Chapter I: Preface

We are in the habit of referring to the heroic deeds of our fathers, whether English, Scottish, Irish or French, in the struggles they endured and the sacrifices they made for country or religion. The service rendered to liberty and religion by Cromwell and his Ironsides at Marston Moor or Naseby, by Hamilton and his Covenanters at Drumclog, by King William and his followers at Boyne and Londonderry, or by Henry and his Huguenots at Ivry, may well stir our bosoms with emotion.

But this century has, in the piping times of peace, developed a new and, perhaps, greater heroism in the army of Christian adventurers going to all lands, and proclaiming under King Jesus a war against sin and idolatry, in which battles for the truth are fought against "principalities and powers" as real as those against Prince Rupert, or the bloody Claverhouse. Even the quieter life of a pioneer missionary like Carey or Livingstone requires the highest daring and the sublimest perseverance.

To this class belongs the career of Rev. John Black, the Apostle of the Red River of the North. To leave home and friends at the call of duty, to cross the trackless prairies of the north-western States in order to reach the northern and secluded plains of Rupert's Land, to bury himself in obscurity, albeit he was engaged in laying the foundation of a spiritual empire of the future, was to give John Black a true claim to the honor of self-sacrificing fame and highest patriotism.

The work of the author has been a labor of love, and it is with the hope of awakening wider interest--especially in the minds of the young--in the sweetness of self-sacrifice, and in what the world may call the "reproach of the cross," that this little book is sent forth.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE
I. JOHN BLACK'S EARLY DAYS 9

II. STUDENT AND MISSIONARY 19

III. MONTREAL TO FORT GARRY 30

IV. A HIGHLAND WELCOME 45

V. THE EARLY SETTLERS ON RED RIVER 53

VI. SOWING AND WEEPING 66

VII. PASTOR AND PARISH 77

VIII. A KINDRED SPIRIT 91

IX. RED RIVER BECOMES CANADIAN 103

X. THE NEW SETTLEMENTS 114

XI. COLLEGE AND SCHOOLS 131

XII. MEMORIALS 142

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
REV. JOHN BLACK, D.D. _Frontispiece_

ST. BONIFACE CATHEDRAL, BURNT 1860 43

KILDONAN PARISH CHURCH 75

REV. JAMES NISBET 90

WINNIPEG IN 1870 122

KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1871 126

KNOX CHURCH, WINNIPEG, 1879 130

MANITOBA COLLEGE, 1872 130

PUBLIC MONUMENT TO DR. BLACK 153

MEMORIAL TABLET IN KILDONAN CHURCH 159

JOHN BLACK

_THE APOSTLE OF THE RED RIVER_