Three years had now passed in visiting congregations in Canada and the United States, and in preparing himself more fully for his life work, although seriously interrupted by the pressing demands from new congregations. It was a time of great spiritual hope, and the minds of the students of that day had a strong evangelistic bent, which they retained throughout life.
While John Black was wondering what special duty the Lord would lay upon him he was startled by a cry for help from the wilds of Rupert's Land. Forty years before this an enterprising Scottish nobleman, Lord Selkirk, became a leading partner in the Hudson's Bay Company, and shortly after undertook to settle a colony of Highlanders on the banks of Red River. The colonists had come in three separate companies, by way of Hudson Bay, and by a difficult route ascended the water courses to the very heart of North America, and settled on the banks of Red River. With true Highland fervor they longed for a minister and a place of worship. A Highland elder, James Sutherland, had accompanied one of the parties, and he had been given power to marry and baptize. He had gone east to Canada, and no minister of their own land had ever come to these Highland exiles. As we shall see, a Church of England minister had been sent to them, and yet they remained Presbyterian. After many disappointments their cry had reached Scotland, and had been referred to Canada to Dr. Robert Burns, minister of Knox Church, Toronto. We shall enter more fully into the steps they had taken to secure a minister, but at last the Hudson's Bay Company Governor at Fort Garry, Mr. Ballenden, as he was passing through Toronto, had urged the matter upon Dr. Burns. The heart of the good man was touched, and he fixed upon John Black as the missionary. The following extract of a letter to Mr. James Court, the secretary of the French Canadian Missionary Society, speaks for itself:
MY DEAR SIR,--"In the name of our Synod's Home Mission, and for behoof of our poor brethren at Red River in the Hudson's Bay Territory, I have to solicit your aid in obtaining for a time the services of Mr. John Black, whom we have fixed on as a fit person to make an exploratory visit to the settlement. We would not have asked this could we have avoided it, but our fixed pastors and professors are difficult to move; and we know Mr. Black's peculiar qualifications. The truth is I was so impressed with the importance of such a visit, both for our people and the red men, and the French speaking settlers in that region, that I gave the pledge as chairman of the committee, and Mr. Ballenden will be entitled to hold me good for it personally, if I cannot get a substitute. If necessary I am ready to resign my charge here and throw myself on the far west, for I am clear that our Church is called to do some good work in those regions; and if we lose the present opportunity, when may we have another?