JESSE HALSEY
*Having reached the age of retirement, Jesse Halsey,
Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics, will terminate his active service
to the Seminary with the present academic year. His life-long friend, Rev.
Henry Sloane Coffin, D.D., has prepared this statement in which faculty,
students, and friends will heartily concur.
Jesse Halsey comes of the Puritan stock which settled on
Long Island in 1640. His family’s property has never been bought or sold, but
is held under the original grant. In that stable Presbyterian community he was
reared and he bears its stamp in his steadfastness to conviction, his
shrewdness, his kindly humor, and his level head. He was brought up in its
First Presbyterian Church where a conservative faith was taught and firmly
believed. He took his B. A. at Princeton University and then entered Princeton
Seminary. It was a period when that institution was under the intellectual
dominance of Dr. Benjamin Warfield, was rigidly dogmatic and controverted all more
recent movements in scientific and historical thinking. Jesse revolted
violently.
He left the Seminary and enlisted under the genial and
devoted Dr. Grenfell in the mission on the Labrador. There he recovered mental
equilibrium and inward calm. Returning he enrolled at Union Seminary in New
York and found himself at home in its open-minded devotion to truth and
inclusive sympathies. Ever since he has been a liberal in outlook.
After a brief pastorate in a small town he was called to the
Seventh Church of Cincinnati. It was a time of theological controversy, and the Cincinnati Presbytery was ruled by a group of die-hards. Halsey and two or
three kindred spirits tactfully set themselves to alter that situation and they
succeeded. Jesse has always been an outgoing friend who won his people’s
confidence and gained the respect and affection of those who worked at his
side. He soon became a foremost citizen of Cincinnati and a leading churchman
held in esteem by Christians of all communities. He read widely and kept his
preaching interesting. He took great pains with public worship and acquired
skill in his preparations for common prayer. His good taste and his rich
personal life with God are evident in the prayers with which he has enriched
the Church.
McCormick wisely elected him in full maturity to the chair
from which he has counseled students in their early ministry and taught
pastoral theology and the conduct of pubic worship. His ideals are evident in
the renovated and restored chapel where his own hands did much of the manual
labor. He is a skilled workman in carpentry and painting, as well as in
printing—a Bezalel in the artistic arrangement of the house of worship.
Everyone finds him approachable. He is genuinely interested
in people—people of all sorts—and becomes their inspiring friend. His wisdom,
his faith, his patience, his loyalty render him a notable adviser. He
understands human relations—their frailties and their vast possibilities. He has
courage in situations where few, even among Christian leaders, are willing to
speak out. And always he had the “sweet reasonableness” which avoids needless clashes.
His students known how much they owe him and acknowledge it with warm
affection. His fellow-churchmen admire and love him for his stalwart fidelity
to conviction, his willingness to shoulder heavy responsibilities, and the
bigness of heart which takes on their loads and carries them with untiring perseverance.
In his retirement the Seminary parts with a most useful member of its faculty,
but his students and fellow-churchmen will continue to possess in him a
life-long friend in God.
--Henry Sloane Coffin
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