3. BISHOP WILLIAM BLACK OF NOVA SCOTIA 
     
    
   
   
    
     Both Benjamin Chappell in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island prior to 
     
     1783, and later Nathaniel Wright in the Bedeque and Tryon area after Wright’s con- 
     
     version by the Rev. William Grandin in 1792, had sent several invitations to 
     
     Wesleyan Methodist Bishop William Black in Nova Scotia to visit Prince Edward 
     
     Island in their tireless attempts to gather Methodists into congregations and win new 
     
     converts to the cause of Methodists. 
     
    
   
   
    
     William Black was born in Huddersfield, England in 1760, emigrated at the age 
     
     of fifteen and lived on a farm near Amherst, Nova Scotia. Following a deep 
     
     religious experience in 1779, he helped with religious meetings at home, then in 1781 
     
     went to Petitcodiac, New Brunswick on his first mission, and in 1782, he visited 
     
     religious groups in centers in Nova Scotia. William Black moved to Halifax in 1786, 
     
     was ordained in 1789, became a bishop in the Methodist Church, and retired in 
     
     1812. He served from 178I until he died in 1834.7 
     
    
   
   
    
     The really low point for Bishop William Black in his early career seemed to be 
     
     his journey to Saint John’s Island in October, 1783. Bishop Black had been told in 
     
     1782 by a previous visitor to the Island, that he found “only three Christians and the 
     
    
   
   
    
     people very dark (uneducated) and in many quarters, openly profane”. The Bishop 
     
     went to Saint John’s Island following the repeated invitations of Benjamin 
     
    
   
   
    
     Chappell, who had been holding religious services in his own home in Charlot- 
     
     tetown, the colonial capital. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bishop Black wrote in his Journal: “I arrived on the 22nd and tarried about a 
     
     fortnight. I preached several times in Charlottetown and at St. Peter’s, but alas! the 
     
     people in general appear stupid and senseless as stones, altogether ignorant of the 
     
     nature of true religion, and of that faith which worketh by love.”1 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although he spent two weeks preaching, he could find no encouraging results. 
     
     The ignorance which everywhere prevailed made Bishop Black heart-sick. 
     
    
   
   
    
     4. THE REV. WILLIAM GRANDIN, 
     
     ITINERANT PREACHER 
     
    
   
   
    
     “There was no one to follow up Black’s work, and some years went by before a 
     
     preacher again visited the Island. In 1791 the Rev. William Grandin, an American 
     
     from New Jersey, was working throughout the Cumberland circuit in Nova Scotia. 
     
     During the winter he travelled through forty miles of forest to visit the Loyalists 
     
     settled at Wallace, on the north-east coast, who for several years had not seen a 
     
     minister. The revival which began proved both powerful and permanent and chang- 
     
     ed the character of the district. Grandin’s heart went out to the people of Saint 
     
     John’s Island, the long, low coast-line of which he could see across the ice-bound 
     
    
   
   
    
     Northumberland Strait. He longed to visit them, and in the spring of 1792 his oppor- 
     
     tunity came, as he found he could leave his work at St. John. Arriving at the Island, 
     
    
   
   
    
     he began preaching at Tryon, where a revival took place. Among those whose lives 
     
     were changed were Nathanial Wright and his wife, and the large dance—room in their 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     I William Black, “Journal,” Arminian (Methodist) Magazine Vol. I4, (1791), p. 407. 
     
    
   
   
    
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