A SELECTION MADE.
While not quite prepared to undertake the mission the church went so far in 1862 as to send to Mr. Black's assistance at Red River, one of its ministers who should be engaged in learning the Indian language, and otherwise preparing himself for the Indian work resolved on. This agent was Rev. James Nisbet, minister of Oakville, Upper Canada. James Nisbet was of a missionary family, his brother, Dr. Nisbet, who paid a visit to Canada, more than a quarter of a century ago, having been honored to take a leading place in the South Sea mission of the Free Church of Scotland. James Nisbet had come out to Canada from Scotland full of the fervor of the period of the disruption and though a skillful tradesman, had thrown in his lot with the first band of students which entered Knox College. The minister of Kildonan and he had been fellow students and co-workers, and now that James Nisbet had been appointed to Red River, John Black found in him a kindred spirit.
On his arrival in 1862, being an unmarried man, he became a resident at the Kildonan Manse, and we find frequent reference, in the collection of letters, to the hearty co-operation of the two ministers, and the spirit of rejoicing that now they could overtake Kildonan, Little Britain, Headingly, and the new station to which the Governor had given an invitation at Fort Garry. Mr. Nisbet while an earnest preacher, and as Mr. Black writes, "working diligently and acceptably," yet had a remarkable liking for building. At Kildonan there is still pointed out the parish schoolhouse, a stone building, much of the woodwork of which was done by Mr. Nisbet personally. Mr. Nisbet very readily fell into the ways of the Red River people, and two or three years after his arrival was married to Mary McBeth, a member of one of the best known Kildonan families, and sister of the present minister of Augustine Church, Winnipeg.