the enterprise. On December 2, 1848, Mary Mitchell Slessor was born in
Gilcomston, a suburb of the city.

Her father, Robert Slessor, belonged to Buchan, and was a shoemaker.
Her mother, who came from Old Meldrum, was an only child, and had been
brought up in a home of refinement and piety. She is described by those
who knew her as a sweet-faced woman, patient, gentle, and retiring,
with a deeply religious disposition, but without any special feature of
character, such as one would have expected to find in the mother of so
uncommon a daughter. It was from her, however, that Mary got her soft
voice and loving heart.

Mary was the second of seven children. Of her infancy and girlhood
little is known. Her own earliest recollections were associated with
the name of Calabar. Mrs. Slessor was a member of Belmont Street United
Presbyterian Church, and was deeply interested in the adventure going
forward in that foreign field. "I had," said Mary, "my missionary
enthusiasm for Calabar in particular from her--she knew from its
inception all that was to be known of its history." Both she and her
elder brother Robert heard much talk of it in the home, and the latter
used to announce that he was going to be a missionary when he was a
man. So great a career was, of course, out of the reach of girls, but
he consoled Mary by promising to take her with him into the pulpit.
Often Mary played at keeping school; and it is interesting to note that
the imaginary scholars she taught and admonished were always black.
Robert did not survive these years, and Mary became the eldest.

Dark days came. Mr. Slessor unhappily drifted into habits of
intemperance and lost his situation, and when he suggested removing to
Dundee, then coming to the front as an industrial town and promising