Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/148

132 woman in whom he was greatly interested. In 1855 he went as a delegate to the General Assembly at Nashville, Tennessee, visiting on the way at the house of a very dear friend, Mr. James McCarter, a bookseller of Charleston. The names of the two friends were a good deal alike, and their faces were still more so; in fact, they were often told that they looked like twins. Mr. Carter writes:—

“It is now the hour which we usually spend in talking of the things that concern our eternal interests. How I miss you all now! It is too much for me to think of it! May God bless you all!

“Mr. McCarter took me in the morning to his church, where we heard Mr. Jones from Philadelphia. In the afternoon I went to Dr. Smyth’s church, and heard an excellent sermon from the text, ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name.’ O that all our hearts were thus united in the fear and love of God!

“I then went to the colored Sabbath school, and my heart melted within me to see a hundred black children listening to the instructions of their teachers, and not any of them with Bible, hymn-book, or text-book in their hands. How sad it is that, in this land of Sabbaths and Bibles and good books, so large a portion of our fellow beings should be deprived of the privilege of reading God’s blessed Book! The teachers are evidently men of God, doing the best they can under the circumstances; but how little fruit can be expected where such barriers are thrown up to the free ingress of the Gospel! The mode of instruction is that used in infant schools. The teacher puts questions, and all answer at once. If they do not know the answer, he repeats the words, and they follow. Their singing of ‘The Happy Land’ was beautiful.