When we realize the marvellous progress he made as a linguist, we can, only after an effort, believe the well authenticated statement that this man was a plain farmer and stone-mason, with a most meagre education, when, at twenty-three years of age, he presented himself at the Academy in connection with Acadia College, at Wolfville, Nova Scotia. To him, “learning” had never been a task, and he seized upon each opportunity with all the enthusiasm of his buoyant nature. He says:—“My first lesson in Latin was taken the first night of the four weeks I spent in Horton Academy. I heard a fellow-student, the late Wellington Jackson, repeat over and over again: ‘The words _opus_ and _usus_ signifying “need,” require the ablative, as, _Est opus pecunia_, “There is need of money.”’ That rule, and the truth it contained, was so impressed upon my memory, and was such a perfect illustration of my own circumstances that I never forgot it.” His stay at the Academy was brief, but he had made good use of his opportunities, and from that time on he was, in the fullest sense of the word, a student. He says that in the spring of 1833 he returned to the work of a stone-mason and the study of Latin. In the following year his ability as a student and a Christian teacher was recognized, and responding to the urgent call for such men, he laid down his trowel to be ordained and chosen pastor of the Baptist Church at Parrsboro. From this time on, besides continuing his Latin studies, he began to work on Greek and Hebrew in order that he might be better able to understand and teach the Sacred Scriptures. After two years in the pastorate, he again studied at Acadia for a time, but as Pegasus may boldly deviate from the common track, so we find the young man, Silas Rand, in his literary studies following the light of his own erratic genius, as he laboured on for ten years in the regular work of the ministry. During these years he was pastor successively at Horton, Liverpool, Windsor, and Charlottetown; and in Charlottetown he began his work as the missionary to the Micmacs. It was while pastor at Liverpool, on the 10th of May, 1838, that he was united to the companion of his life, Jane McNutt, whose home was at that place.