If, then, faith widens the connections, it elevates the man.

Simpson’s sentence argues that faith is not merely private consolation but an enlarging power: it “widens the connections” by linking the individual to realities beyond immediate self-interest—God, moral law, a larger human community, and ultimate purposes. In that expanded horizon, the person is “elevated”: character is raised, motives are purified, and life is oriented toward higher ends than material success or social standing. The logic is almost sociological as well as theological: broader attachments create a larger self, and a larger self can act with greater dignity and responsibility. The line reflects a common nineteenth-century Protestant emphasis on faith as formative of moral and civic virtue.