Quotes from Matthew Simpson

We ourselves can die with comfort and even with joy if we know that death is but a passport to blessedness, that this intellect, freed from all material chains, shall rise and shine.

Nor was it only from the millions of slaves that chains had been removed; the whole nation had been in bondage; free speech had been suppressed.

Washington and the elder Napoleon. Both were brave men; both were true men; both loved their country and dared to expose their lives for their country's cause.

If you live for fame, men may turn against you.

Human nature is the same now as when Adam hid from the presence of God; the consciousness of wrong makes us unwilling to meet those whom we have offended.

If, then, knowledge be power, how much more power to we gain through the agency of faith, and what elevation must it give to human character.

Wherever public worship has been established and regularly aintained, idolatry has vanished from the face of the earth. There is not now a temple to a heathen god where the word of God is read.

Napoleon was probably the equal at least of Washington in intellect, his superior in education. Both of them were successful in serving the state.

If you live for pleasure, your ability to enjoy it may pass away and your senses grow dim.

If we look at the realm of knowledge, how exceedingly small and limited is that part acquired through our own senses; how wide is that we gain from other sources.

Mr. Lincoln's elevation shows that in America every station in life may be honorable; that there is no barrier against the humblest; but that merit, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to be known.

The realm of immediate or personal knowledge is a narrow circle in which these bodies move; the realm of knowledge derived through faith is as wide as the universe, and old as eternity.

Taking it in its wider and generic application, I understand faith to be the supplement of sense; or, to change the phrase, all knowledge which comes not to us through our senses we gain by faith in others.

The temptations to wrong are many; they spring out of a corrupt nature.

Passing into practical life, illustrations of this fact are found everywhere; the distant, or the unseen, steadies and strengthens us against the rapid whirl of things around us.

I do not purpose to discuss faith in its dogmatic sense today.

Of history, how little do we know by personal contact; we have lived a few years, seen a few men, witnessed some important events; but what are these in the whole sum of the world's past.

Another principle is, the deepest affections of our hearts gather around some human form in which are incarnated the living thoughts and ideas of the passing age.

We shall see our friends again. We can lay them in the grave; we know they are safe with God.

Sanctification is not regeneration.

If you live for your children, they may be smitten down and leave you desolate, or, what is far worse, they may desert you and leave you worse than childless in a cold and unfeeling world.

There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.

If you live for any joy on earth, you may be forsaken; but, oh, live for Jesus, and he will never forsake you!

Man wants to be reconciled to God; wants to know that the past is forgiven.