MATTHEW

See also:

• MATTHEW SIMPSON (1811-1884)
• SIMPSON, SIR JAMES YOUNG (1811-1870)
• SIMPSON, THOMAS (1710-1761)

SIMPSON (1811-1884)  , American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Cadiz, Ohio, on the 21st of June 1811 . He studied medicine in 1830-1833 and began to practise, and in 1833 was licensed as a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church . He was pastor of the Liberty Street Church of Pittsburg in 1835, and of a church at Williams-port (now Monongahela) in 1836 . In 1837 he was ordained elder and was appointed professor of natural science in Allegheny College, Meadville, in which Madison College had been merged in 1833; and in 1838 he was elected professor and immediately afterwards president of the newly established Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University, Greencastle, Indiana, to which he went in 1839; this position he held until 1848 . He was editor of the Western Christian Advocate, which he made a strong temperance and anti-slavery organ, from 1848 to 1852 . He was elected a bishop in May 1852, and in 1857, with Dr McClintock, visited Great Britain as a delegate to the British Wesleyan Conference, and travelled in the Holy Land . He was an intimate and trusted friend of President Lincoln, who considered his advice of great value, and at whose grave in Springfield he spoke the last words . He addressed the Garfield Memorial Meeting at Exeter Hall, London, on the 24th of September 1881 . He died on the 18th of June 1884 in Philadelphia . He published A Hundred Years of Methodism (1876) ; a Cyclopedia of Methodism (1878) ; Lectures on Preaching (1879), delivered before the Theological Department of Yale College; and a volume of his Sermons (1885) was edited by George R . Crooks, whose Life of Bishop Matthew Simpson (New York, 189o) should be consulted .