COOKE, PARSONS. 



355 



every part of the United States, visiting the 

 chief cities, presenting the claims of the soci- 

 ety in the churches and in ecclesiastical meet- 

 ings, holding colporteur conventions, transact- 

 ing business with the society's friends, and 

 with agents, superintendents, and colporteurs, 

 la these labors his great energy and vitality 

 were well employed ; and his tall, erect form, 

 his countenance so expressive of thought and 

 resolution, his vivacity, his dignified, courteous, 

 and pleasing manners, secured him ready ac- 

 cess to the good will of strangers. He was 

 gifted with a mind of great comprehensive- 

 ness, versatility, and inventiveness, and with 

 remarkable executive powers. 



Few men have so well understood the power 

 of the press, advocated its right use more elo- 

 quently, or employed it for good more effect- 

 ively. Besides writing for the society's own 

 issues, he exerted a wide influence through the 

 principal religious and secular periodicals, 

 adapting to each fresh and striking editorials, 

 which the publishers gladly adopted as the ex- 

 pression of their own views. 



Mr. Cook made two visits to Europe, in 

 1853 and 1856 ; and during these visits labored 

 to interest British Christians in the colporteur 

 enterprise. The result of these efforts appears 

 in the present active prosecution of that work, 

 especially in Scotland. At the time of his 

 second visit his health had been very seriously 

 impaired by his incessant and exciting home la- 

 bors ; and having been again prostrated in Switz- 

 erland, by a pleuritic attack threatening life, 

 he was led to ask relief from the service of 

 the Tract Society, and in May, 1857, his labors 

 as Secretary ceased. 



Returning to America in September, 1857, 

 with partially restored health, he soon engaged, 

 with characteristic energy, skill, and persever- 

 ance, in promoting the better observance of 

 the Sabbath, as Secretary of the Committee 

 organized for this object in New York City ; 

 and his sagacity, prudence, and industry, in 

 this important work, secured valuable results. 



In the spring of 1863 he added to his Sab- 

 bath work several weeks of exhausting labors 

 in organizing and energizing the Christian 

 Commission in New York. These double cares 

 and labors broke down his health, and he 

 never rallied, though visiting the coast of Flor- 

 ida and of Maine, and combating his disease 

 with unabated resolution to the last. 



COOKE, Rev. PARSOXS, D. D., an American 

 Congregational clergyman, editor, and author, 

 horn in Hadley, Mass., in 1800, diefl in Lynn, 

 Mass., February 12th, 1864. He was educated 

 at Williams' College, where he graduated with, 

 distinction about 1821, and immediately com- 



menced a course of theological study with Rev. 

 Dr. Griffin, at that time President of Williams' 

 College. He completed his preparatory theo- 

 logical studies in 1825, and, on the 26th of 

 June, 1826, was ordained as pastor of a newly- 

 organized Congregational Church in Ware, 

 Mass. He continued in this pastorate for ten 

 or eleven years, and then removed to Ports- 

 mouth, X. H., and after a ministry of a few 

 months there, became pastor of the First Con- 

 gregational Church in Lynn, Mass., with which 

 he remained until his death a period of twen- 

 ty-eight years. Not long after he had entered 

 upon his pastorate at Lynn, he became editor 

 of a denominational paper in Boston, at first 

 to relieve his Church, which had become 

 greatly embarrassed in building a church edi- 

 fice, from a part of the burden of his support, 

 and subsequently from the conviction that h,e 

 could be most useful by continuing in that 

 work. He was at first editor of the "New 

 England Puritan," and when that paper was 

 united with the "Recorder,'' of the "Puritan 

 and Recorder ; " and some years later, when 

 the paper returned to its original title of the 

 "Boston Recorder," he was its senior editor. 

 This connection was maintained till his death. 

 Dr. Cooke (he received his degree, we believe, 

 from his Alma Ifater, Williams' College) was, 

 by the constitution of his mind, argumentative 

 and logical, and from an early period of his 

 ministry he became an active controversialist. 

 His first published controversy grew out of a 

 sermon which he preached in Ware, and pub- 

 lished in 1829, on "The Exclusiveness of Uni- 

 tarianism ; " and after he became connected 

 with the religious newspaper press, being 

 strongly Calvinistic in his views, and declaring 

 his sentiments in vigorous and pungent lan- 

 guage, he was for many years involved in 

 almost constant controversy with the New 

 School, or Moderately Calvinistic Congrega- 

 tionalists, giving and receiving very heavy 

 blows. By way of diversion from this pro- 

 tracted theological warfare, he would occasion- 

 ally break a lance with the Baptists, the Epis- 

 copalians, the Universalists, or the Catholics. 

 Most of his published works, and they number 

 several volumes, besides occasional sermons, 

 addresses, &c., are controversial in character. 

 In private life he was frank, generous, high- 

 minded, and eminently genial and kindly; a 

 man of strong affections and sympathies, though 

 also of bitter dislikes. As a pastor he was 

 much beloved, and was popular as a preacher, 

 though inclined rather to doctrinal than horta- 

 tory preaching. His last illness was protract- 

 ed, and his sufferings much of the. time wore 

 exceedingly acute. 



