DEATH OF FATHER JOCELYN.
Another Christian hero has laid aside his armor and received his crown. The Lord did not break the dies when He made the last of the ancient Martyrs or of the Puritan heroes. In great emergencies he reproduces them after their kind. The anti-slavery struggle needed them and they came forth, and among them there was no braver man than the gentle and amiable Simeon S. Jocelyn. It is a mistake to suppose that the bold and determined men who take front rank in great moral conflicts are destitute of kindly impulses. Father Jocelyn was utterly uncompromising where duty called, yet I have seldom known a man of more tender sympathies, of quicker, almost womanly sensibility to sorrow or suffering. Nor are all such men, as is often imagined, so intent on pushing forward their great reforms as to overlook the rights of others. Father Jocelyn was most scrupulous in regard to the minutest claims of all men, even of his opponents. Nor are all such seemingly rash and headlong men lacking in caution. Father Jocelyn was the most cautious man I ever knew. Indeed this trait was, in some sense, a hindrance to his activity, for he instinctively saw the many adverse bearings and possible misconstructions to the course contemplated or to the document to be published. The marvel is that such a man could ever have become an abolitionist—that he could have risked reputation, property, and even life itself, in an enterprise so doubtful of success and beset with so many dangers to the peace of the church and the nation. The only explanation is in his clear perception, through all glosses, of the path of duty, and the overwhelming impulse of conscience to pursue it in spite of all dangers. Of such stuff are moral heroes made.
The piety of Father Jocelyn was sincere, deep and all-pervading. He was a man of prayer and of close communion with God, active in Christian labors in public and private, and of a beautiful simplicity and transparency of character—a saintly man. A Puritan by birth and conscientious conviction, his religious life was after the strictest model, yet his tender sympathies rendered him kind as well as faithful in counsel or warning, while his broad Christian charity made him liberal toward all who loved the Saviour.
Father Jocelyn was born in New Haven, Ct., in 1799, and was early converted to Christ. He began active life as an engraver, but relinquished a prosperous business to preach the Gospel to the poor, devoting his ministry to a feeble colored church in New Haven. The anti-slavery cause from the beginning had his warmest sympathies and most earnest co-operation. The American Missionary Association had no earlier or steadier friend. When the Amistad captives were landed in New London, and prompt and persevering efforts were made to re-enslave them, a committee of gentlemen was organized in New York to watch over their interests, and at the head of that committee stands the name of S. S. Jocelyn. Throughout the long struggle that secured their liberties and their return to their native land, accompanied by a missionary and teacher, Mr. Jocelyn was constant in his active exertions; and when at length that committee and other similar bodies were united in the formation of this Association, he was forward in founding, and constant thereafter in sustaining the new organization. He attended the meeting in Albany when the Association was formed. He was its Recording Secretary from 1846 to 1853, Corresponding Secretary with charge of the Home Department from 1853 to 1863, and from that time till his death was a member of the Executive Committee.
We extract from an article in the Advance, by Dr. Roy, the following account of the funeral:
“The funeral was held in the New England Church of Brooklyn, E. D., where he had his membership. In the large congregation there was a fine representation of colored people. The Executive Committee and other officers of the American Missionary Association were present. The pall-bearers were a squad of veterans of the old Liberty Guard. The pastor, Rev. Mr. Hibbard, presided. A few words of affectionate sympathy with the brothers and sisters who had been bereaved of their father, were spoken by Rev. J. E. Roy, whose father, also at the age of eighty, a few months before had been called away.
“Dr. Strieby spoke of the work of the departed in the American Missionary Association, and especially with eloquent words depicted the tremendous moral courage, the great cautiousness, the womanly tenderness, the transparent simplicity which were blended in his character. Strange that so sweet a man ever had the grit to take up the battle against slavery. Rev. Mr. Ray, a colored minister, who had known Mr. Jocelyn, and had been associated with him for forty years, gave fitness to the occasion by his words of gratitude, and by several telling reminiscences,—one of which was that, in 1839, Mr. Jocelyn came down from New Haven to take up the gauntlet of debate upon the colonization question with Mr. Robert Finley. The discussion was in a hall in Nassau Street, and Mr. Jocelyn’s main reliance was the word of God.
“Rev. Mr. Lockwood, a former pastor, bore loving testimony. Dr. Edward Beecher went back to an acquaintance of fifty years ago, when a student in Yale College, under concern of soul, he went to Mr. Jocelyn. He was such a spiritual, faithful Christian as a young man in passing that crisis would be apt to seek out. Dr. B. was associated with him in his Sabbath-school and church work among the colored people, and carried with him that same impulse when he went to Illinois College, and stood by Elijah P. Lovejoy until they shot him down. In closing, Dr. Beecher said that the words appropriate to the character of the departed were: ‘In simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world.’”
M. E. Strieby.