Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/83

Rh not be mollified, insisting that novels were very dangerous reading.

That night, after tea, Mr. Carter took a book, saying, “Father, here is something I want to read to you,” and read aloud the story of “The Elder’s Deathbed.” The old man listened, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Eh, Robert, that’s a graund buik. Where did ye get it?”

Mr. Carter told him that he had been reading from the novel that had been so severely denounced in the morning.

“I didna ken it was such a buik as yon. Ye maun gie me some for the neebors at hame.”

There was no work which so thoroughly enlisted Mr. Carter’s interest through life as that of Foreign Missions. Rev. Dr. Ellenwood, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board, thus writes of him after his death:—

“Upon the assumption of the work of foreign missions by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1837, and its establishment in New York, Mr. Carter took a deep interest in its success. Six years later, at the age of thirty-six, he was elected a member of the Board, and in 1847 a member of its executive committee.

“Through all his long connection with the Board, Mr. Carter was earnestly seconded in his missionary spirit, in his prayers and efforts, by his wife, whose death preceded his only by two and a half years. When the ‘Missionary Chronicle,’ the predecessor of the ‘Foreign Missionary,’ was first issued in New York, it was published by Mr. Carter at the slightest possible expense to the Board, It was printed under his direction, his wife making the paste with which the covers were put on, and the city distribution was performed by a younger brother, who bore them from house to house. It is easy to see from this simple incident that Mr.