"Let Us Give Thanks!"

November 1932 | Cincinnati Enquirer

"Ye Did Unto Me"

Prayer for Social Justice

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

Passover Prayer

   O taste and see

The S and the church

X our Passover

This is my comm—

  ~eloved let us love

If any man come

Whosoever is chief am

Henceforth

Not every one that

COME unto me

Blesse hunger

Behold I stand at door

Ask and it shall

I beseech

Beloved now are we

Bless the Lord

What shall separate us

--Reverend Jesse Halsey

from Jesse Halsey's Prayer File

“I Say My Prayer” by Cora Morton

I say my prayer tonight with grateful heart,

Though outwardly the world brought nothing new.

No gift for men to see, nor act apart

From habit and routine. I plied my task

As I shall do tomorrow. Yet, dear Lord,

It is for simple things like these I ask.

Thou wilt accept my thanks. With fateful sword

Unsheathed in many lands, so many men

Have quite forgot the softness of a breeze,

The joy of homely toil. I pray unto these

Who, fighting for great ends, must forfeit small

And intimate delights. My humdrum days

Take on new meaning with their moments all

Deep-rooted in Thy peace, filled with Thy praise

The World war-torn, I thank Thee, Lord, again

For quiet corners such as mine.

                        Amen.

1902

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord"; the words came slowly but with firm enunciation, deep groanings and checked sobs were impounded by their cadence no doubt. The habit of years could not be broken. The family were at morning prayers though the oldest son had just died. My father, past seventy, read on, for fifty years this had been the daily routine, now it stood him in good stead, as it had before. Twenty years ago his young wife had died, now it was his eldest son; "He knoweth our frame, He remembreth . . ." He hesitated then stopped. It was a good terminus; the rest was so obvious just now.

--Jesse Halsey