Character of Cooke
Cooke's habits of work would have been impossible without the aid of an iron constitution: he rose at four, needed little sleep, and traveled, spoke, and wrote with incessant energy. In public a dangerous and unsparing (some said an unscrupulous) foe, his private disposition was that of warm-hearted kindness. Relations of personal friendliness between him and his old antagonist, Montgomery, sprang up in their later years. Stern Protestant as he was, none was more prompt to render assistance to a Roman Catholic neighbour in time of need. A strict disciplinarian, he leaned always to the side of mercy when the courts of his church had to deal with delinquents.
Cooke's biographer—his son-in-law, Josias Ledlie Porter, D.D-- quotes from Lord Cairns the saying that for half a century his life 'was a large portion of the religious and public history of Ireland'. Orangemen carry his likeness on their banners (though he was not a orangeman), and his statue in Belfast (erected in September 1875) is still a symbol of the Protestantism of Northern Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Henry Cooke (minister)
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