Mr Darling was not only a cheerful worker himself, but, as has just been testified in the above extract, he encouraged others in doing good. He had a look of kindness and a word of cheer for every toiler in the Lord's vineyard. He seemed so happy and whole-hearted and hopeful in all that he did, that others felt themselves morally stronger in his presence. If he met a fellow-worker who was downcast and desponding over his efforts at usefulness, you might almost be certain that there would be a quickening of courage and a bracing of resolution before they parted. He was like the veteran soldier saying to his younger comrades, "Quit you like men. Be strong;" or like Bunyan's Greatheart among the pilgrims, giving them living water from the road-side, and sending them on their way singing. A minister of Christ who, in his student days, had laboured as a missionary in one of the darkest places in the Canongate, thus writes of the way in which Mr Darling had often shed sunshine upon his rugged path:—"To me, as to all the other missionaries of the Church, he was a personal friend and a wise counsellor. Had he done nothing more than brighten the world with his cheerful smile, he would not have laboured in vain. His habitual cheerfulness was to many an inspiration. I always think of him as one in whom the love of Christ not only burned but glowed, making the world glad with his presence. Only a comparatively few know the silent deeds he did toward the poor, especially the children of the poor. When I was in the Canongate, his name was a household word."