CHAPTER VIII.

FROM COUNTRY TO CITY.-TRIP TO ENGLAND.

THE annual session of the Philadelphia Conference was held in the spring of 1847, at Wilmington, Delaware. Bishop Hamline presided. Alfred Cookman, having finished up his work, repaired to the seat of the Conference. He was an applicant for admission into the Conference, in company with a large number of young men, most of whom were his personal friends. The Conference was very full, it being found difficult to station all the preachers, and so, at the advice of the presiding bishop, it was voted to receive none "on trial." This was a sore disappointment to our young friend, as it was to others applying. He had preached at least a half-year under the presiding elder, and now to be obliged to do so an additional year was somewhat grievous. The policy of such a procedure on the part of a Conference is always of doubtful expediency, and sometimes may be very unjust and injurious to the parties and to the work. The young minister, however, had consecrated himself to the Master's cause, according to the order of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Church of his father; and so, bowing gracefully to the decision of the Conference, he accepted again a position under the presiding elder, and entered cheerfully upon it. He was appointed by the Rev. Daniel Lambdin to the Delaware City Circuit, in the State of Delaware, with the Rev. Robert McNarmee for his preacher in charge.

Before I follow him to his new circuit, an important fact in his inward life must be stated. It will be remembered that his early religious experience received a check upon the occasion of his removal from Carlisle to Washington. His later expe

rience received a similar but a more prolonged check during this session of the Conference. The explanation is best given in his own words. They are a continuation of the published narrative before quoted from: "Oh that I could conclude just here these allusions to personal experience with the simple addition that my life to the present has answered to the description of endless progress regulated by endless peace! Fidelity to truth, however, with a solicitude that others may profit by my errors, constrains me to add another paragraph of my personal testimony. Have you ever known a sky full of sunshine-the power of a beautiful day subsequently obscured by lowering clouds? Have you ever known a jewel of incalculable value to its owner lost through culpable carelessness? Alas! that so bright a morning in my spiritual history should not have shone more and more unto the perfect day; that I should, under any circumstances, have carelessly parted with this pearl of personal experience. Eight weeks transpired-weeks of light, strength, love, and blessing; Conference came on; I found myself in the midst of beloved brethren; forgetting how easily the infinitely Holy Spirit might be grieved, I allowed myself to drift into the spirit of the hour; and, after an indulgence in foolish joking and story-telling, realized that I had suffered serious loss. To my next field of labor I proceeded with consciously diminished spiritual power."

His mind went under a cloud; not only did he lose the evidence of perfect love, but there followed its loss serious questionings as to the possibility of the experience which he had professed. There is always a tendency to depress the standard of Truth to the personal experience. It is not surprising, therefore, to find him using the following language: "Perhaps, to satisfy my conscience, I began to favor the argument of those who insisted that sanctification, as a work of the Holy Spirit, could not involve an experience distinct from regeneration." Such was the candor and caution with which he referred

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to a subject which was ever to him cause of sincere regret. The heart so imperceptibly colors the opinions of every man that it is exceedingly difficult to have views which are wholly freed from its influence. It is well-nigh impossible to look at Truth with clear discrimination independently of its effects upon the affections. Hence the Bible makes the inward experience the interpreter of its meaning: "Whoso is born of God hath the witness in himself." There may be a dogmatic acceptance of the doctrine of regeneration, but there can be no adequate conviction of its reality until the soul by the change wrought in it receives the attest of its truth. Talk as we may of the objective truth of God's Word contained in the Holy Scriptures, that objective truth needs the accompanying witness of a believing, living self-consciousness, as contained in the Church, the Body of Christ, in order that it may be understood and felt as the power of the Holy Ghost unto salvation. The key which unlocks the secret wards of its spiritual treasury is the experience of the child of God. When the experience of the Church is high, the meaning put upon Christian doctrine is positive; when the experience is low, the meaning is correspondingly vague; the decay of inward life is marked by a decay of orthodoxy, and its rise by a return to evangelical faith. Yet I can not but admire the conscientious qualifying "perhaps" with which our friend states his impression of the probable bias which the lapse in his spiritual life may have imparted to his judgment.

This revelation is the more painful, in that the session of Conference, which should have been the means of establishing him in the "faith," became the means of unsettling him. He does not blame his brethren for it-only he allowed himself to be betrayed into undue levity. Methodist preachers, when they come together at the Conference after a year's separation, feel the buoyancy of spirit which instinctively arises from a sudden respite from pastoral cares; the gratification which is in

spired by the greeting of old friends. Their system of itinerancy, according to which no man has any particular Church, and in the changes of which they regard themselves as candidates for each other's fields of labor, binds them into a closer unity of fellowship, and "a fellow-feeling makes them wondrous kind;" and so at their great festival they very naturally unbend in each other's company. Their observation is over a broad territory, they have mingled freely with all classes of people, their wits have been sharpened by contact with the shrewdest of mankind; and, with an infinite fund of anecdote, it is not surprising that their conversation should be flavored with incidents both grave and gay.

It may be one of the provisions of divine benevolence that the minds who see most clearly and feel most deeply the sins and misfortunes of the race do also see and feel most keenly their oddities; so that nothing is more common than for the sense of humor to be closely allied with the sense of devotion, and thus the gravity which would be so weighty as to overwhelm is lightened by an elastic gayety. That this gift may be abused is unquestionable; and that Methodist ministers, like other good people in an unwary hour, under the sway of exuberant enjoyment, may forget themselves, is possible. Beyond doubt there is too much trifling conversation at such times among them; and yet much depends upon the man himself, and upon the schooling of his conscience. Whatever effect the conversations of these "beloved brethren" had upon themselves, upon Alfred it was deleterious. His delicate conscience, all the more susceptible because of his recent higher experience, and for want of free intercourse with his brethren since he received it, was wounded, his religious life in his own estimation was harmed, and sank to a lower plane, on which it continued through some years afterward.

The new circuit was found to be very congenial. From a lady who knew him well, and between whom and himself there

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was a pleasant friendship, Mrs. L. A. Battershall, of New York, I have received the following reference to his character and work at this time:

"Numbered with the most pleasant memories of the by-gone are my recollections of the Rev. Alfred Cookman. After his appointment to Delaware City Circuit, he was a frequent guest at the hospitable home of a relative, whom I was then visiting. Domiciled beneath the same roof, ample opportunity was thus afforded me of observing his habitual deportment in the daily amenities of life. He was richly endowed by nature with a genial spirit, and an ease and grace of manner which eminently fitted him to shine as the centre of the social circle, and yet I never knew him betrayed into a levity unbecoming a minister of the Gospel of Christ.

"Delaware City Circuit at that time embraced quite a portion of the wealthy agricultural district of New Castle County, Delaware, and was populated by a people of more than ordinary intelligence. To all classes of this population young Cookman came as the messenger of life. His young heart burned with love for souls. He went from his closet to the pulpit, and, thus panoplied with power, it is no marvel that the multitudes which from Sabbath to Sabbath hung upon the earnest pleadings of his eloquent lips for their salvation, regarded him as a royal ambassador from the Court of the Most High."

The year, according to this testimony, passed profitably and pleasantly, as he glided about from village to village and home to home among a devout and hospitable people. In those days it was not customary for the young preacher to have any fixed boarding-place on the circuit. No appropriation was made to pay his board, but he was expected to "stay around" among the families, remaining longest where it was most congenial, or where, from the means and kindness of the families, he could be rendered most comfortable, and found the greatest facilities for reading and study. Sometimes the young preacher would