry, 287 Graham, Billy, 17, 320 Grant, George Monro, 105 Grant, Ulysses S., 92 Gray, James M., 319 Griffith Thomas, W.H., 319 Groves, Anthony Norris, 164 Guinness, H. Grattan, 46–9, 170–1, 204, 229 Hall, John, 87 Hamilton Spectator, 77, 80, 85, 87 Harford-Battersby, T.D., 183 Harlan, John Marshall, 217 Harnack, Adolf von, 269 Harrison, Benjamin, 304 Haweis, Thomas, 9 Hay, John, 302 heaven, 55, 97, 212, 236, 307 Hegel, G.W.F., 137 hell, 32, 45, 50, 53, 56–7, 236 Hell’s Kitchen (neighborhood), 139, 268–70 Henry, John (A.B.’s father-in-law), 81 higher biblical criticism, 4, 267, 269–78

393

Higher Christian Life,The (1858), 177 Hill, George, 69 Hinduism, 236, 267, 306 Hodge, Charles, 69–70 holiness (sanctification): A.B.’s teaching on, 4, 178–85, 263, 298, 303, 320; A.B.’s transition to, 54, 62, 132, 173, 178, 317; and Azusa Street Revival, 249–50; and baptism, 157; and biblicism, 282; in C&MA, 168, 320; and Christian tradition, 174–5, 270; as consecration, 175–6, 180, 182–3, 225; as crisis state, 175–6, 179; as deeper life, 10, 56, 65, 72, 116, 178, 207, 233; in Fourfold Gospel, 169, 172, 173–85, 191, 203; and gradual sanctification, 53–4, 132; as higher Christian life, 10, 177, 243; holiness movement, 10, 16, 151, 173–5, 182, 199, 246, 248–51, 271; and Leviticus code, 180; and missions, 235; and Phoebe Palmer, 175–6; and pentecostalism, 196, 199, 238–9, 242, 243, 248–51; and Puritan spirituality, 53–6; and Salvation Army, 176; as second blessing, 65, 175, 177, 179, 183, 245; and social action, 211–12, 270; and spiritual elitism, 175, 220, 285; and temperance movement, 303; in Westminster Confession, 173; women’s role in, 176, 286–7 holy laughter, 253 Holy Spirit: A.B.’s theology of, 53–4, 170, 178–9, 223, 238–64; and church divisions, 258–64; and conversion, 43, 49; and discernment, 133, 157, 259, 262, 287; experience of, 56, 59–60, 178–9, 236, 283; femininity

394

Index

of, 291; and holiness, 54, 56, 72, 173; The Holy Spirit: Power from on High (1896), 223; increasing interest in, 10, 168, 179, 242–4; and missions, 144, 236, 258; and other spirits, 192; and personalism of, 242, 253; and pentecostalism, 237–64; in Puritan spirituality, 51, 59–60; and revivalism, 118, 121; and subjectivity, 174; and supernaturalism, 170, 173, 236, 291–6; and women’s ministry, 287–8 Hopkins, Evan, 183 Horne, Thomas Hartwell, 69 How Much Is Left of the Old Doctrines? (1899), 271–3 Howland, William H., 216 Huntington, Selina Countess, 5 hymns, 29, 100, 121, 224–7, 245, 318 Hymns of the Christian Life, 225–6 Ignatius of Antioch, 227 immigration: A.B.’s ministry concerning, 160, 220–2; to New York City, 137–9; and Scots, 67; of Simpson family, 21–2, 27, 36; and temperance movement, 302; to US during Gilded Age, 14–15, 220–2, 267, 302 India: A.B.’s visit to, 235–6; and C&MA’s mission field in, 233, 258–9; and evangelical missions to, 31, 104, 146; pentecostalism in, 246, 258–9; religious culture of, 306; staple economy of, 14 Inglis, David, 80 initial evidence doctrine, 254, 256, 258–61

International Church of Foursquare Gospel, 251 Irvine, Robert, 83–4, 114 Irving, Edward, 246 Islam, 3, 235, 303, 306, 315 Israel, 3, 300, 306, 315–16, 321 Jaffray, Robert, 261 Jefferson, Thomas, 267 Jennings, John, 73–4, 80 Jerusalem, 3, 136, 315–16 Jesus: ascension of, 182, 189–90, 194, 199; belief in, 51, 54, 59, 65, 80, 112, 125, 127–8, 269, 271, 277, 301; christology about, 65, 78–80, 277, 292; church of, 111, 144; crucifixion of, 7, 81, 182, 189, 235; and divine healing, 150, 178, 186, 189–90; eternal generation of, 78–9; hymns to/about, 150, 218, 226; and incarnation, 189, 192, 287; and ministry, 135, 236; name of, 80, 129, 197; and peace, 309; person of, 49, 129, 194; resurrection of, 182, 189–90, 194, 199, 277, 287; and salvation, 7, 49, 58, 145, 199, 225, 320; and sanctification, 182–3; and second coming, 3, 200–6, 284, 300, 313; teaching of, 54, 180, 240; work of, 58, 59, 189, 269, 277, 298 Jesus Only (spiritual slogan), 112–13, 125 Jewish Missionary Conference, Chicago (1918), 317 John and Elizabeth, 19, 22–3 John Chrysostom, 227 Joshua, 184 Judaism (Jews): A.B.’s ministry to, 140, 220, 319; and biblical prophecy,

Index

3, 205, 284, 319; biblical religion of, 157, 182, 189, 230; immigration to US, 15, 267; Protestant establishment suspicion of, 140 justification, 48, 174–5, 179, 180, 241 Justinian I, 204 Keir, John, 30 Kenyon, E.W., 195 Kerr, Daniel, 256 Keswick Conventions, 183–4, 214, 258 King David, 100, 118 Kinney, Helen, 233 Knox, John, 27, 63 Knox Church, Chatham, 64 Knox Church, Dundas, 76–7 Knox Church, Hamilton, 77, 80–90, 100, 102–7, 114 Knox Church, Montreal, 100 Knox Church, Ottawa, 105 Knox Church, Toronto, 83 Knox College, Toronto, 63, 66–77, 99, 228, 273 Lane Theological Seminary, 112, 177 Lankford, Sarah, 175 Larger Christian Life, A (1890), 223 Latin America, 15, 233 Lewis, Ulysses, 317 Lincoln, Abraham, 77, 108–9, 111, 136, 139 Lindenberger, Sarah, 211 Lord’s Supper, in A.B.’s Presbyterian ministry, 85–6, 132; A.B.’s view of, 190; in C&MA ministry, 162, 231; in Catholic theology, 190; comparison with divine healing, 190; holy fair communion festivals, 213; and

395

Puritan spirituality, 58; women in C&MA presiding over, 290 Louisbourg fortress, 24 Louisville, Kentucky, 105, 108, 110–11, 115–29, 134–5 Louisville Courier-Journal, 120, 122 Lusitania, 312 Luther, Martin, 48, 170, 179, 241 MacEwen, John, 30 MacGregor, James, 29–30 MacGregor, Janet (Gordon), 30 MacKay, William, 30 MacLeod, Norman, 21 MacVicar, Duncan, 64 Madison Square Garden, 208 Mahan, Asa, 177 Marsden, George, 12 Marshall, Walter, 50 Marx, Karl, 269 Mason, C.H., 251 Mather, Cotton, 201 McDowell, David, 256 McKinley, William, 11, 299, 304 McKinney, Claude, 256 McLoughlin, William, 16 McMullen, William, 85 McNeill, John, 24 McPherson, Aimee Semple, 17, 251, 319 medicine (medical science): A.B.’s treatment by as youth, 50; A.B.’s view of (as means), 193, 195–200, 317; and Charles Cullis’s faith healing ministry, 150–1; divine healing used instead of, 153, 193, 195–200, 317; modernization of, 185, 193, 199–200; and quackery (pseudo-science), 200; and traditional Christianity, 185–8

396

Index

Methodism (Methodists): and camp meetings, 151; in Canada West, 37, 67; as evangelical denomination, 10, 11; and Gospel in All Lands publishing, 148, 167; and holiness movement, 174–6; and Holy Spirit, 242, 246, 249; as President McKinley’s faith, 304; and Second Great Awakening (revivalism), 46, 67, 122–3; and United Church of Canada, 304 Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, 96 Miller, William, 200–1 missions: A.B.’s commitment to, 88–9, 113–17, 130, 138, 140–1, 143; A.B.’s critique of liberal Protestant, 303–8; in C&MA, 207, 227, 231–7, 298, 317; and Canadian Presbyterianism, 32–3; as catalyst for A.B. leaving Presbyterianism, 148–50, 155–6, 160; of Catholics, 31, 227; and ecumenism, 303–8; and First World War, 312; and Fourfold Gospel, 185, 191, 199, 203–4; and John Geddie, 31–3; and Gospel in All Lands, 142–7; at Knox College, 70–1; at Knox Hamilton, 83; massive collections for, 213–14; and missiology, 234–7, 303–8; missionary conferences, 303–8; and modern technology, 285; and Nyack College (Mti), 228–9; Protestant expansion in nineteenth century, 31, 145–7, 169, 191, 202; “three-self ” program for, 236; vernacular enfranchisement, 221, 236, 258, 308; women’s role in, 229, 286 Mitchell, J.W., 71, 74

modernism, 276, 279, 297, 308–9, 311–12 modernity: A.B.’s critique of during First World War, 308–14; and A.B.’s evangelicalism, 291–6; challenge to Christianity, 264, 265; and democracy in, 300; and evangelical print culture, 224; and fundamentalist origins, 12, 264; interpretation of, 14; and land enclosure, 20; and missions in, 305–6; in US, 15 Montgomery, Carrie Judd, 209, 258, 290–1 Montgomery, George, 290 Montgomery, Lucy Maud, 33 Moody, Dwight Lyman: A.B. Simpson’s visit to, 127; and divine healing, 153; mentorship to A.B., 104, 169; mentorship to C.I. Scofield, 285; mentorship to Whittle/Bliss, 120; premillennialism of, 203; racial views critiqued, 219; relationship with Walter Rauschenbusch, 270; revivalism of, 119, 171 Moody Bible Institute, 229, 319 Moody Church, Chicago, 319 Moomau, Nettie, 257 Moses, 157, 182 Mossman, Mary, 209 Mott, John, 305, 319 Moule, H.C.G., 184 Mukti Mission, 258 Müller, George, 165, 203 muscular Christianity, 185 Myland, David, 256 mysticism, 92, 132, 153, 190, 222

Index

Nardi, Michele, 221 Nast, Thomas, 295 National Road, 108 Nebuchadnezzar, 205, 314 new theology, 272–8 New York City, New York, 91, 132–3, 135–9, 268–9 New York Times, 160, 318 Newton, Isaac, 280 Newton, R. Heber, 275 Niagara Bible Conferences, 203 Nicolls, S.J., 129 Norris, J. Frank, 11 Oberlin perfectionists, 176 occult, 29, 192 Old Faith and the New Gospels, The (1911), 273–82 Old Fashioned Revival Hour, 319 Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 151–2, 165, 187, 213–15, 253, 256 Ormiston, William, 80, 136 Ottoman Empire, 146, 164, 235, 316 Owen Sound, Ontario, 67 Ozman, Agnes, 249 Paley, William, 69 Palmer, Phoebe, 175–6 panic of 1873, 124–5, 136 Parham, Charles Fox, 249 Patrick of Ireland, 227 Patterson, Walter, 25, 28 Patton, Francis, 71 Paul the Apostle, 48, 189, 259, 286–7 Pentecost, George F., 229 pentecostalism: and A.B.’s ministry, 238–64; A.B. as precursor of, 4, 238, 321; and Azusa Street Revival,

397

248–52; and biblical hermeneutics, 239; C&MA controversy with, 254–62; origins of, 16, 248–52; and Scofield Bible, 285; and tongues, 244–8 Perpetua, 227 pew rents, 125, 140, 160, 165–6 Philpott, P.W., 319 Pierson, A.T., conservative theology of 271; and divine healing, 187; as friend of A.B.’s, 104, 169; as missionary leader, 143, 149; premillennialism of, 132, 203; teaching at C&MA Bible college, 229; views of missions, 305 pietism, 5, 186, 269 Plato, 301 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 217 Plymouth Brethren, 164 political theology, 298–303 Polycarp of Smyrna, 227 Post, George, 137 postmillennialism, 8, 75, 201–2, 204, 270, 272 postmodernism, 14, 17 Potter, Henry Codman, 276 power (in religious rhetoric), 5, 262–4 pragmatism, 267, 271 prayer: A.B.’s practice of, 58, 73, 74–5, 103, 132, 134, 138, 159, 208, 234, 252, 317; contemplative, 132; and divine healing, 198, 211; and faith missions, 164; at Knox College, 70; in Presbyterian/Puritan devotion, 28, 32, 51, 55, 80; national days of, 300; for peace, 310–11; prayer meetings, 113, 119, 135, 138, 141–2, 162, 167, 214; and providence, 310; and revivals, 119–22

398

Index

preaching, 46–7, 72–3, 76, 79–81, 248 premillennialism, A.B.’s view of, 3, 200–6, 293; A.B.’s transition to, 132, 231, 292; and American culture, 12–13, 202–3, 320; and biblical prophecy, 3, 203–4, 235, 284, 301, 314–16; in C&MA, 205; and conservative evangelicalism, 12–13, 202–4, 292, 320; critiques of, 201, 270; in Fourfold Gospel, 172, 191, 200–6; historicist, 212, 284–5; and the millennium, 200–1, 212; and social concern, 212; and world missions, 204, 231 Presbyterian Church usA (PCusA), 109–12, 155, 159, 164 Presbyterianism, 4; Church of Scotland (the Old Kirk), 27, 29, 67; evangelicalization of, 54–5; Reformed theology/faith of, 38, 99, 101; among Scots in Chatham, 41–2; as Simpson’s family faith, 26–7, 43–4; and Westminster Confession of Faith, 8, 69, 101, 173, 201, 273; Westminster Shorter Catechism, 28, 42, 43–4 Presbytery of Hamilton, 80, 88–9, 92, 98–100, 105 Presbytery of London, 63, 73 Presbytery of Louisville, 111, 116, 126, 133 Presbytery of New York, 139–41, 156, 159, 161 Presbytery of Nova Scotia, 31 Presbytery of Paris, 76 Presbytery of Toronto, 78, 82 Prince Edward Island, 22–35 Princeton University, 71

progressivism, 202, 269 prohibition, 219, 302–3 prosperity gospel, 195 prostitution, 94–5, 116, 130–1, 212 Protestant Reformation, 27, 170, 177, 186, 240–1, 277 Proudfoot, William, 42 Psalms, 59, 80, 99–100, 224 Puritanism: as A.B.’s religious background, 42–5, 48, 55–9, 73; and American culture, 201, 265, 295, 300; as antecedent to evangelicalism, 5; and eschatology/prophecy, 201, 300; and originalism of the church, 239; reconfiguration in America, 195, 265, 295 Quakers, 177 Quebec City, Quebec, 19, 82 race (racial views), 110–11, 116, 217–22, 300, 302, 307 Rader, Paul, 319 railroads, 15, 36, 137, 151, 285 Railton, George Scott, 176 Ramabai, Pandita, 258 Rauschenbusch, August, 269 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 268–71 restorationism, 239–41 Riis, Jacob, 139, 269 Riley, John R., 71 Riley, William Bell, 278, 319 Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (1745), 56–8 Robertson, Gilbert H., 111 Robinson, Eliza, 233 Robinson, Peter, 218 Robinson, Stuart, 110

Index

Rochester Theological Seminary, 268 Rockefeller, John D., 268 Roebling, John Augustus, 137 Roebling, Washington, 137 Roman Catholicism: A.B.’s antipathy towards, 95–6, 160, 192, 204, 220–1, 270; Americanization of, 221; anticatholicism of Protestants, 30, 67–8, 107, 140, 270; converts to evangelicalism from, 168; devotion of, 16, 321; eucharistic theology of, 190; and evangelical prophecy, 24, 204; First Vatican Council of, 96; immigration to nyC, 138–9; immigration to Protestant lands, 21, 37; immigration to US, 220–2, 265, 267; loss of papal states, 205; miracles in, 186, 192–3; and missions, 31; monasticism as example, 210; papacy, 67, 96, 305; Protestant missions to countries of, 305–6; and saints, 174, 186, 227, 295; as whore of Babylon, 204, 305 Romanticism, 175, 267, 271 Roosevelt, Teddy, 302, 304 Russell, Bertrand, 177 Russia, 314–15 Ryerson, Egerton, 60 sabbatarianism, 28, 43, 88–9, 99 Salmon, John, 216, 261 Salvation Army, 176, 211–12, 269, 291 Sankey, Ira, 225, 270 Santa Claus, 295 Satan, 47, 142, 188, 301–2, 313 Scofield, C.I., 229, 285–6 Scofield Reference Bible (1909), 285–6 Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), 279, 319

399

Scotland, 19–24, 27, 35, 67, 92 Searles, A., 130–1 Second Great Awakening, 108, 239 Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 201 Seymour, William J., 250 Shepherd, Louise, 222, 226 Shesadri, Narayan, 104 Simpson, Albert Benjamin (A.B.): ancestry, 19–26; baptism, 33, 156–8; Bible college founder, 227–32; and biographical study, 17–18; birth, 33; and C&MA formation, 168; and C&MA ministry, 207–37; as Chestnut Street Louisville pastor, 105–7, 111–17, 118–35; church trials role in, 130–1; college days, 66–77; and college roommate, 72–3; comparison with Rauschenbusch, 268–70; conversion narrative, 44–51; death, 317–18; divine healing experience, 150–4; early memories, 40–4; as editor of GAL, 142–8; education, 60–3; enchanted supernaturalism of, 291–6; end times prophecy of, 3–4, 204–5, 282–6, 314–16; engagements of, 81–2; evangelicalism role in, 3–4, 7, 317–20; family conflict with, 129–30, 134–5, 141–2; and First World War, 308–14; Fourfold Gospel teachings, 167–206; as fundamentalist precursor, 11–12, 273–84; and gift of tongues, 252–4; and global missions trip, 235–7; grand tour of Europe, 91–8; health challenges of, 50–1, 61, 76, 128, 148, 150–2, 316–17; and holiness movement, 11–12, 173–85; as hymn

400

Index

writer, 224–7; independent ministry, 161–7; and Keswick movement, 183–5; as Knox Hamilton pastor, 83–90, 98–105, 114; legacy of, 317–20; marriage to Maggie, 82–3; on masculinity, 115–17; on missiology, 231–7, 303–8; ordination service of, 80–1; organ controversy role, 99–101; and pentecostal origins, 238–64; on political views, 298–302; on politicians, 116; portrait of, 86, 145; and power rhetoric, 262–4; preaching experience of, 73–4, 76, 79, 85, 86–7, 113, 123; and Presbyterian licensing trials, 78–9; publishing work of, 222–4; Puritan influence on, 55–60; relationship with father, 63–5; religious background, 26–34, 69–71, 73, 106–7; resignation from pastorate, 128, 133, 159–61; on Roman Catholicism, 95–6, 204, 304–6; on science, 278–82; shift in religious views, 38, 90, 98–9, 123, 132, 138, 148–61, 170–2, 198; Simpson family homestead image, 41; solemn covenant, 58–60, 74, 129, 152; and temperance movement, 302–3; as Thirteenth Street New York pastor, 135–6, 138–42, 148; upbringing, 35–44; Whittle-Bliss revival role, 118–24; on women, 114–17, 149–50, 286–90 Simpson, Albert Henry (A.B.’s son), 91, 94, 134 Simpson, Charlotte, 24 Simpson, Christine, 22

Simpson, Elizabeth Eleanor (A.B.’s sister), 63–4 Simpson, Howard (A.B.’s brother), 60, 61, 62, 74, 99 Simpson, Howard Home (A.B.’s son), 142, 159, 317 Simpson, James Albert (A.B.’s brother), 33 Simpson, James Darnley (A.B.’s brother), 63 Simpson, James Gordon (A.B.’s son), 91, 134 Simpson, James, Jr (A.B.’s father), 33–6, 39–43, 50, 56, 60–5 Simpson, James, Sr (A.B.’s grandfather), 19, 22, 26, 29, 30, 33 Simpson, Janet, 22 Simpson, Janet (Clark) (A.B.’s mother), 26, 33, 35, 39–41, 63–5 Simpson, Janet (Winchester) (A.B.’s great-grandmother), 19–20, 22, 24, 26–7 Simpson, Jean, 22 Simpson, John, 24 Simpson, Louisa (A.B.’s sister), 35, 39, 46, 54, 62, 64 Simpson, Mabel Jane (A.B.’s daughter), 91 Simpson, Margaret, 22 Simpson, Margaret (Maggie) (Henry) (A.B.’s spouse): absence from A.B.’s baptism, 158; activity in C&MA especially missions, 165, 167, 232; activity in Louisville missions society, 113; care of A.B. at death, 317; children of, 91; conflict with A.B. over leaving Louisville, 134–5,

Index

141–2; and faith missions, 167; letters of A.B. from Europe to, 91–4, 97; marriage to A.B., 81–3; portrait of, 86, 289 Simpson, Margaret Jane (A.B.’s sister), 39 Simpson, Melville Jennings (A.B.’s son), 91 Simpson, Nancy (Woodside) (A.B.’s grandmother), 26 Simpson, Otilia, 257 Simpson, Peter Gordon (A.B.’s brother), 63 Simpson, Thomas, 22 Simpson, W.W., 257–8 Simpson, William, Jr, 22, 26 Simpson, William, Sr (A.B.’s greatgrandfather), 19–20, 22, 24–8 sin: A.B.’s children given into, 91; A.B.’s experience of, 72, 134; and A.B.’s ministry, 89, 130–1, 144; A.B.’s view of evangelical church, 156; as cause of illness and sickness, 186, 188–9, 199; and Christian division, 260; and continuing presence of in world, 313; and conversion, 80, 144; and democracy, 301; and holiness, 174, 178, 181–4; and modern world, 311; New York City as haven of, 91, 136; and Puritan devotionalism, 45, 51, 56–8; in Reformed tradition, 27; and sexuality, 94–5; and society/ culture, 201, 220, 168, 293, 300, 311; and war, 309 slavery, 15, 70, 108–12, 266 Smith, Alys, 177 Smith, Eugene, 148

401

Smith, Hannah Whitall, 177 Smith, Robert Pearsall, 177 snake-handling, 246 social action, 13, 211–13, 270 social Darwinism, 307 social gospel, 16, 202, 211–12, 268–70, 272–3 socialism, 269–70 Song of Songs, 230–1 Southern Presbyterian Church, 110–11 Spafford, Horatio, 119 Spanish-American War (1898), 301–2, 313 Speer, Robert, 319 Spirit baptism, 72, 144, 251, 255, 258–59, 291 spontaneous levitation, 256 sports, 11, 185, 319 Spurgeon, Charles H., 96–7 St Paul’s Cathedral, London, 95 St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, 95 Staples, E.C., 151 Stark, Mark Young, 76, 80 Stephens, May Agnew, 226 Stockmayer, Otto, 186 Stone, Barton, 239 Strachan, John, 37 Straton, John Roach, 278 Sunday, Billy, 17, 319–20 Sunday (Sabbath) Schools, 87–8, 114–15, 141, 229 supernaturalism, 13, 165, 196, 257, 268, 291–6 Swami Vivekananda, 267 Swedenborgians, 192 Synod of Kentucky, 110, 112, 116 Synod of Nova Scotia, 31–2

402

Index

Talmage, T. DeWitt, 124 Taylor, Charles, 14 Taylor, J. Hudson, 164, 274 telegraph, 15, 36, 137, 234 telephone, 15, 137 temperance movement, 70, 87, 156, 219, 302–3 tenement housing, 138–9 theatre, 11, 156, 183 Third Great Awakening, 16 Thirteenth Street Church, New York, 105, 132, 138–42, 159–61 Thompson, A.E., 233 Tomlinson, A.J., 251 tongues (glossolalia/xenolalia), 245–8, 270 Toronto, Ontario, 46, 81, 215–16, 250 Torrey, Elizabeth, 153 Torrey, R.A., 153 Tozer, A.W., 262 Trevitt, Maggie, 257 Trollope, Anthony, 25 Trudel, Dorothea, 186 Trumbull, Charles, 319 Turner, Harry L., 261 Tweed, William “Boss,” 136 Underground Railway, 36 United Church of Canada, 304 United Presbyterian Church, 42, 66–7 University of Toronto, 68–9 urbanization, 14–15, 113, 136 Urcherd, John, 40 US Civil War, 14, 108–11, 119, 136, 155, 302 US Constitution, 109, 112, 217, 300, 303 US moral empire, 236 US presidency, 11, 15, 110, 155–6, 298, 300

US presidential election of 1860, 110 US presidential election of 1876, 137 US presidential election of 1884, 140 US presidential election of 1896, 299 US presidential election of 1916, 298 Virgin Mary, 186, 192–3 voodoo, 192 Walker, William, 42, 50, 54, 61, 63, 80 War of 1812, 36 Warfield, B.B., 187 Warren, L.L., 111, 127, 133 Washington, Booker T., 219 Washington, George, 23 Waterbury, Harriet, 222 Watts, Isaac, 29 Wells, Ida B., 219 Wesley, Charles, 5 Wesley, John, 5, 119, 171, 174 Western Union building, 137 Whitefield, George, 5, 24, 46, 119 Whittle, D.W., 118–23, 126, 165, 203 Whittle-Bliss Revival, 118–24, 130, 165, 178, 203 whore of Babylon, 204 Wiarton, Ontario, 224 Willard, Frances, 303 Williams, George, 103 Williams, John, 62 Williams, Lizzie, 257 Willis, Michael, 70, 73, 74, 77 Wilson, Henry, 255 Wilson, Woodrow, 71, 202, 312, 314 women in ministry, 113–15, 149–50, 286–91 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (wCtu), 303 Word, Work, and the World, 167

Index

World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh (1910), 305–6 World’s Parliament of Religions (1893), 267 Wren, Christopher, 95 Xenophon, 66

Young, George Paxton, 74, 83 Young Men’s Christian Association (yMCA), 89, 103–5, 185, 319 Zhaorui, Ma, 257 zionism, 316

403