Songs of the Spirit

Foreword

Among the many tributes paid to Dr. Simpson at the Memorial Service was the statement that his hymns would be sung, when his books were forgotten. Since his home-going on October twenty-ninth, many of his friends have requested that his poetical writings be collected and published. The committee having in preparation his memoirs found a large number of manuscripts, some of which were in the uncorrected form in which they flowed from the author’s heart. Mrs. Simpson and her family have put all of them at our disposal. Selections have been made from these new hymns which, together with some of the gems which have become familiar through the columns of his periodical, “The Alliance Weekly,” and in the hymnology of our generation, are now given to a wider circle. There remain enough poems for a second volume which we hope will soon be issued.

Though literary critics have recognized the poetic genius which is so clearly seen even in Dr. Simpson’s prose, he himself disclaimed any natural gift of song. In a letter, written shortly before he ceased his activities, he stated that he never had written a poem in his life until the Spirit of God filled him with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” They came to him on all sorts of occasions on land and sea. Some of the following poems were written in Jerusalem, others on the Red Sea, and still others in the Far East during his first missionary journey; while the fitting conclusion to this volume is “Safe Home,” written as he neared harbor after girdling the South American continent. Many of his finest hymns were produced under the inspiration of the preparation of his great sermons, and were sung to his own music from manuscript on Sunday mornings in the Gospel Tabernacle, New York City. For years he rarely failed to send his friends a Christmas greeting or New Year message in song; nor did Commencement Day pass at his beloved school, the Missionary Institute, Nyack, without a new Class Song. The last hymn which he gave us, “The Whole Bible to the Whole Wide World,” was written for the Class of 1919 after he had given up all active ministry.

This collection is now sent forth with the prayer that “the sound of a voice that is still” may be heard by many old and new friends. He has entered the great company of our forerunners in faith, yet in his songs “He, being dead, yet speaketh.”

THE EDITOR.

Nyack-on-the-Hudson.