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TESTIMONY OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

45

preacher all the choicest gifts of air, land, and water. They received Mr. Cookman, his wife and children-for by this time Alfred had a brother-with the warmest hospitality. One gentleman, Mr. Samuel Harrison, who owned a large plantation stretching in a narrow neck out into the Chesapeake Bay, took them to his own house. The minister's coming to each successive appointment every four weeks was an ovation-the whole country, whites and blacks alike, turned out to hear him. And it was not because the people had not been used hitherto to good preaching-they had had it from the beginning of their religious history; they therefore knew how to appreciate it in Mr. Cookman.

The celebrated colored orator, Frederick Douglass, in his book entitled "My Bondage and my Freedom," p. 198, tells us that the Rev. George Cookman took an interest in the temporal and spiritual welfare of the slaves. He writes: "Our souls and our bodies were alike sacred in his sight; and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery feeling mingled with his colonization ideas. There was not a slave in our neighborhood that did not love and venerate Mr. Cookman. It was pretty generally believed that he had been chiefly instrumental in bringing one of the largest slaveholders-Mr. Samuel Harrison to emancipate all his slaves; and, indeed, the general impression was that Mr. Cookman had labored faithfully with slaveholders, whenever he met them, to induce them to emancipate their bondmen, and that he did this as a religious duty. When this good man was at our house, we were all sure to be called in to prayers in the morning; and he was not slow in making inquiries as to the state of our minds, nor in giving us a word of exhortation and encouragement. Great was the sorrow of all the slaves when this faithful preacher of the Gospel was removed from the circuit."

Mr. Cookman's custom was to hold special services apart for the colored people, to which they flocked in great numbers.

He was regarded with increasing favor both by masters and

servants.

But what, meanwhile, is our little Alfred doing? Playing often, no doubt-as many others before and since who became good and great have done—with the little negroes near the "quarters," or in front of the "big house," or on the sandy beach, or chasing butterflies over the fields, or possibly at "holding meeting." His mother says of him at this very early age: "The tone of his mind had always a religious tendency, and before he was four years of age he imitated all the services of the Church. He would sometimes collect a crowd of colored children around him, and in his childish way preach to them about the necessity of being good, and then they would go to heaven and live with Jesus; but if they were bad boys and girls they would go to hell, and be burnt in a great hot fire. His father traveled a circuit on the eastern shore of Maryland about this time, which brought Alfred in contact with numberless opportunities to show the bias of his mind. He would ask for a bowl of water, and request the servants of the family to come and be baptized. Many of them would come and kneel down as devoutly as though they felt the reality of the ordinance; and he, taking the water in his hand, would say, 'Bob Trot, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. God bless you, and make you a good man.' Then Bob and others who went through the same process would rise up from their knees and go forth as though they had performed a religious duty. So Alfred would go through with all the services of the sanctuary in his boyish way with as much gravity and decorum as though he were already ordained, or set aside for this special work-directing men and women to be good and do good."

It is not uncommon for boys, who never become preachers or much of any thing-for children are busy little artists, painting with the brush of sympathy on the canvas of their souls

EARLY TRAITS AND NURTURE.

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the real life which passes before them—to do just what Alfred did; and yet there is that in the ways of every child which shows the natural bent, and to some degree forecasts the after life. Goethe's painful sensitiveness to the presence of ugliness or deformity while quite a baby was indicative of that fine, delicate organization which is the constitutional basis of the poet. His mother had the eye to see it, and with skillful hand she guided the divine instinct by bringing to its nurture agreeable objects, and gently inciting it with narratives of the wondrous and beautiful; otherwise Germany had not had her greatest poet, nor the world one of its greatest educators. To every mother her child has an individuality, and she can discern in it. the hidden germ which in the flower is to render its maturity distinct and beautiful. The difference in mothers is the power properly to direct this original faculty. Fewer children would perish in the promise if there were more mothers who knew how to cherish and train the natural and gracious endowment. Mrs. Cookman had one desire for her boy, and she sedulously watched every hint in his childhood which pointed in the direction of its fulfillment. She hailed every such indication as a precursor of his future, since it had been impressed on her mind from his birth that he was to do the work that was in her heart to do for the Lord. But she was a wise mother, looking for results, however good and desirable, to follow only upon the use of the proper means. She did not expect devout wishes and devout prayers to mould the character of Alfred without corresponding effort to rear him aright. Great and good men do not grow, like the rank weeds, untended, but, like the lovely and fragrant flowers, by culture. Here's a memorandum from the mother on this point: "Alfred was very correct in all his deportment, obedient to his parents, very truthful, and conscientious. He was, of course, watched over with Parental vigilance was ever on the

more than ordinary care.

alert to detect and correct any thing that might mar the little

tender plant." Yet there was not excess of training, nor morbid stimulating. "His father early impressed him with the idea, 'Play when you play, and work when you work.""

It was hardly to be expected that the social scenes by which this child was surrounded at that period could permanently affect his disposition; yet he ever after loved this country and its people, and to this day there is no name fuller of sweet odor in the whole region than that of Alfred Cookman. It is well known, too, that he cherished throughout life a great love for the black race. He had romped, wept, and laughed-nay, even prayed, with the colored boys; and a common feeling, so self-asserting in children, had taught him in the simple and innocent sports of childhood the great truth of the oneness of humanity. In the very lap of the warm, unselfish nursing of which the negro woman is capable, associated with the strange and weird stories, and the low, soft melodies, the earnest and implicit trustfulness with which she mingles all her work, he received impressions at this susceptible age which ever endeared the colored people to him.

CHAPTER III.

THE GROWING FAME OF REV. GEORGE G. COOKMAN. THE

CHILDHOOD OF ALFRED.

How far Mr. Cookman felt himself successful in his mission to the colored people does not appear. He found obstacles in promoting their liberation. He was useful to them, as he was also to the white population; but his talents were soon in demand in the great city, and he was accordingly at his next appointment assigned to St. George's, Philadelphia. It showed the confidence of the bishop, and of the people of St. George's, that he was sent so soon to the charge where on his first arrival he had joined and labored as a local preacher. On the removal of the family to the city, Alfred, with his brother George, was placed at school under the care of Miss Ann Thomas, a member of the Society of Friends, who was quite celebrated for her skill in teaching. He remained two years under her care, and made rapid progress in the elementary branches of education. She took very special interest both in him and his little brother, and expressed great sorrow when they left her. In a note to the mother she wrote: "I give my testimony respecting thy dear boys that I have enjoyed great consolation in their company. While endeavoring to inform their little minds, and give them a knowledge of literature, they have been obedient and attentive, very innocent, and strict to truth, and in almost every thing what my heart could wish. Tell them to remember Miss Ann, who dearly loves them, and wishes them everlasting happiness."

I presume Alfred, at the age of five to seven, did not get very deep into what his loving teacher calls "literature." His

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