COOKE, HENRY. 



OOQUEREL, ATHANASA L. 0. 205 



COOKE, Rev. HENBY, D. D., LL. D., an Irish 

 Presbyterian clergyman, polemic and author, 

 born at Grillagh, near Maghera, Ireland, May 

 11, 1788; died at Belfast, Ireland, December 

 13, 1868. His father was a small farmer, and 

 unable to do much for the education of his son, 

 but the early promise of the lad attracted the 

 attention of the Presbyterian ministers of the 

 vicinity, and through their assistance he was 

 fitted for Glasgow University at an early age, 

 and entered, in his fifteenth year, a tall, raw- 

 boned youth. He was obliged to support him- 

 self by teaching as a private tutor during his 

 university course, and hence did not take any 

 of the honors, though he maintained a respect- 

 able scholarship. In 1808 he was ordained 

 and settled at Duneane, near Toome, and, a 

 little more than two years later (in January, 

 1811), was called to the large and wealthy 

 congregation of Donegore, county of Antrim. 

 Here he soon became distinguished alike for 

 his eloquence and his decided orthodoxy. In 

 1814 he preached a very able discourse, which 

 was immediately published, in aid of the funds 

 of the Belfast House of Industry. In 1818 he 

 was called to the still larger congregation of 

 Killyleagh in County Down, where he soon 

 became involved in a controversy with the 

 Arians, first with an English Unitarian min- 

 ister, Rev. J. Smithurst, with whom he held 

 numerous viva voce discussions, ending with 

 the complete discomfiture of his antagonist, and 

 then with Rev. Henry Montgomery, a mem- 

 ber of his own synod, who avowed Arian sen- 

 timents and sustained them with a remarkable 

 eloquence, great rhetorical power, and an im- 

 posing personal presence, which was well cal- 

 culated to awe any man who controverted his 

 views. The controversy between Montgomery 

 and Cooke commenced in 1827, and was fol- 

 lowed up for two years, the antagonists being 

 in most respects well matched, though in logi- 

 cal acumen, in ready repartee, and power of 

 invective, Dr. Cooke was the abler of the two. 

 The discussion ended in Montgomery's defeat 

 and withdrawal from the synod. At its close 

 Dr. Cooke was called to the May Street con- 

 gregation, Belfast, with which he spent nearly 

 forty years of his life. He was at this time in 

 the full prime of manhood, with a reputation for 

 ability as a controversialist, and brilliant elo- 

 quence as a preacher, second to that of no man 

 in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The 

 tunes were such as demanded a bold leader, of 

 great argumentative powers, and Dr. Cooke 

 was too thoroughly a man of war from his 

 youth to hesitate for a moment in the advocacy 

 of measures which he believed to be right. In 

 the National Board of Education controversy, 

 from 1831 to 1840, he took an active part, ad- 

 vocating the acceptance of the proposals of the 

 Government, when it could be done without 

 any surrender of Presbyterian principle. His 

 conservatism, or, as we should say, toryism, 

 at this time alienated some of his previous 

 friends, but he was not the man to abandon 



for any cause a position which he had once 

 deliberately taken. The discussion of volun- 

 taryism, prompted by the action of the seceders 

 from the Scottish Kirk, and stimulated to 

 greater intensity subsequently by the organ- 

 ization of the Free Church of Scotland, was 

 another topic which called forth all his elo- 

 quence, logic, sarcasm, and invective. He op- 

 posed the voluntary system with the utmost 

 vehemence ; and the maintenance of the Irish 

 Presbyterian Church in its condition of semi- 

 dependence upon the Government and its con- 

 tinued reception of the regium donum was 

 due in a great measure to his efforts. In 1841 

 he entered the lists with Daniel O'Connell, 

 having challenged him to a discussion of the 

 advantages and disadvantages of Repeal of the 

 Union to Ireland. Dr. Cooke's address to the 

 people of Belfast, in reply to O'Connell's soph- 

 istries, was terrible in its satirical power, its 

 scathing invective, and its bold defiance of the 

 great repealer. In 1844 he was involved in a 

 controversy in his own synod in regard to the 

 location of the Magee College, for which a 

 large bequest had been left. In the end this 

 resulted in the erection of a collegiate institu- 

 tion at Derry on the Magee foundation, and 

 the establishment of the Irish General Assem- 

 bly's College at Belfast. In this latter college, 

 in 1847, Dr. Cooke was appointed to the chair 

 of Sacred Rhetoric and Catechetics. On re- 

 ceiving this appointment he resigned the pas- 

 torate of the May Street congregation, but at 

 the urgent request of the people continued as 

 their perpetual supply till March, 1868. His 

 powers as a preacher did not fail till a few 

 months before his death, and his audiences 

 continued to listen with evident interest to his 

 discourses till the close of his life. He was 

 three times moderator of the General Assembly 

 of the Irish Prebsyterian Church, and was uni- 

 versally regarded as the ablest of her presiding 

 officers, during the present century. His prin- 

 cipal published works are his controversial dis- 

 cussions, some occasional discourses and ad- 

 dresses, and an edition of Brown's " Self-inter- 

 preting Bible, "with copious annotations. 



COQUEREL, ATHANASE LAUKENT CHAELES, 

 a clergyman of the French Protestant Reformed 

 Church, a politician and an author, born in 

 Paris, August 27, 1795 ; died in that city, Jan- 

 uary 10, 1868. He was connected with Eng- 

 land and English literature, through his aunt, 

 Miss Helen Maria Williams, a well-known 

 writer, who undertook the charge of his early 

 education. After completing his academical 

 and theological studies at the reformed institu- 

 tion at Montauban, he was ordained in 1816, 

 and was offered the incumbency of the Angli- 

 can Church in the Island of Jersey, but de- 

 clined it, because he could not subscribe to 

 the Thirty-nine Articles. He then went to Hol- 

 land, and was first appointed pastor to the 

 French Church in Amsterdam, and subse- 

 quently preached to the Calvinistic churches 

 in Ley den and Utrecht. In 1830 he returned 



