MISSION WORK BEGUN.
The plan of the establishment was soon vigorously worked out. During the first year two small buildings were erected, and what was since known as the large mission building in the year after. A school was immediately opened, a farm begun, and every means taken to attract the Indians to the place. As was not unnatural, the maimed, the halt, and the blind were brought to the kind-hearted missionary, and it must be stated that no small trouble was experienced in protecting the missionary from the cunning and the lazy among the Indian bands. The Indian's view of salvation is very often a willingness to accept the white man's religion provided the consideration offered is sufficient. How to meet this difficulty was one of Mr. Nisbet's chief concerns.
For four years Mr. Black was the sole intermediary between the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church and Mr. Nisbet. When the Presbytery of Manitoba was established in 1870 matters took a slightly different shape. A Foreign Mission Committee of Presbytery was formed, of which Mr. Black was convener.
Mr. Nisbet did such itinerant work as he was able. He journeyed to Edmonton, a point upwards of 400 miles west of Prince Albert. He visited the Indians of Carlton House once a month and had success with them. But the management of an industrial centre, such as Prince Albert had become, was plainly inconsistent with any large amount of sowing the Gospel "broadcast" among the wandering tribes, from fifty to five hundred miles away. Another difficulty overtook Prince Albert as an Indian mission in a few years after its founding. It was the centre of a fertile region very attractive to white settlers. The white settlement led the bands of wandering Crees to retreat to more remote districts. The writer in 1871 became a member of the Presbytery's Committee, of which Mr. Black was convener, and well remembers the unrest of the period.
At this time the large expense of an establishment like Prince Albert was meeting opposition in the Church and this, along with the other considerations stated, brought much trouble to the venerable convener in regard to the mission which he loved as a child of his own. In 1872 Dr. Moore, of Ottawa, went as a delegate to the Saskatchewan, in behalf of the General Assembly. His report led to the discontinuance of the industrial phase of the mission, but it also rendered a tribute of commendation and praise to the faithful work that had been done by the founder, to the high reputation borne by the mission among all the bands of Crees, and to the steady influence for righteousness attached to the name of James Nisbet. In the course of time the Indian mission at Prince Albert ceased to be, unless the mission school among a wandering band of Sioux still maintained there be so regarded. John McKay, afterwards ordained, was invited to a band of Crees north of Carlton, and till his death ministered to Mistawasis' band. Other churches have taken hold of the bands about Prince Albert, and to-day as a result direct or indirect, of James Nisbet's work, few Indians of the district are without the Gospel.
Shortly after Dr. Moore's visit to Prince Albert, Mr. Nisbet and his wife visited his old home in Ontario, and he was present at the General Assembly of 1873. He returned to his dear Prince Albert, but being left alone by the resignation of Rev. Edward Vincent who had come to Manitoba, and finding his plans somewhat changed by the action of the Church, he arrived with his wife at Kildonan, in September, seeking a temporary rest. The writer well remembers them as they returned. Their work seemed to be done, and the Presbytery soon decided to lay hands on Hugh McKellar, an earnest student, and license and ordain him for the work in Prince Albert. Mrs. Nisbet soon passed away in the home where she was born, and eleven days afterward her husband followed her. They are together in Kildonan churchyard. His grave marks the spot where lies as true, brave and single-minded a man as ever laid a foundation stone in the work of missions.