CHAPTER XX.

PROGRESS OF PRESBYTERIANISM.

WHEN the late Dr. Cooke entered the ministry, says his biographer,' he found the Presbyterian Church infected and almost paralysed by a deadly heresy. He found Irish Protestants generally indifferent to the claims of vital religion; he found the public mind deeply imbued with sceptical and infidel opinions; he found the education of the masses in a state of lamentable neglect. Seeing and deploring these evils, he resolved to become a reformer. He spent ten years in unceasing and laborious preparation. Then, during a period of fully thirty years, his life was a continued series of battles for truth. In every battle he was victorious. He freed the Church of his fathers from Arianism. He gave a new impulse to religious life and work among the Protestants of Ireland. He largely contributed to mould the Government schemes of elementary and collegiate education, so as to adapt them to the wants of the people. And he founded and consolidated a constitutional party in Ulster, which preserved the peace of the country and gave a death-blow to repeal.'

The proverbial partiality of a biographer, the affection of a near relative, and the admiration of a political partizan, have given too much colouring to this picture. It is true that Dr. Cooke held strong opinions, both religious and political; that he propagated and defended them with extraordinary powers of wit, irony, argument and eloquence; and that he bore down opposition with whatever intellectual weapons came to hand at the moment, never losing a victory through excess of scrupulosity. He was to the Presbyterians of Ulster something like what Mr.

Life and Times of Henry Cooke, D.D. LL.D.' By the Rev. Professor Porter, D.D. London, John Murray, 1871.

O'Connell was to the Roman Catholics of the nation.

He won

his popularity by a protracted war against Unitarianism, the professors of which were then the ablest, the most learned and eloquent men in the Synod of Ulster. Their leader was the Rev. Henry Montgomery, who was physically and intellectually one of the most magnificent men, and one of the most accomplished orators that any country ever produced. Dr. Porter does ample justice to his powers. He says Mr. Montgomery's presence was commanding, his manner graceful, his style chaste and classic, his voice singularly sweet. His speeches abounded with sparkling wit, touching pathos, and powerful declamation. Referring to one of his speeches in synod, Dr. Porter says:- Never perhaps in the annals of debate, never in the whole history of controversial warfare, were charges grave and terrible constructed with more consummate ingenuity, and pressed home with such overwhelming power of oratory. His denunciations were absolutely appalling; they sent a thrill of horror through the assembly. Once and again he turned in the midst of his vehement philippic, and with voice and gesture and look expressive of bitterest scorn, pointed to his adversary (who sat before him calm and motionless as a statue), and exclaimed: "Who or what is our accuser? Has the Almighty given any peculiar dignity of intellect or person to Mr. Cooke that he should speak so of us?" Towards the close the orator, with matchless skill, again changed the theme and manner. The glance of scorn melted into a smile of benevolence; the voice of triumph gave place to the mellow tone of touching pathos; the flashing eye became dimmed by the gathering tear-drop; the lip, before curled with indignation, now quivered as if with suppressed emotion. In language of classic beauty he alluded to the impending rupture of the Synod; he contrasted the stormy scenes of earthly conflict with the peace of heaven. When he concluded, the Synod, the whole audience, seemed as if under the spell of a mighty magician. When the enchanting music of that marvellous oratory ceased there was for a time a stillness as of death. Then thunders of applause burst from the assembly: they ceased, but were again and again renewed. The Arians were triumphant. The orthodox thought their cause lost. Even the warmest friends and most enthusiastic

admirers of Dr. Cooke hung their heads, or conversed in anxious whispers. Many supposed his character was ruined; all believed his influence was gone for ever.'

The speech lasted two hours and a half. After a short interval for refreshment the Synod re-assembled. The crowd was, if possible, denser than before; and Dr. Cooke rose to reply amid profound silence. Not a voice ventured to greet him with an encouraging cheer. He proceeded with his defence quietly, winding himself into his subject until he gradually won back the sympathy of his audience. No description,' says Dr. Porter, 'could convey an adequate idea of the speech that followed. Mr. Cooke had no notes, yet not a point was overlooked. He had no documents, yet his marvellous memory enabled him to supply the designed omissions, to expunge the damaging interpolations of his adversary. The convictions of Synod and audience were won by the searching, incisive logic and wonderful lucidity of the speaker; their sympathies and hearts were won by the resistless force of his eloquence. He swayed them as by the power of a mighty enchanter; they laughed, they wept, they cheered in turn; the house rang with peals of acclamation. When he resumed his seat the whole assembly rose, and by repeated rounds of applause celebrated his victory. Those who were present have affirmed that they never felt till then the full power of eloquence; and that they never could have imagined the human mind was capable of such an effort, or that human language would have produced such an effect.'

It was indeed a battle between giants, arising out of questions in which the whole population took the deepest interest. The synodical debates were long remembered with admiration and wonder by the Presbyterian laity. Dr. Cooke succeeded in compelling the retirement of the Unitarian members of the Synod, who formed a body of their own called The Remonstrant Synod of Ulster.' In order to secure the orthodoxy of those who remained, Dr. Cooke also succeeded in pledging the Synod to Absolute Subscription' of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Catechisms; and they appointed a Theological Committee to watch over the faith of the young Life,' pp. 196-200.

men entering the ministry. Dr. Cooke was for years the great leader in Ulster of the opposition to the National System of Education, the rallying cry of its antagonists being the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible!' He also took part in the discussions against the Church of Rome previous to the passing of Catholic Emancipation, setting up a free and open Bible' against the creeds, canons, dogmas, rescripts, and anathemas of the Church of Rome, as mere human authority, which could not bind the conscience. Yet neither he nor his followers were able to see that in binding upon the consciences of the ministers of the Synod the enormous mass of metaphysical and theological propositions, dogmas, and interpretations compiled by the Westminster divines-mere fallible men-two hundred years before, in an age when religious liberty was so little understood, and when the science of biblical criticism had hardly been thought of, they were doing all in their power to accomplish the very thing which Lord J. Russell so truly and tersely ascribed to the Roman system—that is, to 'confine the intellect and enslave the soul.' How far their model Kirk of Scotland succeeded in doing so may be seen in the pages of Mr. Buckle.

Dr. Cooke, however, became extremely popular throughout Ireland, not only as the defender of orthodoxy, but as the champion of Toryism. He was unsparing in his philippics against the Liberal party. He supported the Conservative landlords in every electoral contest, enabling them, by means of the Presbyterian vote, to keep the representation of Ulster exclusively in their hands. He defended Religious Establishments with all his might, especially the Episcopal Establishment in Ireland, in spite of its Prelacy, and in charitable oblivion of the cruelties that Prelacy had inflicted upon his own Church in past ages.

In 1834 a great Protestant demonstration took place at Hillsborough, the result of a requisition, signed by the leading men of Down and Antrim, presented to Lord Hillsborough, then high sheriff of Down. It was intended to denounce the Whig Ministry charged with truckling to Popery, and seeking to conciliate the priests by the degradation of Protestantism.' It was a gathering of Conservatives from the whole province. The meeting was held on October 30 in a large field, and it was esti

mated that more than 40,000 of the gentry and yeomanry attended. Dr. Cooke was present on the earnest invitation of Lord Roden. Among the speakers were the Marquis of Downshire, the Marquis of Donegal, the Marquis of Londonderry, and several other peers. But the speech of the day was Dr. Cooke's. It made a great noise at the time, and was long remembered on account of his proposed marriage between the two divided Churches-the Anglican and the Presbyterian. The nature of the union was rather awkwardly expressed, which, perhaps, necessarily arose from the fact that both the parties to be united in holy matrimony were of the same sex. He said: I publish the banns of sacred marriage, of Christian forbearance where they differ, of Christian love where they agree, and of Christian cooperation in all matters where their common safety is concerned; who forbids the banns? None!' This speech gave great dissatisfaction, and called forth loud remonstrances from many of his own brethren. The Conservatives, however, were glad to have thus publicly committed to their cause the Moderator of the Synod of Ulster, the head of the Church, and the representative of the whole Presbyterians of Ireland.' They exulted in the meeting as a great success, as it contributed largely to the overthrow of a time-serving Ministry.' Of course, it added greatly to the popularity of the Presbyterian champion of Toryism; and his congregation rather ungenerously persuaded him to avail himself of the tide in order to sweep off the debt upon his church in May Street, Belfast, a large building erected especially for him, and in which he ministered with eminent success to the end of his career. He went to London on this unpleasant mission and accomplished his object. I think it too hard,' wrote his friend Mr. Cairns, now Lord Cairns, that you should have to expend your influence and lay yourself under an obligation, in accomplishing an object in which you have only a temporary interest.'

Dr. Cooke, as his biographer remarks, had become a recognised political leader; he had long been an ecclesiastical leader.' It was remarkable that those whose councils he guided in the Synod of Ulster, were most opposed to him in politics. Many of them wrote against him, and spoke against him, as a politician.