The historian Thomas Macaulay said about Charles Simeon, “If you knew what his authority and influence were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners of England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was far greater than that of any primate.”

Simeon’s conversion in 1779, while he was still a student, occurred as he was preparing himself to receive Holy Communion, an act required of undergraduates at the Univers…