ON TO RED RIVER.
Toronto, July 31st, 1851.
My Dear James,—"You will no doubt be surprised to learn that I am so far on my way to Red River. I am to be ordained to-night and go on to-morrow morning at half-past seven o'clock. I have been forced into it against my will. It is a very important mission, but I leave one important also, and what grieves me much is that I go without seeing friends—yourself and family at home. Nobody else would go and so I am called on to do so. I shall not be able to return before next spring—be a good boy till I come back. Write frequently home and comfort them. I doubt somewhat if I am in the way of duty in leaving father and mother now in their old age.
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I have no time to write more. May God bless you and keep you! Do not cease to pray for my preservation and success and I shall do the same for you. God bless you, dear brother."
"Yours, etc.,
J. Black.P.S. Now mind you write often home, or if you could possibly go over I should like it very much.
J. B.
On the following day, August 1st, the young missionary who had been ordained for the work of the ministry on the evening before, in Knox Church, Toronto, started on his long journey to Red River. Twenty years afterward the writer left Toronto for Red River, and could not find before leaving how he was to accomplish the journey after St. Paul, in Minnesota, had been reached. How much more difficult when the long journey of eight hundred miles to St. Paul had to be performed over bad roads by stage coach and Mississippi steamboat! The journey that now takes thirty hours from Toronto, via Detroit, Chicago, and St. Paul, then took two full weeks. The young missionary arrived at where the city of Minneapolis now stands, and wrote the following letter.
Falls of St. Anthony, August 15th, 1851.
Dear James: "I am so far on my way and hope to begin another stage of my journey on Monday next. My journey has yet been comparatively pleasant, though diversified with a good deal of the disagreeable, owing chiefly to bad roads and anxiety as to being too late. I am, however, here and well, and hope to get through. Pray for strength and protection and faithfulness and success. There is now to be a regular monthly mail and so I hope you will write regularly. The mail starts from here on the 1st of the month. To be in time you must post in the middle of the month previous. I add no more at present. May God bless and keep you evermore. Do not forget me at a throne of Grace."
"Yours, etc.,
John Black.
When the traveller reached the capital of Minnesota he was in the greatest perplexity. His coming had been anxiously looked for by a deputation of the Scottish settlers from Red River. But they were nearly five hundred miles from home and a tedious cart journey lay before them, so that the time of the year did not permit their delaying any longer. On the 1st of August, just at the time their long-looked-for missionary was leaving Toronto, the deputation left the Falls of St. Anthony to return to Red River.