By the time of their departure for the Holy Land Sibyl and Eli Jones had traveled in the ministry for more than a quarter century. They had preached in New England, eastern Canada, Southern, Middle Atlantic, and Midwestern U.S. states, in Liberia on Africa’s West coast, and in England, Ireland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and France. Eli had once rose and spoken for an hour and a quarter at London Yearly Meeting, and Sibyl twice visited Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House to comfort her after the President’s assassination.
Sibyl and Eli were “liberated” for their journey to the Middle East by China Monthly Meeting, Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting and New England Yearly Meeting. Their nephew, Haverford professor of religion and co-founder of the American Friends Service Committee, Rufus M. Jones, in his 1889 biography of the couple described their departure that April day in 1867:
“They were attended on board their steamer by a large delegation of Friends from Lynn, Salem, New Bedford, and Providence. Here they mingled in Christian sympathy and in a season of religious fellowship, giving their fellow-passengers the opportunity of witnessing such brotherhood in Christ as used in the olden time to induce the exclamation: ‘See how the Quakers love one another!’ Among those who came to bid them adieu and attend their religious exercises were John A. Andrew, governor of Massachusetts, and General Banks. It was especially interesting, as marking a striking contrast to the treatment which the missionary Quakers two hundred years before received at the hands of Boston officials.
John Greenleaf Whittier, who at one time had a desire to accompany them, wrote the following beautiful verses for the occasion:”
As one who watches from the land
The lifeboat go to seek and save,
And, all too weak to lend a hand,
Sends his faint cheer across the wave,―
So, powerless at my hearth to-day,
Unmeet your holy work to share,
I can but speed you on your way,
Dear friends, with my unworthy prayer.
Go, angel-guided, duty-sent!
Our thoughts go with you o’er the foam;
Where’er you pitch your pilgrim tent
Our hearts shall be and make it home.
And we will watch (if so He wills
Who ordereth all things well) your ways
Where Zion lifts her olive hills
And Jordan ripples with His praise.
Oh! blest to teach where Jesus taught,
And walk with Him Gennesaret’s strand!
But whereso’er His work is wrought,
Dear hearts, shall be your Holy Land
1. Jones, Rufus M., Eli and Sybil Jones: Their Life and Work, 1889 (Middleton, Delaware reprint, 2022) pp. 63-64; pp. 191-193 of original edition.
2. Ibid. pp. 64-65 (original edition pp. 192-194)
