It was during this winter (1870-71) that we began making plans for building a church for the Sarnia Indians. The little building that we had put up on our first arrival had never been intended as a permanent church; so now that the Mission was fairly established and was beginning to show good signs of prospering, it seemed to be only right that a more substantial building should be erected for the purpose of Divine worship, and that the little frame building should be kept simply for a school. The first thing was to trundle the old building out of the way; so a "bee" was called, and a number of the Indians assembled, and with levers and rollers, and after working hard for a couple of days, the school was twisted round and removed to the far corner of the lot. Then the foundations were dug for the new church. It was decided that it should be a brick building, with a spire, to cost about 1500 dollars. Mr. Jacobs, my assistant, busied himself in the matter, and together we managed to raise the requisite funds; and early in the spring building operations were commenced. However, it was not my destiny to be the pastor of this little brick church among the Sarnia Indians. God was calling me to other work. It so happened that, in the providence of God, the Garden River Mission just at this time fell vacant. The Rev. Mr. Chance, who had laboured there so faithfully for the past 18 years, was called away to another sphere in a more southerly district. Great were the lamentations of the poor Garden River Indians when he left. Both he and his wife had become much endeared to the people. Mrs. Chance was the schoolmistress and doctor, and what would the poor children and the poor sick people do without her? and what would they do without their Missionary who had laboured so long and so faithfully among them: who had baptized their children, and united their young people in marriage, and buried their dead, and preached to them the glad tidings of the Gospel, and visited them, and sympathized with them, and helped them in their homes? Mr. Chance's children had all been born and brought up at Garden River; Indian nurses had attended them and cared for them during their infant days; the Indian women had learned to look upon them almost as their own; and one dear little girl--Alice--had died after a short illness, and was buried in the Indian Cemetery. It was a terrible wrench for these poor Indians one and all to be separated from their Missionary and his family. And the worst feature of all was that there seemed to be considerable fear lest the Mission might be given up altogether. The New England Company, under whose auspices Mr. Chance had worked, had determined on withdrawing from that portion of the field; and unless some other Society saw fit to take them up, there seemed but little prospect that the work among them would be continued.