CHAPTER VII. Pastor and Parish.
The uncertainty as to whether he was to be the permanent leader of the Red River Presbyterians remained for years in the mind of John Black. Five years at least after his arrival we find him wondering whether the committee intended to recall him or not. This arose from a strain in his nature which rendered him liable to depression, and also from a deep desire to see the spiritual development of the people, which he determined should not be hindered by his personal defects. He was a man of intense humility. In the year after the Red River flood (1853), when he saw the church building fairly under way, he returned to Canada, undoubtedly to allow a substitute to be sent if such were possible. The impression made by the pioneer missionary during his year and a half of labor had been so marked that the people of Red River were determined that he should not be replaced.
The Hudson's Bay Company, as before stated, had been averse to another denomination entering Rupert's Land until they saw that the Presbyterians could not be refused. Then Sir George Simpson, with a stroke of diplomacy, allowed the privilege in his letter to Rev. Mr. Rintoul, of Montreal. The company's attitude was still for various reasons one of caution. Mr. Black had been exceedingly wise and politic. In one of his letters he states that at times when his inclination had impelled him to interfere yet he had studiously refrained from taking sides in the struggle which was beginning between the company and the people. He had a strong sense of the fact that he was an ambassador of peace. That he had succeeded well is shown by an extract from a letter written him by Sheriff Ross on his first return to Toronto.