THE LIBRARIES 
 
 GIVEN BY 
 
 Union Theological Seminary 
 
THE REVEREND HENRY NITCHIE COBB,D.D. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 THE REVEREND 
 HENRY NITCHIE COBB, D.D. 
 
 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY 
 
 BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 THE REFORMED CHURCH 
 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 1882-1910 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1911 
 

 yUl * 
 
 
 -/ ^ e: rf*-- -/v 
 
 \£^f 
 
 JUN 2 4 iii46 
 
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THIS Memorial Volume is the tribute of the members 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions to their col- 
 league and leader of nearly three decades. Words are 
 inadequate to suitably clothe the thoughts and feelings that 
 have prompted this Memorial. It is hoped, however, that 
 it in some measure expresses the high regard and the deep 
 affection in which Dr. Cobb was held by his immediate 
 associates at home and on the broad field of the world, as 
 well as by the entire Church, whose activities in foreign 
 lands were so tenderly and so faithfully fostered by him. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 PRESENTED TO GENERAL SYNOD, 1910 
 
 THE Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., the beloved Secretary 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions of our Church for 
 twenty-seven years, was born in New York City, November 
 15, 1834, and died at his home in East Orange, N. J., on Sunday 
 afternoon, April 17, 1910, aged seventy-five years. Dr. Cobb 
 graduated from Yale College in 1855 and from Union Theological 
 Seminary in 1857. He was licensed and ordained by the Third 
 Presbytery of New York in 1860, and in that same year was sent out 
 by the American Board of Foreign Missions as missionary to the 
 Nestorians in Persia and Koordistan. After two years' service his 
 health gave way and he was compelled to abandon his life plan to be 
 a foreign missionary and to return to America. He became pastor 
 of the Reformed Church in Millbrook, N. Y., where he gave a 
 faithful ministry of fifteen years, from 1866 to 1881, laying the 
 foundations for that wide circle of friendship and that personal 
 devotion to himself which his Christian character, his service for 
 others and his winning personality attracted throughout his life. 
 During that period, in 1877, General Synod elected him a member 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions, and his services and counsels 
 there revealed him to be a man of such value in the work of the 
 Board that upon the retirement of the Rev. John Mason Ferris, 
 D.D., as Corresponding Secretary, Dr. Cobb was promptly elected 
 his successor. The far-seeing wisdom of the Board's selection was 
 increasingly manifest during the twenty-seven years of his service, 
 closing with his death. Dr. Cobb's personal qualities were of the 
 highest and most winning type. Extremely modest, a man of sin- 
 gular purity of character, with an innate and beautiful courtesy of 
 manner, a whole-souled kindness of heart, calm and self controlled, 
 patient and yet steadily persistent amid the weighty responsibilities 
 that marked all his years of varied service as foreign missionary, as 
 pastor and as leader in the administration of the missionary work 
 
14 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 of the denomination, Dr. Cobb was a very unusual man. And 
 when there is added the acquired graces of great faith and untiring 
 devotion to the prosperity of the Kingdom of Christ we can but 
 look upon him with profound admiration and love, and bless God 
 for giving him to our Church and to the world. Dr. Cobb's intel- 
 lectual capacity and activity were markedly illustrated by what he 
 accomplished in his two years' service on the foreign mission field. 
 He not only fulfilled the ordinary duties of a young missionary in 
 proclaiming the Gospel, but he rapidly perfected his knowledge of 
 the language of the people he served, wrote tract letters to the 
 "Helpers of the Nestorian Missions," in the Koordish Mountains, 
 edited a monthly paper, "Rays of Light," in the Sjriac language, 
 and published an almanac and Sabbath-School Hymn Book in 
 modem Syriac, besides sending letters to the Home Board and to 
 various religious papers, keeping his field in the constant view of 
 the Church which sent him abroad. And it is not surprising that 
 broken health resulted from such multiplied labors, crowded within 
 two years of his life. Then his fifteen years of the pastorate en- 
 larged his experience and completed the preparation and equipment 
 for his life work as Secretary. In this office he excelled. There 
 was no question of his rightful leadership, and yet that leadership 
 engendered no jealousies, because of the transparent unselfishness 
 of his motives, his complete and perfect knowledge of all phases of 
 the work, and because of his sincere regard for the judgment of his 
 colleagues on the Board. Dr. Cobb possessed rare gifts for the 
 work to which he gave the richest and latest years of his life. He 
 was a man of large vision, of keen discernment, of poise and strong 
 business sense, of great Christian convictions and of sustained and 
 kindling enthusiasm. He had a most thorough knowledge of every 
 aspect of the great work of world evangelization, and was recog- 
 nized within and without the Church as a great missionary states- 
 man. He gave his whole self to the work in tireless industry, in the 
 utmost promptitude, in the most patient attention to every detail, 
 in his most faithful and appreciated correspondence with the mis- 
 sions and with individual missionaries, in his endeavors to deepen 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 15 
 
 interest in the churches at home in the work abroad, and in his 
 willing and most helpful identification with every movement which 
 aimed at the enlightenment and enlistment of the constituency at 
 home or the expansion of the work abroad. During Dr. Cobb's 
 secretaryship the work in all our missions greatly advanced, the 
 number of missionaries trebled and the receipts increased almost 
 fourfold. It was during his incumbency that the Arabian Mission, 
 which was organized in 1889, grew to be one of our strongest mis- 
 sions. He officially visited our missions in Asia in 1892, and again 
 in 1904, receiving the warmest welcome from the missionaries, 
 greatly endearing himself to the Oriental Christian constituency 
 and by his valuable counsel greatly strengthening the efficiency of 
 the work in every country which he visited. Hence the mourning 
 for Dr. Cobb is not limited to us who were brothers to him in the 
 homeland where he inspired and led the Church forward to in- 
 creasing effort and offerings for the Kingdom of Christ. He is 
 mourned today in many lands — in Arabia, in India, in China and 
 in Japan — mourned by the missionaries who loved and trusted him 
 and by those brought out of heathenism who saw him years ago for 
 a day or two, and who heard his encouraging words and received 
 his blessing. An obituary sketch of such a man is not complete if 
 the keynote of his life is not emphasized. Dr. Cobb was a man of 
 great faith — faith in God and His great plans of mercy for a sin- 
 cursed world, provided in and through Jesus Christ, the Lord, and 
 faith in the Church of Christ. He believed in the very center of his 
 soul that He who lived and died for the world is yet to rule it, and 
 that we are called to aid in bringing about that supremacy. With 
 what unwavering confidence did he quote again and again in his 
 reports and addresses the promises and commands of his Master, as 
 if he felt that where the Master laid an injunction on his people He 
 could be trusted to give the needed strength to obey it. His was 
 the modem spirit of missions — the desire in love and loyalty to 
 Christ to make Him known, to make His saving and uplifting 
 power felt in all the earth. All who have heard his addresses on the 
 floor of General Synod and elsewhere will remember the marvelous 
 
16 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 effect of his manifest consecration and the power of his earnest and 
 eloquent presentation of the foreign mission opportunity and obli- 
 gation, his thrilling testimony to the Master's favor on the field, and 
 the to-be-coveted privilege of cooperation in this heaven-bom and 
 heaven-ordered work for the salvation of the whole human race and 
 the bringing in the day when the kingdoms of this world will be- 
 come the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ. May Elijah's 
 mantle fall upon the shoulders of the succeeding Elisha in the secre- 
 taryship ! Rutgers College gave Dr. Cobb the honorary degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity in 1878. Mrs. Cobb, to whom he was married 
 in 1860, survived her husband less than a month. Through fifty 
 years she was his constant companion in life and in thought and his 
 unfailing support. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives 
 and in their death they were not long divided. 
 
FUNERAL SERVICE 
 
FUNERAL SERVICE 
 
 AT EAST ORANGE, N. J., APRIL 19, 1910 
 
 The service at the house, conducted by the Rev. Henry Evert- 
 son Cobb, D.D., and the Rev. William I. Chamberlain, Ph.D. 
 
 The service at the Central Presbyterian Church, conducted by 
 the Rev. Edward B. Coe, D.D., LL.D., Senior Minister of the 
 Collegiate Church and Chairman of the Executive Committee, 
 Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 Reading of Scriptures : 
 
 The Psalms, the Rev. James L. Amerman, D.D. 
 The Epistle, the Rev. John F. Patterson, D.D. 
 
 Address, the Rev. Edward B. Coe, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Prayer, the Rev. John G. Fagg, D.D., President of the Board of 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 HONORARY PALL BEARERS 
 
 The Rev. Dr. L. Francis Mr, John Bingham 
 
 The Rev. Dr. J. P. Searle Mr. W. L. Brower 
 
 The Rev. Dr. J. I. Vance Mr. C. H. Harris 
 
 The Rev. J. H. Whitehead Mr. E. E. Olcott 
 
 The Rev. Dr. John Fox Mr. F. R. Van Nest 
 
ADDRESS: DR. COE 
 
 ONE by one God's sen^ants fall, but His cause moves on, and 
 the lives that we honor most highly and remember most 
 gratefully are those which have been unselfishly given to 
 promote its progress. Four days ago we were startled by the tid- 
 ings of the sudden death of one of our most useful missionaries in 
 China. Young, brilliant, enthusiastic, with rare skill in his profes- 
 sion and a singular power to enlist the confidence, the sympathy and 
 the cooperation of others. Dr. Otte fell, a victim to his self -forgetful 
 devotion, and laid down his life in the service of the poor and suffer- 
 ing in that far distant-land. Now it is our leader who is fallen — 
 revered, trusted, beloved; who for more than twenty-seven years 
 has stood in the forefront of our missionary work ; dear to all who 
 have known him, dearest to those who have labored with him; a 
 man of singular purity of character, of great faith and great fidelity, 
 wise and farseeing in counsel, efficient in action, recognized far 
 beyond the limits of our Board and of our Church as one of the 
 leaders in this country in the great cause of foreign missions. 
 
 God granted him to us for many years, and yet we hoped for 
 more. We saw that his strength was failing under the burdens and 
 cares that rested so heavily upon him and with the steady advance 
 of age, and yet we thought that he might perhaps relinquish some 
 of his labors while we still retained our delightful association with 
 him and enjoyed the benefit of his experience, his counsel, his zeal 
 and his unconquerable faith. But He whose thoughts and ways 
 are not as ours has released him from the earthly service and called 
 him to his great reward. We are gathered here this afternoon, not 
 to review his life and analyze his character and estimate his service — 
 another more fitting opportunity for that will soon be found ; we 
 are here, rather, reverently to acknowledge the goodness and grace 
 of God as they were manifested in him; to express our sympathy to 
 those whose loss and sorrow is so ovenvhelming and to follow 
 him in our thoughts into that larger life on which he has now 
 
22 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 entered. Appropriate to this hour, as it seems to me, are only a 
 few words of affectionate personal remembrance and of Christian 
 faith and hope. 
 
 And yet even such words are not easy to speak, for he was one of 
 the most modest of men. He would never have consented for a 
 moment to be ranked among great missionaries or great men of any 
 class. In his thought of himself, it seems to me that the most appro- 
 priate epitaph for him would possibly be that of the great English 
 soldier who fell in India — "Here lies one who tried to do his duty." 
 He seemed to be utterly unconscious of the honor in which he was 
 held by us and by multitudes of others. He appreciated, I think, 
 the confidence which was so richly reposed in him, and he surely 
 was not unworthy of it. He responded most heartily to the per- 
 sonal affection which was so often and so cordially expressed to him. 
 But there was in him no self-esteem whatever. Clear and strong as 
 his judgments were, with an innate and beautiful courtesy he was 
 always ready to defer to the judgment of others. He was removed 
 in spirit as far as possible from that self confidence and arrogance 
 which so often go with the capacity of leadership like that which he 
 possessed. And yet it is the simple truth that during all these years 
 he had directed our foreign missionary work with singular ability 
 and with ever-increasing success. Our Board is not one of the 
 largest of foreign missionary boards, and yet important responsi- 
 bilities rest upon it. Its work is carried on in many fields, many 
 missionaries are laboring in connection with it ; important questions 
 are constantly coming before it for decision, and it has made itself 
 responsible for the speedy evangelization of many millions of men. 
 The office of secretary in such a board is one of great responsibihty, 
 great dignity and great importance. Good men and strong men 
 were associated with him in the work, and yet in it always from the 
 beginning until now he had been their guiding spirit. 
 
 There are three reasons, I think, especially for this. One of 
 them was his remarkable knowledge of the work and of the condi- 
 tions under which it must be carried on ; another was the soundness 
 of his judgment and his breadth of view, and another was his abso- 
 
FUNERAL SERVICE 23 
 
 lute sincerity and lionesty of purpose. Few men have had a more 
 thorough knowledge of the foreign missionary work. He had 
 studied its history with interest and with insight. He knew the 
 lives of the great missionaries. Many of them he personally knew. 
 He knew well every man and every woman who has gone into the 
 foreign missionary field under the direction of our Board. He was 
 in constant correspondence with them; he visited them again and 
 again; he engaged with them in most earnest and sympathetic con- 
 ference in regard to their work; he knew their joys and sorrows, 
 their toils and difficulties, their hopes and fears; he entered with 
 them into the perplexing conditions by which they were so often 
 confronted and he rejoiced unspeakably in their successes. He 
 had thus an acquaintance with the work which we as a church are 
 engaged in which was most minute and most exact. It often 
 seemed to me as if he knew not only every man and woman in our 
 foreign missionary service but every building in which the work is 
 carried on. And all this wealth of accurate and sympathetic 
 knowledge he brought to the solution of the problems which faced 
 him and us from time to time. What an unspeakable loss it is to 
 us and to the Church that all this is taken from us, except as it has 
 entered into the settled policy of our Foreign Missionary Society. 
 
 And then how clear and sound his judgment was ! He was a 
 man of penetrating intelligence, of remarkable mental poise and 
 balance. Intensely interested as he was in the work which engaged 
 his thoughts and prayers, he was under no illusions concerning it. 
 The Forward Movement he entered into most heartily, he labored 
 for it most diligently, he prayed most earnestly for its success. 
 Why should he not ? He had been passionately pleading for it for 
 many years. And yet he understood perfectly the tremendous 
 magnitude of the undertaking in which the Church of Christ is 
 engaged. He knew well that not in a year nor in a generation will 
 the whole world be brought to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. He 
 realized that it meant a persistent, mighty, age-long effort. And that 
 is what he wrought and planned and prayed for. Is it any wonder 
 that when his judgment of the great issue before us was so clear 
 
24 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 and sound we should have looked to him, as others also looked, for 
 counsel and advice ? 
 
 I need hardly say a word of his personal sincerity and purity of 
 character, because it was so evident to everybody. His whole soul 
 was in the work to which he gave the best years of his life. What a 
 joy it was to him to visit the scenes in which it is carried on, and 
 how gladly he was welcomed there, greeted with hymns and 
 crowned with flowers ! What a delight it was to him to become 
 acquainted with the native workers who, by the labors of the mis- 
 sionaries, had been brought to Christ and who then enlisted in His 
 service. And how his heart was gladdened from time to time as 
 the tidings came of the great and widening success of all our 
 missions. And yet with the joy and interest came also the burden 
 of anxiety. Oh, how heavy it was, and how constantly it rested 
 upon him, day and night, winter and summer, year after year. I 
 doubt if any of us realize what a burden he carried on his mind and 
 heart silently and patiently for so long. He saw so clearly the im- 
 portance and the urgency of the great missionary work, and the 
 Church at home sometimes seemed to him so slow to rise to a sense 
 of its opportunity and to respond to that opportunity. His was the 
 burden of the Apostle Paul, which he saw fit to single out for special 
 mention in the catalogue of his scourgings and shipwrecks when he 
 said: "That which cometh upon me daily, anxiety about all the 
 churches." He, too, bore it willingly — bore it even gladly — be- 
 cause it was the Master's mind which had laid it upon him, and this 
 was his way of filling up that which was lacking in the sufferings of 
 Jesus Christ. And yet I feel, my dear Christian friends, that it 
 must have been to him an unspeakable relief to lay it down. 
 
 But in spite of this his faith never faltered. He believed in the 
 Church. He never doubted that the Church which he so lovingly 
 served would respond to the great appeal which was made to it, and 
 would come up, slowly perhaps, but finally, to the full measure of 
 its opportunity and its duty. Above all, he believed in Christ. 
 With what unwavering confidence did he quote again and again in 
 his reports and in his addresses the promises and the commands of 
 
FUNERAL SERVICE 25 
 
 the Master — the commands more often (it used to seem to me) 
 than the promises, as if he felt that where the Master laid an injunc- 
 tion on His people He could be trusted to give the needed strength 
 to obey it. You remember those addresses — the simple and 
 familiar talks which he gave from time to time to little groups of 
 friends, and the more formal, often the very eloquent, addresses 
 which he delivered on great occasions and at meetings of our 
 General S}Tiod. This was in all of them the dominant note — 
 obedience to Jesus Christ. What he labored for was not merely the 
 salvation of a few souls here and there in non-Christian lands; it 
 was not merely the relief of physical suffering and of social degrada- 
 ation. His was the modem spirit of missions, the desire in love 
 and loyalty to Jesus Christ to make Him known, to make His saving 
 and uplifting power felt in all the earth. And he believed to the 
 very center of his soul that He who lived and died for the world is 
 yet to rule the world. 
 
 Here was the secret of his patience. He believed that contro- 
 versies would subside and that those who were animated by a com- 
 mon purpose would in time and under the guidance of God's Spirit 
 come to an agreement. He believed that difficulties would be 
 removed. And again and again his faith was verified; so with 
 infinite patience he wrote letter after letter, he engaged in confer- 
 ence after conference, and he toiled on, day after day and month 
 after month and year after year, in storm and heat, not sparing 
 himself, unwilling to take even the rest that he needed, laboring 
 often without the necessary help, utterly uncomplaining, never 
 thinking of himself, if only the great work might go on. 
 
 And what a joy it was to work with him. In many respects he 
 seems to me to have been the ideal secretary of a missionary 
 society by reason of his coolness, his magnanimity, his sympathy, 
 his conservatism, and at the same time his openness of mind, his 
 promptness in all business matters, his readiness to undertake any 
 labor, his loyalty to the cause and to the Master. He was often 
 weary, he was sometimes disappointed, he was sometimes over- 
 ruled, but his self-control, his courtesy, his confidence in his asso- 
 
26 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ciates and his loyalty to the Church never for a moment failed. I 
 fear he did not know how much we loved him. I want his family 
 at any rate to know that to us he was not merely a trusted associate 
 and fellow laborer; he was a dear, personal friend. The whole 
 Church loved and trusted him, not we alone, and that is surely 
 eulogy enough for any man. I may, perhaps, be permitted to 
 quote what was said many years ago of another great secretary, my 
 own father, to this effect : That it is much when a single church or 
 congregation calls a man to be its pastor and teacher; it is more 
 when an organization representing many churches elects and wel- 
 comes one to the charge of its affairs ; but it is a still higher honor 
 when all the churches engaged in a common work put one at their 
 head and give him year after year their unstinted confidence and 
 their loyal support. And that was the honor which came to him. 
 Others will speak of his relation to the missionary work at large, 
 of the confidence and esteem in which he was held by other mission- 
 ary boards, and of the respect and deference shown him on great 
 occasions and by great gatherings of Christian men. I may barely 
 allude to his claim upon our grateful recollection as a neighbor and 
 a citizen. We may not forget that he was for many years a preacher 
 and pastor, honored and beloved. But his name is now and 
 always will be chiefly associated with that great cause to which he 
 gave the crowning years of his life. He is mourned today in 
 many lands — in Arabia, in India, in China, in Japan. He is 
 mourned by the missionaries who knew him and who trusted him, 
 mourned by some of those who saw him years ago for a day or two 
 only and have never seen him since, and there are hundreds and 
 thousands of others who never knew him and to whom the tidings 
 of his death will mean nothing, but who have lost in him a bene- 
 factor and friend. It is well for us to honor the missionaries — 
 heroes and heroines of the faith — who leave the comforts and oppor- 
 tunities of the homeland and go out to lives of solitude and toil, of 
 disappointment and of sorrow often, sometimes of peril, sometimes 
 ending in a violent death. But no less worthy of honor is a man 
 like this whose labors have made possible the labors and the sue- 
 
FUNERAL SERVICE 27 
 
 cesses of many others, the wise, patient, faithful administrator of a 
 great trust, who has done so much to rouse and raise the Church to 
 the great opportunity and the mighty task which appealed so pow- 
 erfully to his own soul. Our hearts go out in tenderest sympathy 
 to those whose home is shadowed and broken by his death, but we 
 rejoice with them in the great work that he accomplished. We 
 thank God for his example and for his influence on ourselves and 
 on others. And with the utmost reverence we say, as we close the 
 volume of his life : "He is not here, for he is risen" — to his rest and 
 his reward. 
 
PRAYER: DR. FAGG 
 
 OLORD, our Heavenly Father, we come to Thee today 
 with subdued and saddened hearts. We come with grate- 
 ful and appreciative hearts, with hopeful and beheving 
 hearts. We cannot think of the passing on of Thy servant, our 
 beloved friend and co-worker for many years, without a deep and 
 well-nigh overwhelming sense of loss that we shall see his face no 
 more. But we thank Thee with all our hearts for the gift of his life 
 and all "that it meant to his home, to his friends, to the Church of 
 Jesus Christ, to the great cause to which he gave the earliest and the 
 latest and richest years of his life. We thank Thee for his noble 
 personal qualities, for his unwearied industry, for his great grasp 
 of the important work committed to his hands, for his high man- 
 hood, for his beautiful humility, for his lovableness, for his com- 
 panionableness, for his lofty spirituahty, for his strong and deep 
 convictions, for his knowledge of and love of Thy word, for his love 
 of God and his Saviour, Jesus Christ, for his world vision and his 
 world sympathy and for his longing to see the world brought to the 
 feet of our Divine Lord. We thank Thee for his wise and faithful 
 administration of the work entrusted to him — for the many men 
 and women whom he helped to send out into the great white 
 harvest field of the world. We thank Thee for all the inspiration 
 and comfort he was to the missionaries out in the high places of 
 the field, bearing the burden and heat of the day; for all that he 
 had become to the converts in those Eastern lands who had come 
 to know him and to revere him. And now Thou hast called him 
 hence to deserved and longed-for rest and reward. O God, keep 
 us faithful to the trust which he left behind him. Remember, we 
 beseech Thee, in tender mercy, his bereaved household, the wife 
 and companion of these many years ; let Thy most gracious solace 
 abound to her and to the son and daughter and all the circle of 
 relatives and friends. And help us to be here dedicated afresh to 
 the task remaining to us, that from the honored dead we may take 
 
30 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 increased devotion to that cause for which Thy servant gave the 
 last full measure of his devotion. And at last, when the strife for 
 us is o'er and the battle done, when the sands of time are sinking 
 and the dawn of heaven breaks, bring us to the General Assembly 
 and Church of the First Bom, to the innumerable company of 
 angels, to the spirits of just men made perfect and to a vision of 
 Jesus Christ, our risen and glorified Lord. And unto Him who is 
 able to keep us from falhng and to present us at last faultless before 
 His throne with exceeding joy, unto Him be glory and honor, 
 dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 
 
■ 
 
 
 
 ffi 
 
 emorial ^ejctjite 
 
 Ket). ^enrp JlSftcbie Cobb, D.D. 
 
 tfoiuepenDine 6<crrt8i; of tt)( VoarH e( 
 JFoin(sn di9t9eiDn0, C&tfonnrtt 
 St>ui((> in america 
 aj>. t88M910 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 Collefffate BefotmeO Cbutcb 
 
 SZBfA 4^D Abmuf anO Srbmt;>0et)m^ 6t 
 iRelD j'orb {Tit; 
 
 lAinrtern ten, at ^er o'tlod 
 
 
 
 
%\ft ^txWt 
 
 Senior JUinistcr 
 
 CoIItffiate KeforraeJ ei)ttrcl), JlJleto Porfe 
 
 Cj)airman ©iccctttitie Committee, ^oarS of jForeiffn iWisgions 
 
 (i^rgan ©oluntar^ 
 
 J^^mn Spa* 489: "Ask Ye What Great Thing I Know." 
 
 31nt)ocation anD Scripture: 
 
 The Reverend Professor J. Preston Searle, D.D., 
 Vice-President, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 0Dt)re00: 
 
 The Reverend John G. Fagg, D.D., 
 President, Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 The Reverend William I. Chamberlain, Ph.D. 
 
 ^prai?er: 
 
 The Reverend S. M. Zwemer, D.D. 
 
 ^^mn ^0* 845: "Abide with Me, Fast Falls the Eventide." 
 
 The Reverend Cornelius H. Patton, D.D., 
 
 Secretary, American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 ^ouwsis: 
 
 Mr. Robert E. Speer, D.D., 
 
 Secretary, Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
prater: 
 
 The Reverend James I. Vance, D.D., 
 
 President Board of Domestic Missions, R.C.A. 
 
 J^^mn i^O. 288: "The Strife Is O'er, the Battle Done." 
 
 il^unc SDimtccisi 
 
 St. Luke ii : 29. 
 Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to 
 
 Thy word. 
 For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. 
 Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people; 
 To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of Thy 
 
 people Israel. 
 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; 
 As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be : world without 
 
 end. Amen. 
 
 WmtHittion* 
 
%' 
 
 Written bg Sr. CSabb, mtiilr a iSijBieionarg in Prrsia, ^.9. laSS 
 
 ' HE way is dark, my Father ! Cloud on cloud 
 Is gathering thickly o'er my head, and loud 
 The thunders roar above me. See, I stand 
 Like one bewildered ! Father, take my hand, 
 And through the gloom 
 Lead safely home 
 Thy child ! 
 
 The day goes fast, my Father ! And the night 
 Is drawing darkly down. My faithless sight 
 Sees ghostly visions. Fears, a spectral band. 
 Encompass me. O Father ! Take my hand, 
 
 And from the night 
 
 Lead up to light 
 Thy child ! 
 
 The way is long, my Father ! And my soul 
 Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal ; 
 While yet I journey through this weary land, 
 Keep me from wandering. Father, take my hand ; 
 
 Quickly and straight 
 
 Lead to heaven's gate 
 Thy child ! 
 The path is rough, my Father ! Many a thorn 
 Has pierced me; and my weary feet, all torn 
 And bleeding, mark the way. Yet thy command 
 Bids me press forward. Father, take my hand. 
 
 Then safe and blest, 
 
 Lead up to rest 
 Thy child 1 
 
 The throng is great, my Father ! Many a doubt 
 And fear and danger compass me about ; 
 And foes oppress me sore. I cannot stand 
 Or go alone. O Father ! take my hand. 
 
 And through the throng 
 
 Lead safe along 
 Thy child ! 
 
 The cross is heavy, Father ! I have borne 
 It long and still do bear it. Let my worn 
 And fainting spirit rise to that blest land 
 Where crowns are given. Father, take my hand. 
 And reaching down, 
 Lead to the crown 
 Thy child ! 
 [Note: "The Gracious Answer," p. 47.] 
 
INVOCATION: DR. SEARLE 
 
 OTHOU the Triune God of our Salvation, the God and 
 Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we praise 
 Thee for the revelation Thou hast made; we praise Thee 
 for the blessed relationship to which Thou dost call us with Thyself 
 and with Thy dear Son, a relationship that is enduring ; we thank 
 Thee for the high and holy service which we begin here, and which, 
 too, is enduring ; we thank Thee for the multitudes who have been 
 called by Thy Spirit to this service, and who have known the pre- 
 ciousness of Thy grace, and who have been gathered into Thy 
 rest ; and we thank Thee for another life lived in Thy fear and Thy 
 love, lived in close fellowship with Thy dear Son, fruitful and 
 blessed in things measureless to our vision, through Thy grace ; we 
 thank Thee for another life finished here, having kept the Faith, 
 and for that life as it is lived now before Thee, Grant, we pray 
 Thee, that we may come into Thy presence this afternoon to be 
 guided by Thy Spirit in each moment of this Special Service. May 
 our hearts go out to Thee, and may we hear from Thee the truths 
 that shall inspire us and strengthen us for faithfulness, and shall 
 deepen our joy in our Lord ; so may this whole service redound to 
 Thy glory and to the upbuilding of Thy Kingdom in our hearts, 
 and to Thy great name, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, 
 and our God, shall be all the praise now and forever. Amen. 
 
 Reading of the Fifth Chapter of Second Corinthians and 
 Twenty- SECOND Chapter of Revelation. 
 
 Dr. Coe : Our Board of Foreign Missions has been, during the 
 year, deprived not only of its Senior Corresponding Secretary but of 
 its President, our dear friend. Dr. Hutton, who was taken from us 
 in the month of December. With great unanimity Dr. Fagg has 
 been elected to the position which Dr. Hutton filled, and he will now 
 speak to us as the President of that Board. 
 
ADDRESS: DR. FAGG 
 
 Some one has well said that the record of a great and pure per- 
 sonality is the best bequest of time. It is such a record which we 
 are calling in brief and affectionate review this afternoon. 
 
 Henry Nitchie Cobb was one of God's greatest gifts to our Re- 
 formed Church in all her history. He was one of her mightiest 
 assets while he lived and the memory of his life will be to her a 
 legacy most precious. He lived, he lives and he will never die. 
 He was a man of noble proportions in physique. He was a man of 
 height and breadth and depth, in mind, in character and in service. 
 What high powers he brought to his work as Secretary of State for 
 breign Missions of the Reformed Church, as he himself designated 
 
 s^Js^ion at his Twenty-fifth Anniversary in office two years ago. 
 was an imperial thinker. Some men think in feet and inches ; 
 he thought in countries, empires, continents. When in theAdiron- 
 dacks he once said to me : "I never see a mountain without feeling 
 a challenge to me from it, as if it were saying to me : ' Come up and 
 see the kingdoms which I have to show you." That summer, ten 
 years ago, we climbed Whiteface together. As we went up I re- 
 member his saying: "Oh, what a splendid text to preach from, 
 those words which grand old Caleb addressed to Joshua when he 
 said, 'Now, therefore, give me this mountain.' " His soul dwelt in 
 a realm of large horizons. His was the passion, the subHme pas- 
 sion of winning a world to Christ. What unwearied application 
 was his. He fulfilled those words in the book of Ezekiel, where it is 
 said: "They shall sever out men of continual employment." He 
 knew little of the gospel of relaxation. He was "by thronging 
 duties pressed." He bore the whole burden of our foreign mis- 
 sionary work, pifMltelly the whole burden for ten years. He 
 thought out its pffeblems, problems the magnitude, the weight, the 
 solemn significance of which many who are unacquainted with this 
 work cannot possibly imagine. He wrote every letter to all our 
 foreign missions with his own right hand for sixteen successive 
 
40 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 years. For all those years he did not have what even St. Paul, the 
 first missionary propagandist had, an amanuensis. I wonder if we 
 do not feel sorry and ashamed of ourselves today that we have per- 
 mitted it. And, oh, what fine workmanship his letter writing was. 
 His letters bore the grace and courtesy of a Chesterfield. They 
 bore the foresight and the breadth of a statesman, the common 
 sense of a man of business. They overflowed with the concern and 
 affection of the letters of St. Paul. He was a master in details. 
 La Bruyere's motto, "The best in the least, "was his. Nothing 
 ever bore the mark of haste, or strain ; everything was carefully con- 
 sidered, nothing was slighted. Thoroughness was written every- 
 where on everything he did. He did not shrink from hard tasks. 
 He felt the challenge and fascination of difficulty. What he said 
 at his college class meeting, the meeting of the Yale Class of 1855, 
 was altogether characteristic of the man. In the course of the 
 meeting one member of the class got up and said that he was glad 
 that he was getting old and that he was soon to pass away and 
 leave these problems to younger men. When Dr. Cobb got up he 
 said : "I thank God that I am living in a day when there are such 
 great problems to solve, and when I have an opportunity to take 
 part in some of this great work that is doing for the glory of God." 
 Such men get something done. No wonder that the work grew 
 under his fostering care ; no wonder that the Church moved forward 
 under his constant urgency and his unquenched and unquenchable 
 enthusiasm. Enlarger of the Kingdom — Mehrer des Reiches — is a 
 title of the highest honor which the Germans give only to a few of 
 their greatest warriors and their greatest statesmen. We give it 
 unhesitatingly today to our beloved and now crowned leader. 
 
 What a wealth of lofty and gracious personal qualities were his. 
 His was the simplicity of Christ, his was the candor of Christ, his 
 was the meekness of Christ, his was the gentleness of Christ ; his 
 was the tender heartedness, the great heartedness, the high hearted- 
 ness, the strong heartedness of Christ. His was the most real and 
 complete devotion to Christ. " At the center of all his activities we 
 find a man on his knees, praying for the consecrated frame and the 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 41 
 
 undivided surrender." Our thoughts follow him this afternoon, as 
 he has gone to join that great company, among whom are Verbeck 
 and Brown, Talmage and Kip and Otte, John Scudder, William 
 Scudder, Joseph Scudder, Ezekiel Scudder, and Heeren and 
 Hekhuis and Jacob Chamberlain, Peter Zwemer and Wiersum and 
 Stone, who are each some work sublime, forever working in the 
 spacious tracts of that great land. We can never forget him. We 
 shall miss him for many a long day. But we are confident that 
 
 The afterglow of his devoted life 
 
 Will lead others to do and dare for Christ 
 
 And win for Him, through darkness, pain and strife. 
 
 Dr. Coe : It was a great joy to Dr. Cobb when Dr. Chamber- 
 lain, whom he had known from boyhood, came into office as his 
 associate and his designated successor. Dr. Chamberlain will 
 speak this afternoon, however, rather as a representative of the 
 missionaries among whom he labored for so many years. 
 
ADDRESS: DR. CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 I am here today in response to a filial duty of a two-fold char- 
 acter. Two years ago this month and almost on this day Dr. Cobb 
 paid a pubhc tribute in this city to the memory of my revered 
 father, his friend in Ufe and his friend in death. It is the sacred 
 privilege of the son to pay in some small measure the debt of the 
 father to his friend and to lay upon the altar of Dr. Cobb's devotion 
 to a cause dear to them both a wreath of love and a tribute of 
 praise. 
 
 This duty rests upon me by reason of still another filial relation- 
 ship. During the years of my academic and divinity courses in 
 college and seminary, those restless years of youth. Dr. Cobb stood 
 to me in the place of a father and a guide. Of that relationship, its 
 tenderness and its closeness, I may not now speak. It is ap- 
 pointed to me to speak of a still wider relationship, that of 
 the missionaries in the field with the Corresponding Secretary at 
 home, a relationship which continued with increasing intimacy and 
 confidence for more than a quarter of a century. In the long and 
 sweet story of human associations which, we all know, began in the 
 great heart of God Himself, there is perhaps nothing so tender and 
 yet so strong as the relationship which grows out of the fellowship 
 of a foreign service in the cause of religion. To the one who stands 
 as a representative of the Church and the country and sometimes 
 even of the family to those exiled ones, for the Master's sake, whose 
 home circle diminishes with the passing years, there is grantfed an 
 intimacy which is not ordinarily exchanged among men. Meas- 
 ured by this standard the character of Dr. Cobb's relation to the 
 missionaries was ideal. Indeed, an illustration of that ideal rela- 
 tionship with the missionaries is beautifully shown in the closing 
 sentence in a letter to a missionary under appointment which came 
 to me only yesterday : 
 
 "May I thank you for the photograph you kindly sent me? I 
 enjoyed exceedingly the interview I had with you the other day, 
 
44 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 and shall be very glad if, under the providence of God, I am per- 
 mitted to have that relationship with you as Corresponding Secre- 
 tary which has been such a pleasure to me in the case of so many 
 other missionaries." 
 
 This, then, is the basis of that ideal relationship between the 
 missionary and the secretary, wherein the missionary both trusts 
 his leader and loves his friend. This statement is equally appli- 
 cable to all the missionaries and all the missionary fields. It is so 
 easy for even the most experienced foreign mission secretary to 
 allow his interest to follow the line of special conditions, and if it is 
 so difficult to maintain at all times and under all conditions a bal- 
 ance of judgment between the various missions, that one who at- 
 tains and maintains that attitude toward all the missions may in 
 very truth and without exaggeration be said to occupy not only an 
 ideal but a unique relationship. I think we may claim, even in 
 this presence, that Dr. Cobb was not only an ideal, but a unique 
 Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 The question arises in our minds : What was the reason for the 
 singular felicity of his relationship with the missionaries upon the 
 field ? Did it arise from the environment in which his service was 
 spent in behalf of the missionaries ? I think it a happy circum- 
 stance that in these days we have come to realize that missionaries 
 are not very different from ourselves. The halo has been re- 
 moved and the traditional estimate has been somewhat modi- 
 fied. We have come to realize that they have, with us, like hands 
 and feet and like dimensions and feelings and temptations. I 
 think we may not claim, even from the standpoint of the mission- 
 aries, that this singular felicity of his relationship arose alone, 
 or even primarily, from the missionaries* relationship with him- 
 self. Rather, may we say, that it arose from a singular and 
 peculiar fitness in Dr. Cobb himself for his high office. 
 
 What, then, were some of the qualities and some of the character- 
 istics that rendered him so peculiarly happy in all his relations with 
 the missionaries ? A very simple and brief analysis reveals to 
 us, I think, a three-fold equipment as related to the side of the 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 45 
 
 missionaries and the fields — an acquired equipment, a personal 
 equipment and a spiritual equipment ; not so, possibly, in the order 
 of time, but so, probably, in the order of development. 
 
 The acquired equipment was that which was derived from 
 circumstances. I include among these his experience as a mis- 
 sionary. Though short it was intense, and it was the background 
 for many years of sympathetic relations with the missionaries en- 
 gaged in a like service. A second influence was the insight which 
 he gained by reason of long and personal and close fellowship 
 with the missionaries themselves, by reason of which it was his 
 proud claim that every missionary, man or woman, that went to the 
 field during his twenty-seven years of service was personally known 
 to him, not because of mere acquaintance, but by reason of per- 
 sonal ties established with them. Not only was this gained from 
 personal relationship at home but from a further relationship 
 gained by prolonged visits to the field. To China his visits meant 
 a greater effectiveness of work by reason of the settlement of a 
 policy long in question ; to Japan they meant a greater power and a 
 greater efficiency of work by reason of closer relations between the 
 Japanese Church and the missionaries upon the field ; to India those 
 visits meant a greater joy for the Jubilee time and to Arabia they 
 meant a great increase of work in that new and interesting field. 
 The third element in this acquired equipment was, one which has 
 impressed me more and more, his knowledge gained from careful 
 reading and study of mission literature and reports. I frequently 
 observed his reading of the great biographies and the recent books 
 on mission policy and administration, and his careful perusal of 
 the reports of missionary conferences. He thus acquired an ex- 
 perience, an insight and a knowledge constituting a valuable 
 equipment. 
 
 But there was a second and fuller equipment which belonged to 
 our beloved Secretary. This was the personal, which was derived 
 very largely from a natural endowment and from his knowledge of 
 men and human nature. This includes a long list. His was a 
 sympathy wide and deep ; a courtesy never failing ; a tact that seldom 
 
46 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 erred ; a patience always at his command ; a self control which was 
 greater by reason of the fact that it was not altogether perhaps 
 natural. And there were other qualities in this personal equip- 
 ment: a broadness of mind, which enabled him to enter into 
 sympathy with the missionary from his point of view; a sanity 
 and a balance, which we find of great value in its application to 
 problems at home and abroad; a judgement sound and true; a 
 wisdom broad and informed, and a courage without which his 
 work would not have been effective. 
 
 Still further we may say that there was a personal equipment of 
 loyalty to the missionary. How we have learned at our council 
 table at home Dr. Cobb's consistent loyalty to the missionary! 
 Then, again, the singularly fine quahty of his literary talent, which 
 through these many years has characterized his relationship with 
 the missionaries in his correspondence. There was also his ca- 
 pacity for industry, which gave him his remarkable knowledge of 
 detail ; his capacity for business in administration, which gave him 
 his place as the Chairman of the Executive Committee at the 
 Ecumenical Conference of 1900, and membership on most of the 
 strong interdenominational missionary committees in this country ; 
 and, finally, his great capacity for friendship, attracting to himself 
 the intimacy of many and the love of all. 
 
 His last equipment was, however, the most important of all — 
 the Spiritual. This was derived from a close and personal walk 
 with God. I would speak here of the simplicity of his character, 
 of the beauty of it in all his relations. I would speak again of his 
 sincerity, the reality of it in his relations with his fellow men. I 
 would speak also of his humility, the tenderness of it in his walk 
 with God. 
 
 These were some of the fundamental elements in his spiritual 
 equipment, so constantly manifested to those at home in the closest in- 
 timacies of his life, and to those associated with him in their activi- 
 ties far hence. I would speak yet again here of the unselfishness of 
 his aims, of his devotion to his duty and, last of all, and perhaps as the 
 fundamental equipment of all, I would speak of his power in prayer. 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 47 
 
 Those who have come under the influence of that prayerful spirit of 
 our Secretary in the secret place of the home ; those who have gath- 
 ered strength from it as he led them in their approach to the throne 
 of grace in the distant places of the missionary field ; those who have 
 prayed with him as he led them at the Thursday noon meetings in 
 the office in New York, know something of his power in prayer. 
 Of this supreme spiritual gift we have a beautiful if pathetic illus- 
 tration in the prayer which Dr. Cobb wrote while a missionary in 
 Persia, which appears on the Order of Service: "Father, Take My 
 Hand." May I read to you "The Gracious Answer" of God to 
 this prayer of His servant, written by Dr. Cobb also during his mis- 
 sionary career? As I read, it will be seen that the answer follows 
 the petition of each stanza : 
 
 The Gracious Answer 
 
 The way is dark, my child ! But leads to light, 
 I would not always have thee walk by sight. 
 My dealings now thou canst not understand. 
 I meant it so ; but I will take thy hand, 
 
 And through the gloom 
 
 Lead safely home 
 My child ! 
 
 The day goes fast, my child ! But is the night 
 Darker to me than day ? In me is light ! 
 Keep close to me and every spectral band 
 Of fear shall vanish. I will take thy hand 
 
 And through the night 
 
 Lead up to light 
 
 My child ! 
 
 The way is long, my child ! But it shall be 
 Not one step longer than is best for thee ; 
 And thou shalt know at last, when thou shalt stand 
 Safe at the goal how I did take thy hand. 
 
 And quick and straight 
 
 Lead to Heaven's gate 
 My child ! 
 
48 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 The path is rough, my child ! But, oh, how sweet 
 Will be the rest, for weary pilgrims meet, 
 When thou shalt reach the borders of that land 
 To which I lead thee, as I take thy hand. 
 
 And safe and blest 
 
 With me shalt rest 
 My child ! 
 
 The throng is great, my child 1 But at thy side 
 Thy Father walks; then be not terrified, 
 For I am with thee; will thy foes command 
 To let thee freely pass; will take thy hand, 
 
 And through the throng 
 
 Lead safe along 
 My child ! 
 
 The cross is heavy, child ! Yet there was One 
 Who bore a heavier for thee ; my Son, 
 My Well-beloved Son. For Him bear thine, and stand 
 With Him at last, and from thy Father's hand 
 
 The cross laid down, 
 
 Receive a crown. 
 My child ! 
 
PRAYER: DR. ZWEMER 
 
 O Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations, 
 and the dwelling place of Thy people and the dwelling place of Thy 
 servant whose memory is so precious to us this day. Thou art the 
 God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the Covenant God; Thou 
 art not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Thee, and 
 Thou art their God now and our God, and, therefore, our hearts 
 are comforted. Thou hast taken away a friend and a father from 
 all Thy missionaries who knew him and loved him, but Thou hast 
 not left us comfortless. The Holy Spirit who was with our friend 
 and with our father here abides with the lonely missionaries in the 
 field, and this day, O God, we bow our heads and our hearts in 
 submission to Thy will. We thank Thee, our Heavenly Father, 
 for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in such a life and 
 service, and for the loving kindness and the tenderness of our God. 
 We thank Thee, O Lord, this day with all our missionaries in the 
 field, and with those who are before Thy face, for the life of this 
 Thy servant, for all he w^as and did and suffered and served, and 
 inherited, for the cross which he bore so patiently, and for the 
 crown which he won so worthily. We thank Thee for his work and 
 faith. O God, Thou alone knowest the sterling, stalwart faith of 
 Thy servant in the days when faith was weak and small, and when 
 those that believed large things were so few ; but Thou didst give 
 him faith for leadership and we thank Thee. We thank Thee for 
 his labor of love, for the toil of the oflice and the toil among the 
 churches, and the toil, unwearying and unwearied, for Thy mis- 
 sionaries, his missionaries, the missionaries of our Church ; and we 
 thank Thee for his patience — patience with the work and the 
 workers at home and abroad. We thank Thee, O Lord our God, 
 for his skill in administration ; we thank Thee for his talent of lead- 
 ership ; we thank Thee for his faithfulness in ofiice ; but we thank 
 Thee most of all, O God, for that which was most precious to us in 
 Thy serv^ant — his sympathy and his prayers. We thank Thee, O 
 
50 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Lord our God, that because he was Thy missionary he was able to 
 sympathize with those whom Thou hast called to do Thy work. 
 Because he was tempted at all points as they were and, like as they 
 were, not without sin, that he was able to suffer this and to succor 
 those that were tempted. We praise Thee, O God, this afternoon, 
 for Thy exceeding great love revealed in Jesus Christ, that Thou 
 hast magnified Thy Son in Thy servant, that the testimony of his 
 life, in his words and in his works which follow him, leaves nothing 
 uncertain as to the strength of his character and the strength of his 
 life and the rock and the foundations of his hope. Thou, O 
 Christ, wert with him; Thou, O Christ, art with us, and this after- 
 noon we thank Thee that he who gave himself so freely and so fully 
 to Thy service and to the service of our beloved Church is now 
 receiving the fulfilment of Thy own promise, good measure pressed 
 down, shaken together, running over of joy everlasting and peace 
 that passeth all understanding and a rest that knows no end. 
 Moses, Thy servant, is dead. O Lord our God, help us to hear Thy 
 voice this afternoon above his voice which we cannot cease hearing, 
 and above the voices of his beloved associates and the voices of 
 those who knew him and loved him. Help us to hear Thy voice. 
 "Moses, my servant, is dead; now, therefore, arise, go over this 
 Jordan, Thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to 
 them, even to the Children of Israel. Every place that the sole of 
 thy feet shall tread upon that have I given unto you, as I said unto 
 Moses." 
 
 Baptize us for the dead. Roll the burden of this great work, 
 also, upon our hearts and upon our shoulders as it was upon the 
 heart and the shoulders, the manly shoulders, of Thy servant. 
 And grant, O God, that we may honor him not by speaking of 
 what he did and accomplished and served and suffered, but by fin- 
 ishing the work which he himself as Thy messenger and Thy spokes- 
 man has so often pressed upon the hearts and lives of the people of 
 our Church. O Lord our God, we pray Thee that Thou wilt bap- 
 tize the missionaries with the spirit, baptize them for the dead. 
 Give them his patience and long suffering and tenderness and sym- 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 51 
 
 pathy and ability and, above all, his power of prayer and his 
 patience. And grant, O God, this afternoon as we lay tribute to 
 Thy glory and Thy cross on the memory of Thy servant, that we 
 may walk henceforth in the inspiration of such a life on higher 
 levels and more ample service and unto larger horizon of vision and 
 accomplishments, seeing we are compassed about this day as we 
 have never been by a greater company of those who have inherited 
 the light and the joy of Thy glory. Help us to lay aside every 
 weight that does so easily beset us in the task of evangelizing the 
 world for which Christ died, and to run with patience the race that 
 is set before us, looking not back to the dead or around to the living, 
 but looking up unto Jesus, who is the Author and Finisher of our 
 faith and of our tasks. And we ask it for his glory. Amen. 
 
 Dr. Coe : As has already been said, Dr. Cobb began his minis- 
 try as a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions, and his personal relations with that Board were 
 close and constant. A message of honor and sympathy from that 
 great Missionary Society will be brought this afternoon by Dr. 
 Patton, its Secretary. 
 
• ADDRESS: DR. PATTON 
 
 It is a very great privilege to join in this service and to bring the 
 greetings and appreciations of the officers of the American Board. 
 We had hoped that our President, Dr. Capen, would be here, and 
 that was his own strong desire, as he held Dr. Cobb in very deep 
 affection and great admiration ; but he is held by imperative engage- 
 ments. He has asked me to read this message to you : 
 
 " Dr. Cobb was universally recognized as one of our great mis- 
 sionary statesmen. The early years spent as a foreign missionary 
 in Persia in the sers^ice of our Board gave him an experience which 
 fitted him in an unusual degree for his later duties in the home 
 office. This experience made it possible for him to enter into sym- 
 pathy and close fellowship with men and women who were bearing 
 heavy burdens at the front. He was unerring in his judgments; 
 his knowledge of men and things was so extensive that he rarely 
 made an error; it was safe to follow his conclusion. He seemed 
 never to be thrown from his balance, for he had poise and sanity 
 for every emergency. He combined strength of purpose with a 
 kind and loving spirit, so that he made his influence felt without 
 ever injuring the feelings of others whom he might be compelled to 
 oppose. All who met him felt the power of his Christian pur- 
 pose. 
 
 "There was another characteristic of Dr. Cobb's which ought to 
 be noted — he never grew old. He did not feel as though the best 
 days were in the past ; the best things for him were to come. As an 
 illustration of this, no one entered more quickly than he into the 
 plans of the Laymen's Missionary Movement. At the very first 
 meeting of the officers of the boards, when these plans were first 
 presented, he was among the first to recognize its possibilities, and 
 with no uncertain voice expressed his approval. 
 
 "While we shall all miss him in our councils this will be espe- 
 cially true of you in the home office and of the members of your 
 committee who were brought so constantly in touch with him. 
 
54 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 There will be sadness in the hearts of all your missionaries who 
 had in him a brother and friend. 
 
 " I hope I may be permitted this further personal word. When 
 ten years ago I was elected President of the American Board I felt 
 that the burden was a heavy one, especially in the thought of the 
 men who had preceded me. I shall never forget the warmth and 
 cordiality of the greeting I received from Dr. Cobb at the time of 
 the Ecumenical Conference, when I met him almost for the first 
 time upon the platform at Carnegie Hall. His hand of welcome 
 and his words then spoken were an inspiration. That cordiality 
 and kindly spirit he showed always and everywhere to the end of 
 his days, and I feel as though I had lost a loving and devoted friend. 
 
 "While I would express to you in the name of the American 
 Board and for myself personally these words of sincere sympathy 
 and regard, there is in all our sadness a great note of rejoicing over 
 the life of such a man. He has been a fellow worker with Jesus 
 Christ through long years in the noblest work in the world. We 
 are the richer and better, and the nations as well, because he has 
 lived. He has been faithful even unto death and has already 
 looked into the face of the Master whom he loved, and heard from 
 His own lips the glorious words: 'Well done, good and faithful 
 servant. Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord.' 
 
 " The truth contained in these lines seems to be especially appli- 
 cable in what we call the 'death' but which is really the coming 
 into the larger hfe of Dr. Cobb : 
 
 'Were a star quenched on high 
 
 For ages would its light 
 Still traveling downward from the sky 
 
 Shine on our mortal sight ; 
 So, when a great man dies 
 
 For years beyond our ken 
 The light he leaves behind him lies 
 
 Upon the paths of men.' " 
 
 I am sure that every one connected with the American Board 
 will echo these sentiments of our President and will cherish the 
 memory of this great and good, this noble man, as one of the most 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 55 
 
 precious heritages which we have, because we do claim him as our 
 own, almost. How very intimate have been the relations of these 
 two Boards for practically one hundred years, living together, like 
 two brothers in the same home, of common origin, of common 
 experience, with the same history, exhibiting the same ideals, pro- 
 ceeding on the same principles in missionary work, following very 
 closely even the same methods at home and abroad. When the 
 brothers went their separate ways it was not to be separated but 
 to follow out their parallel courses, each one trying to live out and 
 develop the best things which they had shared together, and of all 
 the personalities which have helped to combine these Boards so 
 closely together in this brotherhood of experience and service Dr. 
 Cobb has been the leading one, without any doubt. A great deal 
 of it has been through Dr. Cobb on the one side, and it has come 
 almost in our oflEice to amount to this, that we have thought of this 
 holy fellowship as personified in this one man. He seemed to us to 
 exemplify in his own personality those qualities of faith and of 
 light which we have come to believe characterized the body of 
 churches which he served, this Reformed Church in America, and 
 so we have come to think of him to a large extent as the Board 
 itself. Practically all our dealings this way were with him, and all, 
 without a single exception, were a joy and a delight, without a sug- 
 gestion of friction or difference. If his relations to the missionaries 
 and to his associates, as we have heard this afternoon, were ideal, 
 I certainly can say the same as to his relations with the American 
 Board, and I doubt not the same is true with all the missionary 
 boards. I like to think of the changes this man has lived to see, 
 and which he has had a considerable share in bringing about. I 
 was speaking in Canada not long ago about the remarkable change 
 in China, and I happened to allude to a prayer meeting, held in 
 1840, when all the Christians at Hongkong were gathered together 
 in a room about fifteen feet square. A lady was in the front pew. 
 I noticed her face light up, and after service she came up and said 
 that she was a girl in London in 1840, when that prayer meeting 
 had been held in Hongkong, and that they had heard of it and 
 
56 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 held meetings all through their churches praying that God would 
 open a door in China. Think of one person living to see those 
 colossal achievements in that work. Here was Dr. Cobb, not going 
 quite as far back as that, and yet with fifty years of active service 
 and participation at home or abroad in these things. What he has 
 seen in China and Japan and Corea and India and Persia and 
 Turkey catches one's imagination. It makes one realize the 
 majesty of a work like this, to which he committed his life. Oh, 
 friends, if there is any one thing in the world which ought to turn 
 out great men it is this work of foreign missions ; if there is any one 
 subject on the face of the earth wherein man ought to be trained 
 into nobility of character and greatness, of judgment and breadth of 
 vision, it is at the council tables of these great foreign missionary 
 organizations. I have no doubt it would be his own testimony that 
 if he has contributed something to this work he also has received in 
 his own character mighty things out of this work. 
 
 My own acquaintance with him was so very recent that I hesi- 
 tate to mention it at all, but I cannot forbear to speak of the im- 
 pression he made upon me in the last six years, of this exquisite 
 quality of kindness which all of you know so much about. He 
 reminded me of the life of that good Bishop of Cambray— Fenelon. 
 When his district was devastated by the English Army, their homes 
 burned, their cattle driven out into the highways, the good Bishop 
 came along and they came out to him and told him of their losses, 
 and he comforted them, sending them back to their work to rebuild 
 the desolation by laying his hands upon them and simply saying : 
 "I know, I know." I can imagine this relation, this beautiful rela- 
 tion of sympathy to which allusion has been made, between Dr. 
 Cobb as the Corresponding Secretary and his missionaries, how on 
 one of these visits to the field about which we have heard, when they 
 told him of their troubles, he could say: "I know, I understand." 
 To feel that Dr. Cobb knew and understood was better comfort 
 than a good many people know. With that remarkable sanity of 
 judgment, what a noble committeeman he was, absolutely fair 
 toward men, with a strong sense of justice, an honest willingness to 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 57 
 
 take the other man's point of view and see things through his eyes, 
 and credit him with his own energy and judgment. To behold 
 these — sympathy, kindness, sanity, fairness —in such perfect poise 
 is a remarkable thing. But after all, dear friends, we know the 
 sources of it; we know that like every service of this kind it was 
 simply a following of the great examplar, Jesus Christ. We know 
 it was the shining out through this man's personality of those 
 qualities of the blessed Master, and all praise be to Him. I know 
 that for one I can say that my life is going to be stronger and better 
 and, I hope, far more useful because of my even slight acquaintance 
 with this splendid man, and because I have been able to be here, 
 this afternoon, to enter into your fellowship of sympathy and love. 
 
 Dr. Coe: In recent years Dr. Cobb's personal relations with 
 the officers of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, with 
 which he has been in constant conference in regard to the great 
 problems which concern our common interests, have been very close, 
 and there is no one who can speak of them with greater and deeper 
 knowledge or intimate personal regard than our friend, Mr. Speer. 
 
ADDRESS: DR. SPEER 
 
 The judgments of love are confessedly biased judgments. That 
 is what makes them true. It is the bias of perfect faith and perfect 
 trust that lifts them above the error of our mere human opinions 
 into the truth and the kindly discernings of God. And it is that 
 love for Dr. Cobb which is in all our hearts here today which en- 
 ables us, as we have been doing, to judge so justly of what he has 
 been and of what he has done. I rejoice that it is out of twenty 
 years of intimate and filial fellowship with him that I can come 
 down here today representing, as Dr. Coe has said, the missionary 
 organization which, perhaps, of all outside of his own lay closest 
 to him in his relationship of intimacy in missionary service. 
 
 We counted him as one of our own missionaries. The history 
 and traditions of the old mission to the Nestorians, which had been 
 connected with the American Board, passed over to our own Church 
 at the time of the reunion of the Old and the New School Churches, 
 and Dr. Cobb's name is borne on the roll of the missionaries of our 
 own body. During all these years that he has been connected with 
 your own Board his relationships have been almost as intimate and 
 as close with ours. The identification of the work of the Reformed 
 Church and the Presbyterian Church in Japan unified their inter- 
 ests and responsibilities there, and brought Dr. Cobb during all 
 these years into such association with the officers of our Board as 
 made us one council, in one fellowship, with regard to the problems 
 in that Empire. If he ever chanced to come in when other affairs 
 were under consideration it was not necessary to interrupt that con- 
 sideration, for it was felt that he had his rightful place in that com- 
 panionship regarding any of the problems of the Kingdom of Christ 
 at home or abroad. 
 
 I should like to speak not only of all we learned from him and 
 have lost in him in that relationship, but also in a broader view. 
 I can remember the first day, seventeen years ago, when the 
 representatives of the different foreign missionary societies of the 
 
60 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 United States and Canada came together for the first time, begin- 
 ning those annual conferences which have never been interrupted, 
 and in which Dr. Cobb has always been one of the most beloved 
 and trusted leaders. I think almost every member of that first 
 little gathering has passed away — Dr. Clark and Dr. Judson Smith, 
 of the American Board; Dr. Murdock and Dr. Duncan, of the 
 Baptist Missionary Union ; Dr. Peck, Dr. Reid and Dr. Baldwin, 
 of the Methodist Society; Dr. Langford, of the Episcopal Board; 
 Dr. Chambers, long president of your own, and Dr. Cole, Dr. Ellen- 
 wood and Dr. Gillespie, of our own; Dr. Dales and Dr. Barr, of 
 the United Presbyterian, and, not the least of that great company, 
 the dear one whose memory we are gathered here today to honor. 
 He was almost the last one of that older company of men who car- 
 ried the foreign missionary enterprise through those days when the 
 foundation was needed to be laid, when it had to be justified and 
 vindicated, before ever it had come to its own, as it has now in the 
 days of us who have followed those who have passed beyond. 
 
 We rejoice this day in the memory of all that Dr. Cobb has been 
 in those relations. The memorial of the Classis that has been pre- 
 sented and the words which Dr. Patton has just spoken lay just 
 emphasis upon the wisdom of his counsel, the sobriety and sanity of 
 his judgments. There was no one whose judgments were more 
 trustfully anticipated than his, or whose judgments were less im- 
 personal than his, or more temperately or more gently expressed. 
 They rested on his own calm view of principles regarding which his 
 mind was ever open and his will ever firm. We shall go forward 
 more wisely in days to come in the inheritance of his calm, temper- 
 ate, kindly wisdom. 
 
 We learned constantly in that school of loving fellowship with 
 him a great and reverent sense of responsibility and just reverence 
 for every duty, large or small. Those who were associated with 
 Dr. Cobb in the Board of Directors of the Clifton Springs Sani- 
 tarium, which was one of his dearest interests, will never forget the 
 lessons they learned constantly from him in that comradeship. He 
 was a faithful man, not only in his thoughts about God but in his 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICE 61 
 
 faithful life in God and in the world as a servant of God. Fidelity 
 underbased all his doings. To many there will come back, as their 
 minds recall what he was and what he did, gentle recollections of his 
 unselfishness and humility. He was not one, as we know, who 
 obtruded himself, nor was he one to shrink from any responsibihty, 
 but he was one who sought no responsibility that was not properly 
 his own. He walked in lowliness of mind and, therefore, men 
 sought to place him in positions of leadership. 
 
 No one has referred thus far to the playfulness of his humor, to 
 that delight in little things that made him one of the most charming 
 of companions always. When the work of the committee meeting 
 was over, when the discussions of the Board of Directors were done, 
 there was no one with whom it was a greater delight to sit down for 
 the quiet flow of human intercourse than Dr. Cobb. We know 
 well how destitute the gentle current of his life was of everything 
 malicious. He was one who fulfilled the purpose of Jonathan 
 Edwards, so to order his life that he would never do anything out of 
 ill will or revenge. There was no low mindedness, no self will in 
 any thought of Dr. Cobb's in relation to the work or to the prob- 
 lems or to men. All we can recall about him here today is 
 attended by no bitterness. No one memory can come back to any 
 one of us that is not fragrant and sweet with the gentleness and 
 beauty and kindness and Christliness of his pure and loving 
 spirit. 
 
 We learned from him one last great lesson through all those 
 years during which the missionary enterprise had to contend with 
 much, with antagonism and opposition and unbelief in the Church, 
 with criticism in the public press, and with the natural selfishness 
 of the human heart. Those were days when men had to believe, 
 and we learned from him the lesson not to be alarmed or concerned 
 because there are clouds in the sky, because there seem to be insu- 
 perable obstacles before us. He beheved mightily in God and God 
 justified his belief. Encouraged by the memory of such great and 
 unassailable faith, we look up on skies that are not cloudless, for- 
 ward to roads that are not free from their hindrances and impedi- 
 
62 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ments, believing still that He who vindicated our fathers' trust in 
 Him will vindicate also our own. 
 
 In those blessed memories we rejoice today, and our joy is not 
 tinged with any feehng of regret that he is not with us. We would 
 fain have him still here, but it is a far-better country whither he is 
 gone ; it is a far-richer service that is opened to him there than was 
 possible here. Beyond the sweat and dust and tears of life, beyond 
 the hindrances and limitations that beset even the best and Christli- 
 est souls here, he is working now, we know, the great work of the 
 good before God Himself, looking upon His face. Last summer at 
 the annual meeting of the missionaries of our united churches in 
 Japan, Dr. Wyckoff read a paper on Guido Verbeck, and he closed 
 with an extract from a letter of Dr. Cobb, which Dr. Cobb had 
 written to him shortly after the tidings of Verbeck's death had 
 come. "The more I think of it," he wrote, "the greater the loss 
 appears, yet we could not expect to keep him always, and such a 
 departure is ever so much better than protracted feebleness or suf- 
 fering; it is the nearest to translation that this poor world knows." 
 And far from desiring that all this should Have been withheld from 
 him a little more we rejoice today that he is where he would be, 
 and now delivered from all that hindered and free with an infinite 
 liberty, and looking upon the face of One whom all those years 
 having not seen he loved, he still has his part, a larger and a richer 
 and a more powerful part, we know, in everything that affects the 
 desires of his Lord and ours. May his memory enable us to walk 
 in his own spirit of loyalty and of love. 
 
PRAYER: DR. VANCE 
 
 O God, we thank Thee for the fellowship of this hour, for its 
 holy influence, for the visions and dreams which come to us as we 
 tarry here for a little while in this sanctuary of remembrance. We 
 thank Thee for the fellowship it gives with Thee and with the 
 sainted dead. We thank Thee for the fellowship of this hour, 
 O Lord, with Thy work and with Thy workers. We bless Thee 
 for a cause so great that great and good and glorious as is Thy dear 
 Son, He was not too great and good and glorious to serve this cause 
 and to die for it. We thank Thee for all these who have followed 
 in His train, for all the great souls of time who have caught the 
 spirit of the Christ, who have had His love continually in their 
 hearts, who have gloried in His grace, and who have lived and 
 laid down their lives for His Kingdom. We thank Thee for great 
 and good men who are not too great and good to give their best to 
 Christ's cause and who, giving their best, felt that they did not give 
 too much. We thank Thee wdth all our hearts for this faithful 
 servant of Thine, whom we hold and shall always hold in sweet and 
 loving remembrance. We thank Thee, O God, that he lived for a 
 cause, that he has given his life in this service ; we bless Thee that 
 Thou didst give him such a long life of splendid usefulness for the 
 greatest and best of all the causes that human life may serve. 
 And now in the afterglow of his life, as we gather here, we would 
 make this service a service of dedication, we would seek for a closer 
 walk with Thee, we would pray that there may come upon every 
 one of us a double portion of his spirit and of the spirit of all those 
 who have served the Christ and the Christ cause in the world. 
 Speak a word at this time. We worship Thee as the God who is the 
 same yesterday, today and forever, and we find in Thee a perma- 
 nence from our fleeting and our transitory lives. We thank Thee 
 that no life given to Thee can ever be lost and nothing done for 
 Thee can ever be lost. We commend Thy peace to those Thy 
 children who have lost from their home the comradeship and fellow- 
 
64 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ship, the homeloving, the gracious, strong, loving presence of this 
 man, Thy servant. And comfort Thy Church, we pray Thee. 
 Speak a word of peace to all our hearts, and give us, likewise, at 
 this time a call to duty. Baptize us for the dead and baptize us for 
 the living, too. O God, we pray that Thou wilt kindle our hearts 
 anew with devotion to Christ and His cause. Teach us why Thou 
 hast placed us in the world, give us a larger vision at this time, some- 
 thing afresh to do in this great work of the conquest of the world in 
 the name of Jesus Christ. And as the workers fall we pray that 
 Thou wilt fill the vacant places in the ranks and call the young men 
 and women of our land to the service of Christ, call them for the 
 great and good and useful and unselfish devotion to Him and His 
 Kingdom. Thus be with us and sustain us as one by one we finish 
 our work and cross the silent flood unto Him who is able to keep us 
 from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of His 
 glory with exceeding joy. And to the one wise God our Father be 
 honor and glory and dominion and power, both now and forever. 
 Amen. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 THE FOREIGN BOARD AND ITS MISSIONS 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 THE FOREIGN BOARD AND ITS MISSIONS 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions, R.C.A. 
 
 THE Reverend Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., Corresponding 
 Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, passed away 
 at his home in East Orange, N. J., on Sunday afternoon, 
 April 17, 1910. 
 
 The Board desires to place on record its profound sense of loss 
 in his going hence — a loss common to the Board and to the 
 Arabian Mission, as well as to the entire Reformed Church. 
 
 Dr. Cobb was elected a member of this Board in 1874. He had 
 previously given two years of missionary service in Persia. His 
 membership on the Board revealed him to be a man of such value 
 that upon the retirement of the Rev. John Mason Ferris, D.D., as 
 Corresponding Secretary in 1882, Dr. Cobb was immediately 
 elected his successor. He has given the Board twenty-seven years 
 of distinguished and growingly valuable service. During his 
 administration the work in all the missions has greatly advanced, 
 the number of missionaries has trebled, the receipts have increased 
 almost fourfold. It was during his incumbency that the Arabian 
 Mission was organized in 1889 and has grown to be one of our 
 strongest missions. He twice visited our missions in Asia, in 1892 
 and 1904, receiving the warmest welcome from the missionaries, 
 greatly endearing himself to the Oriental Christian constituency, 
 and by his valuable counsel greatly strengthening the efficiency of 
 the work in every country which he visited. 
 
 Dr. Cobb possessed rare gifts for the work to which he gave the 
 richest and latest years of his life. He was a man of large vision, of 
 keen discernment, of poise and strong business sense, of great 
 Christian convictions, of sustained and kindling enthusiasm. He 
 
68 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 had a most ihorough knowledge of every aspect of the great work 
 of world evangehzation. He was recognized within and without 
 the Church as a great missionary statesman. He gave his whole 
 self to the work in tireless industry, in the utmost promptitude, in 
 the most patient attention to every detail, in his most faithful and 
 highly appreciated correspondence with the missions and with 
 individual missionaries, in his endeavor by voice and pen to deepen 
 interest in the churches at home in the work abroad, in his corre- 
 spondence with prospective candidates, in his willing and most 
 helpful identification with every movement which contemplated the 
 enlightenment and enlistment of the constituency at home or the 
 expansion of the work abroad. 
 
 We thank God that he gave the Board and the Church and this 
 great cause so many years of his most fruitful life. We cannot but 
 record the privilege and the joy of fellowship with one so strong, so 
 gentle, so lovable, so true, so believing, so Christhke. We shall 
 long miss his wisdom, his counsel, his inspiration, his presence 
 among us. We shall long cherish his memory and pray for grace 
 to press on in the way of world winning for Jesus Christ, in which 
 he so long led us forward. 
 
 The Amoy Mission 
 
 When the cable flashed to us the news that God had called 
 home the Reverend Henry N. Cobb, D.D., our hearts were bowed 
 under a weight of sorrow and a sense of loss which words cannot 
 express. During the long years which our Lord gave to Dr. Cobb 
 to work for him in the Board of Foreign Missions of our Church we 
 have come to know how justly deserved was the encomium pro- 
 nounced at the Ecumenical Conference in New York when he was 
 called "that prince of missionary secretaries to whose efficient 
 efforts is so largely due the success of this meeting." In our work 
 in China and in our place in the home church on every side we see 
 the results of his ability, efficiency, consecration. He has gone, 
 and God will call out the one whom He has prepared to assume 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 69 
 
 his place of leadership, but his works, done in self-effacing love, 
 will follow him. 
 
 In Dr. Cobb's death not only have we lost the Secretary whose 
 model letters and remarkable administrative ability made it a 
 privilege to work with him, but we have lost the personal friend 
 whose friendship and sympathy has been an influence in the life 
 of each missionary who has served under him. In adopting this 
 minute to record our grief at his death, our appreciation of his 
 services and friendship, we recognize that this is not only our 
 bereavement but that we are mourning with the Board, our sister 
 missions, our whole Church, in the loss that we all feel now and 
 will feel more and more deeply as time brings around these occa- 
 sions which were wont to call forth his sympathy and help. 
 
 To his widow, w^ho for fifty years shared the burden of his 
 activities, his joy in the work and the love of his friends, and to his 
 children, who will with us gratefully cherish the blessed memory of 
 this good man, we extend the deepest sympathy of our sorrowing 
 hearts and the assurance of our prayers that "our Lord Jesus 
 Christ Himself, and God, our Father, w^ho loved us and gave us 
 eternal comfort and good hope through grace," may comfort their 
 hearts and give them peace at all times in all ways. May our Lord 
 hasten the fulfilment of that. prayer which Dr. Cobb lived and 
 helped us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," so that soon we shall 
 all meet him and the multitude who received their knowledge of 
 salvation through him in that host who are "before the throne of 
 God and serve Him day and night in His temple, whose Shepherd is 
 the Lamb who shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life." 
 
 Frank Eckerson, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 The Arcot Mission 
 
 The members of the Arcot Mission, who had recently to record 
 the death of the honored President of the Home Board, the Rev. 
 Dr. Mancius H. Hutton, are now called to mourn the loss of the 
 
70 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 beloved Corresponding Secretary of our Board, Rev. Henry Nitchie 
 Cobb, D.D., who passed away on the 17th of April, 1910, after fifty 
 years of distinguished service to the Church and its missions. In 
 acknowledging the sense of our bereavement at Dr. Cobb's death 
 we find it difficult to obtain words that will suitably express our high 
 estimate of his character and work. 
 
 Rarely has it been given a man to combine in his person such a 
 variety of spiritual and mental gifts. To us as missionaries his 
 career was especially an inspiration. Dr. Cobb spent the first 
 years of his ministry in the foreign field, where his love for missions 
 developed into a passion which never left him. Obliged to return 
 to America on account of ill health, he served for some time as 
 pastor in the home church, when he was elected Corresponding 
 Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, bringing to the office a 
 wealth of resources peculiarly adapted to so responsible a position. 
 His eminent executive gifts, his catholicity of spirit, largeness of 
 vision and winning personality won for him a high place among 
 missionary statesmen, as evidenced by the leading part assigned 
 him in the annual Conference of Foreign Mission Boards, and by 
 his appointment as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the 
 Ecumenical Conference of Foreign Missions held in New York 
 in 1900. 
 
 In his special work of correspondence with the missions Dr. 
 Cobb could not be surpassed. While loyal to the Board as its 
 executive officer, yet, in communicating actions unwelcome to the 
 missionaries, he always did it in so kindly a way as to considerably 
 mitigate any disappointment, while his earnest efforts and moving 
 appeals against "cuts" in time of financial stringency at home were 
 no little solace to us. 
 
 Although Dr. Cobb's talents as an administrator gained for him 
 among us the title of "the model Secretary," yet it was his preemi- 
 nent personal graces that especially endeared him to all the workers 
 on the field. In him every missionary reahzed that he had a per- 
 sonal friend. None of us will forget the delightful and sympathetic 
 letters that we have received from him, written with his own familiar 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 71 
 
 hand and penned in the midst of large and heavy official corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 During Dr. Cobb's three decades of office as Corresponding 
 Secretary the missionary force of the Arcot Mission was doubled 
 and the work increased several fold. His two visits to the Mission 
 will long linger in the memory of ourselves and the Indian 
 Christians. 
 
 To Mrs. Cobb in her loneliness we tender our warmest sym- 
 pathy, as well as to the children bereft of an affectionate father and 
 companion. L. B. Chamberlain, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 The North Japan Mission 
 
 Resolved, That the North Japan Mission desires to record its 
 deep appreciation of the more than twenty-five years of faithful 
 service of the Rev. Dr. Henry N. Cobb. During his many years of 
 personal and official relations with the members of the North Japan 
 Mission, by his exalted piety and faith in God and our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by his missionary zeal and faith in the triumphs of Chris- 
 tianity and the success of the cause of missions, by his wide catho- 
 licity of spirit, his sympathy with the aspirations of the churches of 
 the Orient and his courteous and sympathetic treatment of the 
 members of the mission, in the many trying experiences and prob- 
 lems that have arisen. Dr. Cobb's services have been such that we 
 cannot but feel that the Church he represented, the cause he so 
 warmly and nobly advocated and we, ourselves, whom he so 
 consistently sustained in the confidence and warmth of Chris- 
 tian fellowship have suffered what might seem an irreparable 
 loss. 
 
 It has always been a comfort to know that Dr. Cobb had him- 
 self been a missionary on the foreign field, which, with his two 
 memorable visits to the mission fields of our own Reformed Church, 
 made him appear more like one of our own members and enabled 
 him, by personal experiences-, to enter into sympathy with us, to 
 
72 . DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 share our burdens and confidences and to be the wise and consider- 
 ate counsellor that he was to all his brethren. 
 
 It is, therefore, with most grateful hearts we record our thanks- 
 givings to the great Head of the Church for the gift of such a wise 
 and beloved brother and fellow helper unto the establishment of 
 the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour upon the earth. 
 
 Nor would we fail to express our thanks for the wide and lively 
 interest he took in national and political affairs in America and all 
 lands, which enabled him to keep us in touch with all that makes 
 for the coming of the Kingdom among men. 
 
 On behalf of the North Japan Mission. 
 
 James H. Ballagh, 
 Eugene S. Booth. 
 
 The South Japan Mission 
 
 The South Japan Mission has heard with profound sorrow of 
 the death of Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., for so many years the 
 Secretary of our Board of Foreign Missions. Dr. Cobb's term of 
 service as Secretary antedates that of even the oldest living member 
 of our Mission. For us Dr. Cobb has been the Board of Foreign 
 Missions. We have known the latter and the Church's organized 
 missionary spirit chiefly through his communications, and as a 
 result we have, as a Mission, for years looked up to him with some- 
 thing of filial regard. His letters to the Mission were models of 
 what such communications should be. Their style was singularly 
 lucid and in surprisingly few words fully set forth the Board's 
 views, even on most intricate problems. Yet his letters were never 
 the dry record of actions taken. They were ever colored with the 
 writer's warm personality, real interest in the individual missionary 
 and intense zeal for the preaching of the Gospel to the whole world. 
 It could hardly have been expected that a personal element should 
 be injected into such communications, and yet chiefly through them, 
 to a surprising degree, our missionaries came to feel that Dr. Cobb 
 had a personal knowledge and a personal interest in the circum- 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 73 
 
 stances of each one. Where it was his duty to dissent or correct it 
 was done with such evident regret and in such an unselfish spirit 
 that to take offense was well-nigh impossible. It is a pleasure to 
 recall to what a large extent he has influenced the views and life 
 purposes of each one of us. We, as well as the Church, have lost 
 greatly by his passing away, but his years of service have left with 
 us all a rich heritage which will be with us always. 
 
 The Mission hereby directs its secretary to enter the above ex- 
 pression of our sense of loss upon the minutes of the Mission, and 
 to forward a copy to the Board. Willis G. Hoekje, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 The Arabian Mission 
 
 The missionaries of the Arabian Mission herewith wish to 
 express their sense of the loss which our work has suffered in the 
 recent taking away of our revered Secretary, Dr. Cobb. 
 
 From the inception of the Mission and throughout its career 
 Dr. Cobb was a sincere friend of the eff'ort, as our older missionaries 
 can testify. No word of his discouraging the new independent 
 Mission can be remembered, and when finally it was taken under 
 the care of our Church he was always clear and definite in express- 
 ing his opinion that the Arabian Mission had not been and would 
 not be a loss to the older work in other fields. Nor did he ever 
 hesitate to express his belief that our Reformed Church would and 
 should take its share in the redemption of Arabia. His steadfast 
 faith, his wise counsels and his personal interest will always be held 
 a potent factor in the development of our Mission. 
 
 But the thought that is uppermost in the heart of each worker is 
 that we have lost not only a leader and a sympathizer, but a friend. 
 His faithful and helpful words of farewell on leaving the homeland 
 and his cheery welcome on landing in New York never failed us. 
 Cordially accepting of personal confidences and sharing, so far as he 
 could, in the burden of personal responsibility, his individual letters 
 of appreciation, sympathy and hope will be always treasured by 
 
74 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 those who received them. As a man, a brother and a father his 
 memory is a stimulus to us, his life an example. 
 
 With all the missionaries of our Church we mourn his loss to the 
 work but rejoice that he has entered into his rest and reward — 
 looking forward to that triumphant day when, the victory won, we 
 shall stand by his side and hail our Lord as Conqueror and King. 
 
 James Cantine. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 THE BOARDS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 THE BOARDS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH 
 
 Woman's Board of Foreign Missions 
 
 From Mrs. DeWitt Knox, Recording Secretary: 
 
 At the meeting of the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, held 
 May 17, I was asked to express to you the sympathy of the mana- 
 gers in the great loss, common to us all, of dear Dr. Cobb, and to 
 assure you of our loyal cooperation and support in every way 
 possible. 
 
 To the Woman's Board Dr. Cobb was the most perfect friend 
 imaginable, so patient, so wise, so kindly in every word and deed, 
 and not without the saving grace of humor. He had "the undi- 
 vided will to seek the good, to compel the elements and to wring a 
 human music from an indifferent air," and he was truly. 
 
 One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph. 
 
 And as we know "no power can die that ever wrought for 
 truth," so his courage, his devotion will be a lasting influence to 
 lead us forward. 
 
 The Board of Domestic Missions 
 
 From the Rev. James I. Vance, D.D., President: 
 
 A great Christian is one who has room in his heart for all the 
 interests of Christ's kingdom. Dr. Cobb was in this respect, as 
 well as in others, a great Christian. He was enough of a Christian 
 statesman not to see that dim line the Church, for administration 
 
78 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 purposes, runs between the Church at home and the Church 
 abroad. 
 
 The records will be searched in vain for any word or act or hint 
 from him that might be construed as a betrayal of any feeling of 
 jealousy toward or any lack of interest in the work of the Board of 
 Domestic Missions. 
 
 Those of us to whom the Church has committed the oversight 
 and direction of our missions at home have known beyond a doubt 
 that we could count on the intelligent sympathy and warm coopera- 
 tion and hearty support of the Corresponding Secretary of Foreign 
 Missions. It never occurred to us to try to guard our peculiar 
 interests in our dealings with Dr. Cobb, for we knew he was sound 
 enough in judgment and great enough in heart to guarantee a broad 
 and catholic and fair treatment of all matters in which the two 
 Boards touched. 
 
 He was the soul of considerate and thoughtful courtesy in all 
 his deahngs with all his brethren, and it was a dehght and an in- 
 spiration to be associated with him on committees and in projects 
 for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom. 
 
 Truly his was a rare spirit, and the beauty of his devoted and 
 unselfish service, the charm of his gracious personahty, the sin- 
 cerity and noble dignity of his life and the beauty of his fine soul 
 will long be treasured by the Church. The foreign missionary work 
 of our Church is greatly bereft by his death, but we who are charged 
 with the work at home feel that our loss is not less profound. 
 
 Women's Board of Domestic Missions 
 
 From Mrs. John S. Allen, Corresponding Secretary: 
 
 The Women's Board of Domestic Missions requests me to con- 
 vey to you their very deep sympathy in the bereavement that has 
 come to your Board in the loss 6f the Rev. Dr. Henry N. Cobb, 
 your beloved Corresponding Secretary. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 79 
 
 His beautiful spirit, unerring judgment and wise counsel will be 
 greatly missed in the fellowship of our Church home. 
 
 Truly we are all bereaved and share with you and the Church 
 at large the consciousness of a great loss. 
 
 The Board of Education 
 
 From the Rev. Theo. W. Wells, D.D., President: 
 
 The Board of Education of the Reformed Church in America 
 desires to express to the Church's Board of Foreign Missions its 
 sincere regret and hearty sympathy because of the loss the Board 
 has sustained through the recent death of its very able and efficient 
 Corresponding Secretary, the Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D. He was 
 eminently endowed with the peculiar qualifications his position 
 demanded and the work to which he was called required. His 
 natural abilities of no mean order, faithfully trained and entirely 
 consecrated to the service of Christ, were an equipment which 
 directed and used as his whole-hearted devotion to the cause of 
 foreign missions might determine, made him a power in the Church 
 that seldom failed to awaken zeal and enkindle enthusiasm for 
 the world's evangelization. His long term of service makes his 
 death a loss to the Church at large and causes many a one to wonder 
 why one so fitted for the duties of the office he occupied should be 
 taken out of the world when he was so much needed. We cannot 
 understand it. God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to per- 
 form, but for the comfort of the hearts of his bereaved He has given 
 us the cheering word, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." God makes no mistakes. This is our 
 comfort. All is well. The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. You 
 sorrow now because you miss the sound of a familiar voice and an 
 accustomed greeting. We sympathize with you in your sorrow, but 
 we sorrow not without hope. The workmen fall by the way but the 
 work goes on. Be of good cheer, brethren. 
 
80 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
 Doth his successive journeys run, 
 His kingdom stretch from shore to shore 
 Till moons shall wax and wane no more. 
 
 Now His command rings out clearly and distinctly : " Go ye into 
 all the worid and preach my gospel to every creature." By and 
 by, yet a little while, and the same voice will whisper in our ears : 
 "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
 you from the foundation of the world." 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 OTHER BOARDS AND SOCIETIES 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 OTHER BOARDS AND SOCIETIES 
 
 The Announcement of Dr. Cobb's Death 
 to the Boards 
 
 New York, April 21, 1910. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in 
 America announces with profound sorrow and with a deep sense of 
 its own loss and that of the Church which it represents the death, 
 on Sunday, April 17, of the Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., for 
 more than twenty-seven years its faithful and beloved Correspond- 
 ing Secretary. The Board is assured that its own sorrow will be 
 shared by the secretaries and officers of the boards of other churches 
 who have been so long and intimately associated with Dr. Cobb. 
 
 A Memorial Service in commemoration of the life and work of 
 Dr. Cobb will be held in the Collegiate Reformed Church, West 
 End Avenue and 77th Street, on Monday, April 25, at 3 o'clock. 
 Addresses will be delivered by Dr. Fagg, Dr. Capen and Dr. Speer, 
 of the Reformed, the American and the Presbyterian Boards. Rep- 
 resentatives of other boards will be welcomed at the service. 
 
 Conference of Foreign Missions Boards of 
 the United States and Canada 
 
 New York, February 12, 1911. 
 
 From Mr. W. Henry Grant, Secretary: 
 
 The Conference of Foreign Missions Boards of the United 
 States and Canada desires to record its high appreciation of the 
 
84 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 character and services of Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D. His 
 unfailing courtesy and capacity for personal friendship bound him 
 with ties of affection to all who have had the privilege of fellowship 
 with him. 
 
 He attended the first meeting of the Conference in 1893, and, in 
 all attended fourteen out of its eighteen sessions, serving on a num- 
 ber of committees, ahd taking the deepest interest in all its pro- 
 ceedings. His paper on "Self-Support in the Native Church" may 
 be said to have given a new impetus to that movement and to have 
 induced the efforts of the Conference to make this a matter of 
 spiritual helpfulness to the native churches. 
 
 Dr. Cobb was elected as the Chairman of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Ecumenical Conference, New York, 1900, and he, 
 with the Secretary, acted as an Emergency Committee which set- 
 tled all questions of order arising during the Conference. 
 
 Henry Nitchie Cobb was born in New York City, November 15, 
 1834, and died at his home in East Orange, N. J., on Sunday after- 
 noon, April 17, 1910, aged seventy-five years. He graduated from 
 Yale College in 1855, and from the Union Theological Seminary in 
 1857. He was licensed and ordained by the Third Presbytery of 
 New York in 1860, and in that same year was sent out by the Amer- 
 ican Board of Foreign Missions as missionary to the Nestorians in 
 Persia and Koordistan. After two years of service his health gave 
 way and he was compelled to abandon his chosen life work and to 
 return to America. He became pastor of the Reformed Church in 
 Millbrook, N. Y., where for fifteen years he rendered faithful and 
 acceptable service. During that period, in the year 1877, General 
 Synod of the Reformed Church in America elected him a member 
 of its Board of Foreign Missions, of which board he became the 
 Corresponding Secretary in 1882. The wisdom of the board's 
 selection was increasingly manifest during the twenty-seven years 
 of his service, closing with his death. 
 
 Dr. Cobb's personal qualities were of the highest and most 
 winning type. He was extremely modest, a man of singular pur- 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 85 
 
 ity of character, with an innate and beautiful courtesy of manner, 
 a whole-souled kindness of heart, calm and self controlled, patient 
 and yet steadily persistent amid the weighty responsibilities that 
 marked all his years of varied service, as foreign missionary, as 
 pastor and as leader in the administration of the missionary work 
 of the denomination. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary send copies of these resolutions 
 to Doctor Cobb's family and to the Board of Foreign Missions of 
 the Reformed Church in America. 
 
 If I were called on for personal testimony, it would be that 
 Doctor Cobb has been, during the past seventeen years, in which 
 the Boards have met annually, one of three or four of my most con- 
 stant and balanced counsellors. One of the greatest evidences of 
 the value of his counsel is in the firm establishment of the Annual 
 Conference itself as shown by the active cooperation of about fifty 
 boards in its meetings and through its committees. 
 
 Committee of Reference and Counsel, Con:- 
 
 ference of Foreign Missions Boards in the 
 
 United States of America and Canada 
 
 New York, April 27, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Arthur J. Brown, D.D., Chairman. 
 
 With a profound sense of personal loss, the members of the 
 Committee on Reference and Counsel have learned of the death of 
 our colleague and brother, Dr. Henry Nitchie Cobb, on Sunday, 
 April 17, 1910. Dr. Cobb was the senior in service among the sec- 
 retaries of the Mission Boards of the United States. With a ma- 
 turity and sanity of judgment incalculable in value in the councils 
 of this committee and to the Mission Boards of North America ; of 
 unfailing courtesy and a capacity for personal friendship that bound 
 him with ties of affection to all who were permitted to cooperate 
 
86 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 with him in an ofl&cial or private capacity, Dr. Cobb occupied a 
 unique place in our confidence and love. 
 
 We desire hereby to express to Mrs. Cobb, all the members of 
 the bereaved family and to the Mission Board of the Reformed 
 Church in America our sympathy with them in their sorrow. 
 ^ A multitude scattered throughout the world, while mourning 
 their own loss and the loss to the cause of missions, nevertheless re- 
 joice in the boundless service Dr. Cobb has rendered the cause of 
 the Kingdom, and the assurance that the work he did will go on in 
 increasing force and power. 
 
 It is recommended that this action be spread upon the minutes 
 of the Committee of Reference and Counsel, and sent to Mrs. Cobb 
 and to the Foreign Mission Board of the Reformed Church in 
 America. 
 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 
 Missions 
 
 Boston, Mass., April 21, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. James L. Barton, Senior Secretary: 
 
 Personally, and on behalf of the American Board, I wish to ex- 
 press our sense of loss in the death of Dr. Cobb. We have always 
 felt that the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in 
 America and the American Board were as close together in their 
 ideals and practical operation as any two mission boards in the 
 world. I have personally felt that in Dr. Cobb I had an adviser 
 and a friend upon whom reliance could always be placed and who 
 never failed to command confidence by the wisdom of his advice 
 and suggestion. But beyond all this it has been impossible to be 
 associated with Dr. Cobb as I have been associated in the last 
 twelve or fifteen years, and not to have a bond of affection formed 
 which has been continually strengthened as the years have gone on. 
 And yet when we think of the fullness of the life that he lived and 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 87 
 
 the great service which he has been permitted to render to the cause 
 of missions both at home and abroad, we cannot but thank God for 
 him, for the ripeness and fulhiess of the service, and that he was not 
 called upon to pass through a long period of suffering, but experi- 
 enced a brief transition from his service here on earth to eternal fel- 
 lowship with the Lord, whom he served so well. Our syinpathies 
 are with you and with your association. ♦ 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in the United States 
 of America 
 
 New York, April 30, 1910. 
 
 I. From the Rev. Dr. George Alexander, President: 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in 
 the United States of America at a recent meeting learned with sor- 
 row of the bereavement which your Board has sustained in the 
 lamented death of the Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., your Secretary, 
 and instructed me to express to you their deep sympathy. 
 
 By his qualities and his work Dr. Cobb had made himself the 
 property of all the churches, and especially endeared himself to 
 those whose privilege it was to be associated with him in prosecut- 
 ing the great enterprise of foreign missions. 
 
 Will you kindly inform his family that we of the Presbyterian 
 Board share your loss and theirs ? 
 
 New York, April 19, 1910. 
 
 II. From Dr. Robert E. Speer, Senior Secretary: 
 
 It was with the shock and grief which one would feel upon sud- 
 den news of his own father's death that I read in yesterday's paper 
 of Dr. Cobb's going. I have loved him with a filial love for many 
 
88 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 years and shall miss more than words can say the perfect confidence 
 and intimacy of this blessed friendship. I offer my deepest sym- 
 pathy to your Board in its great sorrow. 
 
 Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of 
 
 the Presbyterian Church in the United 
 
 States (South) 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., May 9, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. S. H. Chester, Senior Secretary: 
 
 The Executive Committee of Foreign Missions has learned with 
 profound sorrow of the death of your venerable and beloved Sec- 
 treary, Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., and hereby extends to the Board 
 of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America its cordial 
 sympathy in this great loss and breravement. The cooperative 
 work carried on by our mission and yours in Japan has been the 
 occasion of a great deal of correspondence and many personal con- 
 ferences with Dr. Cobb, in all of which he ever showed himself to 
 be a man of clear judgment, broad sympathies and of a warm and 
 loving heart. 
 
 Foreign Missions Committee, Presbyterian 
 
 Church in Canada 
 
 Toronto, April 22, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. R. P. MacKay, Secretary: 
 
 I have just received your note announcing the death of the Rev. 
 Henry N. Cobb, D.D. It was not my privilege to enjoy the inti- 
 mate acquaintance of Dr. Cobb, and yet I feel as if I had lost a dear 
 and personal friend. In the annual conferences of Board secre- 
 taries he was always conspicuous, and the more so because of his 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 89 
 
 quiet modesty and gentle spirit, as well as by the intellectual grasp 
 and clear conviction manifest in every utterance and in all his bear- 
 ing. He was a loving apostle and to an unusual degree represented 
 the spirit of his Master. I had a great affection for him, and his 
 presence will be sadly missed in the days to come. 
 
 What the loss will be to the missionaries to whom he so long 
 and faithfully ministered none other appreciate. He was a father 
 as well as a friend. Thank God for the gift of such a man. 
 
 It is needless to say that to him the change is blessed. He has 
 seen the King in His beauty and has entered upon the fullness of 
 His joy. May the memory abide as an inspiration in your Church, 
 and especially in all your mission fields. 
 
 Were it in my power it would be a melancholy pleasure to be 
 present at the memorial service. But that is not possible. Please 
 accept my sincere sympathy in this, your sorrow, and I know my 
 Board will wish to be included in this expression of sympathy and 
 the fellowship of suffering. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the United 
 Presbyterian Church of North America 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 25, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. C. R. Watson, Secretary: 
 
 The announcement of the death of Dr. Cobb came, bringing 
 profound sorrow and a great sense of loss to us all. Personally, my 
 acquaintance with Dr. Cobb had led to a feeling of deep affection 
 for him. His uniform kindliness, his deep sympathy and his marked 
 courtesy drew me to him, and resulted in an increasing admira- 
 tion for him and his character. Of course, in Board circles we feel 
 his loss even more greatly. 
 
 His wise counsel and his broad sympathy and his strong faith, 
 made him one of the most valuable advisers in our conferences. 
 
90 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 You will extend to your Board in behalf of our own the assur- 
 ance of our sympathy with you in your loss. 
 
 It is a matter of regret that I cannot be in New York to share 
 in the memorial service which is to be held today at the Collegiate 
 Reformed Church. Our sympathy is extended to you by tele- 
 graph. 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions, Reformed Church 
 in the United States 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 1910. 
 From Dr. J. Albert Beam, Acting Secretary: 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in the 
 United States has received the announcement of the death of Rev. 
 Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., the Corresponding Secretary of your 
 body, with deep sorrow and a keen appreciation of your loss and 
 ours. The influence of his life and work, however, will continue to 
 inspire all who have been associated with him in the advancement 
 of the cause to which his hfe was devoted. 
 
 It is a cause of much regret that the President of this Board 
 and the Secretary are not in America at the present time and the 
 Acting Secretary has an engagement which prevents his being 
 present at the memorial service. 
 
 Accept the assurance of the heartfelt sympathy of every member 
 of this Board. 
 
 American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
 
 Boston, November 17, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. F. P. Haggard, Home Secretary: 
 
 Dr. Cobb was one of a noble group of older missionary leaders 
 upom whom we younger men look almost with reverence. It was 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 91 
 
 a pleasure to anticipate an annual meeting of the Conference of 
 Foreign Missions Boards because of the hope entertained of meet- 
 ing Dr. Cobb and his fellow workers. To me he was a singularly 
 attractive character. I always liked to hear him speak. His voice 
 and manner had pecuhar charm and wisdom flowed from his lips. 
 It was not permitted me to be intimate with him, but again and 
 again I derived profit from his counsels and the inspiration of his 
 presence. The secretaries of our Board felt a personal loss when 
 he left us. He helped us more than the average man to forget our 
 differences, to recognize our points of agreement and to magnify 
 the high privilege we had of working together for a great common 
 cause. We shall miss him in our councils, as I dare say the Board 
 which he served for so many years misses him in its work. His 
 memory will abide. His life was a benediction and continues to be 
 a source of inspiration to those who would broaden their horizon 
 and give themselves to the larger service of the Kingdom. 
 
 Foreign Mission Board of the Southern 
 Baptist Convention 
 
 Richmond, Va., April 22, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. R. J. Willingham, Corresponding Secretary: 
 
 Your letter is received in which you conveyed the sad news of 
 the departure from earth of Dr. H. N. Cobb, your noble Secretary, 
 who for so many years has stood faithfully at the helm. It was not 
 my privilege often to meet this consecrated, noble servant of our 
 Lord, but from time to time I had that pleasure at our various mis- 
 sion gatherings. I learned to esteem and love him. He was one 
 of the Lord's noblemen and a saint in Zion. Not only on my own 
 behalf, but on behalf of our Board, I extend to you and to your 
 Board our sympathy. 
 
92 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAJM 
 
 General Conference of Free Baptists 
 
 Hillsdale, Mich., April 23, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Ford, Secretary: 
 
 It is with deep regret that I learn through you of the death of 
 Dr. Cobb, who has for so many years figured so conspicuously in 
 the work of foreign missions, as the Corresponding Secretary of your 
 Board. In his death we sustain a profound sorrow and incalcu- 
 lable loss. We shall miss his face in the missionary convocations. 
 
 Foreign Mission Board of the National 
 Baptist Convention 
 
 Louisville, Ky., April 28, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. L. G. Jordan, Corresponding Secretary: 
 
 The Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention 
 hereby extends its sympathy to you and your co-laborers in the loss 
 of the late Dr. Cobb. We pray the Lord that even in his death 
 he may make stronger appeals for the spread of God's Kingdom 
 than during his life. 
 
 One by one, we who labor for the good of others, are going to 
 our rest and are leaving to those who survive us a richer legacy in 
 Christian service than when we began. 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church 
 
 New York, April 22, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. Homer C. Stuntz, Secretary: 
 
 It was with very deep regret that we learned of the death of Dr. 
 Cobb. We will have a representative of this Board present at the 
 memorial service. I deeply regret that previous engagements will 
 prevent my presence. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 93 
 
 Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church (South) 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., April 23, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. W. R. Lambuth, Secretary: 
 
 The announcement of the death of Dr. Henry N. Cobb is re- 
 ceived with a profound sense of loss and of personal bereavement. 
 Dr. Cobb was a tower of strength to the secretarial body. During 
 the past eighteen years I have known him intimately and have not 
 only respected him for his ability, but held him in high personal 
 esteem for his piety, his modesty and his devotion to the cause which 
 he served with such conspicuous success. 
 
 There was no secretary in the United States or in Canada who 
 had a clearer insight into difficult missionary problems, was better 
 poised, nor was there one who could be more freely relied upon for 
 sound judgment at all times. 
 
 The secretaries and officers of the Board of Missions of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, do indeed share your sorrow 
 and deep sense of loss. May his mantle fall upon the one who shall 
 succeed him in office, and the blessing and peace of God fill the 
 heart of Mrs. Cobb and those members of the family who survive 
 him. 
 
 The Missionary Society of the Methodist 
 Church, Canada 
 
 Toronto, April 26, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. T. E. E. Shore, Asst. Secretary: 
 
 We have received with profound sorrow the information of the 
 death of Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., your revered Corresponding 
 Secretary. I have been privileged to attend the annual meetings of 
 the Mission Boards Conference during the past four years, and I 
 
94 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 have been associated with Dr. Cobb upon a number of the com- 
 mittees of that conference. There has been no figure in missionary 
 circles with which I have been more impressed during these years 
 than that of Dr. Cobb. He possessed in a marked degree the qual- 
 ities of Christian statesmanship, with his deep sympathy, inspired 
 vision and calm judgment. We shall miss his words of wisdom in 
 the councils of the mission Boards of North America, but will be 
 inspired by his life work to the greater attainment of our ideals in 
 missionary work. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Methodist Protestant Church 
 
 Baltimore, Md., April 23, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Fred C. Klein, Secretary: 
 
 The announcement of the death of Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, 
 D.D., for so many years the honored and efficient Corresponding 
 Secretary of your Board, causes me personal sorrow. I met his 
 brother when I was a missionary in Japan, and recall the excellent 
 addresses he delivered there. When I first attended the Confer- 
 ence of Foreign Missions Boards I made myself known to Dr. Cobb, 
 and spoke of his brother's visit to Japan, and from that hour I felt 
 drawn to him. He commanded my esteem and confidence in no 
 small degree, and his qualities of head and heart gained for him a 
 commanding place in the conference, where his deep interest, sound 
 judgment, strong faith and loyal devotion to the great interests of 
 the Kingdom of Christ always exerted a pronounced influence. 
 We will greatly miss him in our annual gatherings, where his cor- 
 dial greeting awaited us, and where he added so much to the good 
 fellowship and success of the meeting. Such a man and his work 
 are a great blessing to any church, and his memory rightly will be 
 cherished as an example to others. I regret very much indeed that. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 95 
 
 owing to the pressure of many official duties, I am denied the priv- 
 ilege of attending the memorial service, but I will be there in 
 spirit. 
 
 General Missionary Board, Free Methodist 
 Church of North America 
 
 Chicago, III., May 13, 1910. 
 From the Rev. B. Winget, Secretary: 
 
 I am sure that you and your Board have my most hearty sym- 
 pathy in the midst of the great loss which you have sustained in the 
 death of Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D. D., who, for so many years, 
 has been such a faithful, beloved and efficient Corresponding Sec- 
 retary of your Board. 
 
 From the human standpoint of vision we can hardly see how 
 such men can be spared, but in the midst of our loss we acknowl- 
 edge the wisdom of Him who calls His servants from labor to re- 
 ward, and look to Him to provide more laborers to fill the vacancies 
 made by those who have been discharged. 
 
 The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church, U. S. A. 
 
 New York, January 30, 191 1. 
 
 From the Right Rev. Arthur S. Lloyd, D.D., President: 
 
 It gives me pleasure to recall the very pleasant social relation 
 that always existed between Dr. Cobb and me and the constant 
 help and inspiration he was to the men to whom like work had been 
 committed. The exactness of his knowledge and the serenity of 
 his faith were always helpful. In conference the Doctor was always 
 considerate and patient. His outlook was always broad and gen- 
 
96 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 erous. He will be missed from the council of the men who bear 
 the weight of responsibility for the Missionary Boards. 
 
 It is pleasant to think that a permanent record of his long and 
 devoted service is being prepared, as such records help to keep 
 before us all the purpose for which we are called and are no doubt 
 a potent influence for the help of and inspiration to the young 
 people. 
 
 The Board of Foreign Missions of the General 
 
 Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 
 
 United States of America 
 
 Baltimore, Md., April 22, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. L. B. Wolf, Secretary: 
 
 I was deeply grieved to hear of the death of Dr. Cobb, which 
 news I learned on my arrival in New York on the 20th inst., at the 
 meeting of the secretaries. He was indeed one of God's noble men, 
 wonderfully sympathetic and gentle. I never knew him to be 
 ruffled in temper in all my acquaintanceship of over ten years. I 
 am glad indeed to have been privileged to meet and work with one 
 so consecrated and devoted. 
 
 The Society for Propagating the Gospel Among 
 
 the Heathen, The Moravian Church 
 
 in America 
 
 Bethlehem, Pa., April 22, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. Paul de Schweinitz, Secretary: 
 
 It is with profound regret that I have heard of the death of Dr. 
 Cobb. I have known him personally for more than eleven years. 
 We served on the Committee of Reference and Counsel together for 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 97 
 
 six years. The last time that I spoke to him was in January of this 
 year, when we lunched together, and when he told me that he 
 was looking forward to celebrating his golden wedding aniversary 
 this year. 
 
 Permit me to express to your Board my deep personal sympathy 
 and likewise the sympathy of our Board. We are in a position to 
 sympathize with you most keenly, because for the first time in the 
 one hundred and seventy-eight years of our mission history we have 
 lost a member, and a most valued member, of our Mission Board at 
 sea. The Rev. Ernst Reichel went down on the ill-fated "Prins 
 Willem II," while en route to pay an official visit to our mission in 
 Surinam. 
 
 I wish I could be present at the memorial service, but I can 
 not very well be there. I will suggest tomy colleague, Bishop Morris 
 W. Leibert, D.D., to represent us. 
 
 American Friends' Board of Foreign 
 Missions 
 
 Richmond, Ind., April 22, 1910. 
 
 From Mr. Charles E. Tebbetts, General Secretary: 
 
 I am sure the announcement of the death of Dr. Cobb will bring 
 a deep sense of loss to all our mission Boards, and to all v;ho are in- 
 terested in mission work. His long experience and his practical 
 knowledge of the work in its various departments made his counsel 
 specially valuable. I am sure we are now so bound together in the 
 common feeling of the world's need and the common consciousness 
 of Christ's power to meet the need that the dropping out of the 
 ranks of one whose life has been so conspicuously useful will bring 
 to us all a feeling of bereavement. Permit me to join with you in 
 your sorrow and extend to you my heartfelt sympathy. 
 
98 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Mission Board of the Christian Church 
 
 Dayton, Ohio, May 10, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. M. T. Morrill, Secretary: 
 
 In behalf of the Executive Committee of the Mission Board of 
 the Christian Church I wish to express our profound sorrow on ac- 
 count of the death of Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., so long a 
 trusted servant of your Board. We have all profited by his thor- 
 ough devotion and wise counsel. Had it been feasible our Board 
 would have been represented at the memorial service. At its an- 
 nual session our Board will be asked to put on record a resolution 
 touching your great loss. 
 
 Foreign Christian Missionary Society 
 (Disciples) 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1910. 
 
 From Mr. F. M. Rains, Corresponding Secretary: 
 
 In the death of the Rev. H. N. Cobb, D.D., your Board has 
 lost a valuable executive and the good cause of Christian missions 
 a warm and faithful friend. We extend to you and your associates 
 sincere sympathy in your great loss. 
 
 China Inland Mission 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 22, 1910. 
 
 From Mr. F. H. Neale, Secretary: 
 
 Permit me to thank you for your courtesy in sending to us an 
 intimation of the death of Rev. H. N. Cobb, who was for so many 
 years the honored Corresponding Secretary of your Board. Please 
 accept an expression of our heartfelt sympathy with you in the great 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 09 
 
 loss your work has thus sustained. We feel that his removal, in- 
 deed, will be a distinct loss to the work of foreign missions through- 
 out the world, as it will be mourned by the representatives of the 
 forei2:n mission bodies of North America. 
 
 American Council, Africa Inland Mission 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., April 23, 1910. 
 From Mr. J. Davis Adams, Executive Secretary: 
 
 The Executive Committee of the American Council of the Africa 
 Inland Mission desires to express its sympathy and its sorrow be- 
 cause of the loss of your valued and highly esteemed associate, 
 Dr. Cobb. 
 
 May God, who in His wisdom saw fit to promote Dr. Cobb, 
 give grace and comfort to his loved ones and guidance to his former 
 associates in the work with which he has so long been connected. 
 
 American Bible Society 
 
 New York, April 22, 1910. 
 
 From the Rev. Dr. William Ingraham Haven, Secretary: 
 
 I am this morning in receipt of your favor of the 21st of April. 
 I assure you we all of us deeply mourn the death of the Rev. Dr. 
 Cobb. I had peculiarly delightful relationships with him not 
 only in the conferences in which we were associated as secretaries, 
 but in the Bureau of Missions in which he took an interest and in 
 the occasional meetings on the trains back and forth to where we 
 resided in neighboring towns. He was such a lovable character. 
 He did me good and I wish to express my personal sorrow and 
 sympathy with you and others that are bearing this loss. 
 
100 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 American Tract Society 
 
 New York, April 23, 1910. 
 From the Rev. Dr. Judson Swift, Secretary: 
 
 The officers and Executive Committee of the American Tract 
 Society were greatly pained to learn of the death of Rev. Henry 
 Nitchie Cobb, D.D., who has been for so many years the efficient 
 and consecrated Secretary of your Board of Foreign Missions. His 
 life work has been most unusual, and he will be remembered as one 
 of the most faithful servants of the Church that he so deeply loved- 
 and served. 
 
 We extend to you our sincerest sympathy in this hour of your 
 great loss. Our faith, however, is triumphant in the consciousness that 
 our beloved brother is enjoying the abundant reward awaiting him. 
 
 Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
 Missions 
 
 May 6, 1910. 
 From Dr. John R. Mott, Chairman, Executive Committee: 
 
 I learn with deep sorrow of the homegoing of my highly valued 
 friend, Dr. Cobb. I owe more to him than I can express. Through 
 all these years I have turned to him repeatedly for suggestion and 
 counsel, and had come to repose complete confidence in his advice. 
 Never shall I lose the benefits which came from fellowship with him. 
 Kindly assure the members of his family of my sincere sympathy. 
 
 Laymen's Missionary Movement 
 
 New York, November 11, 1910. 
 From Mr. J. Campbell White, General Secretary : 
 
 Among all the valuable friends and counsellors of the Lay- 
 men's Missionary Movement no one has been more interested or 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 101 
 
 sympathetic from the beginning than Dr. Cobb. On many dif- 
 ferent occasions he has taken pains to express his deep interest in 
 the work of the Movement, and to make valuable suggestions con- 
 cerning the best methods of carrying it forward. 
 
 His death has been a distinct loss to us as well as to every mis- 
 sionary organization in America. » • 
 
 Young People's Missionary Movement 
 
 New York, April 23, 1910. 
 From Mr. Harry S. Myers, AssH Gen. Secretary: 
 
 I desire to express the sympathy of our Movement in your great 
 loss, and we share with you the sorrow which comes not only to 
 your Board but to the cause of foreign missions, which for so many 
 years has lain so near to the heart of Dr. Cobb. 
 
 We are all indebted to him for his interest in our Movement 
 and in us personally, and his many words of helpfulness and cheer. 
 
 The Clifton Springs Sanitarium Co. 
 
 Clifton Springs, N. Y., July 5, 1910. 
 
 From Mrs. Mary E. Foster, Secretary: 
 
 The death of Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D,, which occurred 
 on Sunday, April 17, 1910, removed from our Board of Trustees 
 one who had been associated with us since 1891, and who was the 
 senior trustee in term of service. He was greatly interested in the 
 life and work of the sanitarium, and always proved a valuable 
 helper at our annual meetings. His health was always delicate, 
 and the responsibility of his office as Corresponding Secretary of 
 the Board of Missions of the Reformed Church in America taxed 
 his strength greatly, but he rarely missed an annual meeting here 
 unless prevented by his official duties. 
 
102 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 An interesting incident connected with his decease is that he 
 would have celebrated his golden wedding anniversary if he had 
 lived four weeks longer, and that Mrs. Cobb also passed away be- 
 fore the wedding day, so they were united in the Heavenly Home. 
 
 The unfailing courtesy of Dr. Cobb and his ready aid in any 
 discussion of knotty questions was very marked and helpful. 
 
 We are glad to express our appreciation of his faithful service, 
 and to extend the assurance of our sympathy to his son and daugh- 
 ter in their bereavement. 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL BODIES 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL BODIES 
 
 The Millbrook Reformed Church 
 
 Reverend Henry N, Cobb, D.D., 
 
 and Mrs. Matilda Van Zandt Cobb. 
 
 The Millbrook Reformed Church hereby records its profound 
 respect and grateful affection for Rev. Dr. Henry N. Cobb and 
 Matilda Van Zandt, his beloved wife. Dr. Cobb came to Mill- 
 brook before the church was organized and remained its pastor for 
 fifteen years. To him and his wife is due very much of the success 
 that has been attained. 
 
 They have left a blessed memory here ; the fruits of their sow- 
 ing still abide in this entire community. Their lives are examples 
 of what may be accomplished by earnest and unselfish Christians. 
 "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death 
 they were not divided." Together they labored and together they 
 have gone to their reward. 
 
 With the bereaved children we most tenderly sympathize and 
 commend them to the God of all Comfort, yet we rejoice that "He 
 giveth his beloved sleep," and that after toil comes rest, and after 
 lives full of service, the crown of rejoicing. 
 
 (Signed) J. E. Lyall, 
 
 William R. Anderson, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Classis of Poughkeepsie 
 
 The Classis of Poughkeepsie, at Rhinebeck, April 19, 1910, 
 made the following minute, and ordered it sent to The Christian 
 Intelligencer and to the family : 
 
106 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 We share the profound sorrow of our entire Church — and the 
 much larger circle of friends and Christian workers — at the death 
 of the Rev. Henry N. Cobb, the beloved Secretary of our Board of 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 Our claims for expressing our grief rest upon his long member- 
 ship in this Classis. For fifteen years, while pastor of the Mill- 
 brook Church, and for twenty-nine years more, up to the day of 
 his death, we knew him as a faithful servant of God ; we remember 
 him as a self-denying friend ; we cherish the memory of his kind- 
 ness to all with whom he had aught to do ; we recall his eloquent 
 advocacy of the foreign missionary cause, to which he gave his life ; 
 we mourn that we shall see his face no more, yet we know His 
 work was done, for God called him home. 
 
 We assure his bereaved wife and children of our tender sym- 
 pathy, and our fervent prayer in their behalf, and we bid them hear 
 with us the Master's voice saying to their beloved: "Well done, 
 good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." - 
 
 J. E. Lyall, 
 
 J. R. DUFFIELD, 
 
 F. R. Benjamin, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Classis of New York 
 
 The Classis of New York, met in stated session this nineteenth 
 of April, 1910, desires to put on record an expression of its pro- 
 found sorrow at the death, on the seventeenth instant, of the Rev. 
 Henry N. Cobb, D.D,, the efficient and beloved Corresponding 
 Secretary of our Board of Foreign Missions. At the beginning of 
 his ministry he gave himself to the foreign missionary work and was 
 for two years a missionary of the American Board in Persia. Com- 
 pelled by the failure of his health to return to this country, he served 
 for fifteen years as pastor of the Reformed Church of Millbrook, 
 N. Y., and was for several years an active member of our Foreign 
 Missionary Board. In the autumn of 1882 he became its Corre- 
 
MEMORIAL MINUTES 107 
 
 spending Secretary and filled that position with eminent abiUty 
 and fidelity till his death. To his sound judgment, unwearied de- 
 votion and profound faith the success and enlargement of the work 
 of the Board have in great measure been due. He had the entire 
 confidence, the sincere respect, and in unusual measure the person- 
 al affection of our own Church, and other boards and churches 
 looked upon him as one of the leaders, of largest experience and 
 greatest wisdom, in this world-wide movement. While we grieve 
 that we shall see his face no more, we rejoice in the enduring results 
 and the stimulating example of his most useful life. 
 
 Resolved, That the foregoing minute be spread upon the records 
 of the Classis and published in The Christian Intelligencer, and 
 that a copy be sent, with the assurance of our sincere sympathy, to 
 the family of Dr. Cobb. 
 
 Edward B. Coe, 
 George C. Lenington, 
 
 A. J. MUSTE, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Particular Synod of Albany 
 
 Since the last meeting of the Particular Synod of Albany, our 
 denomination has sustained an irreparable loss in the death of the 
 Rev. Dr. H. N. Cobb, who for twenty-seven years labored untiringly 
 as Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions for the extension of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ, especially in those lands not yet enrolled 
 among the Christian countries of the world. Be it therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we unite our voice with the many individuals 
 and organizations which have already expressed their heartfelt ap- 
 preciation of his work, rendered with such blessed and enduring 
 results. 
 
108 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Resolved, further, That beside embodying this expression in the 
 minutes of the Synod, a copy be sent to the bereaved family, and 
 another for publication in The Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 The General Synod, R. C. A., June, 1910 
 
 We record our deep sense of sorrow and of great loss which we 
 have suffered during the past year by death in the official member- 
 ship of the Board. 
 
 Well-nigh irreparable loss has been sufifered in the death of the 
 Rev. Dr. Henry N. Cobb, for thirty-six years a member of the Board, 
 and for twenty-seven years its Correspondiny Secretary, who died 
 April 17, 1910. For more than a generation this missionary states- 
 man gave to the Board distinguished and valuable service. 
 
MISCELLANIA 
 
 EDITORIAL TRIBUTES 
 
MISCELLANIA 
 
 EDITORIAL TRIBUTES 
 
 The Christian Intelligencer 
 
 I. April 20, 1910. 
 
 Following close upon the announcement of the death of Dr. 
 Otte, of our Amoy Mission in China, comes with equal suddenness 
 that of the death on Sunday at his home in East Orange, N. J., of 
 the Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., for nearly thirty years the efficient 
 and greatly beloved Corresponding Secretary of our Board of For- 
 eign Missions. The passing of these dear brethren and faithful 
 servants of God from their important fields of labor to their rest 
 and recompense is not only a heavy affliction to those officially and 
 intimately associated with them in their work, but a sore bereave- 
 ment to our entire Church, with whose foreign mission interests they 
 have been so long, so closely and so essentially identified. What to 
 them after an exceptionally useful career in the service of the Church 
 and its supreme work, that of world-wide missions, is great gain, is 
 to us, indeed, a lamentable loss. Their work was done, and well 
 done, and their passing from the scenes and labors of earth to "the 
 rest that remaineth" is a call and inspiration to us who tarry here 
 yet awhile, to do with our might what our hands find to do, for the 
 night cometh. Dr. Cobb was born in this city in 1834 ; was gradu- 
 ated from Yale College in 1855, and from the Union Seminary in 
 1857. He was licensed and ordained in 1860 by the New York 
 Presbytery and was sent out by the American Board as missionary 
 to the Nestorians in Persia and Koordistan. Returning, after a 
 period of devoted service, to this country, he became pastor in 1866 
 of the Reformed Church of Millbrook, N. Y., which charge he re- 
 linquished in 1881 to take up the duties of Corresponding Secretary 
 
112 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 of our Board of Foreign Missions, in which capacity lie faithfully 
 served the rest of his days. Dr. Cobb received the honorary de- 
 gree of Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College in 1878. We can 
 only add, in this hurried and brief notice, that Dr. Cobb was widely 
 influential and esteemed beyond denominational limits ; served on 
 many important committees, and was chairman of the Executive 
 Committee of the Ecumenical Council on Foreign Missions, which 
 met in this city ten years ago. 
 
 II. April 27, 1910. 
 
 The resolutions of sympathy and respect which are coming into 
 this oflEice from every quarter also show the hold that Dr. Cobb had 
 upon the affections and regard not only of our own Church and her 
 missionaries and native Christians, but upon those of the friends 
 of missions in every land. He was of such singular kindliness of 
 thought and righteousness of life that the phrase "a Christian gen- 
 tleman" may be most worthily and accurately used in describing 
 his character. His was a life of whole-hearted devotion to that 
 which with all his heart be believed to be "the greatest work in the 
 world" — the proclamation of the Gospel to every creature — and 
 the influence and results of his life work will long abide with those 
 who knew him and those for whom he labored. Of him may be 
 most truly and reverently said : "Blessed are the dead who die in 
 the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; 
 for their works do follow them." 
 
 The Leader 
 
 April 27, 1910. 
 
 Called upon again to use the heavy black line, impressed anew 
 with the fact that the mourners go about the streets, and that the 
 fell destroyer death walks ruthlessly among the messengers of the 
 
MISCELLANIA 113 
 
 Gospel of eternal life, by the sudden translation of the Rev. Henry 
 N. Cobb, D.D., the well-known and beloved Corresponding Secre- 
 tary of the Board of Foreign Missions, the triumphant note of the 
 great missionary worker gives some comfort. Death and the grave 
 may seem to snatch a temporary victory, despoil the Lord's battle- 
 field of valiant and devoted warriors when He goes forth to war, and 
 rob his host of chosen heroes and leaders, but, faith in Him who 
 liveth evermore and assurance that all things work together for 
 good to them that love, gives the challenge to the grim enemy of 
 humanity and its redemption, in this defiance of a lively hope : "O 
 grave, where is thy victory; O death, where is thy sting !" 
 
 The deceased was, in his remarkable personality and in his 
 faithful, painstaking toil the timely gift of the Head of the Church 
 to our household of faith in behalf of his work in the regions beyond. 
 
 A minister of the Gospel, with a knowledge of the demands of a 
 missionary's task, and with the experience of a successful pastor- 
 ate, he came to his cherished work of "toiling for the Master and 
 for men" thoroughly qualified and well equipped, ever proving 
 himself a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. 
 
 To crowd it into this brief space, our dear departed friend, whom 
 many of us knew and met and heard, was a believer of large sym- 
 pathies and ^ a most hopeful disposition, born of faith in Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God. His was a burning zeal fed by a passion for 
 souls held in the bondage of darkness and sin. He felt that upon 
 him and his office and by its activities upon the entire church was 
 the burden of the Lord's great commission : Go ye and preach. 
 
 As the Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign Mis- 
 sions, he was loyal to the whole counsel of God, he believed in all the 
 promises of God given to the Saviour of the world and withal the 
 love of God always constrained him. 
 
 May his mantle fall upon and his spirit rest upon his successor, 
 and may his works follow him into that coming happiness when he, 
 too, shares the joy of his Lord in seeing of the travail of their souls, 
 in so far as the servant may share the Master's portion. 
 
114 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 The Missionary Review of the World 
 
 June, 1910, and January, 1911 
 
 Another devoted missionary statesman has gone. The death 
 on April 17th of the Rev. Henry Nitchie Cobb, D.D., removed one 
 who for nearly three decades exercised a widespread influence as 
 Missionary Secretary of the Reformed (Dutch) Church, and who 
 was distinguished for his untiring energy, his ripe judgment and his 
 wide experience in missionary affairs. By his departure the Church 
 and the cause of missions have suffered a great loss. 
 
 The Mission Field 
 
 June, 1910 
 A Prince and a Great Man 
 
 If Abner was entitled to so high a designation as a mighty 
 warrior before the Lord, how much more is our beloved and trans- 
 lated Doctor Henry N. Cobb entitled to it ! 
 
 We do not fully appreciate how large a space a high and stately 
 tree has occupied, what a wealth of life it has represented, what a 
 generous and inspiriting shadow it has cast, until it is swept down 
 by some fierce wind or is cut down by the woodman's ax, or, ripe 
 to the tip, it falls when all the woods are still. 
 
 It is so with men who have held strategic and important posts 
 in the life of the Church and the world. Those who saw most of 
 Dr. Cobb, and who go back to where this lordly and lovable life 
 once stood with such stability, that it seemed among the things un- 
 shakable, feel most deeply what a great vacancy the transplanting 
 of this tree of the Lord has left behind it. 
 
 What a wealth of personality has gone with his going ! His was 
 the strength of a well-knit trunk; his was the gentleness and pli- 
 ancy of the tender branches; his was the playful and brightening 
 
MISCELLANIA 115 
 
 humor of the sportive leaves; his was the heaven-outreaching of 
 the climbing and expanding crown. 
 
 What a wealth of wisdom has gone with his going ! What ex- 
 tensive and minute and immediately available command he had of 
 the whole subject of world evangelization. He knew, or knew of, 
 all the great leaders, the great achievements of the Gospel far and 
 near, the delicate and difficult issues that arise in the coordination 
 and consolidation of a work once simple and rudimentary, but 
 growing more complex with every year of expansion and advance. 
 What remarkable papers he would prepare that would shape policy 
 in empire-wide church movements. They were such as a Secre- 
 tary of State hke Webster or Hay might prepare in connection with 
 some great and complicated international affair. 
 
 With him were treasures of wisdom and knowledge on which we 
 drew freely and constantly, scarce imagining that the treasure 
 house might ever close its doors and be borne elsewhere. 
 
 What a wealth of sympathy has gone with his going ! He was 
 the father and friend of every missionary. "Like a father pitieth 
 his children," so Dr. Cobb took to his heart the missionaries and 
 their families. Every concession for their comfort that was legiti- 
 mate he pleaded for. He gave advice to missionaries' children, 
 every missionary's sorrow struck home to his heart and brought 
 forth words of comfort. He saw the expanding work and felt for 
 the men and women at the front, who were again and again held 
 back by a church which, though interested, did not fully see the 
 urgency of the need, the promise and potency of the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 What a wealth of enthusiasm has gone with his going ! His 
 was the sustained glow of anthracite — not the splutter and smoking 
 flame of bituminous. He never lost interest in the great work he 
 was guiding and helping on. It was always of superlative impor- 
 tance to him ; he was always ready to advocate it, and any slur on 
 this work would set his soul all a-kindle. With what fervor and 
 power he pleaded his cause year after year at the General 
 Snyod ! 
 
116 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 What a wealth of fragrant and quickening memory still perme- 
 ates the air, though the noble tree-trunk and branch and bloom 
 are gone. 
 
 No ; this was not a tree ! This was a man ! This was a man 
 of God. This was a Captain-General of the Lord of Hosts. To 
 the last his call was Onward ! Forward ! So ours is the clarion 
 call to battle ; ours is the call of the Cross. Let confidence in the 
 great Captain of our salvation, let the magnitude of the issues at 
 stake and the prospect of the sublimest of all triumphs in view 
 move us to wheel into line and keep in line. High or low, far or 
 near, let us take our place and fight to the finish. 
 
 The Mission Gleaner 
 
 June, 1910 
 
 Not only the Reformed Church, but the Church Universal, 
 mourns the loss of Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., whose death oc- 
 curred in East Orange, N. J., on April 17. For nearly thirty years 
 Dr. Cobb was the greatly beloved Corresponding Secretary of the 
 Board of Foreign Missions. The tender and beautiful address of 
 Rev. E. B. Coe, D.D., at the funeral services of Dr. Cobb; the many 
 testimonies, both pubhc and private, and the tributes of the me- 
 morial service held in New York, when representatives of other de- 
 nominational Boards united in expressions of loving appreciation 
 of his beautiful character, as well as to his long and efficient service 
 for the Master, all these leave little that can be written here. Mrs. 
 Cobb for more than twenty years was editor of the Gleaner. The 
 following letter from the Board of Managers of the Woman's 
 Board of Foreign Missions, through the pen of its Honorary Presi- 
 dent, Mrs. P. D. Van Cleef, is the expression not only of the loving 
 sympathy of the Board, but of the entire body of women in the 
 Reformed Church : 
 
MISCELLANIA 117 
 
 25 East 22d Street, 
 New York, May 3, 1910. 
 Our Dear Mrs. Cobb : 
 
 The hearts of the Board of Managers of the Woman's Board of 
 Foreign Missions are grief-stricken at our loss in the departure of 
 dear Dr. Cobb. It is an irreparable loss; we may not hope e'er to 
 see his like again. He has been our benign counselor, guide and 
 sympathizing friend, ever patient and courteous. We loved him, 
 and will hold his name precious in memory. 
 
 To you, Mrs. Cobb, his cherished wife and life companion, to 
 the son and daughter he so dearly loved, we would express, what 
 language cannot adequately express, our tenderest, loving sym- 
 pathy in your heavy bereavement. 
 
 You and we bow to the Heavenly Father's will, knowing that 
 He never makes mistakes, and thanking Him that He has given to 
 the Church the beautiful character, beneficent influence and con- 
 secrated devotion of Henry Nitchie Cobb. 
 
 We commend you to the Lord, whom you have served to- 
 gether for so many years, and whose consolations abound to His 
 own. With tender recollections of all that you have been to us 
 and with assurance of our abiding love, we are, 
 
 Your Sister Associates in the 
 
 Woman's Board of Foreign Missions. 
 
 Just as we go to press comes the startling news of the death of 
 our beloved Mrs. Henry N. Cobb, for many years a valued member 
 of our Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, and, until a few years 
 ago, the editor of this magazine. Although she was debarred from 
 active work for some months, on account of failing health, we have 
 constantly felt the inspiration of her sympathy and her clear and 
 comprehensive acquaintance with all of our work. We are doubly 
 bereaved in the death of Dr. and Mrs. Cobb; but while we grieve 
 for ourselves and feel the deepest sympathy for their dear children, 
 
118 DR. COBB: IN MEMORIAM 
 
 we can but rejoice through our tears that the days of separation are 
 over and that together they are in the presence of the Lord, whom 
 they loved and so faithfully served here on earth. To them has 
 come the fulfillment of the promise, "We shall be like Him, for we 
 shall see Him as He is." 
 
 God's Plan 
 
 "As for God, His may is perfect " 
 
 H. N. c. — M. V. z. c. 
 
 We planned a rest for him ; 
 After long years of sen'ice begged him lay 
 Aside his tools, and fold his charts away, 
 And stay his busy, care-worn hands— and then 
 God gave completer Rest. 
 
 We planned a home for her 
 In sunlight land bedecked with flowers gay, 
 Where every debt a loving child could pay 
 To dearest mother might be paid — and then 
 God gave a brighter Home. 
 
 We planned a day for them, 
 A festival of gladness tinged with pain. 
 To gather up the fragments that remain 
 Of earthly loves before the night — and then 
 God gave an endless Day. 
 
 We dreaded death for them. 
 For how could one alone pursue the long. 
 Long weary road without the other's song ? 
 Our little faith saw not His plan — for then 
 God gave them ageless Life. 
 
 —E. P. C. 
 
 [Note— Written for the Golden Wedding Day, May 17, 1910.] 
 
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