LAST SERMON IN THE CAPITOL. 79 sat in the Speaker's chair, facing Mr. Cookman. The whole space on the rostrum and steps was filled with Senators and Representatives. The moment had come. Mr. Cookman, evidently much affected, kneeled in a thrilling prayer, and rose with his eyes blinded with tears. His voice faltered with suppressed emotion as he gave out the hymn, 666 "When marshaled on the mighty plain, The glittering hosts bestud the sky, One star alone of all the train Can fix the sinner's wandering eye. "Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks, "Once on the raging seas I rode, The storm was loud, the night was dark— The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed The wind that tossed my foundering bark.' “The hymn was sung by Mr. Cookman alone. I can yet, in imagination, hear his voice, as it filled the large hall, and the last sounds, with their echoes, died away in the dome. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. “‘And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.' "Mr. Cookman was more affected when he gave us the text than I had ever seen him before. He several times passed his handkerchief over his eyes before he began. The first sentences are fresh in my recollection: 'When Massillon, one of the greatest divines that France ever knew, was called to preach the funeral service of the departed king, in the Cathedral, at Paris, before the reigning king, the royal family, the chambers, and the grandees of France, he took with him to the sacred desk a little golden urn, containing a lock of hair of the late king. The immense congregation was seated, and the silence of death reigned. Massillon arose, held the little urn in his fingers, his hand resting upon the sacred cushion. All eyes were intently fixed upon him. Moments, minutes passed-Massillon stood motionless, pale as a statue; the feeling became intense; many believed he was struck dumb before the august assembly; many sighed and groaned aloud; many eyes were suffused with tears, when the hand of Massillon was seen slowly raising the little golden urn, his eyes fixed upon the king. As his hand returned again to the cushion, the loud and solemn voice of Massillon was heard in every part of the Cathedral, 'God alone is great!' So I say to you to-day, my beloved hearers, there is no human greatness-God alone is great!' "The subject was on the day of judgment. I had heard it preached before many times, but never as I heard it then. The immense congregation was held almost breathless with the most beautiful and powerful sermon I ever heard. He spoke of the final separation on the great day of judgment, and fancied the anger of the Lord locking the door that led to the bottomless pit, stepping upon the ramparts, letting fall the key into the abyss below, and dropping the last tear over fallen and condemned man. He closed —'I go to the land of my birth, to press once more to my heart my aged father and drop a tear on the grave of my sainted mother; farewell!—farewell!' and he sank down overpowered to his seat, while the whole congregation responded with sympathizing tears." A correspondent of the National Intelligencer, describing the same scene, after quoting Mr. Cookman's closing words, says: "There was something prophetic, solemn, and deeply affecting in the tones and manner of the preacher. *** All who had known him, or who had listened with wrapt attention to the eloquence which gushed from his lips, touched as with a living coal from the altar, were moved to tears, and seemed to feel as if they were taking in reality a last farewell of one who had given a new ardor to their piety, and thrown an additional interest into the sanctuary. The whole scene was in no ordinary degree grand, imposing, and affecting. The magnificent hall, a fit temple for the worship of the living God; the crowd that had assembled to hear the last sermon of the minister whose eloquence they so much admired; the attitude of the preacher, and the solemn and prophetic farewell, all conspired to excite feelings of the deepest solemnity and of the most intense interest." CHAPTER V. REV. GEORGE G. COOKMAN LOST AT SEA.-ALFRED'S RAPID PROGRESS. MR. COOKMAN spent a few weeks about Washington, completing his arrangements and taking leave of friends, and immediately after the first dispatch of the new Administration was prepared by Mr. Webster and committed to him, he left for New York. His last words to the gentleman so freely quoted from were, "May Heaven bless you, Mr. Smith; if ever I return you shall see me in the West." He spent Sunday, 7th of March, in Philadelphia, worshiping with and taking the communion at the hands of his friend, the Rev. Dr. Suddards, rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church. On Monday he went to New York, and on Tuesday evening preached his last sermon in the Vestry Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was to become the pastor after his return from England. He had intended to go to Boston and there take one of the Cunard steamers, but at the solicitation of friends changed his mind, and embarked on the steam-ship President at New York on the 11th, for Liverpool. He left amid the tears and congratulations of friends. Neither the vessel nor any of her company was ever after heard from. Various conjectures were given at the time as to the ship's probable fate, the most likely of which is that, as a violent storm had been raging for days, she foundered soon after getting to sea. Hopes were entertained for a long time that she might be safe; or, on the supposition that the vessel had foundered, or had been burned, or had been crushed by icebergs, it was hoped that her crew and passengers had been rescued. As the time arrived when tidings were due from the steamer, and no word came, the suspense both in England and America became intense and painful. The excitement prevailed among all classes. Steam-ship navigation was then comparatively in its infancy, and an accident to a steamer very naturally awakened more attention than now when fleets of them are plowing the ocean. The fact that Mr. Cookman was a passenger heightened the public interest. His name was on every lip; his merits as minister and orator, his worth as a citizen, his loss to the Church and the nation, but above all to his young family, were the theme of general conversation and newspaper comment. At length all hope for the ship and her passengers died out of the public mind; but not so in the heart of the stricken and devoted wife-hope lived in her heart many days after it had perished in the hearts of all others. She lived months and years with the expectation of seeing him return. The house was daily and nightly arranged-his chair at the table ready to be vacated, and all else adjusted with the expectation of his coming at any hour. Although not yet an accomplished fact with Mrs. Cookman, it was an accomplished fact that her husband had perished in the great waters. That "vasty deep" which he so loved, and from which he so often drew for choice imagery in the illustration of truth, and in the use of which he was almost without a peer, had become his grave. "He has discouraged me," said a Senator, distinguished for his eloquence, "in the use of my happiest figures. There is such a richness, beauty, and force in his illustrations from the ocean, so far surpassing my reach, that I know not that I shall ever again attempt to use them." That ocean which he had several times crossed, where death had before stared him in the face, all whose myriad ways in storm and calm had become familiar to his mind, whose endless forms and colorings he had studied with an artist's eye and transferred with an artist's skill to the tables of memory, in solitary communion with which he SORROW ON THE SEA-AND ON THE LAND. 83 had had so many thoughts of God and human destiny, so many seasons of prayer, praise, and aspiration, in whose awful silence and restless life he had found such strange sympathy with his own nature, from which he had in all these respects received so much for his own enriching, had now at last received him. His loss pierced thousands of loving souls with acutest sorrow. But painful as was his death, the manner of it—sudden-in the sea-involved in mystery-threw around his end a tragic charm which well comported with the brilliancy of his reputation, and which served to deepen and extend his already widespread influence. In the prime of his life, at the height of his fame, in the fullness of his intellectual powers, and in the maturity of grace, he was not, for God took him. A star of the first order was suddenly quenched. But another star was to arise in due time, if not of equal splendor, yet certainly of equal clearness and steadiness in its shining. I could fill pages with the public and private testimonials of the grief which pervaded all classes of society, and all circles of pursuit and profession, at the sad death of this eminent and good man. It would be pleasant to linger over these tender and discriminating tributes to his virtues, his services to the cause of Christ, and the rare eloquence with which God had endowed him, and which he had so successfully cultivated, but I am admonished by the limits of space and purpose which confine me, and the demand that I should hasten to bring forward into greater prominence the youth whose name and fame so quickly followed in the wake of his father's. Mr. Cookman wished and intended to take Alfred with him to England. He thought it would be gratifying to the grandfather to see him; and the son had attained an age at which he could be a companion to his father, and also derive much improvement from travel. I can imagine how strong the paternal instinct was in him, and how he must have yearned to have his first-born accompany him in so long an absence from |