Simeon

Simeon, CHARLES, an eminent evangelical preacher, was born at Reading in Berkshire, September 24, 1759. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, was elected to his lifelong fellowship at his college in January 1782, that same year took orders, and immediately after was appointed Perpetual Curate of Trinity Church, Cambridge, an office which he held till the close of his life, November 13, 1836. As early as twenty he had been converted through reading Bishop Thomas Wilson's book on the Lord's Supper, and as a preacher he was distinguished for an impassioned evangelicalism that at first aroused a bitter and protracted opposition. But he made many converts, and came to exercise an enormous influence not only in Cambridge, but all over England. He took a foremost part in the work of founding the Church Missionary Society, and it was mainly his influence that sent the sainted Henry Martyn to India. Simeon paid several visits to Scotland, first in 1796, when he preached freely in the pulpits of the Church of Scotland—the Moderate majority in the General Assembly prevented this on his second visit in 1798—rode over a great part of the country and climbed Ben Lomond with James Haldane, the pair consecrating themselves anew to God at the top. Simeon's conversation-circles at Cambridge were famous in his day, and his old age was untroubled and full of honour. His influence long survived his death by means of the society he established for purchasing advowsons. Simeon's Hore Homileticæ (17 vols. 1819–28; new ed. 21 vols. 1832–33) contain as many as 2536 sermon outlines. See the Memoirs by the Rev. W. Carus (1857), Recollections of Simeon's Conversation Parties by Abner W. Brown (1862), and the Study by H. C. G. Moule (1892).