DEPUTATION SENT.
The Assembly acted with extreme caution and discernment in the matter. A commission of two of its members, Drs. Ure, of Goderich, and Cochrane, of Brantford, the former an old fellow-student and warm friend of Mr. Black, was appointed to visit Manitoba and report upon the case. The commission decided that after a year the college should be removed to Winnipeg, and carry on its whole work there. This was naturally a great disappointment to Mr. Black. He was not convinced by the decision, and feared especially that hurt would be done the college among the old settlers of the country. He quoted in confirmation of his opinion the statement made by the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the head of St. John's College, that the removal was a mistake.
In this John Black, to his own surprise and happiness also, found himself mistaken. The Kildonan people, to their infinite credit, stood true to their principles and in the next and succeeding years, numbers of their young men were educated in their own college in Winnipeg, notwithstanding their feeling of disappointment at the loss of the college. Acting in the same manner as he had done when his views were not carried out in regard to the policy of managing the Prince Albert mission, the true-hearted Presbyterian pastor still gave his unwavering support to the college, and for several years when the college undertook the instruction of a small band of theological students, came, in company with Dr. Robertson, at considerable inconvenience to himself, and unrewarded except by the gratitude of the board and the high appreciation of the students, to deliver lectures in church history of which he was so complete a master. It was with the deepest appreciation of his scholarship and high character that the Board of Manitoba College congratulated him in 1876, when the sister institution in the Church, Queen's College, conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon the one who had been the originator and strong supporter of general and theological education among the Presbyterians of the western prairies.