Jesse Halsey: Teacher of Men

McCormick Speaking |Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6

By William N. Colwell, ‘50

Minister of Immanuel Presbyterian Church | Yonkers, N.Y.

“I give you the end of a golden string;

Only wind it into a ball—

It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate

Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”

With these words of Blake, Professor Halsey offered to us all the distillation of a more abundant life, that our lives might be as full as his.

As a teacher in the classroom, “this noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, that first he wroghte and afterward he taughte.” He was most eager to teach by good infection and by capturing the spirit of being in his Master’s call. He did not expect verbal agreement or theological unity. He longed instead to instill something far deeper than these, a sense of spiritual harmony forged in the love of his Lord.

As a genial host in his home, Dr. Halsey could not be matched as he read his beloved Ian Maclaren and John Bunyan, because he had seen in his soul and heart what they saw and were trying to describe; and by his voice he linked us with them in mood and sense.

As a true bishop in our field work, he exercised patience over our impatience, and he opened our eyes to the personal color in our own work. Then he pointed out for us the lessons of every crisis and every problem solved.

As a pastor and friend, “Uncle Jess” was a Christian artist at listening, for his silence was never impatient or impersonal. It was a mixture of real concern for us and a remembrance that deep plowing may tear up the present garden of happiness but may bring far more lasting loveliness to the surface. No hour was too late, no distance too great for him to link his best Friend with his friends in loving prayer. And more often than not, as we left to follow the path he let us take, Jesse Halsey’s footprints were in his Lord’s ahead of ours.

“Another Christian Athlete

Gone forth for Thee, O Christ,

Claimed for Thee the victory,

Asks of Thee his crown.”

Jesse Halsey: Pastor, Presbyter, and Friend

McCormick Speaking |Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6 

By John W. Christie

Minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, Del.

When I went to a Cincinnati pastorate during the first World War, Dr. Jesse Halsey was in Russia under the aegis of the Y.M.C.A.; but his name came up more frequently than that of any other minister in the town. Newcomer that I was, I found it impossible to believe that any one man could do all the things that people said this man did—preach, visit those sick or in prison, use the printing press, do plumbing, paint houses, repair pipe organs, cook, etc.

One day, as I looked out of my study window, I saw a man approaching, carrying a collection of beautiful Arctic furs. It was Jesse Halsey, just returned from the Murmansk coast where he had, for a season, represented both the United States and Britain, and where the British admiral had been sufficiently familiar with him to roar and swear at him affectionately.

One did not need to be in his company long to discover that he possessed unusual qualities. He knew and loved books, and The Book. He needed not that any should testify of men, for he knew what was in man. He knew how to do almost everything that anybody does with his hands, and he was always doing something with those hands for anyone in sickness or distress.

He had an incorrigible faith in people. Like his Lord, he believed that one who was lost was only lost, and that he might be found and saved. He knew how much the humble and the poor needed encouragement and friendly help. He knew also how much the successful but spiritually destitute likewise need help.

God gave him an amazing stock of good Long Island common sense, plus an abundance of the wisdom that cometh down from above. His counsel, therefore, was sought by all.

He labored more than other men, and he loved more than they did. He was tireless in his exertions—others he was forever sparing, never did he spare himself.

He had a most sensitive appreciation of what was significant in art, music, and literature. His mild eye was forever discovering truth and beauty in the things that hourly happen to us. Twenty times a day he would see or listen to something notable, suggestive, or moving. Then from his pocket would come an envelope or a bit of paper and a stubby pencil. Every night, when he emptied his pockets, he had a store of simple and unhackneyed illustrations.

His church members loved and admired him; so did his neighbors of all creeds; so also did his assistant and his church custodian!

He was a good presbyter. In troublous times he kept his temper and his tongue and steadfastly loved his brethren, though never yielding his conscience or his convictions to their dictation. He could suffer fools gladly as none other could. He was the friend of forlorn causes, and he shamed the rest of us into duty by his example.

Jesse Halsey was an excellent preacher, but his daily life was his best sermon. For many, indeed, it was his life that made his Gospel credible.

Dr. Grenfell, for whom he was chaplain in Labrador for three years, shall have the last word here. I saw the letter in which, shortly before he died, Sir Wilfred wrote, “I have seen more of Jesus Christ in you than any man I ever knew.”

Jesse Halsey, 1882-1954: In Memoriam

McCormick Speaking |Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6

By Robert Worth Frank 

On Tuesday morning, January 12^th, Dr. Jesse Halsey died in the hospital at Southampton, Long Island. A funeral service in keeping with his own practice and spirit as a pastor was held on January 14^th at the Southampton Presbyterian Church to which his forebears had belonged for generations and in which he himself had grown up into the Christian faith. The service was in charge of his intimate and long-time friend, Dr. John W. Christie.

The passing of Dr. Halsey has left many people, young and old, bereft of a uniquely gracious, wise, and understanding friend. During his eleven years as Lane Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics at McCormick he was an able teacher and something much more. He was the discerning pastor and rarely gifted counselor and guide of both his students and his colleagues. For Jesse Halsey was a man who loved people with an outgoing friendliness that was warm, genuine, abiding, and always delicately tactful.

But his friendliness was never wishy-washy. He was a man of sturdy Christian convictions—convictions that were quiet, not loud, that were deep, not for surface display. Whoever knew him very long was sure to discover these convictions and to feel their essential soundness, force, and depth. Underlying and controlling these convictions was a gracious and winsome spirit of reconciliation. This spirit dwelt mightily in him. Wherever he went or spoke or counseled people, he was knitting human hearts together in the love of Christ and of one another. There was something in the temper of this man that healed the spirit of faction and division. He studied the peace, unity, and purity not only of the Church but of human relations wherever he was present. To an unusual degree his nature untied and blended strength and tenderness, strength without hardness or the will to dominate, and tenderness without softness or sentimentalism.

And who of us has not felt his power of appreciation? The parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost prodigal must have been dear to his heart. He was always finding the contemporary originals of these parables and giving them new hope through his appreciation and love. To hard pressed and bereft people he brought the most helpful ministry of comfort. He knew that every heart carries some burden, some invisible load of heaviness. And like Greatheart in his much beloved Pilgrim’s Progress he was quick to discern and gentle and strong to share the weight of the burden.

“Do you see yonder shining light? Said Evangelist to Christian as he began his journey. He said, “I think I do.” Then said Evangelist, “Keep that light in your eye . . .” From the beginning of his ministry to the end Jesse Halsey kept that light in his eye. Because of this faithfulness and by the grace of God, he was himself an evangelist, an interpreter, a Greatheart, and a man named Help to countless other pilgrims seeking the way of salvation.

“The Skipper”

In Memoriam

The Rev. Jesse Halsey, D.D.

1882-1954

The sea was always in his eyes

As in his blood;

The English earth his heritage,

His sires, the skippers of proud ships

Out of Southampton’s

New World port

Two hundred years agone.

He lov’d the salt-tang’d air,

The restless, rolling water drew him

From a thousand miles,

Like tides upon his heart

Toward home and rest and peace.

His hands were seaman’s hands,

Busy, apt to any task

To build, to smooth,

To climb where few would dare,

To set a gentle flower,

To bind a wound,

To brush aside a tear,

To pray.

Like season’d oak, his heart,

Handwrought and mellowed,

Weathered fitting by the foul and fair;

He knew his craft—the hearts of men

And like his Master,

No stranger he to ax and plane,

Or storm-toss’d day,

The satisfying weariness of eventide;

His art—the ships he built—

The lives he sent out from his ways

Sound wrought and rigged,

To wrest and bring

A hard-won cargo safely home.

His heart a skipper’s Heart,

The Master’s Order, his;

And certain as a chart that fact

To all

Who signed on in his company.

No wonder to his mates,

The Master, satisfied,

Called out, “Cast off!”

And he obeyed.

By Samuel Gregory Warr

Assistant to Dr. Halsey, Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1940-1941.

JESSE HALSEY—A LIVING HOPE

“The enclosed was the short memorial given at the alumni chapel service last May. I’ve been meaning to get a copy to you, all this time.” --Helen Halsey Haroutunian to Charles Halsey, Sr., December 12, 1954

It is hard for a man to argue any point on which he is entirely convinced. I think that any one of us would feel that the attempt to pay tribute to Jesse Halsey is doomed to failure. There is about all complete conviction a kind of helplessness. And I think that Jesse Halsey would tell us, “Don’t bother.” But that’s what we would expect from him for he was, indeed, “great in all wise men’s eyes except in his own.”

Yet it is not for his good but for ours that we remember this man of God. You men of the class of 1954 are the last student generation to know what this means. For us, Uncle Jess has become the symbol of serenity in a world where all hell seems to be breaking loose. Yet he is more than a symbol. He is—in that phrase to which he gave new meaning—“a living hope.” When we think of the ideal ministry we think of it in terms of Jesse Halsey, and when we try to describe it we find ourselves using the words of Bunyan or MacLaren, friends whom he taught us to know. So we ask your indulgence, Uncle Jess. It’s good for us to remember you.

Jesse Halsey is a living hope because he knew what was in men. He was not surprised by what he saw. When he looked at our faults he was “unshockable.” When our wrongs were most shameful and we found it hard to face ourselves, we heard from him: “I don’t condemn you; go, and don’t do it again.” For he saw us not only at our worst, but he saw what was best in us. There was one lad who drove to Seminary his first year who for three weeks didn’t unpack his trunk because he wasn’t sure he belonged there. But Uncle Jess discovered that boy before he discovered himself. One of my classmates wrote me last week, “It is enough to say that it was Dr. Halsey who sensed that I needed help and gave me the feeling that I had some possibilities.”

How could anyone help but see himself in a brighter light when this matchless man troubled himself in his behalf? Can you forget him trudging up with a tray to some student sick in bed on the fourth floor of McCormick Hall? Do you remember him driving out with you to your student charge at six o’clock on a Sunday morning to administer communion for you—after he had prepared a pancake breakfast for you both at 5 a.m. in his own kitchen? And if we ever wonder whether that kind of performance is worthwhile in our own ministry and we conclude that it is, we can thank Jesse Halsey for making us know it.

Dr. Halsey is a living hope not only because he knew what was in man but because he knew the heart of God. I suppose that this man knew the intimacies and heartbreaks behind the doors of more Presbyterian manses than most of us will sense in our congregations in a lifetime. Like his Master who suffered for us all, Jesse Halsey was hurt when we were hurt. Nor was his own life immune to heartbreak. God knows. But God also knows that his servant learned by suffering. For Jesse Halsey loved his God, and through him we have loved God more. Did weakness and sin about in us? We know it did, but grace did much more abound.

Jesse Halsey had faith. He had so much faith in God that he possessed what we are apt to think is uncongenial to faith—common sense. I presume it was as plumber to Dr. Grenfell that he began his formal preparation for the Chair here at McCormick that he was later to fill. We who were his students learned that Christian faith was nothing if it was not practical. Because he believed in God’s providence Dr. Halsey didn’t consider that the Almighty needed a mouthpiece to justify His every move. His prophet knew when to keep still. He taught us there are times when you don’t say a prayer.

There is abundant evidence about us to shatter any delusions we have of human goodness. What the world needs, we are being told, is Jesus Christ, the Hope of the world. For me the hope of Christ in mortal form is Jesse Halsey, because he not only saw men and God but he believed they were meant to be together.

Take his love for the beautiful. You know how zealous he was for the beauty of worship—that the service be done decently and in order. You know how he delighted in the beauty of the ancient liturgies; or take his handiwork in this chapel. You remember how bulbs and plantings began to sprout at the doorsteps of Chalmers Place—and not only at No. 846. Are these man’s attempt to worship God, or are these manifestations of the beauty of God in the life of man? Whichever way you take it, for Dr. Halsey God and man were meant for each other.

In the little booklet he prepared for servicemen he put this quotation of Lincoln: “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.”

Not only on Chalmers Place, but in each of us he went about finding the signs of God that we couldn’t see for the thistles. And we came to realize that God meant us to live in a garden—not a jungle.

Circumstances permitted some of us to know him intimately during our student days. For others, like myself, he was not truly known until he came into our homes after we had got into the pastorate. When that happened, as it did all too seldom, he became part of our home. My wife and young children responded to the warmth of his presence. The children invariably were at their best! After my own father died, he was to us in the truest sense of the word a father in God to our family.

You will forgive the personal reference. I make it because I think it reproduces what many of you know to be true. It is good for all of us to remember that here was a man who knew men and who knew God and who believed they were meant for communion. That is why for all of us in time of trouble Jesse Halsey is “a living hope.”

By Donald C. Wilson

McCormick ‘45

“The Skipper”

Southampton Press, Thursday, Jan. 21, 1954

In Memoriam

The Rev. Jesse Halsey, D.D.

1882-1954

The sea was always in his eyes

As in his blood;

The English earth his heritage,

His sires, the skippers of proud ships

Out of Southampton’s

New World port

Two hundred years agone.

He lov’d the salt-tang’d air,

The restless, rolling water drew him

From a thousand miles,

Like tides upon his heart

Toward home and rest and peace.

His hands were seaman’s hands,

Busy, apt to any task

To build, to smooth,

To climb where few would dare,

To set a gentle flower,

To bind a wound,

To brush aside a tear,

To pray.

Like season’d oak, his heart,

Handwrought and mellowed,

Weathered fitting by the foul and fair;

He knew his craft—the hearts of men

And like his Master,

No stranger he to ax and plane,

Or storm-toss’d day,

The satisfying weariness of eventide;

His art—the ships he built—

The lives he sent out from his ways

Sound wrought and rigged,

To wrest and bring

A hard-won cargo safely home.

His heart a skipper’s Heart,

The Master’s Order, his;

And certain as a chart that fact

To all

Who signed on in his company.

No wonder to his mates,

The Master, satisfied,

Called out, “Cast off!”

And he obeyed.

By Samuel Gregory Warr

Assistant to Dr. Halsey, Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1940-1941.

Jesse Halsey | Obituary

Southampton Press | January 1954

Dr. Jesse Halsey

The Reverend Doctor Jesse Halsey, one of Southampton’s most respected and admired citizens, died early Tuesday morning, January 12, at the Southampton Hospital. He had been ill for two weeks, following a stroke.

Dr. Halsey, who was seventy-one, had been living with Mrs. Halsey in the family home on North Main Street, Southampton, since his retirement in 1952 from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

A direct descendent of one of Southampton’s founding families, Dr. Halsey was born in Southampton in 1882, the son of Charles Henry and Melvina Terry Halsey. After graduating from local public schools, he attended Princeton University and the Princeton University Graduate School and Seminary, receiving his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Seminary.

After being ordained in 1910, the Rev. Dr. Halsey began his ministry with Sir Wilfred Grenfell in the earliest days of the Labrador Medical Mission. In 1913 he became pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he served for 29 years.

Dr. Halsey served with the YMCA in Russia during the First World War and was American Chaplain with the British Navy. In 1940 he became Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgies at McCormick Seminary in Chicago, a post he held until his retirement in 1952.

In the latter years of his life Dr. Halsey shared with young ministers the wealth of his experience as a pastor. His advice on the planning of church buildings and sanctuaries was constantly sought after. In addition to his pastoral work, he was active in those Presbyteries of which he was a member, and was concerned with the larger activities of the church through the General Assembly. For many years he worked on the executive committee of the Board of Missions, and at the time of his death was a member of the Sixth Service Command for the Army and Navy chaplains.

Beyond his concern for the Presbyterian Church, the Reverend Mr. Halsey was active in civic and charitable organization in Cincinnati, Chicago and Southampton. As president of the Southampton Historical Society, he was instrumental in the founding of the Southampton Historical Museum in 1951. He was the author of many articles centered about his boyhood memories or topics of local interest for The Press.

Surviving Dr. Halsey are his wife, the former Helen Isham; a son, Charles Henry Halsey of Westhampton; two daughters, Mrs. Joseph Haroutunian of Chicago and Mrs. James A. Van Allen of Princeton, and eight grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held this afternoon at two o’clock in the First Presbyterian Church of Southampton, of which Dr. Halsey was a member and often served as guest preacher. Officiating clergymen will be Dr. John Christie, vice-moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the United States; Dr. Robert Worth Frank, president of the McCormick Theological Seminary; Dr. Joseph Haroutunian, professor of Systematic Theology at McCormick Theological Seminary and son-in-law of the deceased; the Reverend John L. Felmeth, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church; and the Reverend Herbert Moyer, pastor of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.

Honorary pallbearers will include Leon P. Hildreth, Daniel Halsey, J. Foster Terry, Thomas Corwin Sr., Lewis E. Downs, C. Edwin Dimon, William K. Dunwell and David E. Halsey. Serving as pallbearers will be Dr. Kenneth B. Wright, Thomas White, Samuel F. Herrick, Malcolm Terry, Donald Seabury and Donald Corwin.

Campaign On To Erect a Memorial To Rev. Dr. Halsey In Southampton

Bridgehampton News | September 23, 1954

Joint effort of the Southampton Colonial Society, Garden Club and Board of Trustees to build a memorial to the Rev. Dr. Jesse Halsey have met with initial success in the drive for funds. Mrs. Carl. C. Hansen, Head of the colletion committee indicated this week

The Rev. Dr. Halsey, an eminent Presbyterian divine, one of the most respected figures in Southampton Town and well-known in Bridgehampton, died at Southampton Hospital Jan. 12 after a two-weeks illness.

The monument envisaged by the Southampton organizations is a Memorial Entrance to the Captain Rogers’ Homestead in Meeting House Land, home of the Southampton Historical Museum.

 

The Rev. Dr. Halsey was direct descendant of one of Southampton’s founding families. After graduating from the local public schools he attended Princeton University and the Princeton Graduate School and Seminary, obtaining his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Seminary.

Ordained in 1910, the Rev. Dr. Halsey began his ministry with Sir Wilfred Grenfell in the earliest days of the Labrador Medical Mission. In 1913 he became pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he served for 29 years.

Dr. Halsey served with the YMCA in Russia during the First World War and was American Chaplain with the British Navy. In 1940 he took the chair of Pastoral Theology and Liturgies at McCormick Seminary in Chicago, from which he retired in 1952 and came back to Southampton.

“It would be difficult to do justice to the good he did for humanity,” said Mrs. Hansen, “without a very lengthy recital.” She added that the illustrious clergyman frequently kept to himself personal activities that less modest people would have given publicly to in an endeavor to gain acclaim.

“His interest in Southampton and its vicinity, especially Bridgehampton, Mrs. Hansen said, “was keen and lifelong. He was elected president of the Southampton Colonial Society and was instrumental in founding the Southampton Historical Museum. WE feel that such a life should not go unremembered.”

Mrs. Hansen expressed the hope that Bridgehampton residents and especially the members of the Presbyterian Church, will contribute generously to this project. It would, she said, be a fitting memorial to a man dedicate to the spiritual good of the community.

Jesse Halsey: Teacher of Men

“I give you the end of a golden string;

Only wind it into a ball—

It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate

Built in Jerusalem’s wall.”

With these words of Blake, Professor Halsey offered to us all the distillation of a more abundant life, that our lives might be as full as his.

As a teacher in the classroom, “this noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, that first he wroghte and afterward he taughte.” He was most eager to teach by good infection and by capturing the spirit of being in his Master’s call. He did not expect verbal agreement or theological unity. He longed instead to instill something far deeper than these, a sense of spiritual harmony forged in the love of his Lord.

As a genial host in his home, Dr. Halsey could not be matched as he read his beloved Ian Maclaren and John Bunyan, because he had seen in his soul and heart what they saw and were trying to describe; and by his voice he linked us with them in mood and sense.

As a true bishop in our field work, he exercised patience over our impatience, and he opened our eyes to the personal color in our own work. Then he pinted out for us the lessons of every crisis and every problem solved.

As a pastor and friend, “Uncle Jess” was a Christian artist at listening, for his silence was never impatient or impersonal. It was a mixture of real concern for us and a remembrance that deep plowing may tear up the present garden of happiness but may bring far more lasting loveliness to the surface. No hour was too late, no distance too great for him to link his best Friend with his friends in loving prayer. And more often than not, as we left to follow the path he let us take, Jesse Halsey’s footprints were in his Lord’s ahead of ours.

“Another Christian Athlete

Gone forth for Thee, O Christ,

Claimed for Thee the victory,

Asks of Thee his crown.”

-William N. Colwell, ‘50

Minister of Immanuel Presbyterian Church

Yonkers, N.Y.

McCormick Speaking

Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6

Jesse Halsey, 1882-1954

In Memoriam

Jesse Halsey: Pastor, Presbyter, and Friend

When I went to a Cincinnati pastorate during the first World War, Dr. Jesse Halsey was in Russia under the aegis of the Y.M.C.A.; but his name came up more frequently than that of any other minister in the town. Newcomer that I was, I found it impossible to believe that any one man could do all the things that people said this man did—preach, visit those sick or in prison, use the printing press, do plumbing, paint houses, repair pipe organs, cook, etc.

One day, as I looked out of my study window, I saw a man approaching, carrying a collection of beautiful Arctic furs. It was Jesse Halsey, just returned from the Murmansk coast where he had, for a season, represented both the United States and Britain, and where the British admiral had been sufficiently familiar with him to roar and swear at him affectionately.

One did not need to be in his company long to discover that he possessed unusual qualities. He knew and loved books, and The Book. He needed not that any should testify of men, for he knew was in man. He knew how to do almost everything that anybody does with his hands, and he was always doing something with those hands for anyone in sickness or distress.

He had an incorrigible faith in people. Like his Lord, he believed that one who was lost was only lost, and that he might be found and saved. He knew how much the humble and the poor needed encouragement and friendly help. He knew also how much the successful but spiritually destitute likewise need help.

God gave him an amazing stock of good Long Island common sense, plus an abundance of the wisdom that cometh down from above. His counsel, therefore, was sought by all.

He labored more than other men, and he loved more than they did. He was tireless in his exertions—others he was forever sparing, never did he spare himself.

He had a most sensitive appreciation of what was significant in art, music, and literature. His mild eye was forever discovering truth and beauty in the things that hourly happen to us. Twenty times a day he would see or listen to something notable, suggestive, or moving. Then from his pocket would come an envelope or a bit of paper and a stubby pencil. Every night, when he emptied his pockets, he had a store of simple and unhackneyed illustrations.

His church members loved and admired him; so did his neighbors of all creeds; so also did his assistant and his church custodian!

He was a good presbyter. In troublous times he kept his temper and his tongue and steadfastly loved his brethren, though never yielding his conscience or his convictions to their dictation. He could suffer fools gladly as none other could. He was the friend of forlorn causes, and he shamed the rest of us into duty by his example.

Jesse Halsey was an excellent preacher, but his daily life was his best sermon. For many, indeed, it was his life that made his Gospel credible.

Dr. Grenfell, for whom he was chaplain in Labrador for three years, shall have the last word here. I saw the letter in which, shortly before he died, Sir Wilfred wrote, “I have seen more of Jesus Christ in you than any man I ever knew.”

-John W. Christie

Minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, Del.

McCormick Speaking

Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6

Jesse Halsey, 1882-1954

In Memoriam

In Memoriam: Jesse Halsey, 1882-1954

McCormick Speaking

Vol. VII | March, 1954 | No. 6

On Tuesday morning, January 12^th, Dr. Jesse Halsey died in the hospital at Southampton, Long Island. A funeral service in keeping with his own practice and spirit as a pastor was held on January 14^th at the Southampton Presbyterian Church to which his forebears had belonged for generations and in which he himself had grown up into the Christian faith. The service was in charge of his intimate and long-time friend, Dr. John W. Christie.

The passing of Dr. Halsey has left many people, young and old, bereft of a uniquely gracious, wise, and understanding friend. During his eleven years as Lane Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics at McCormick he was an able teacher and something much more. He was the discerning pastor and rarely gifted counselor and guide of both his students and his colleagues. For Jesse Halsey was a man who loved people with an outgoing friendliness that was warm, genuine, abiding, and always delicately tactful.

But his friendliness was never wishy-washy. He was a man of sturdy Christian convictions—convictions that were quiet, not loud, that were deep, not for surface display. Whoever knew him very long was sure to discover these convictions and to feel their essential soundness, force, and depth. Underlying and controlling these convictions was a gracious and winsome spirit of reconciliation. This spirit dwelt mightily in him. Wherever he went or spoke or counseled people, he was knitting human hearts together in the love of Christ and of one another. There was something in the temper of this man that healed the spirit of faction and division. He studied the peace, unity, and purity not only of the Church but of human relations wherever he was present. To an unusual degree his nature untied and blended strength and tenderness, strength without hardness or the will to dominate, and tenderness without softness or sentimentalism.

And who of us has not felt his power of appreciation? The parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost prodigal must have been dear to his heart. He was always finding the contemporary originals of these parables and giving them new hope through his appreciation and love. To hard pressed and bereft people he brought the most helpful ministry of comfort. He knew that every heart carries some burden, some invisible load of heaviness. And like Greatheart in his much beloved Pilgrim’s Progress he was quick to discern and gentle and strong to share the weight of the burden.

“Do you see yonder shining light? Said Evangelist to Christian as he began his journey. He said, “I think I do.” Then said Evangelist, “Keep that light in your eye . . .” From the beginning of his ministry to the end Jesse Halsey kept that light in his eye. Because of this faithfulness and by the grace of God, he was himself an evangelist, an interpreter, a Greatheart, and a man named Help to countless other pilgrims seeking the way of salvation.

--Robert Worth Frank