LEADERS:
VISIONARIES; A. B. SIMPSON

A. B. Simpson had become a world-missionary, whatever men may think of it, and he had come through in the only way a man of his temperament could. For better or for worse that was the way he moved. He would first get an idea, a concept, then must come a heart experience to set it off, to detonate the charge it contained. Until the explosion came, he could wait, sometimes for years, mulling his idea over, half forgetting it, burying it under a mountain of work; then the great day would come and he would be prostrated, almost slain under the impact of that idea, his and yet God’s idea, leaping up now, and powerfully compelling as it came out at him like a blast of creative force.

To the earth-walking Christian, ankle-deep in dust, who has never seen heaven opened or beheld a vision of God, this will seem all out of order, too emotional, too extreme. But it is the way of the strong eagles of the kingdom, the prophets, the apostles, the reformers and revivalists. These fly high and see far, and that they are not understood is no great wonder. The sky-loving eagle, screaming in the sun, may be a puzzle to the contented biddy scratching in the yard, but that is no good argument against the eagle.

Wingspread; A. B. Simpson: A Study in Spiritual Altitude, 63.