Cooper, Thomas

Baptist, b. at Leicester, Eng., March 28, 1805; was in youth a shoemaker at Gains borough, Lincoln shire, and employed his leisure time to acquire Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French. When twenty-three, he taught a school, then was a reporter for several country newspapers. In 1841 he led the Chartists of Leicester, lectured in the Potteries during the "riots "of August, 1842; was convicted of conspiracy and sedition, and for two years was confined in Stafford Jail, where he began his literary career, and on his release became a journalist. In 1818 he first appeared prominently in London as political and historical lecturer; in 1849 edited The Plain Speaker, a weekly penny journal of radical politics; and in 1850 started Cooper's Journal, a sceptical weekly penny periodical. In 1855 he renounced infidelity, and has since defended and preached Christian truth with the same energy with which he formerly attacked it. In 1859 he was immersed, and ordained as a Baptist preacher. In 1866 he retired in broken health, upon an annuity of one hundred pounds purchased for him by friends. He has published, besides fiction and poetry, The Triumphs of Perseverance and Enterprise, London, 1847, new ed. 1879; The Bridge of History over the Gulf of 'Time: a Popular View of the Historical Evidence for the Truth of Christianity, 1871, 3d ed. 1872, reprinted, N.Y. 1876 Plain Pulpit Talk, London, 1872, 2d ed. 1873; Life, written by himself, 1872, 2d ed. 1880; God, the Soul, and a Euture State, 1873; The Verity of Christ's Resurrection from the Dead: an Appeal to the Common Sense of the People, 1875, new ed. 1884; The Verily and Value of the Miracles of Christ, 1877 Evolution: the Stone Book and the Mosaic Record of Creation, 1878; The Atonement, 1880; Thoughts at Fourscore and Earlier, 1885. *