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THE

METHODIST NEW CONNEXION

MAGAZINE.

DEATH OF THE REV. WILLIAM COOKE, D.D.

WITH profound sorrow, in which the whole Connexion shares, we place on record the decease of this venerable and beloved minister. Although he had been spared to his seventy-ninth year, his removal came as a surprise and shock to innumerable friends, who will greatly miss and mourn for him. On the calm, bright morning of last Christmas Day he passed most peacefully from a very sick and suffering home to the unbroken health and happiness of heaven. Although he was unwilling to admit it, his strength had been failing for many mouths, as his immediate friends could not fail to see; but with wonted buoyancy and brightness he kept bravely to various kinds of Christian work, until in the autumn he was prostrated in the house of his much-loved friend, Mr. J. R. Williams, in Cheshire, and there for weeks he lay in intense suffering, relieved by the loving attentions of his host and hostess (of which he spoke in terms of deepest gratitude), and at length, by medical skill, he was so far restored as to be able to travel home; only, however, to linger in weakness, and gradually to pass to "the great majority" above.

We saw Dr. Cooke on his sick bed, and the chamber where the good man met his fate was "privileged beyond the common walks of life, quite on the verge of heaven." "Blessed be God!" said he, "I have no pain of body, and abundant peace of mind. My soul fully rests on my Saviour, and my hope is bright and firm." I spoke of the rest that remains," but he replied with much energy, "Heaven is not to be a place of rest to me! I mean to work there-work much harder than on earth. I look forward with joy to that glorious world, because, with strength ever renewed, I shall be able to do so much for my beloved Saviour and Lord. Oh! blessed be His name!" And thus he was kept to life's close.

February, 1885.

5

VOL. LXXXVIII,

With a beloved wife confined to her own apartment, and a widowed daughter in feeblest health, carried down by a thoughtful brother from her sick chamber now and again to their dying father's room, that she might get a brief glimpse of, and exchange a loving word with him, his position was, indeed, a trying one; but he accepted it with a faith which no trials could enfeeble, and a submission to the Divine will very beautiful to behold.

On the last day of the old year his mortal remains were committed to the grave in Nunhead Cemetery, where his first wife and his lamented son-in-law, the Rev. Thomas Carlisle, were interred long years ago. The funeral service was held in Trinity Church, Foresthill, whither the corpse was carried, and where a large number of saddened friends met the mourning family. Among others we observed the Revs. T. D. Crothers (President), J. E. Radcliffe (Pastor), G. Jones (Vicar of Christ Church), Dr. Todd (Baptist), W. L. Watkinson (Wesleyan), J. Bartlett (Congregational), H. J. Chancellor (Presbyterian), J. Martin, F. W. Bourne, C. Sweet (Bible Christian), A. M'Curdy, Dr. Ward, E. Wright, H. L. Thompson, G. W. Crutchley, and Messrs. J. Whitworth, J. H. Brierley, G. A. K. Hobill, J. Mote, J. R. Williams, Dr. Price, W. T. Rabbits, H. Hayward, A. Crawford, H. Wheeler, and R. H. Macdowell. The Rev. W. Longbottom and Mr. Alderman Ridgway represented the church at Hanley, and the Rev. C. Linley and Mr. J. Smith attended as a deputation from Dr. Cooke's native town of Burslem. After hymns, prayer, and the reading of the usual scriptures, exercises in which the Revs. J. E. Radcliffe, Dr. Todd, w. L. Watkinson, F. W. Bourne, A. M'Curdy, and Dr. Ward took part, the Rev. T. D. Crothers, President of Conference, delivered the following address:

MY CHRISTIAN BRETHREN AND FRIENDS,-There is much to justify religious rites at the burial of any true friend and follower of Christ. Departure into the unseen and eternal state is intended to be impressive; God would have men listen to His voice as it speaks to them in every instance of mortality. We do well, therefore, to gather about the remains of brethren in the Lord, that we may receive with open and sensitive hearts such instruction, admonition, or encouragement as meditation on their career and its close may be fitted to afford. But sometimes there are reasons of special authority and force for a solemnity like this. When a devoted servant of God, endowed with high intellectual powers, and enriched with mature Christian excellences, having long and usefully occupied a prominent place before the public, disappears from our midst in response to the heavenly call, "Come up higher," it is not less an obligation than a privilege to mark the completion of his course by some hallowed ceremonial, and the utterance of some seasonable words.

We are here this day, as you know and feel, not only as sympathisers in a domestic loss, but as sufferers from a great public bereavement. The stroke which has severed the head from a family has also deprived our denomination of one of her most distinguished ministers, and the Church

in general of one of her most devoted sons. Would that I could speak of him as my heart desires, because from my youth until now I have regarded Dr. Cooke with mingled affection and veneration. Brethren, not a few could be named whose fuller experience and superior gifts would enable them to present a tribute to his memory in a worthier manner than I can ensure, but it rests upon me by office, under whatever sense of insufficiency, to represent the Connexion, now looking with mournful tenderness upon his bier, and to say a little about his personal qualities, his varied labours, and his abundant usefulness.

A memorial school, built a few years since at Burslem, Staffordshire, commemorates the circumstances of his birth in that town in the midsummer of 1806. At an early age he entered the Sunday-school belonging to Bethesda Chapel, Hanley, and whilst yet a youth he became a living member of the Church there, having diligently sought and blissfully realised reconciliation with God and good hope through grace. A meeting of youths like himself, early in the morning of the Lord's Day, for united prayer, religious conversation, and mutual assistance in the study of revealed truth; prayer-meetings in different parts of the town for the good of the aged, the sick, and the poor; the circulation of tracts, and direct persuasive efforts to bring the negligent to divine worship, were amongst the exercises which nurtured his piety and kindled his zeal. He began his labours in our ministry in 1826, and soon acquired renown as a minister of unusual efficiency and acceptance. In 1836 he was made Superintendent of the Irish Mission, which expanded and flourished under his active oversight. At the Conference held at Hall in 1843 he was raised to the presidential chair, and in later years the same honour was conferred on him a second and a third time. It was during the term of his first presidency, whilst he was stationed at Newcastle-on-Tyne, that his rare controversial energies were so illustriously employed in the refutation of the heretical teaching of one whose powerful influence on the side of error made him a truly formidable antagonist. At the Conference of 1848 he was appointed Editor of the Connexional Magazines, in which capacity for more than twenty years his mental characteristics and extensive learning appeared to great advantage.

I ought not to leave unmentioned two other departments or forms of his multifarious activity. Before our college was established and brought into full operation, he assisted young men in preparing for ministerial work; as an author, also, he "served his own generation by the will of God," binding multitudes in this and other countries to himself by strong ties of indebtedness. The list of his instructive and healthful publications is a long one, and comprises a large variety of subjects. His great work, entitled "The Deity: an Argument for the Existence and Attributes and Personal Distinctions of the Godhead," his "Christian Theology," and his book on "The Shekinah," have been very highly appreciated both within and beyond the bounds of his own denomination. The merits of these and other leading productions of his pen sufficiently account for his wide and lasting reputation. But the preaching of the Cross was the work he loved most, in which he most excelled, and which drew forth and displayed the whole range of his abilities. He gave deserved prominence to the chief Christian verities, the main doctrines and duties of religion Avoiding speculations more curious than useful, nice points of casuistry, debatable questions of little importance, however they may be settled, he handled themes of an animating and impulsive order, themes of primary and universal interest, and showed by his treatment of these how well he understood his office as 66 an ambassador for Christ." Yet he kept back nothing that was profitable, but discoursed on the truths of revelation in all their latitude and large variety. Those who have listened to his clear declarations and earnest appeals, aided as these were by the

charm of an untrammelled and commanding delivery, will not readily forget the great features of his eloquence, or the breadth and depth of the impressions it produced. Of his attention to strictly pastoral duties, I need not speak. Whilst he laboured among you here as a pastor and teacher, you know with what kindliness and with what impartiality he made himself a healer of your sorrows and a helper of your joys. He was widely known for his liberality and catholicity of spirit. His attachment to his own denomination, whose distinctive principles he was sometimes called to explain and defend, was warm and steadfast; but he was also emphatically "a lover of good men," and of all good objects. The Christian minister is required to be an example to believers, who themselves are exhorted to "be blameless and barmless, the sons of God, without rebuke." By the grace of God he walked circumspectly, and led a consistent life of practical godliness. Throughout his extended course his reputation was stainless and without reproach. In a fragrant memory, a bright example, he has left to his family a precious inheritance such as neither wealth nor rank will ever be able to bequeath. The President proceeded to speak of the event as a call to quickened watchfulness and diligence, and concluded with references to the comfort available for the bereft.

On the Sunday following the President preached to a large congregation in our Trinity Church, Forest Hill, where the funeral service had been conducted. The text was Phil. i. 21: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." In the course of his closing remarks the preacher said :

You are a bereaved church and congregation by reason of the departure to his heavenly home of the beloved and distinguished man who, a few years since, was your faithful and affectionate pastor. Rarely has any branch of the Church of Christ to deplore the loss of so estimable and eminent a minister as Dr. Cooke. Truly, "a prince and a great man hath fallen in Israel," a prince by attributes of ascendancy both natural and acquired; a great man according to any just estimate of greatness, and leaving behind him a name which the community of which he was so attractive an ornament will not willingly let die. He had completed seventy-eight years when God took him. We thank the Preserver of men who continued him to us and to the Divine cause so long, and enabled him almost to the close of his career to give public testimony to the power and preciousness of Immanuel, in whom he trusted. It was in September last I saw him for the last time—in the neighbourhood of Chester, in the house of his valued friend, Mr. Williams, of whose kindly offices he spoke in ardent praise. He was then slowly recovering from a short but most distressing illness. He told me that previously he had no conception that human nature was capable of such excruciating pain as he had undergone. Yet throughout the affliction he was full of adoring thankfulness, as well as of serene and composing trust. I am glad to learn that he was not called again to suffer in like manner, but that he passed painlessly and tranquilly away. His beloved wife, now his widow, and his dear widowed daughter, have for years had to drink the cup of suffering, and in all their affliction he was afflicted, but God strengthened him with might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. He is now where every cause of disquiet and grief is unknown. May his surviving relatives, both at home and abroad, so live, and at length so die, that they may be finally reunited to him in the world of glory. May we all follow after faith, and love, and devotedness like his. And while, like Elisha, as he watched the