Matthew Simpson

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

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

“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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“Angels are spirits, flames of fire; they are higher than man, they have wider connections.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is a principle of our nature that feelings once excited turn readily from the object by which they are excited to some other object which may for the time being take possession of the mind.”

“If, then, faith widens the connections, it elevates the man.”

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

“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.”

“Not in purity or in holiness merely, for in Paradise man was holy, and he shall be holy when redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ and made an heir of heaven.”

“If an honest man is the noblest work of God, then Mr. Lincoln's title to high nobility is clear and unquestioned.”

“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.”

“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 I know that I shall be as an angel, and more; if I shall behold all God has made; if he shall own me for his son and exalt me to honor in his presence, I shall not fear to die, nor shall I dread the grave where Christ once lay.”

“Sanctification is not regeneration.”