Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/227

Rh blessed, and on the assurance that his sun is setting to rise in eternal day.”

We here insert an extract from a letter from Dr. Macduff, of Glasgow, which was received about this time. It was one of many in which this dear friend indulged in pleasant reminiscence of intercourse in bygone times. The letter bears date Chiselhurst, Kent, February 3, 1885.

“I have duly received, and with most cordial thanks, your kind letter and its enclosures. Can it be, as you say, twenty-four years since you and I met in Paris, then in Geneva, and on a chilly early morning walked up and down the railroad station at Basle? Yes, and another memory: since James Hamilton and myself met you in the back room in Berners Street, the former hailing you in the broadest of broad Scotch? It looks all so dream-like and so recent! Then to think that Hamilton, Watson, Taylor, Murray, and old William Nisbet, whose face and form were so familiar in that ‘Evangelical haunt,’ are all passed away to their rest, after having done in their various ways good and noble duty for the Master. You and I God has in His great mercy still spared to wait His gracious summons. But I must not wander into the region of sentiment.”

The spring of 1885 brought him a great sorrow in the failing health of his son-in-law, Rev. I. W. Cochran, who died in his house in February, 1887. This he was heard to say was the greatest grief of his life, until in July of the same year his beloved wife was taken from him. At the time of her death, they were staying in a beautiful place on Long Island Sound, where for some years they had assembled the family gathering in the summer. As there was no church near, and as the party was a very large one, they were accustomed on