# Robert Carter: His Life and Work. 1807-1889/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
Mr. Carter’s eldest child was born March 29, 1836, and was named for his grandfather, Samuel Thomson. He was a child of great promise, docile and lovable in an unusual degree. He had a quick and thoughtful mind, with a ready memory, which stored up a large number of psalms and hymns, and other bits of poetry. His parents afterwards felt that his mind had been stimulated too much, but it was such a pleasure to teach the bright precocious little fellow that it was hard to resist the temptation to give him the information he so eagerly sought. He lived not quite four years, but there are many still on earth who cherish lovingly the memory of the bright little boy who went to heaven more than fifty years ago. The thought of him was always a power in the family, and he seemed like a real living presence to the younger brothers and sister, most of whom had never seen him, and the tradition of him has been handed down to the next generation, who think tenderly of the little Uncle Samuel, who died before their parents were born. Even that little child, though dead half a century ago, still speaketh. Forty-five years after his death, his mother told a friend that she did not think a Sunday had passed since he was taken from her that she had not repeated to herself all the ten psalms and hymns which he had learned and been accustomed to recite to her on Sundays. His father writes of him:―
​“When he was three years and six months old, his mother and I were driving with him along a beautiful road in the country. We passed through a charming valley where the green hills bathed by the afternoon sun closed upon us. We gazed in silence. A sweet voice uttered the words:
‘As round about Jerusalem The mountains stand alway, The Lord his folk doth compass so From henceforth aud for aye.’
This verse from a Psalm which he had committed to memory he applied to the scene before us. His mother asked him what he was saying, and again he repeated the verse, waving his hand to the hills about us.
“There was a spring in the side of a hill near to our country home around which there was a rustic seat. The dear boy was seated by me while I was reading one day, and, running up to me, he took me by the chin and said, ‘Papa, will this spring flow in this way when you and I are dead?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’ ‘Our spirits will be in heaven then, won’t they?’
“I little thought that in a few months that spring would cease to flow,—some excavations having interfered with it,—and that before another year had come to us that dear boy should be with our Father in heaven. His death after a few months was the first and sorest trial of my life. In my father’s family of eleven and my wife’s family of ten there had been no death for forty years. We had seen death around us, but our families had remained unbroken. At the funeral my father-in-law rode in the carriage with me, and the coffin of my dear boy lay before us. He uncovered the glass and looked at the sweet face, and with streaming eyes said, ‘Who will be the next?’ ”
​A very touching little diary has been preserved, in which Mr. Carter had noted down the progress of his little boy’s illness, with such comments as the following.
“January 28. Hope and despair vibrating in our minds. Extremely wretched,—the gloomiest day we have had.”
“January 29. The poor dear boy sinking fast, his limbs wasting to a skeleton, eyes as bright as ever,—perfectly collected. Prayed with him several times. He seemed to pierce through me with his keen eyes, as if he understood all that was said and meant, though he could not speak.”
“ January 30. The last and severest day of all. His eyes were bright as ever, but his whole powers were evidently giving way. Even then when I prayed with him he seemed intensely interested, as if he were aware that he was encountering the king of terrors. About midnight he put out his lips to kiss papa and mamma, and seemed to bid us a last farewell. At three o’clock precisely on Friday morning, the 31st of January, he breathed his last, without a struggle or a groan. His spirit gently departed to his Father and his God. May his departure be blessed to his mourning friends! If these things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? O that we and all dear to us may be enabled to say, We shall go to him, but he will not return to us! Go to him! Where and what is he? All glorious! all light! all love! His active spirit bathes in the fountain of bliss. ‘Alleluia!’ let us hear him exultingly exclaim, ‘Alleluia! Glory to the Lamb, who has washed me in his blood and presented me pure and spotless before his Father’s throne!’”
He writes again:—
“The death of this loved boy taught us many useful lessons. I thought of a class of six children in my Sabbath school, and sent them a letter urging them to come to Christ, accompanied with a little book entitled ‘My Saviour.’ Four of the six became members of the church the next communion. One dear young lady died some years later with this book lying on her breast, and her thin, transparent hands pointing to the page which she had been reading when she breathed her last. A younger brother of my own, who had slept with the dear boy in his bosom for some years, was suddenly awakened to a sense of his lost condition. He was a bright scholar, and had become conscious of it, and proud of his acquirements, and sometimes questioned the wisdom of God's dealings with men. When this stroke came upon us, he was in an agony. The dearest object of his love lay dead. He had witnessed the simple piety of the child of less than four years of age, and exclaimed, ‘Where would I have been had I been taken instead of him? I had the audacity to question the goodness of God, and now I am lost.’ His struggles were fearful, but God had mercy on him, and made him a burning and shining light in this world of darkness. An older brother, who had professed Christ some years before but had been turned about and chilled, became a new man, and gave bright testimony to his faith in the dear Redeemer. In the Sabbath school whole classes were brought to a decision which affected all their future lives. We could only say, ‘See what God hath wrought.’ ”
Among the earliest publications of Mr. Carter were the writings of Miss Catharine Sinclair. She was the daughter of Sir John Sinclair, a leading British philanthropist and voluminous writer nearly a century ago. He closed a long and honored life in 1835, in his eighty​second year. He had a numerous family, several of whom attained distinction. They were remarkable for their great stature, and he used to refer to his six daughters as “my thirty-six feet of daughters.” Mr. Carter met Miss Catharine Sinclair in 1841, and said he was very glad when she sat down to talk to him, for he did not like to look up to a woman who towered so far above him. The following letter from her is interesting for its pictures of a time so long passed, and shows the cordial relations which subsisted from the very first between this publisher and his authors.
“Your very acceptable and interesting letter reached me on the 12th, and I have to thank you also for a packet of books, among which ‘Hill and Valley’ appeared as an old friend with a new face. The printing is so correct and the binding so handsome that our publishers here must really look to themselves to keep pace with you. I am now bringing out a third thousand of ‘Hill and Valley,’ which has met with exactly a similar reception to that you so obligingly inform me of at New York, being more approved of, but less sold, than the works of fiction, which are always more popular, so that authors are not encouraged to speak the truth.
“ ‘Holiday House’ is already in a second edition, and I was greatly annoyed to perceive that Mr. W. had not sufficiently attended to my directions about forwarding the sheets to you, which I had trusted entirely to his doing, because as long as I hold a pen it will be a gratification to me that you should continue the office you so kindly assumed at first of sponsor for my works at New York. Mr. W. is now in London. I know that he received your letter and remittance in due course, but several of the works you ordered lately are out of print, as indeed many of our best standard authors are now, to make way for the flood of modern literature crowding into the press every day.
​“In divinity nothing goes off so rapidly as controversy, such as the Oxford Tracts, filled with disputes whether the clergy should turn to the south or to the north in administering the sacrament, and whether they should pray from a low stool or a reading-desk, while meanwhile the weightier matters of the law are neglected; but I trust the Bible will assert its superiority over the rubric, and St. Paul be always authority. In fiction there has been a most extraordinary sale for Lady Lytton Bulwer’s new work, ‘Cheveley,’ two editions of which were sold in London before a single copy has been spared to us at a distance; therefore, I have only seen extracts sufficient to prove that it is flavored to the reigning taste with gossip and scandal, our present ministry and her Majesty the Queen being introduced as leading characters, and made to take a conspicuous share in the story and in the dialogues. It is quite a recent innovation, that of taking living persons and using them as puppets to play the game of life with, but it occasions great astonishment that the Queen herself has been so freely handled. Sir Lytton Bulwer and his lady used to write fictions in concert, but they have now quarrelled and have separated; therefore she adopts the Tory side of politics in opposition to him, and wishes to show that the wit and talent of their former works was all her own, which has sharpened her pen considerably.
“I should like much to see the New York Review which you mention; and although it is an additional pleasure to see any of your friends who are obliging enough to bring me an introduction from you, yet the expense of any package or letter is no object to me, and I hope may never stand in the way of my hearing from you or receiving any such notices of my work as might be not only interesting, but extremely useful as containing suggestions.
“I propose this summer to spend some months in travelling over the most interesting parts of Scotland. Little has been written of a lighter kind on this romantic land, and in all probability I may be tempted to continue my ‘Hill and ​Valley’ amongst our native glens, where past and present times may furnish an ample field of interest. But owing to the advanced age and uncertain health of my mother, such plans must be formed with still greater uncertainty than attaches to all hopes and wishes we indulge in this world, and which can only be formed with the pleasing consciousness that they depend upon the will of One whom it is always our delight to trace in all we are enabled to do, and even in much we are hindered from doing.
“I have often discussed with my brothers the pleasure it would give us at some future time to visit America, and we do hope at some distant period to visit our friends in New York, as it is scarcely a greater undertaking now than a trip to London formerly.
“When my father corresponded with your illustrious Washington, he intended at one time to emigrate with his family, and had a strong partiality for that country, which we have all inherited, and all we read of your magnificent scenery and noble institutions has served to confirm our anticipation of pleasure in a country of such increasing prosperity. I therefore hope in years to come that we may have the pleasure of seeing you, and claiming old acquaintance.”
In 1841 Mr. Carter revisited his old home in Scotland, taking with him his wife and infant son, and his wife’s sister. An amusing incident occurred the very day they landed. On the cars between Liverpool and London two men sat opposite them who were discussing America, and one of them asserted that all Americans were black. This aroused the combativeness of Miss Thomson, who was a thorough-going American, and taking her little nephew from the nurse’s arms she extended the fair-skinned infant towards the stranger, saying, “Is this child black?” “That child never saw America.” “He has not been in England twenty-four ​hours.” The discomfited stranger held his peace after that on a subject of which he knew so little.
A warm welcome awaited the travellers at the old home in Earlston. Some of the simple-hearted villagers had formed great ideas of the prosperity of their fellow townsman. His wife had some gilt buttons on one of her gowns, and it was whispered about that Mrs. Carter was so rich that she never wore anything but gold buttons.
In an evil hour, many years before, Mr. Carter’s father had become security for a friend who was a flour-dealer in Earlston. This man, though honest, became bankrupt, and old Mr. Carter was bound to pay the money. It was a heavy load for him to bear, and his son determined to pay it off while on this visit to his old home. He often said he had never done anything that gave him more pleasure. The chief creditor said, when the money was paid him, “This will support me for two years.” When Mr. Carter gave his father the receipts, he exclaimed joyfully, “I can now depart in peace, for I owe no man anything.”
Suretyship has been a great stumbling-block to many Scotchmen, who are led into it by their strong sense of the obligations of friendship. Mr. Carter found his Cousin Thomas, to whom he owed so much of his early education, staggering under a similar burden. His father, too, had become security for a friend, and incurred the obligation of the debt. The old gentleman had just died, and his son was overwhelmed with a debt which he had no means of paying, and his creditor was pressing him sorely. Mr. Carter felt that he owed this cousin what money could never pay, and gladly told him that he would make the payment for him. Mr. Thomas Carter was overcome with gratitude, ​and thanked his cousin with many tears. He told him that he had been almost on the verge of insanity; that his case had seemed perfectly hopeless, and his sense of honor was so keen that his position was indeed galling. One night he had retired to his room, wound his watch and laid it on his dressing table, and then, sitting down, began to think over his trouble. All before him seemed dark, and he said to himself, “It is just as impossible for me to extricate myself from these difficulties as it would be for that watch to stop itself and then go on of its own accord.” At that instant his watch, which had been ticking loudly, suddenly stopped. He gazed on it in amazement, and saw that the second hand stood still. He waited what seemed to him several minutes, and then, without his having touched it, the watch went on again. He felt that God had given him a sign that relief would come for him, and in his cousin’s generous act he recognized the finger of God.
This cousin, Thomas Carter, was a man of high character, fine abilities, and thorough scholarship, but was hampered through life by extreme timidity. When he was teaching his cousin Robert, he was a student of divinity in the Secession Church. He completed his course, but at that time the rules of his church were very strict against reading sermons in the pulpit. He might have preached if he could have had his manuscript before him, but his diffidence would not permit him to get through the service without such anchorage. He tried to preach without notes, but to his great mortification failed. He was obliged to give up all idea of the ministry, and spent his life as a parish schoolmaster. He doubtless felt his life was a failure. Perhaps the angels saw in it a higher success than they could find in the lives of some men who with less talent and ​more assurance climbed to a prominent position in the world.
The cousins were always very happy to meet on Mr. Robert Carter’s repeated visits to Scotland. It would be hard to say which felt the most grateful to the other. One ministered to the intellectual life of his boy cousin, the other smoothed the declining years of him who had befriended him in youth.
Mr. Carter writes of this trip to Europe and its results:—
“In Edinburgh and London I formed valuable friendships, and procured books which were of great service to me. On my way home I read Merle d’Aubigné’s History of the Reformation, in three volumes. I was so delighted with it that I said to my wife, ‘This will pay for our trip to Europe.’ Immediately upon landing I put it into the hands of the stereotyper, and the work created great interest. After some time a rival edition in small print, double columns, was issued in Philadelphia, I then printed an edition in three volumes, half bound in cloth, for one dollar. For many months the presses were going night and day, and so close was the race that on thirty thousand sets the net gain was only two cents for the three volumes. But it was delightful work, and though there was no gain from the book itself, yet I was brought favorably before the public, and my sales of other books were greatly increased. I published at this time Chalmers’s Lectures on Romans, Sermons, Essays, etc. The stereotype plates of Horne’s Introduction were sold at a trade sale. I bought them for $3,300. This was my greatest undertaking at that time. The day after the sale I met Mr. John Campbell, the paper dealer, and he asked me how I was going to pay for the plates of Horne. I told him I must borrow ​the money. He said, ‘I will lend it to you and leave you to pay it at your convenience,’ I asked him what security he required, and he answered, ‘None at all, not even a note.’ He knew that I did not give notes, but paid cash for my purchases. I issued this important work in cloth, half bound, for $3.50. It was said that the scholar’s millennium had now come, when the work which had sold for $12 was reduced to $3.50.”
One of the peculiarities of Mr. Carter’s business life was this of giving no notes. Neither would he go security for any one. When he took his brothers into partnership with him, he and they signed a written paper pledging themselves never to go security. This made it easy for them to refuse all requests of that kind. They could respond that they were pledged never to enter into any such arrangement. Another point upon which he was very decided was that he would never engage in a lawsuit. He preferred to suffer wrong rather than violate his peace loving principles. Again and again he was placed where other men would have gone to law, but he held to his principle, and was never a loser by it in the end, and sometimes he was a great gainer.
But the most marked feature of Mr. Carter’s business life was his earnest resolve that his business should be a direct means of serving God and doing good to his fellow men. He did not pursue it merely as a means of gaining a fortune, or even a livelihood, and it has been truthfully said of him, “No book ever issued from his press that did not contain some seed of divine truth.” He published
“No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.”
​In a tribute paid to the memory of Mr. Carter by Mr. A. D. F. Randolph, at a meeting of the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society, January 2, 1890, occur the following words:—
“It is possible that the departure of our friend touches me more closely than any one else here. For more than fifty years I knew him, I see him now as when I saw him first; I see him now as when I met him last. Time with its many changes wrought no change in his affection for me, brought no loss in mine for him. And yet for nearly two-score years our business life ran along somewhat parallel lines,—rival lines as some might say,—but without a single controversy or contention of any kind.
“… Here, if anywhere, I may emphasize his eminent service to the church and the world as a Christian publisher. I recall the first book that bore his honored imprint. It was a treatise on the doctrine of the atonement of Christ. Cradled in a theology as rugged as the hills under whose shadows he was born, our friend loved the meat of strong doctrine, and this first publication, on a central and fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, was the keystone of the broad arch which he subsequently built. There was not a stone in it that was not a stone of truth; yet all were not purely theological or controversial, while over them was trailed many a vine of parable and story bearing the blossom and the fruit of Scripture truth. And so if his own theology was as rugged as his native hills, it was neither cold nor sterile. To it there ever came, as there always comes to them, the gentle rains of the spring, the fresh and beautiful verdure, the quickening suns of summer, and the full bloom of the heather.
“I know that it has been said of him in this connection, that he was narrow, But he only desired, as has been said by another, to be as broad and as narrow as the Book of ​God. I doubt if, in all the annals of that trade of which I am so proud, there can be found an example of loftier devotion to a high calling, with such singleness of purpose, and so deep a sense of personal responsibility, as is shown in his history. He was indeed conspicuous for his ‘plain living and high thinking,’ and he walked ‘as seeing Him who is invisible.’ So wherever he sent his printed page he became a teacher of other teachers, a comforter of sorrowing hearts, a minister of strength to enfeebled or doubting souls, a wise educator of little children, a promoter of love and faith in them that believe, an instructor in truth and righteousness to them that believed not.
“Surely there can be no higher mission than this; and this was the mission of our honored friend.”
In this connection Mr. Peter Carter writes of his brother:—
“From the day he opened his store, he never had a question of his ultimate success, and no doubt this sanguine spirit helped him much in bringing about the success that attended his work.
“Though a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, his interest and affection were not confined to his own denomination. His heart was large enough to take in the whole Evangelical Church in all its branches.
“One day a wealthy friend called on him with a book which he wanted him to publish, and of which he said he would take one hundred copies. It was entitled, ‘The Divine Right of Presbyterian Church Government.’
“Mr. Carter looked at it a moment, and said, ‘As I read the Acts of the Apostles, I think the Presbyterian form is a little the nearest to that inspired record, but I don’t believe that any one form has a divine right,’ and he would not publish the book.
“On another occasion a gentleman brought him a little volume to publish that had had a large sale in a Western ​city, on ‘The Difficulties of Arminian Methodism.’ Mr. Carter said, ‘No, I cannot publish it. Pulling down may be necessary; but I did not go into business to do that, but to build up Christ’s Church as far as in my power.’ ”
In connection with the publication of the History of the Reformation, Mr. Carter used often to relate the following incident. He had gone West to attend a meeting of the General Assembly, and on his voyage down the Mississippi the steamboat struck on a snag, and was so badly injured that they had to wait several days at a little river-side town for repairs. This with the time usually occupied by the passage made the voyage quite a long one, and the passengers became very well acquainted, many of them also being delegates to the Assembly. He had a copy of the History with him, and it was proposed that it should be read aloud, and accordingly there was a large circle of interested listeners. Among the rest was a lady of great refinement, dressed in deep mourning, who seemed to enjoy the book as much as any one. One day during their detention a large party went on shore for a walk, and this lady fell into conversation with Mr. Carter, and told him that she was a Romanist. She belonged to a wealthy and influential family in Pennsylvania, but her home was a very worldly one, and she was brought up with little thought or care for religion. When a young girl she was sent to a convent school. She said she had never seen vital piety till she saw it in those nuns, and she was so impressed with their holy, self-denying lives that she had made their religion hers. She seemed a lovely Christian woman, looking only to Christ as her Lord and Saviour. Mr. Carter said, “I am surprised that you should come daily to listen to ​D’Aubigné. Surely you hear much that is repugnant to your feelings.” “I have been greatly interested,” said she; “the Church had fallen into a very low and corrupt state, and needed purification. The Reformation was a great blessing to it, and it has felt the benefit ever since.”
On another Western journey Mr. Carter met with a lady, who rather attached herself to the ladies of his party, sitting with them on deck, and joining in conversation. One evening she complained of the cold, and requested Mr. Carter to ask her husband to get her a shawl. “I did not know your husband was with you.” She described his appearance, and said he was in the saloon. Mr. Carter found him gambling with some other men, and told him that his wife wanted a shawl, “I can’t be bothered to get it now. She won’t suffer.” The man never came near his young wife till they were about to disembark and go with the rest of the passengers to a hotel for the night. The next afternoon the lady was sitting with Mr. Carter’s party in the hotel parlor when he came to summon them to go to the train. When they arose, she rose too as if to accompany them. He said to her, “I met your husband just now, Madam, and he said you were not going.” She turned deadly pale, and sat down again, but just as the train was starting the young couple came hurriedly along, and got on the next car. Something in their appearance struck Mr. Carter, and he went in to look for them after travelling some miles, but they were gone. He asked the conductor if he knew what had become of them, and was told that they had no money, and he had put them off the car. Some years afterwards Mr. Carter was relating this incident on an ocean steamer, when a lady, greatly interested, inquired ​the date and place. He told her, and she said to him: “I can tell you what became of those young people. She was the daughter of respectable parents in Michigan, but married this young man, who was almost a stranger, against the wishes of her friends. They had been married but a few days when you saw them. He proved to be a professional gambler, and on that steamer and in that hotel lost every cent of his money and hers. When he was put off the train in the darkness that night, he drew out a revolver and shot his brains out, and in the morning his bride was found sitting alone on the prairie, with her husband’s head in her lap. The poor young creature was taken back to her friends in Michigan.”
Mr. Carter’s father died, May 2, 1844, twelve years after coming to America. His sturdy Scotch character had won for him a place in the farming community in which he lived, in Saratoga County, New York. He was an active member of church and Sunday school, an ardent advocate of total abstinence and antislavery, for which causes he was ever ready to speak in public and private,—ready to run risks too, for in the days of the Fugitive Slave Law he was a conductor on the Underground Railway. In this connection, his son Walter relates the following incident:—
“One stormy winter morning, soon after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, enacting severe penalties for harboring a fugitive slave, as we knelt at worship in the old farm-house, a soft knock was heard at the door. It was gently opened, while the solemn prayer went on. As we rose from our knees, we saw a large negro, shabbily dressed and covered with snow, standing by the door. He looked at father, as if asking protection, and was welcomed to the fire. He took his seat at the table, and ate like one famished. After a ​brief whispered conversation, father told me to harness the fast mare to the sleigh, and both started northward. The rest of the family went to church, and late at night the wearied horse and the tired driver returned. As the family gathered around him, he explained that nothing but a case of necessity and mercy would have taken him on such a journey on the Sabbath day; but the poor runaway slave had for two days hardly tasted food, sleeping in barns, and fearing to tell his story to some enemy, who might betray him to his master. He was overjoyed to find a friend ready and willing to help, and our sleigh took him to the house of another friend, who took him farther on his journey. In conclusion, my father said, ‘This government has a fearful record to meet some day from its treatment of the Indian and the negro, and if ever you can do a kind service to the red man or the black man, be sure to do it, lest you share in the condemnation and the punishment.’ ”
Mr. Thomas Carter’s total abstinence teachings bore fruit in his own family. He had eleven children and over fifty grandchildren, and as many great-grandchildren, and it is believed that not one of the number ever used intoxicating drink.
He was deeply interested in his son’s publications, and read them carefully and with delight. He felt the deep responsibility of a religious publisher. On one occasion he came to New York for his annual visit just after his son had published “Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,” by Prof. John Wilson, who wrote under the nom de plume of Christopher North. The old gentleman said to his son, “I am sorry to hear you’ve been publishing a novel,” accenting in his Scottish dialect the last syllable. Mr. Carter in vain tried to defend himself by speaking of the purity and elegant style of what was indeed a classic work; but his father would ​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. ​Carter’s relation to the work of foreign missions was no perfunctory affair, but that his labor for this great cause was performed so lovingly that the magnetism of his spirit moulded his whole household. The cause was taken home to the fireside, and the family altar, and the closet. One of the last acts of his life was the making of arrangements for the annual gift for foreign missions.
“Though he continued in the Board of Foreign Missions to the age of eighty-two, yet the spirit which favored progress on the one hand and conciliation and forbearance on the other characterized his whole course. As a rule, he voted for every wise measure of progress) There was a bright and hopeful energy in his mind, even to fourscore years. He was not bound to the past. He expected progress as he had earnestly prayed for it. He realized that many of the old moulds and measurements must be outgrown. He only feared lest his declining powers might not be able to keep pace with an ever advancing work.”
His connection with the Board brought him into intimate fellowship not only with some of the most excellent and eminent of the clergymen of New York, but with such laymen as Messrs. Lenox, Stuart, Dodge, and Booth, for whom he felt the most affectionate esteem. The Board meetings were a great delight to him, and the Secretaries among his most beloved friends. Of all these noble men there was none whom he held in such affectionate respect as the Hon. Walter Lowrie, whom he regarded as one of the most wonderful men of our country and our Church. This remarkable man, after serving six years as United States Senator contemporaneously with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, was made Secretary of the Senate, and held the office for twelve years. Owing to the peculiarly delicate nature of this office, and the responsibility connected with it, it did ​not change incumbents with successive administrations, and he might have enjoyed its honors and emoluments for life, as did his predecessors. Many a rising lawyer would have preferred this post to the Presidency, But when called to be Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, he gave up all hopes of worldly distinction, and devoted himself to a life of most faithful and self-denying labor. When asked why he had given up a post so honorable and so lucrative, he answered that he “chose the place in which there would be the most sacrifice and the best prospect of usefulness for Christ.”
Mr. Carter writes of him:—
“There was another friend to whom I owed much, the Hon. Walter Lowrie. When he came to New York, in 1837, I was glad to welcome him. I was then poor, and could contribute little to the cause of Foreign Missions; but it gave me great pleasure to aid him in any way I could to commence his blessed work. He had resigned a high position in Congress to devote his life to the work of our blessed Lord in foreign lands. He sent one son to India, another to China, and when the latter was murdered by pirates in the China Seas, he sent a second son there. I remember well the morning when the tidings came that Walter, a most promising missionary, had gone to visit Bishop Boone to confer with him on the translation of the Bible into Chinese. On his return a piratical band attacked the ship in which he sailed. Walter was reading his Bible on deck. They seized him and cast him overboard. He sank and rose again more than once, and then sank to rise no more. The ripe scholar, the devoted missionary, the eloquent preacher, was no more on earth. When the letter was read before our Board, we sat in silence, ​his bereaved father and brother being of our number. It was the severest blow we had ever received. We were dumb; we opened not our mouths, because God did it. After some time, one of our number led in prayer, and we adjourned. This was a baptism for us all, and brought a new consecration. A third son went to China, to carry on the work his noble brother had so auspiciously begun. He worked faithfully till the Master called him up higher. His widow and two children are our missionaries now at the same post.
“When the good old father grew feeble, he declined to receive any salary for his service. As we insisted on his taking it, he received the money and put it into the treasury of the Board. While he was contributing liberally to the mission work, he lived in Quaker simplicity. The tax-gatherer called and examined his furniture, and said, ‘I shall put you down for $3,000.’ ‘On what do you base your estimate?’ said Mr. Lowrie. ‘On what I see of your furniture.’ ‘You may have it all for $600.’ There was no more said about taxes. He was a living epistle, known and read of all men. His eldest son, Rev. John C. Lowrie, D.D., after half a century of service abroad and at home, still lives and labors in the Mission cause, as one of our Secretaries.”
Of another old friend Mr. Carter gives the following reminiscences:—
“Mr. William Steel, an elder in the Canal Street Church, a plain, unpretending man, a close student of the Bible, was a constant visitor for many years. His conversation was to me most instructive. One day he was sitting in my store reading a book, when a tall, stately gentleman entered and took me back to the rear of my store. He asked me if I knew that man. I told him I did. ‘He is the meanest man I know,’ said he. ​‘He has worn that cloak eleven years. He retired from business with a handsome property, and he is so miserly that he cannot take the use of it. I replied, ‘That man visits the widow and the fatherless, and supplies their need. He goes to the Mission House and leaves fifty or a hundred dollars, but his name never appears. The gifts of a “Friend of Missions” are very frequent. He is the best model of a Presbyterian elder I know.’
“I missed Mr. Steel for a few days, and when he came back he said to me, ‘I have received a precious lesson since I saw you last. One evening I had made some calls, and returning hung my hat and cloak on the stand in the hall and went into the parlor. Without any warning, I fell unconscious on the floor. My family procured medical assistance, and after some time I became conscious and revived. I was apparently dead without tasting of death. For many years I had been subject to bondage through fear of death, and the dear Lord has taught me now that I need not fear any more.’
“When Mr. Steel was more than eighty years old, his old partner came to spend the day with him. They had sweet communing, and on parting the two stood in front of the house at sunset and bade each other farewell. Mr. Steel returned to his parlor, and fell down unconscious, He was not, for God took him. How often his instructive remarks have helped me onward! One little incident which he related to me I may mention: ‘When I was a young man, about the beginning of this century, I lived in New Jersey. The yellow-fever broke out in New York, and I came to the city to visit a very dear friend. He was attacked by the fever. In the evening I walked along Beekman Street till I came to the Brick Church. I heard singing, and went in to the lecture-room. They sang the ninety-first Psalm. It ​deeply affected me. I returned to my friend, and watched by him all night. I committed that psalm to memory that night, and felt that plague and pestilence were no more to be dreaded.’
“Among those whom I met shortly after I came to New York were two brothers, R. L. and Alexander Stuart, the one older, the other younger, than myself. They began to give small subscriptions to benevolent work, which increased with increasing prosperity. They first gave hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and at last hundreds of thousands. For many years the elder brother spent the Monday mornings with me at the Mission House. He and Mr. Lenox were most conscientious in their attendance there, and they were the most liberal contributors. I watched their course from year to year, and it was onward and upward. It was no small privilege to me to witness how readily they gave their time and their money to send the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I was often tempted to exclaim,
‘Search we the land of living men, We ne’er shall see their like again.’ ”
When Mr. Carter was nearly eighty years of age, he called one day on Mrs. R. L. Stuart, and she drew from a desk an old document which she handed to him. It was a call for the first meeting to discuss the propriety of forming a Board of Foreign Missions, and was signed by some of the most prominent clergymen and laymen of the church in New York, not one of whom is now living. Mrs. Stuart said that her husband had gone to that meeting, and in the enthusiasm of his heart had pledged himself to give five hundred dollars to the cause. When he came home, his mother and his brother Alexander were full of consternation, and asked him if ​he expected to end his days in the poorhouse, since he squandered his money in that way. “Ah!” said Mr. Carter, “how little he foresaw that the time was coming when Robert and Alexander Stuart would give habitually fifty thousand a year to Foreign Missions and fifty thousand to Home Missions!” Truly he that is faithful in that which is least will be faithful also in much when the opportunity comes.
Mr. Carter’s love for missions was shown, not only in his regular attendance at the Mission Rooms and his large contributions to the work, but in his personal interest in missionaries. They were ever welcome in his home, and honored guests there; his children were taught to reverence them as those who had forsaken all to follow Christ, and his ready sympathy went forth to special cases of need. Weary workers were sent by him to the seaside, or to sanitariums, medical attendance provided, and books given. It would be hard to say how many channels his benevolence found. One of the most prominent missionaries of the Presbyterian Board wrote him: “When you think of me as working here, then regard yourself as partner with me, as you aided in the building up of my strength and recruiting me for this service. In a larger sense, you are a partner in all our labors, since you uphold us by your gifts and counsels and prayers.”
In 1843, Mr. Carter was greatly interested for the Free Church of Scotland, which had just come out from the Establishment. Much sympathy was felt for the four hundred and seventy-four ministers who had left their churches and manses for conscience’ sake, and were thrown with their families upon the world. The Scotch Church, then in Grand Street, was especially interested for their countrymen, although it is said that a ​smile rippled over the congregation when Dr. McElroy announced from the pulpit that the Rev. Messrs. Begg and Robb were coming as a deputation from Scotland to tell the story of the disruption to their brethren in America. Dr. William Cunningham of Edinburgh came over at this time (1843), and Mr. Carter had a very pleasant and cordial friendship with him then, and afterwards in Scotland.
Mr. R. L. Stuart and Mr. Carter were appointed a committee to collect money, and have it ready when the Scotch delegation called for it. Mr. Carter subscribed two hundred and fifty dollars,—a large sum for him at that time. One of the elders, an excellent man, but with a good deal of the proverbial Scottish carefulness, came to his store to remonstrate with him for his prodigality. He told him that he had been very successful for a young man so short a time in business, but that such want of prudence would inevitably result in failure. The old gentleman had asked, when he came in, for a cedar lead-pencil, price six cents; and as he talked he was busily engaged in cutting it in halves. When the work was done, he held out the two pieces to Mr. Carter, saying, “Take whichever you like, and I'll give you the three cents for the other half.” To the end of his life, Mr. Carter had an occasional laugh over this object lesson in frugality.
Another member of the church was the possessor of a large fortune won by his own exertions. He was a good man, but it was sometimes hard for him to part with the money which was the fruit of so much toil and self-denial. His wife always co-operated with Mr. Carter in his efforts to make her husband see his duty in the matter of giving, and would add her persuasions to his. One time a large sum of money was needed for ​some church repairs, and Mr. Carter tried in vain to get his friend to subscribe the same amount that he himself intended giving. After a long conversation, he was obliged to go away repulsed. On reaching home, he thought the matter over, and sat down and wrote a note to his friend, saying that he feared he had said too much in the way of urging, and if so he asked forgiveness, and hoped that nothing he had said would weaken the strong bond of friendship that united them. Immediately on receiving the letter, the gentleman came to him, saying, “I believe you were right and I wrong, after all. How much do you think I ought to give?” And he immediately wrote a check for the desired amount.
Mr. Carter loved to tell a story of one of the elders of the Scotch Church, who came to New York a poor boy, and, when he had earned ten dollars by wheeling goods in a barrow, attended one evening a meeting of the church called to pay off a debt. When subscriptions were asked for, the lad gave five dollars, which in after life he declared to be the largest gift he had ever made, being one half of his earthly possessions. This good man afterwards amassed quite a fortune, but a large portion of it was swept away in a fire. Shortly after, Dr. McElroy was going about, as was his yearly custom, collecting money for the various church charities, but he passed Mr. R―’s door, thinking that he would spare him the pain of refusing his usual gifts. Mr. R― met him on the street, and said, “You have not called on me yet for my subscriptions.” “ No,” said the Doctor, “I had not the heart to ask you, knowing how heavy your losses have been.” “Retrenchment with me must not begin at the house of God, I shall double my subscriptions this year.”
​A wealthy member of the church said to Mr. Carter that he wanted to give systematically to the cause of Christ, but had not confidence in his own judgment as to apportionment, and he wished that, whenever Mr. Carter gave to any object, he would give a corresponding sum for him, Mr. Carter advised him to study the subject for himself, that he might give intelligently as well as systematically; adding that he would willingly aid him with his counsel whenever he wished.
A wealthy and eccentric gentleman, of great liberality, who was constantly applied to by sharpers for money, once asked Mr. Carter to be his almoner, because he felt sure that his gifts would be wisely applied; but he declined the responsibility, saying that the use of money was a talent for which every one must give an account for himself to God. This same gentleman arose to speak at an anniversary meeting of the American Bible Society. A friend sitting beside Mr. Carter on the platform said, “Do stop him. You are the only one who has influence with him, and he is so peculiar he may say something that will spoil the meeting.” Mr. Carter declined to interfere, very happily as it turned out, for the gentleman only spoke long enough to say that he was so impressed with the importance of the work of the Bible Society that he had determined to give ten thousand dollars to the cause. Mr. Carter turned to his friend, and said, “Was it not well to let him go on?”