PUBLIC DUTIES.
With a sympathy for every good work Mr. Black was identified with every moral movement in Red River Settlement. Coming as he did to people who had had for forty years an unfortunate religious experience, he had naturally to take a firm stand against evil of every kind. The Highland ideal of church discipline is very high, and Mr. Black seemed equally solicitous with his people to suppress aggravated forms of sin. It would neither be interesting nor expedient to detail the session cases which came up as the years rolled on. There was one thing always to be said, that the moderator never flinched in his duty, but it is plain to see that he rather aimed at the reclamation of the wrongdoer, than took satisfaction in meting out punishment to the offender. He associated himself very heartily with the ministers of the Church of England, who welcomed his assistance in joint meetings for prayer and temperance reform throughout the parishes. He was instrumental in carrying out the work of the Bible Society. He was also very anxious to gain the acquaintance of the officers and men of the Hudson's Bay Company—many of them his countrymen—scattered over the Northwest. With these men he kept up a correspondence, and hardly a chief factor or trader from the interior visited Fort Garry, who did not think it a duty and a pleasure to take the five miles journey from the Fort to Kildonan manse to visit the representative of the church of his fathers. So strong did this feeling become that in 1862 Governor Dallas invited Mr. Black to hold service at Fort Garry, and this was undertaken with the approval of Kildonan session, and thus was begun the first Presbyterian service on the site of the city of Winnipeg, which has become one of the strongholds of the Presbyterian Church in Canada to-day. In every good thing the Kildonan pastor was a leader, and while his sympathetic nature encouraged many a confidence, and many a sad story that caused him trouble and anxiety, yet he was full of resource, and thought nothing of pain and trouble and expense if he might be helpful to the vicious, or lead the young into wisdom's ways,
"As a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way!"
REV. JAMES NISBET,
Presbyterian Pioneer Indian Missionary, 1866.