As usual "some doubted," but the Assembly entered with spirit upon the project, and after certain negotiations the writer was appointed to go to Manitoba and lay the foundations of the new institution. He was ordained for the work in Gould Street church, Toronto, in company with Dr. MacKay of Formosa, and pushed on to reach Manitoba before winter. After a long and toilsome journey, in October the writer arrived at Red River, and looks back with pleasure to the first night spent in company with John Black at Kildonan manse. The Rev. William Fletcher and the writer on arriving at Fort Garry could find no accommodation in the crowded hotel in Winnipeg, and accordingly they walked down the four miles or more to the manse on a pleasant autumn evening. The Apostle of the Red River, with a mass of iron gray hair, as shown in his portrait, with well marked and yet kindly face, and his Dumfrieshire Doric, not yet displaced by forty years of absence from his native moorlands, was in high spirits. So often had the people of Red River seen those coming to them foiled in their plans by the too early approach of winter that their fears had been awakened lest another disappointment would reach them. But the journey had been made, and now the pioneer, whose tastes had always remained scholastic and literary, even in the remote solitudes of the west, saw one of his strongest anticipations about to be realized. He spoke of the youths ready to go on with their work, of the numbers coming into the country, of the bright prospects of the Church, and the value of education as a factor of national growth. Late into the night all phases of the subject were discussed and plans laid for immediately beginning work. MANITOBA COLLEGE BEGUN. A few days afterward the provisional board met, and the name "Manitoba College" was adopted for the new institution--a name which has meant much in the educational development of the western prairies. On November 10th, 1871, classes were opened, and the work immediately took hold of the minds and hearts of the Presbyterian people of the country, and of many others as well. The first building was of logs covered with siding, and so Manitoba College while not emulating the fame of the log college, out of which great Princeton College grew, yet has a similarity in its first housing and surroundings. The cut on page 130 gives a view of the first college building at Kildonan, with the Kildonan church in the background.