The Old Bishop: A Tribute to Boyd Vincent

by Jesse Halsey | c1934

**Published on February 1, 1935, in the Churchman with the following note from the editor: This charming and accurate sketch of the beloved Bishop Vincent was written several months before his death, which occurred on January 14. The author is the pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati. In a letter accompanying the manuscript he wrote: "The 'Old Bishop' is dying. I just came from there. I should have sent this before. I wanted you to have something from me. He has been a dear friend."

Neither knock-kneed nor bowlegged is he; but bent from use on many of his Lord’s errands, his rather substantial body is still carried about on his ‘old pins,’ as he calls them. He gets along at a good pace on the street, with the aid of his stick; bent but not broken he is quick of movement through severely cautious, for he dreads a broken hip. They call him “the old Bishop”; for there is a young one . . . there have been several younger than he serving as his suffragans but he has outlived them.

Eighty-seven now, his mind is as active as when he went to Yale. He read the best in his own field and delves into history and revels in biography. He is constantly writing and occasionally he preaches. Quick at repartee and always mildly joking, he shares his board with the humble and the great alike. On Thanksgiving Day he had eight of the unemployed to dinner. If you meet him on a back street or at the Zoo, he will be munching peanuts and he will offer some to you.

“Curious, isn’t it? My main business seems to be attending funerals,” breathing on his Episcopal ring he lightly burnished it on his coat sleeve, and went down the avenue. Every day he walks out, takes a streetcar downtown to the Diocesan office, makes a call at the hospital or on some old friend. If it is a formal or ecclesiastical errand, he takes a taxi, wearing his formal black broadcloth. That’s the way I like best to see him, he looks like an English Dean, save for the knee breeches.

If you know him well he will receive you at his home in an old gray coat or dressing gown. If he doesn’t, you must wait until he dresses properly. He never wears a back-buttoning collar, but an old-fashioned turnover with a clack bow tie with both collar and tie visible above a low cut clerical vest.

His voice is melodious and strong. The services of the church he knows by heart, having acted as Presiding Bishop, though without the title, for six years. He has presided at and assisted in many consecrations and any young bishop might well covet his blessing.

There is a story that on one occasion when he was to preach at his Alma Mater, as his little old bent form came into the chancel an all but audible groan came up from the boys. Then, however, his superb voice boomed out through the building from the pulpit the audience sat up and gave the speaker undivided attention through his eighteen minute discourse.

When you go to call he will give you his best chair, pulling up his own close, that he may hear. He will offer you a cigar and if you accept will produce one of his own choice, a little thing about the size of a cigarette and in this semi-abstemious fashion keep you company. If you are an addict he will tell you that he has always advised his clergy to smoke during Lent when their duties are heaviest, and to abstain some other time—if they must do penance.

He knows something about everything that develops in conversation. He will listen attentively and speak with enthusiasm. He is interested in everybody and will talk of Plato and Dean Inge, of Hugo Grotius or Mussolini. You will find he knows the ramifications of NRA codes and has seen “Little Women.”

His brother’s monument stands above the Devil’s Den atGettysburg—a Brevet Brigadier, it was he that carried out Warren’s orders and saved Little Round Top. Both the Bishop and his brother, then a Colonel, had loved the same girl. The soldier won her, was married, went to war and was killed. Years after as the General’s widow, the lady came to keep the Bishop’s house. They decided to marry, but our Bishop, with punctilious conscience, went to the House of Bishops with the ancient question of the ‘deceased brother’s wife’ that still looms large in Anglican life overseas. The Bench of Bishops expressed some dissent, so our Bishop stayed a bachelor “for his work’s sake.” His sister-in-law ordered his household until she died. So like Phillip Brooks, our Bishop has had his romance too. You learn of this from other lips than his, however. But you might guess it from his gentleness and strength.

Quite bald, there are wisps of white hair atop his head and a liberal snowy thatch on either side. He goes clean shaven; his face is somewhat drawn (he was deathly sick last summer) but almost unwrinkled. He has delicate lips, a refined, though not inconspicuous nose, his head is round and clear and blue eyes look straight out at you through silver rimmed bi-focals.

He is the oldest of the Anglican Bishops (that means American or British), and had a large varied acquaintanceship. He will tell you (if you are interested) tales of Lambeth, or Bishops and Archbishops. Once on an errand of Church Unity, he visited the Pope, but that is too long a story to repeat here.

One, however, I remember. A story that Lytton Strachey tells of Queen Victoria, but probably it is true only of Archbishop Benson.

Benson, the English Primate, was averse to smoking. He detested the habit and on all occasions let his feelings be known. But among the Archepiscopal functions is that of convening the Lambeth Conference at the palace of that name in London. This is a meeting of all Anglican Bishops throughout the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the host.

Wine there was in plenty; to this the Archbishop had no aversion. But smoking was taboo. A certain bishop, who shall be nameless, was found, late after the adjournment of an evening session; found on his knees rapt in devotion before the unlighted fireplace. Three times the Archbishop Benson knocked at his guest’s door, when finally venturing in found his quest upon his knees—not praying, but smoking up the chimney.

A scholar, a gentleman of the old school, growing old gracefully and usefully among us, our Bishop (I, no churchman, call his “ours”) goes in and out among us adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour. His gait may be halting but it is never a shuffle. And all the while his spirit faces forward as he looks toward ninety—and “the Best that’s yet to be.”

Seneca

Reverend Jesse Halsey | Chicago c1942

“Come after Me and I will make you . . .”    Matthew 4:19

A group of Roman boys went with their troubles to Seneca, the philosopher. After hearing them patiently, he said: “What you need is someone to follow.”

The obverse of that coin I saw on Sunday at the Ravenswood “L” Station. On a billboard was chalked in big black letters, “Heil Hitler. To H--- with F.D.R.” Someone to follow!

Sabatier said that man is incurably religious. I believe it and have seen no end of people forsake the faith of their fathers to go off into some new ism. We al follow someone. It is a matter of choice what kind of a leader it is. Some years ago, after preaching in an Eastern Prep School, at lunch the young Headmaster told me very frankly, “That was ‘old stuff,’ the boys no longer think of heroes.” (I had preached a sermon on Joshua.)

That evening the senior class met for supper at the Headmaster’s house. I was asked to talk to them, so I asked them to ask me some questions. They said, “Tell us about Grenfell.” “Tell us about Lenin.” (They had been told I had been in Labrador and in Russia.) Here it was—“old stuff” sure, but “someone to follow.”

The Roman boys asked Seneca, “Whom do you suggest, sir?” He said, “Socrates.””

Immediately (likely with bad grace) the young men began to pick flaws in the character of Socrates.

Two seminary students years ago were spending the weekend in the home of a Moravian saint and learned Bishop. They had been airing their ideas on the Trinity, the person of our Lord, and whatnot. Finally, one of them with a belated courtesy turned to the Bishop and said, “Uncle Eddie, what do you think?” And the old Bishop simply said, “He is my hero,”—someone to follow!

Sir John Seeley in Ecce Homo indicates that unless we find Christ as a man, we are not likely to discover Him as a Savior. That is the experience of many, including the writer. “Someone to follow!” He is my “hero”! (I suggest that during the month that we read one of the gospels through every day. Suppose, for example, that the next thirty days we should each day read St. Luke (the most beautiful book ever written, Renan said), and intimately associate with the character there portrayed by the beloved physician.—“Someone to follow!”

He is my hero because of His infinite patience (one reason among a thousand others). I see him take shifting Simon in hand and of that characterless quantity make Peter—the rock. John, “the son of thunder” is transformed into the beloved disciple. It took a long time; the process is slow; but the grace irresistible. Thomas the doubter I am glad he was included, he is so like so many of us, included among the disciples not for his doubts’ sake, but for his loyalty—“Let us go up to Jerusalem and die with him.”

Patient with them, patient with us!

And then He is my Hero “because of His courage.” With the small cords and blazing eyes He cleanses the temple of grafters, overturning the money changers’ tables with indignant speech, “Make not my Father’s house a den of thieves.” Demosthenes, himself, never equaled the fiery invective in which my Hero denounced those who “steal widows houses and for a pretext make long prayers.”

The red badge of courage is worn by those who do the will of God, but even a greater courage is required to bear the will of God, and with a “face like flint” Christ set himself to go up to Jerusalem, where a cross awaited—“For this hour came I into the world.” Soul agony, but no hesitations—“My God, why?” “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Courage to bear the will of God—My Hero!

A group of children were wrestling with a jigsaw map of these United States. Maine and Florida and California and Washington—they knew the corners. Square Utah and Kansas, they were easy, but crooked Cape Cod—Massachusetts, and funny little Delaware didn’t fit. Finally, in desperation they turned the puzzle over and with swift progress put it together, for on the wall of their grandfather’s study they had seen many times the features of the “Father of His Country,” and the picture puzzle of Washington went together much faster than the States on the other side. This is a parable of the experience of many:

“That one face, far from vanish, rather grows,

            Decomposes but to recompose,

Becomes my universe that feels and knows.”

“Someone to follow”---and Jesus said, “Come after Me and I will make you!”