- Branches Over the Wall

There seems to be no satisfactory explanation for the astonishing activities of the Gospel Tabernacle over the next twenty years. At least there is no explanation on natural grounds. A veritable flood of spiritual energy appears to have been released through the consecration and faith of one man, Albert B. Simpson. It was as if a burning core of power had been tossed into the center of New York, radiating heat and light in all directions. Evangelistic and missionary zeal leaped out like fire. There was no want of workers. Everyone was expected to help, and almost everyone did. The work accomplished was almost beyond believing.
Several evenings during the week bands of young people from the Tabernacle held meetings on the streets. A number of rescue missions were opened and hundreds of human derelicts fished out and salvaged from the flotsam and jetsam of the lower classes. Groups of trained gospel workers visited the hospitals and jails every week with the message of hope. Earnest efforts were made to reach and rescue the fallen women that swarmed in certain sections of the city. A free dispensary was maintained for the poor of that neighborhood known grimly as “Hell’s Kitchen.” Special services were held for the sailors that crowded the water fronts. An orphanage was opened for the poor of the city streets, and other efforts made to relieve the destitute and the suffering wherever they were found within the great melting pot that is New York.
Several organizations were formed from the teeming life of the Tabernacle fellowship, each with a specific object in view and with a particular function to perform. For instance there were no less than six young people’s societies, all going full blast at one and the same time! There was no overlapping. They knew what they were called to do, and they did it with enthusiasm. These many outside activities were the overflow from the great public services held at the Tabernacle every Sunday. At these services Mr. Simpson himself usually preached, though many other celebrated preachers appeared in his pulpit from time to time. A large Sunday School was maintained, and to supplement its work a class in the catechism was held each week for all children who desired to attend. An early morning service was held each Sunday in German. Rev. A. E. Funk, an assistant pastor, who spoke the German language fluently, was in charge of this service.
Curiously enough, there was also an Episcopal service of Holy Communion conducted each Sunday at the Tabernacle. Dr. Henry Wilson, an Episcopal clergyman, officiated. He never left the fold of the Episcopal Church, but obtained permission from his bishop to erect an altar in one of the chapels of the Tabernacle for this service. He was a saintly character and a warm friend of Mr. Simpson to the end of his days.
Of a piece with these local activities, but of greater importance than all of them, was the foreign missions enterprise which sprang out of the zealous heart of A. B. Simpson.
He had come to New York with the express purpose of putting himself in a position to more effectively prosecute the work of world evangelization. While still connected with the Thirteenth Street Church he had launched a missionary journal, The Gospel in All Lands—the first illustrated missionary magazine to be published on the North American continent. He was forced by his physical collapse to relinquish the editorship of this magazine, but under other management it continued for many years, the model and inspiration for all similar publications which sprang into print later.
Soon after the opening of his independent work he began to publish another missionary monthly called by the uneuphonious name, The Word, Work and World. In spite of its name it was undoubtedly one of the finest missionary journals ever published by any religious society anywhere. The sweep and range of it are amazing. Its editor had taken the world for his parish. In its pages his mighty earth-covering wing-stretch became apparent, probably for the first time.
It was partly through this magazine that A. B. Simpson began to attract wide notice as a missionary leader. He kept it world-wide in its scope and interdenominational in its interests. The affairs of the leading missionary societies of the world were reported with warm sympathy and interesting detail. News of the doings of the great evangelists and other popular religious leaders appeared regularly. Every important gathering of spiritual leaders in all parts of the world received friendly notice and intelligent comment. Illuminating articles on almost every phase of life in missionary lands, well written, scholarly, yet warmly evangelical, were regular features. And to focus attention each issue of the magazine contained a generous number of carefully done illustrations printed by means of the then-popular wood cut. In spite of the advances made in the art of journalism since that time, the old brown copies of The Word, Work and World which we possess today still remain excellent examples of how to edit a missionary magazine.
Interest in the work of foreign missions was growing both in Europe and in North America. The dramatic success of great men such as Livingstone and others had fired the imagination of the public. Encouraged by the labors of others, but urged forward by his own impelling vision of the lost world with its millions “in mute anguish, wringing their hands,” Mr. Simpson determined to do something definite about the whole thing—not simply to favor it, to write about it—but to engage in it, to make it the work of his life. Indeed he must do this. The inward pressure was destroying him. There was no escape. A missionary society was being born out of a heart big with love for God and the perishing world.
They tell deep stories of those days, stories distilled from the restrained public utterances of the man himself, or whispered reverently by some close friend who was permitted to look into his heart for a brief moment it may be, stories of tears and long prayer vigils, of lonely walks by the sea shore in the dead of night when others were in their beds asleep, when the moan of the sea sounded like the cry of lost souls, and every grain of sand along the shore appeared to be a dying man. These stories concern the real history of A. B. Simpson and the work that grew out of his strong passion. The colorful deeds of his public ministry were possible only because of these little-publicized experiences of his inward life where the Christ of Gethsemane came near to travail again through a man utterly yielded.
As far back as 1883, while still in the old Twenty-third Street Tabernacle, Mr. Simpson had inaugurated a new type of meeting, which he called a missionary convention. This was original only in the sense that it achieved for the first time a synthesis of the best features of several other kinds of public meeting, and succeeded in producing in one place and at once a Bible conference, a camp meeting, an evangelistic campaign and a missionary promotional meeting. So highly successful were these conventions that they soon spread to many cities of the United States and Canada and drew to their platform some of the world’s leading preachers and missionary leaders. By 1887 they had become famous. Thousands flocked to them in the great cities of the North American continent. One strong attraction was the teaching of divine healing and the practice of praying for the sick. Another was the presence of returned missionaries. Real live missionaries were sufficiently rare in those days to guarantee a crowd wherever they appeared.
At first Mr. Simpson was able personally to direct these conventions. He carried a heavy preaching schedule at most of them for the first few years, but he was too humble and too shrewd a leader to permit the success of these gatherings to depend too much upon his own ministry. So he invited workers from everywhere. The great, the famous, the gifted from all over the world (and some who were neither famous nor great, but who were his personal friends whom he delighted to honor) would be concentrated in one city and on one platform for a great series of meetings lasting anywhere from two to ten days. The number of workers assembled by the big-hearted Simpson often inspired caustic comment or good-natured ribbing from the public. “You know, brother,” said Mr. Simpson once when discussing this with a friend, “they say the number of speakers on my convention platforms makes my announcements look like a small-town telephone directory. But I have a good reason for all that. I want to enjoy the broadest fellowship possible myself, and I want my people to receive the benefit of the ministry of all God’s gifted servants, regardless of whether they agree with me in everything or not.”
As these conventions grew in importance they quite naturally drew the fire of that large section of the Christian public which was opposed to all the doctrines and practices for which Mr. Simpson stood. And it must be admitted that they who were against him were far greater in number (and usually in influence) than they who were for him. His old friends, the newspapers, began to poke fun at his great conventions. Now and again an artist, seeking a popular subject for a cartoon to fill his daily schedule, would hit upon Simpson and his “Faith Cure Convention,” and the result would be a picture, making merry at his expense. The religious journals of the country were divided over him. Some of them published scorching denunciations; others defended him vigorously. There were two points of attack. One was his teaching on divine healing, the other his missionary zeal. Some of the leaders could not forgive him for his ability to raise more missionary money in ten days than they could do in ten years.
The famous Presbyterian clergyman, Dr. A. T. Pierson, once wrote an article in a religious magazine criticizing Simpson and his method of raising missionary funds. A noticeable decline in missionary receipts followed from the time the article appeared in print. A few months later Dr. Pierson had a change of heart and wrote another article retracting his first statements and giving Simpson a clean bill of health. Immediately the missionary income zoomed back to normal! A beautiful example of the Christ-like spirit of the man Pierson and fine proof of the tremendous influence which he exerted over the Christian public.
The unfriendly attitude of the rank and file of church members toward what came to be known as the “Full Gospel” or the “deeper life”—by which is meant the baptism of the Spirit and divine healing—set A. B. Simpson to dreaming again. His dream concerned an alliance of like-minded Christians the world over who were hungry for a better and more satisfying life in Christ. It was not to be a split off of an existing body, not an organized protest, neither a society to provide protection from some outside enemy. Rather it was to be a fellowship, a communion of saints, a simple bond uniting believers everywhere whose hearts were hungry for the deeper things of God.
In 1885 Mr. Simpson attended a conference on the deeper life in Bethshan, London. From that conference he came away convinced that the time had come to put his dream into action. Two years later, after the necessary preliminary work had been done, at the summer convention at Old Orchard, Maine, the Christian Alliance was formally organized. The simplest form of constitution was drawn up to give direction to the new society. The same convention that saw the birth of the Christian Alliance saw also the beginning of another society, the Evangelical Missionary Alliance. This society was called into being to provide a more efficient means of carrying on the work of foreign missions to which Mr. Simpson and his people were dedicated. The lack of any unified strategy for the prosecution of the task was proving to be a source of embarrassment. A new missionary zeal was spreading throughout the entire country, and it must have intelligent direction. There was too much lost motion, too much that was merely hit and miss. Something had to be done, and the time seemed to be ripe. Something was done. Before the Convention had broken up that year at Old Orchard the Evangelical Missionary Alliance had been launched.
It was as simple as the Christian Alliance. Its principles were brief but clear. It was an undenominational society for the rapid evangelization of the most neglected sections of the foreign mission field, using laymen and laywomen as well as regular ministers to carry on its work. It pledged itself to rigid economy, guaranteed no salaries, and required of its workers a life of simple faith. It would be directed by a central board which would be elected annually. Two years later the name was changed to the International Missionary Alliance. Mr. Simpson was elected General Secretary.
The two societies continued to operate separately for matter of ten years, though the business meetings of the two boards might be held in the same room on the same evening one after the other with scarcely a member rising to leave upon the adjournment of the first meeting. The personnel would hardly be changed. The secretary would simply open a different book! The Christian Alliance supported the International Missionary Alliance though it could have no voice in its affairs. As a member of one society Mr. Smith might decide to undertake some missionary project, and then he would have to wait till the board of the other society met—of which he was also a member—before he could be sure that he would have his own consent to finance the project! It was very confusing, but with the charming inconsistency which often marked both societies this condition was tolerated till the year 1897. Then they got around to the taking of an important step toward better management. That year the two societies were formally joined in wedlock. The twain become one flesh and have not been sundered since that time.
Apparently neither society wanted to give up its name, so they struck a compromise and kept both of them, which, with minor omissions, they solemnly hung on the new one. The result is a wonderful society with a name too long and awkward to handle without a pinch bar, The Christian and Missionary Alliance. Asked what society they represent its members may be seen to brace themselves, take a deep breath, and begin to recite. And worse than all, nobody ever understands it the first time. Along about the fourth time through the inquirer will take courage, smile, and begin timidly to repeat it experimentally, a world of unbelief in his face. It requires no prophetic gift to see that The Christian and Missionary Alliance represents magnificent triumph of holy zeal over bad nomenclature.
Mr. Simpson however considered the name a happy one. “It expresses the genius of our movement.” said He. “We are an alliance of Christians for world wide missionary work.” That would seem to settle it. But we still wish the idea could be expressed without such a tax on the memory and with less wear on the vocal cords.