gree entered. At a regular meeting of "The
presbytery of the District of Columbia," held in Alexandria, May 3,
1842, this church, now commonly called the Fifteenth Street
Presbyterian Church, was formally received under the care of that
presbytery, the first and still the only Colored Presbyterian church
in the district. Mr. Cook was elected the first pastor July 13, 1843,
and preached his trial sermon before ordination on the evening of that
day in the Fourth Presbyterian Church (Dr. J. C. Smith's) in the city,
in the presence of a large congregation. This sermon is remembered as
a manly production, delivered with great dignity and force, and deeply
imbued with the spirit of his work. He was ordained in the Fifteenth
Street Church the next evening, and continued to serve the church with
eminent success till his death in 1855. Rev. John C. Smith, D.D., who
had preached his ordination sermon, and been his devoted friend and
counsellor for nearly twenty years, preached his funeral sermon,
selecting as his text, "There was a man sent from God whose name was
John." There were present white as well as Colored clergymen of no
less than five denominations, many of the oldest and most respectable
citizens, and a vast concourse of all classes white and Colored. "The
Fifteenth Street Church," in the words of Dr. Smith in relation to
them and their first pastor, "is now a large and flourishing
congregation of spiritually-minded people. They have been educated in
the truth and the principles of our holy religion, and in the new,
present state of things the men of this church are trusted, relied on
as those who fear God and keep His commandments. The church is the
monument to John F. Cook, the first pastor, who was faithful in all
his house, a workman who labored night and day for years, and has
entered into his reward. 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.'
'They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.'"

In 1841, when he entered, in a preliminary and informal way, upon the
pastorate of the Fifteenth Street Church, he seems to have attempted
to turn his seminary into a high school, limited to twenty-five or
thirty pupils, exclusively for the more advanced scholars of both
sexes; and his plan of studies to that end, as seen in his
prospectus, evinces broad and elevated views--a desire to aid in
lifting his race to higher things in education than they had yet
attempted. His plans were not put into execution, in t