In 1874, Bishop Simpson visited Mexico. He returned to Europe in 1875, presiding over the Annual Conference of Germany and Switzerland. He also met with the M.E. missionaries in different parts of Europe. He then addressed the Garfield Memorial Meeting at Exeter Hall, London, on September 24, 1881. Bishop Simpson was also a gifted orator and throughout the war he gave his much forgotten "Great War Speech" which was so powerful and stirring it could move entire audiences to tears and cheering pride. He delivered this speech over 60 times throughout the war, and it easily motivated and inspired cities wary of the long war. Death and burial Bishop Matthew Simpson was taken ill at San Francisco in 1880, but recovered to preach the opening sermon at the First Ecumenical Methodist Conference in London (1881). He was present at the M.E. General Conference in 1884, but took little part. He died 18 June 1884 in Philadelphia and was buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Selected writings Sermon: Influence on the Human Mind of the Manifestation of God's Glory - The Methodist Pulpit, in Clark, D.W., Sermons for the College, Akers, 1851. Sermon in Sermons for the Home Circle, T.P. Akers, Ed., 1859. A Hundred Years of Methodism, 1876. Lectures on Preaching (1879), delivered before the Theological Department of Yale College. A volume of his Sermons (1885) was edited by George R. Crooks. Cyclopedia of Methodism, 1858 (and subsequent editions). online Biographies Carwardine, Richard. "Methodists, politics, and the coming of the American Civil War." Church history 69.03 (2000): 578–609. online Clark, Robert D. The Life of Matthew Simpson (1956) Stowell, Daniel W. "Simpson, Matthew"; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Access July 24, 2014 See also List of bishops of the United Methodist Church Simpson College References Biographical sources Cyclopaedia of Methodism, Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL.D., Ed., (Revised Edition.) Philadelphia, Louis H. Everts, 1880. Leete, Frederick DeLand, Methodist Bishops. Nashville, The Methodist Publishing House, 1948. External links Biography-West Laurel Hill Cemetery web site 1811 births 1884 deaths American Methodist Episcopal bishops American theologians Physicians from Ohio American religion academics American religious writers American sermon writers American newspaper editors American encyclopedists Presidents of DePauw University Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church Methodist theologians People from Cadiz, Ohio Methodist writers American historians of religion Editors of Christian publications Presidency of Abraham Lincoln Burials in Pennsylvania 19th-century Methodist bishops 19th-century American