LIFE-WORK 5 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 Scrip¬ tures. After two years in the pastorate, he again studied at Acadia tor 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 mis¬ sionary 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. The year 1846 may well be remembered as one of great mission¬ ary interest in the Maritime Provinces. Christian men and women began to realize that a larger privilege and responsibility was theirs than they before had dreamed of. That year Maritime Presbyterians became represented abroad by John Geddie and Isaac Archibald in the , and Maritime Baptists sent Mr. and Mrs. Burpee to Burma. During the year Professor Isaac Chipman , of Acadia, suggested to Mr. Rand that, as there were heathen in our own country, he, who had made such rapid progress in learning languages, should learn the Indian language, and give the Gospel to them. As he looks back to that occasion, the Micmac Missionary says: " I took hold of the idea, and determined thenceforth to de¬ vote my life to the work of civilizing, educating and Christianizing the semi-savage Indians of the Maritime Provinces." During the next two and a half years he laboured incessantly, trying to faithfully discharge his duties as a pastor, yet bending every energy to master the Micmac language. Dr. Rand has been abundantly censured for " wasting his time over a vanishing lan¬ guage." He did not. Would that more of us might waste our time to such advantage. Here a quotation from the fourteenth annual