A Living Hope

30 March 1929 | Cincinnati Enquirer

A Living Hope by Dr. Jesse Halsey, Minister of the Seventh Presbyterian Church

God and Father—Our Lord Jesus Christ—A Living Hope—The Resurrection—An

Inheritance Incorruptible—I. Peter 1:3-4

Easter comes with its message of Hope and Courage; like all deep things it begins in mystery. We don’t pretend to understand all that happened on the first Easter Day nineteen centuries ago, but we believe that the Lord Jesus showed Himself alive to his friends, and that in their new-found faith they went out to transform the world. Faith in God leads one to expect the great and mysterious. We live in no simple world; mystery—the mystery of life and death—surrounds us. We reach out beyond the things we see.

I believe first of all because I want to believe. One, at times, may argue the question of immortality and consider the case unproven, but let some one of his own flesh and blood pass within the veil and reason surrenders the place to love, so that many a hard man has set his face toward God in hope of one day seeing a little head on which the sun is ever shining. Napoleon said that the heart was a place in the body where two large veins met, and that a statesman needed to have his heart in his head. The same ideal possesses the formal philosopher. It is only when one says with Tennyson, “I have felt,” that he will experience the strong urge of the unseen world. “I can’t and I won’t disbelieve.”

This does not mean that our hopes are unreasoned and are but a fond imagination. There are good and sufficient reasons for believing, but first comes the attitude of mind and heart that is positive, constructive, and desirous.

We are citizens of two worlds. One is material and tangible, like water; the other is spiritual, unseen, intangible, like air. But the latter is no less real than the former. Our bodies are of the earth earthy, but we are spirit, living in a transitory earthly tenement. Some day we will slip off this “body of humiliation,” but the eternal spirit will take its way to God, who is the Author of life and our Eternal Home.

It is not selfishness that makes us want to live on, but a stern conviction that the best that the universe knows is that spiritual reality, which we vaguely call personality. The faith and hope and love that we have experienced in life—our friendships, all convince us of the value of persons. If anything in the universe has permanence, it ought to be these supreme values. Such values we enthrone at the heart of things in God.

And in Jesus Christ we have seen all lovely qualities incarnate. His life—so beautiful, so strong—we call divine. Is it reasonable to think that reality like this goes out in death? Can a few nails and a Roman spear end such a life? If death could destroy Jesus Christ I find my essential faith destroyed—faith in the reality of all human values; faith in God; faith in reason; faith in an ordered universe. Then the materialist is right—biochemistry explains everything in the realm of human life and faith and love and hope mean nothing!

So while we keep the feast of the Savior’s Immortality we pause in grateful remembrance of all the pure and beautiful souls who have walked with us in strength and gentleness and love. We are strengthened in the assurance that what was bound up with our life and made a dear part of our being cannot be lost; that they and we are safe in the hands of God our Father, who brought Jesus Christ through the experience of death into a new life which those who follow Him may share. God is the God of this and every world, visible and invisible. Character like Christ’s resides in Him, and He is pledged by the very nature of His being to honor the supreme qualities for which the whole creation labors.

Ode on the Death of President Roosevelt

1932 | Letter to Jesse Halsey regarding rights to Teddy Roosevelt poem

A Living Hope

1932

Sermon: The Present Christ

Jesse Halsey | 1944

“It is expedient that I go away. I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.”

These words in the 16^th chapter of St. John have their parallel for our purpose in the last verses of St. Matthew’s gospel, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.”

I know nothing of textual or high criticism, but I am going to date both texts very late; not A.D. 33 or 65, or 110, or 200, but 1944, or any other date you want to give! This is the Highest Criticism. In other words, we seek the contemporary value and equivalent and experience that these words used to convey!

Last Sunday night I walked from one station to another in Springfield, Illinois—

“. . . here at midnight, in that little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now,

He is among us: --as in times before! . . . .

The prairie-lawyer, master of us all . . .”

(Vachel Lindsay)

That you say is poetry. I understand. And in that poetic sense Jesus comes back.

Quentin Reynolds, in a book scarcely dry, tells of talking with a London bobby who believed that Sir Francis Drake took command of the English boys who went up with their old crates to meet the first onslaughts of the Luftwaffe.

The solid old admiral, under whom I served in the British Navy, believed that Francis Drake was present at the battle of Jutland:

“Take my drum to England—

Guard it by the shore

Call me when your powder’s running low.

When the Dons sight Devon

I will leave the court of heaven

And we’ll drum them from the Channel

As we drummed them long ago.”

That, you say, is mythology. I know. And all the truth that the great myths can carry gather round that Sacred head. The Catholics have a much more fitting word for the truth I have in mind, they call it “Tradition.”

Travelers in Russia tell us that many a Russian peasant and soldier believes tht e Lenin has come back to life. That, you say, is sheer superstition. I know it. But when we speak of the Resurrection and Living Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not dealing with superstition.

The British soldiers who fought so desperately at Mons—some of them believe that they saw angels on the battlefield. I once asked Studdert-Kennedy, the great chaplain, if he thought there were angels at Mons, and he said, “Well, there were men at Mons and where there are men there can be angels!” It is the spiritual presence of our Lord and its contagion—of this we are thinking.

Look for a moment at that young Jerusalem deacon named Stephen. The apostles were too busy, or too proud, to “serve tables,” so they delivered that responsibility to a group called deacons. The irony of the situation develops in that Stephen, the table server, becomes the most popular preacher in Jerusalem! When he is stoned to death, they hear him say, “Lay not this sin to their charge.” It is the echo of our Lord’s word on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Then there was that other young man, named Saul. He never saw Jesus in the flesh; none-the-less, he saw Him and heard Him—“Saul, Saul, why . . . ?” He said of his companions, “They heard not the voice of Him that spake to me.” Take one example from his life: In the shipwreck—that hour of peril and imminent disaster, it is not the Roman Centurion and the soldiers who prove the heroes of the occasion, but this little man, Paul; not the captain (he and the sailors turned coward), but this little man named Paul. He takes command, “Sirs, be of good courage. Last night I saw the angel of God, whom I serve. He said to me, ‘Be of good cheer.’”

And so through the contagion of Christ’s courage, embodied in the little man Paul, the situation is saved and “all come safely to land.”

Augustine, in the garden, heard a voice and turned his back on the old way of life. So on across the succeeding years of the Christian centuries, “I am with you!”

I knew a boy some fifty years ago, he might have been 12 years old. In the midst of his play he was called to fill the kitchen wood box. Reluctantly, he snatched grandfather’s old wheelbarrow, ran it violently into the big woodpile, climbed to the top, picked up the biggest billet of wood and was about to hurl it down in vengeance on the old vehicle, when suddenly his arms froze in mid-air! Quietly and shamedly, he put the big stick down, clambered off the woodpile, loaded up the wheelbarrow, and with succeeding loads filled the big wood box (with the help of his playmates, for like Tom Sawyer, he knew how to make them work for him). He could say with Paul, “They heard not the voice of Him that spake to me.” But he heard it!

Christ still speaks—and in ways we can understand if we listen!

Preface to: A Living Hope

Suggestions for Funeral Services 

(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1932)

By Jesse Halsey
 

In Loving Memory of 

Wilmun H. Halsey

1920-1928

“The Little Levite”

O give me Samuel’s mind

A sweet unmurmuring faith,

Obedient and resigned

To Thee in life and death,

That I may read with childlike eyes

Truths that are hidden from the wise.

--James D. Burns, Evening Hymns

The ministry of consolation makes large demands upon one’s reserves. Collected from many sources, these pages are offered by way of suggestion and guidance in the enrichment of the ministry.

Brevity without haste is to be desired; dignity without coldness; sympathy without sentimentalism. A Christian hope and faith should pervade all.

It is hoped that this material will be amplified by the brotherhood. The publisher or the compiler will be glad to receive contributions of helpful selections for use in future editions.

The funeral address is being less often used. The prose selections and the poems are offered in hope that they may supply the personal tough that was present, though often overdone, in the old type of funeral “sermon.”

[A decided trend in non-liturgical circles [is] to make the funeral service more simple and more stately, and in liturgical circles to add warmth.

The purpose of this book is to furnish material suitable for all occasions and in line with the present tendency. The funeral sermon or address is disappearing; some bit of appropriate prose from a worthy source, or some lovely poem may well take its place. A short but telling reference to the life and character of the departed is appreciated, whereas a long extempore eulogy is often out of place and offensive.]

The form is loose leaf, so that arrangement of the material selected for use on a given occasion may be assembled in consecutive order, thus avoiding fumbling of pages.

Many blank pages are left in each section. Obviously, as many as are desired can be added by the owner. Room is left in the General Index for growth of the book in the owner’s hands. Its usefulness will depend on the extent to which it is rearranged and added to by the user. There is no completely arranged service in the book, but there is material for many of the emergencies that a pastor is called upon to meet.

[Three of the services as used by the editor are available in print and may be given to the bereaved family with such additions as the minister may make.]

"The Sea Tugged at His Heart"

(In Memoriam: S. C.)

The sea tugged at his heart with all its tides,

            Its colors and rhythms and tumults; and tall ships

Passing at dawn or pausing at twilight were always

            In his eyes and his talk and at his fingertips.

He would show me drawings I only half understood:

            Mechanical plans and charts of schooners and whalers,

Brigs and brigantines, luggers and galleys and galleons—

            And salt was in his talk like the talk of sailors.

Beautiful, big eyed, with rebellious hair,

            I watch him in a stiff wind with his boat,

Letting her have it; and I watch him roping her

            Down at the dock and the spray all over his coat.

And I watch him again at our sloshy old wharf with the rising

            Wind and water suckling him out to sea;

And he gets in his boat and heads into the dawndrift.

            To chat with a certain Captain from Galilee.

To show Him his charts and plans as sailor to sailor,

            To speak as one seaman to another, observing

The beauty of ships, the bravery of men, the terrible

            Glory of the gray gulls plunging and swerving.

Dead? This boy with the sea in his eyes and the morning

            Still great and new in his blood like a trumpet with tones

Lavish and marvelous? Dead? With the sea birds crying

            And the wind and the water crying in his head.

By Joseph Auslander

[On July 1, 1937, Joseph Auslander began his term as the first Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Auslander was noted for his war poems; his best-known work, The Unconquerables (1943), is a collection of poems addressed to the German-occupied countries of Europe.
Auslander was selected for the position, which originally had no fixed term, by Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam. Auslander served as consultant until December 8, 1941, by which time subsequent Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish had decided to rotate the consultantship among American poets.]

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

Jesse Halsey: Funeral Selections

"The Wisdom of Solomon": from Funeral Selections for A Living Hope by Reverend Jesse Halsey

Jesse Halsey: Interment Prayer

 "Interment Prayer": from A Living Hope by Reverend Jesse Halsey

“A city lady . . . a living God”

Notes for a Sermon | Reverend Jesse Halsey | c1932

A city lady came to live with her country cousin who lived next door to us. This was in the days of my youth. In the spring, the ex-city dweller planted some beans in the garden. The weather turned warm after a rain, the bean sprouts promptly sprouted and came up, but to this novice of a gardener they did not behave properly. She uprooted them, turned them over because the beans, she thought, should have stayed under ground instead of attaching themselves to the first two leaves. One day my father saw her predicament and advised her to let nature have its way.

This is a parable for I often observe that we preachers, following our scholarly model are very well informed about the roots. We can give the aetology of some spiritual diseases, can always tell at length about the historical background of prophesy or anything else, tracing it through Scripture back through church history into Holy Scripture, but we are, I fear, not so sure about the fruit. People are asking, “What are the temporary implications of the Gospel?” “What would a prophet say today?” [let] alone “What did he say in the seventh century B.C.?” Never in modern times was there such an upheaval of currently accepted notions, thought, and principles, and most of us do our delving with the root system which we should have more or less completed in student days or as scholarly implies, confined to our studies, but people expect and ask for a scholarship that has come to fruition, a Christian faith that is contemporary. They are asking for a message from those who believe in a living God.

Brevity without haste. Simplicity without coldness.

Note on the publication of A Living Hope: Suggestions for Funeral Services 

(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1932)
Jesse Halsey

Brevity without haste. Simplicity without coldness.

A decided trend in non-liturgical circles [is] to make the funeral service more simple and more stately, and in liturgical circles to add warmth.

The purpose of this book is to furnish material suitable for all occasions and in line with the present tendency. The funeral sermon or address is disappearing; some bit of appropriate prose from a worthy source, or some lovely poem may well take its place. A short but telling reference to the life and character of the departed is appreciated, whereas a long extempore eulogy is often out of place and offensive.

It is hoped that the brotherhood will e led by this beginning to send to publisher or compiler material that has proved helpful to be included in future editions if this prove useful.

The form is loose leaf, so that arrangement of the selected material can be made in the cover, for us on individual occasions.

Three of the services as used by the editor are available in print and may be given to the bereaved family with such additions as the minister may make.