METHOD.-HUMILITY.-ACTIVITY. 109 "I have been seriously considering which would be the best course for me to pursue in the future. My engagements with Mr. L. will terminate in a few days, and I do not feel disposed to shackle myself for the coming year as I certainly have during the past. I have sought the counsel of some of my father's tried friends, as, for instance, Messrs. Hodgson, Durbin, Thompson, and others, and they advise me to enter the itinerant field, assuring me that I will not only have more time, but more disposition to study. I have calmly and dispassionately weighed this advice, and think it is good; that perhaps it would be to my advantage, in an intellectual point of view, as well as the consideration that, in the hands of God, I might be made useful.” Alfred's mother, in referring to his habits at this date of his life, says, "He very early threw in his efforts (with others) to work among a class of degraded human beings, who were drunkards, and were almost taken out of the gutters. His young voice was often heard in denunciation and earnest entreaties for them to turn from sin and become new men in Christ Jesus. With what zeal and earnestness did he follow these poor outcasts! Alfred was very exact in the distribution of his time. He had to depend, in a great measure, on his own efforts. He felt himself a fatherless youth, and had very ardent yearnings to acquire knowledge, and to prepare himself to fill a useful and honorable position in life. Thus he became a very diligent student in the various departments constituting a thorough scholar. In Latin, Greek, German, and French, he was very proficient, and his knowledge in the arts and sciences was considerable. Even at the age of twelve his father acknowledged he was farther advanced in those branches than he was himself at the age of eighteen. Humility and timidity were two of his peculiar characteristics, which kept him from any thing like display or assumption." Subsequently to his license to preach, and before leaving Baltimore, he preached frequently. His friend, Mr. Samuel Kramer, a local preacher, would take him to his country appointments contiguous to the city, and would have him supply for him. All the opportunities he could desire, and more per haps than was prudent for so young a beginner, were opened to him. His engagements were constantly up to the full measure of his strength and his time. In the best pulpits of the city his services were accepted, and in the best society of the city his company was eagerly sought. The name he bore was hallowed to the people. They were prepared, for his father's and mother's sake, to listen to his words and to love his character. But he was every thing in himself that was attractive-one of the most engaging youths who ever stood in a sacred desk or moved among a circle of friends. There was a freshness and healthfulness of physique, an openness of physiognomy, a spiritual beauty, a ripeness of culture, a manifest piety, a gracefulness of movement, and a native eloquence which won all hearts; and from this early day until his death there was no minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church who could draw together a larger crowd of ardent, admiring hearers in the city of Baltimore than Alfred Cookman. A halo invested him from the beginning to the end of his career. CHAPTER VII. THE YOUTHFUL PASTOR. HIS FIRST CIRCUIT. BUT the time had now come when plans for the more regular and permanent exercise of his ministry began seriously to agitate him. We have already seen from his last letter that thoughts of a collegiate course had been entertained and discussed. It appears that the counsels of his father's closest friends were adverse to this, and favorable to an immediate entrance upon the itinerant ministry. The question may have come to others as to myself: Why did not Mrs. Cookman settle in Carlisle after the death of her husband, where she could have had for her sons the training of Dickinson College? She had lived there-cherished many pleasant memories of the town and its people—had a scholarship of five hundred dollars—and it was proposed to her to go there; but her health was too feeble to allow it. When residing there she was nearly disabled by the climate, and she could not venture to live in it again. Why, then, did she not send Alfred? Simply because her purpose was fixed not to separate her children while they were in process of education. wished them all at home, and at that time she needed Alfred as really as he needed her. She thought and acted for herself in the matter. She was afraid to trust her boy at college away from her, and since she could not accompany him, it was decided he must do the best he could with such facilities as Baltimore afforded. Mrs. Cookman honored learning much, but she reverenced goodness more. She may have taken counsel of her fears, but the wisdom of her decision none can presume to question till the records of the son's life are unfolded in eternity. She Certainly the results of his ministry are not such as to leave room for many regrets on the ground of greater possible usefulness. What he was we know; what he might have been with the influences of the broader culture which comes of the studies and associations of the college we can not fully conjecture. A more liberal education, prosecuted at greater length, would probably have rendered him different, in some respects, from what he was as a man and as a preacher, but it is extremely doubtful if it could have rendered him more intense in his personal and ministerial influence. In the cry for scholars, we are too apt to forget that it is not so much ideas as their application; not so much new truths as the practice of old truths; not so much thinkers as actors-men of deeds—that the great world needs. A man to move and mould the people must be a man of positive convictions, be the circle of his knowledge never so small, rather than a critical investigator. Alfred Cookman was capable of becoming a scholar of a high order, but he chose to narrow the sphere of his studies to the subjects which nourished his own soul satisfactorily, which he felt would make him most useful as a pastor, and it was the thoroughness with which his intellect grasped these, and the heartiness with which he believed them, that gave him in his domain so marked an ascendency over the minds of the people. So that I am frank to acknowledge that if a collegiate education (taking education in its multiplex sense) would have made his ministry different from what it was, I can scarcely see how it could have made it more useful. I fear the contrary might have been the result. Upon the whole, it is quite safe to assume, where the sincerest efforts are made by those who have the shaping of Christ's chosen instruments, that their course is about such as God orders, and in the outcome is the best for them and for His Church. The point being settled that the young evangelist should at once make full proof of his ministry by entering the regular pastorate, the next question for decision was, "What conference REASONS FOR REMOVING TO PHILADELPHIA. 113 shall he join?" Some of his friends urged him strongly to seek admission into the Baltimore Conference, while others as strongly urged the advantages of the Philadelphia. It would have been natural for him to remain where he was, but the reasons for going to Philadelphia were controlling. His former and much-beloved teacher, the Rev. Robert Pattison, had joined that conference; several of his young associates, such as Charles J. Thompson and Adam Wallace, preferred it; his father had first united with it, and he wished, as far as possible, to follow in his footsteps. But, as usual, the mother's judgment turned the scales. There were better schools and better opportunities of business in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania was a free state. Her repugnance to slavery made her adverse to rearing her children in contact with it. There was another consideration which weighed with her possibly more than all others: she felt the time had come when she must give herself more fully to the care of her children. So numerous and pressing were her social and religious engagements, that she found it quite impossible to impart the instruction and sympathy which their increasing years demanded. She was expected to be prominent in every benevolent movement of the ladies, to attend all their prayer-meetings, to be present at their social entertainments-indeed, to be foremost in every good word and work, and with only very limited means at her command; to superintend personally a large family of children, all of whom were boys but the youngest-these must be paragons of neatness, propriety, and intelligence-and she must be universal mother and sister in the fellowship of joy and in the fellowship of pain to all who needed her counsel or sought her sympathy. It could not be she must go back again to the old position, when she elected to fashion men rather than to be a missionary. While, therefore, her heart was deeply attached to Baltimore and to its loving, noble Christians, she determined that, for her family's sake, she must cut herself loose from their : |