e United Kingdom were in Yorkshire, and among the first
settlers who came to Nova Scotia were some who were identified with
that church, and had listened to Wesley and his preachers.

William Black, the father of the future pioneer and evangelist, was
born in 1727, in Paisley, Scotland, a large manufacturing town noted
for its shawls, great preachers, and the birthplace of Tannahill, the
poet. He came of an independent family, as learned from the fact that
his father kept a pack of hounds, and spent his leisure in the chase.
When he attained his majority he became a traveller for a large
industry, which necessitated some journeys to England, and there he
met his future wife, and made his home in Huddersfield. The spell of
Scottish literature must have fallen upon the young man, for Robert
Burns, the poet, was then at the height of his fame, Alexander Wilson,
a native of Paisley, had not yet won his place as a poet, though he
too, emigrated to America, and became the pioneer and founder of
American Ornithology, but there were other writers whose impress must
have been felt by the Scotch youth.

In Elizabeth Stocks he found a lady of refinement and wealth, and the
future missionary a good Christian mother. She had been converted at
sixteen years of age, and her influence upon the home, and especially
upon the lad was elevating, and destined to leave its mark upon the
future. The father, with Scotch shrewdness, made a visit to Nova
Scotia to spy out the land before removing his family from their
English home. The mother watched tenderly over all the members of the
family, but William, the second oldest, seemed to call for special
care, and her tears and prayers found full fruition in after years,
when she had passed to her reward. Frequently did she relate to her
son William the story of her conversion, and with tears besought him
to serve God. Alone she prayed with him, and pressed home upon his
conscience the necessity of being born again. Surely this child was
born well, and his future was not all of his own making.

He must have been a precocious child, or else his religious
sensitiveness must have been induced by his mother's teaching,
influenced by the great doctrines of the Methodist revival. We are not
now accustomed to hear a child of six years of age, bewailing his lost
state in language suggestive of Bunyan's condition, when he was under
deep conviction of sin. He tells us that when he was five years old he
h