missions that we are not labouring for
missions. I have little heart in trying to stir up a missionary feeling
amongst the people when I cannot point out an appropriate channel by which
that spirit may vent itself, nor can I plead freely for a liberal
collection for the Foreign Mission Committee when in the usual acceptance
of the term, we have no foreign missions at all.
"I cannot but think that many of you
must feel on this subject much as I do. The missionary element seems to
enter into the very conception of a church, but in looking at our own, we
see that that element is wanting, and we feel there is something
deficient. We try to persuade ourselves that our work is rather among our
own people than among the heathen, and for a time, when the pressure of a
special need is upon us, we make ourselves think so, but when the pressure
is removed and our thoughts and Christian instincts return to their
natural course, our former dissatisfaction returns, we feel that there is
something wanting, something incomplete, a duty undone or not attempted to
be done. Nor does it seem to mend matters much that we contribute to the
missions of the other Churches. There seems to be a conscience for our own
Church that nothing will satisfy but direct, earnest effort on our own
part, a mission or missions of our own. It is surely time that the present
state of things was changed and our Church put in her right position; that
she should be put ahead of other Churches and, what is far more, abreast
of her duty in doing the work of God among the heathen. I think, instead
of finding such a work a burden, we should feel it a relief, that we
should feel a liberty and enlargement in our minds which we do not
experience. I know that many of you have been giving this matter prayerful
and earnest thought, and that various plans and schemes have been
proposed; but now it is surely time to take practical action. Let this be
the distinction of the Synod of 1864. Let it begin the work of heathen
missions, and first of all, let it acknowledge the claims of the heathen
of our own country, of British North America. I for one would not have you
think in the meantime of any other field. Other fields may be, indeed,
more promising, but that is not the question. Providence clearly points
out this field as ours, and that is all we have to look at. Nor is it so
discouraging as is sometimes supposed. I know of nothing more cheering
anywhere than the state of the Episcopal missions in the far North under
the charge of my dear friends Mr. Kirby and Mr. McDonald. And there are
points yet unoccupied where we might hope to labour, if not with equal, at
least with an encouraging measure of success. Details about one of them
are already in the hands of your committee.
"And do not be afraid of expense.
There can be little doubt that such an effort made by their own Church,
and giving them a mission of their own, would call forth, by God’s
blessing, a spirit of liberality among our people which would disappoint
all our fears and make us glad and thankful."
Two years later, the desire of Dr.
Black’s heart was satisfied in the appointment of Nisbet as missionary to
the Cree Indians of the plains. Nisbet established his mission at a point
of the North Saskatchewan five hundred miles northwest of Fort Garry,
where he founded the town of Prince Albert, which thus became the
headquarters of the first Presbyterian mission to the Indians of the
northwest, as also the nucleus of a rapidly growing white settlement.
After eight years of unwearied
service, Nisbet and his devoted wife, a native of Kildonan, returned to
the old home, spent and broken in health, both to die. They sleep in the
sacred ground of the old Kildonan churchyard, but their work abides.
Meanwhile the staff of workers
continued gradually to increase, till between the years 1866 and 1870
there were five ordained ministers in the field: Black, Nisbet, Matheson,
Fletcher, and McNab. But far beyond the powers of these men the
settlements were extending. The streams of immigration kept steadily
trickling into the Red River valley, till the rising tide flowed far out
upon the plains east, west and north, so that in addition to the claims of
the settlements already supplied with Gospel ordinances, daily appeals
came from groups of settlers strewn over the prairie at such points as
High Bluff, Rockwood, Portage la Prairie, and Palestine.
The year 1870 was, undoubtedly, the
annus mirabilis in the history of Western Canada. It was the year
of the First Rebellion, the year when the change of government from that
of the Hudson’s Bay Company to that of the Dominion Government went into
practical effect; it was the year, too, that saw the birth of the Province
of Manitoba; it was the year when Canadians discovered their great West.
By Presbyterians it is remembered as the year in which Manitoba came near
enough to the Eastern Church to be considered a home mission rather than a
foreign mission field, and the year also in which the Presbytery of
Manitoba was erected.
The organization of that Presbytery,
which took place on the 16th of June, 1870, was conducted with appropriate
solemnities, full care being taken to have everything "done decently and
in order." The official sermon was preached by the Moderator appointed by
the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church, Rev. John Black, from the
text: "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy,
we faint not." It was a brave text, uttered first by a brave man, and now
after many centuries chosen by a brave man to set his fellows and himself
at their work with sufficient faith and courage. And they had need of both
courage and faith, for the responsibilities and the opportunities of that
day. The sermon done, the assembled congregation of Kildonan folk remained
to meet with the "fathers and brethren." There they sat, three ministers,
Black, Fletcher, and McNab, the fourth, James Nisbet, being five hundred
miles away at his lonely post among the Crees, and their elders, Angus
Polson, John Sutherland, and Donald Gunn. There they sat to deliberate
concerning the affairs of the kingdom in that land so remote and limitless
and so rapidly swallowing up the incoming people for whom they must care.
Their moderator had bidden them "faint not." Faint? Not they. Men wearing
such names faint not easily. With assured confidence they grappled with
their business and when they rose for the benediction that sent them off
to their various fields, several great things had got done. They had named
and set forward as pace a congregation in the capital city of the
province, Knox Church, Winnipeg. They had organized a Home Mission
campaign and they had planned a college. In very deed there was no
"fainting" in John Black and those who sat with him in presbytery. Under
their hand the work rapidly progressed.
The General Assembly of the Canada
Presbyterian Church, of course, granted the prayer of this Presbytery’s
overture and duly established Manitoba College as an institution for
higher learning. The site chosen for the college was Kildonan, suitable
buildings having been provided by the congregation. A college meant
professors. Accordingly, next year, 1871, Rev. George Bryce, M. A., came
West to be the first professor in Manitoba College, to preach for the
congregation of Knox Church in Winnipeg and incidentally to enter upon
that career of missionary activity which he has pursued ever since with
such remarkable energy and zeal. A few months later, in the following
year, the Church of Scotland Synod, cooperating with the Canada
Presbyterian Church in both the missionary and educational movement, sent
out the Rev. Thomas Hart, M. A., as professor of Manitoba College, who,
coming to the West and finding the mission work far beyond the powers of
those in the field, took up in addition to his college duties his full
share of missionary labour, in which varied service for thirty-five years
he has toiled on with unwearied zeal and unassuming devotion.
But toil as they might, the whole
force of ministers, missionaries and professors could not keep pace with
the country. Along the black trails by which the freighters made their way
West and North, the pioneer prairie "schooners" steadily streamed, for no
matter if land in abundance and of the best lay unclaimed at the door of
the settlements already formed, the far cry of the alluring West haunted
the newcomers and they could not rest till they had passed beyond the
limits of civilization, leaving their Church to follow if she cared or
could. Day after day and week after week this stream passed on unheeded of
all except those who had been bidden to watch.
It was no easy task to secure
missionaries for Western Canada. The country was remote, the field was
hard, distances were great, privations many, isolation trying.
Occasionally a man broke down and retired to the East. Nisbet dropped at
his post and ever as the Presbytery met, rumours were exchanged of
settlements still beyond, unreached by the message of the Gospel. No
wonder if that cry of the West, new then, now grown so old, for men and
more men began to assail Eastern ears with unvarying insistence. From
sheer monotony of its repetition the Church began to grow indifferent to
the cry. Besides, every man was busy with his own, and the West was very
far away. But in one case and that a most notable, the call found
response. The young, vigorous, and ambitious congregation of Knox Church,
Winnipeg, proud of its newly organized Session and its, for the second
time, enlarged church, seeking a minister, approached no less a person
than the Convener of the Home Mission Committee himself, Rev. William
Cochrane, with a view to call. They were not encouraged to proceed. But in
the Convener’s Presbytery of Paris there was a young minister who, ever on
the alert for the neglected and outcast, was continually stirring up his
Presbytery to Home Mission effort, James Robertson, of Norwich. To him the
appeal was sent to go West to preach in Knox Church for six months, to spy
out the land, find out the true condition of things and report. The West
had often appealed to him as a field for missionary effort. He was in need
of a rest and change, and so he resolved to see this new and wonderful
land, to give such help as he could for the space of time indicated and to
return. It was the dead of winter and no time to go exploring that land of
frosts and blizzards. Besides, it was the holiday season. But for
Robertson frosts and blizzards had little terror, and times and seasons
mattered not when the call of duty sounded. There was work to be done. He
had undertaken to do it and the sooner he was at it the better. So he left
his home, his wife and family of babies a day or two before the New Year
and set his face westward.
