Chapter XLIV
1844-1846.
Dr. Ryerson's First Educational Tour in Europe.
Dr. Ryerson left Canada for Europe in November, 1844, on his first educational tour through Europe. He visited and examined into the educational systems of Belgium, France, Italy, Bavaria, Austria, the German States, and Switzerland. He kept a full diary of his travels. Much of it is out of date, but I shall give those portions of it which relate to his personal history, and his impressions of men and things. The epitome of these travels which he had prepared is as follows:--
England.--Scenery of Essex and Kent from the Thames; landing in Holland; its scenery, palaces, school system, schools, universities, museums, principal cities and towns, churches, canals and roads.
Belgium.--From Utrecht to Antwerp--cathedral, churches, schools, museums; Rubens' paintings; Brussels--schools; Hotel de Ville, etc.; field of Waterloo; Belgian school system; Howard's Model Prison; convent; university buildings.
France.--Journey to Paris; curiosities and peculiarities of Paris; acquaintance with the Protestant clergy; my residence and employments there for three months, to qualify myself to speak as well as write official letters, etc., in the French language.
From Paris to Rome.--Modes of travel; places viewed on the way; Orleans, Loire, Lyons, Rhone, Avignon, Nismes, Montpellier, Arles; antiquities; Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, to Rome.
Rome.--Three weeks among its antiquities, palaces, churches, colleges and schools.
June 13th, 1845.--Naples; the peasants on the way from Rome to Naples; Vesuvius, Herculaneum, Pompeii, museums, hospitals, college, schools.
June 20th.--In a steamer from Naples to Leghorn, thence in a hired coach to Pisa and Florence,--beautiful country, and highly cultivated. Employed four weeks in studying the institutions and peculiarities of Florence; no beggars or Jesuits allowed in Florence; the grand Duke a father to his people.
July 19th.--Proceeded to Bologna, re-enter the Papal dominions, and crossed the Appenines; views; a Normal School at Bologna, containing 1,000 pupils, and a Foundling Hospital with 3,000 children.
July 23rd.--Left Bologna in a vetturina, in company with two agreeable gentlemen, a German and an American; Ferrara; reached the Po, where we entered Austrian dominions; when we entered the first custom-house in Italy, the head officers of which did not ask for money, and declined it when offered to them. Crossed the Adige; interesting places; thence to Venice, where I spend four days in that wondrous city.
Bavaria.--In a stage by the Trent, through the Tyrolese Alps to Munich, capital of Bavaria, where I employed nineteen days in visiting its schools and museums, conversing with the professors.
From Munich by stage to Ratisbon; down the Danube to Luiz and Vienna--the most perfect city in its buildings, streets, and gardens I had visited. Gave a day to go down the Danube to the capital of Hungary.
Bohemia.--From Vienna, through Bohemia, by the first train on the then new railroad to Prague; women working on the railroad.
Saxony and Germany.--From Prague to Dresden--visits to schools; thence to Leipsic--visits to public buildings, schools, and university; thence to Halle--Franke's foundations, and other schools; to Wittemburg--Luther and Melancthon.
Prussia.--Berlin, Sept. 8th.--Examination of its various institutions, schools, and its university; Hanover, Cologne, Mayence, Wiesbaden, Frankfort, Strasbourg, Bale, Zuerich; school of M. Fellenburg; Lausanne--Geneva--to Paris.
Episode in my European travels, 1844, etc.--Acquaintance and travel with a Russian nobleman, who becomes a Catholic priest--the Pope's Nuncio at the Court to have the Canadian school regulations for Separate School translated and published in the Bavarian newspapers; also requested me to be the bearer of a medal to Cardinal Antonelli. Rome; presentation to, and interview with, the Pope.
London--February 22nd, 1845.--Started this morning in company with a young Russian nobleman (Dunjowski), for the Continent. We commenced our voyage on the Thames, wending our way amidst shoals of craft of all descriptions. The most prominent object in the river was the new "Great Britain" iron steamer; she seemed to preside Queen of the waters; excelling every other ship, as much in the beauty and elegance of her form, as in the vastness of her dimensions. On our left lay Essex, rising gradually at a distance from the river; the undulating surface presents a high state of cultivation, variegated by stately mansions, farm-houses, and villages. On the right lay Kent, remarkable for its historical recollections. The chalk-hills near Purfleet, the men working in them, also the lime and sand, attracted my attention as a novelty I had never before witnessed. We had a tolerable view of Gravesend, the great thoroughfare of south-eastern England. We passed the ancient village of Tilbury Fort, and Sheerness. We arrived at Holland on Sunday morning (about twenty hours from London), but could not ascend the river to Rotterdam on account of the ice. We therefore steamed to Screvinning, a village on the sea-shore, about three miles from the Hague. There were about fifty fishing-boats lying on the shore, high and dry, with their prows to the sea, as the tide was out. I was struck with their shortness, breadth, strength, and clam-like shape of their bottoms, with a portion in the centre perfectly flat. The speed of these curiously-constructed crafts is considerable; they sail close to the wind; having boards at the side as a substitute for a keel. Our mode of landing was novel. The boats were run aground, when several stout Dutch sailors jumped into the water nearly waist deep, and each took a passenger on his shoulders, soon placing him on terra firma. I have travelled in a great variety of ways, but I was never before placed on a man's shoulders, astride of his neck; but in this way I took my leave of the German Ocean. There is not a rock to be seen on the shore; which consists of fine sand thrown up from the sea, and forms a bank about twenty feet high; the highest land on the coast of Holland, forming a ridge from one to three miles wide along the northern coast. Screvinning is principally inhabited by fishermen. The road to the Hague is perfectly straight, level, and smooth, lying between two rows of oak trees, one row of which divides between it and a collateral canal--the accompaniment of every road throughout Holland. At 5 p.m. we went to the French Protestant Church, the place in which the famous Saurin delivered his eloquent discourses. The congregation was thin; my emotions and recollections of Saurin contrasted with the present preacher and congregation. The pulpit was at the side; the form of the church was amphi-theatrical. I noticed old Bibles, and Psalms; the text was Luke xxiii 27-28. A moderate preacher, calm, solemn and graceful; baptisms after the service. Went from the French to the English Church; only fifteen persons were present, including ourselves. I spoke to the clergyman (Mr. Beresford), introducing ourselves, and the object of our mission.
February, 24th.--Went to the British Embassy with Rev. Mr. Beresford; from thence to the Royal Library; and then proceeded to the Chinese and Japanese collection of curiosities; then on to the Gallery of Paintings; some very exquisite. From thence to the residence of the Russian (Greek) clergyman, Chaplain to the Queen of Holland, who kindly shewed us the Queen's private apartments--refined taste, and great magnificence. Then on to a Protestant school, of about 800 poor children, which is supported by subscription. The King is a subscriber to the amount of 1,000 guilders. The teachers consist of a head master and four assistants. No monitors; admirable construction of the seats; excellent order of the children; rod never used--shame, the chief instrument of correction; fine specimens of painting; Scriptures read, and prayers four times a day; salary of the head master 1,000 guilders, and assistants from 300 to 400; books furnished to the children, and all the stationery; an excellent building, well-ventilated, comfortably warm, and perfectly clean; the children remain from six to twelve years of age. Saw the British Charge d'Affaires, who procured me a general letter of introduction to teachers, etc., throughout Holland, from the Minister of the Interior. Visited the largest and principal free school at the Hague; it contains about eleven hundred children, girls and boys, taught by a head-master, aided by a second, and five other under-masters, and five assistants, lads from fifteen to eighteen years of age. No master ever sits, or has a seat to sit on. Were conducted by the Russian clergymen to the palace again; the state apartments were splendid indeed; collection of paintings extensive and most select; hot-houses and gardens delightful. Spent the evening with this gentleman, and was deeply interested in his conversation on his own labours, and the customs and character of the Hollanders.
February 25th.--Left the Hague for Leyden. The country perfectly level, looking like a low meadow won from the empire of water by the industry of man, intersected by dykes and canals, interspersed with villas and good private dwellings; here and there a wood of twenty or fifty years growth. On our way we visited Dr. de Rendt, who keeps the most select private school in Holland for the first class of nobility and gentry.
February 26th--Leyden.--Attended the University, and conversed at large with the Inspector of Schools for the district, Mr. Blusse, who gave the history, and explained the whole system of elementary education in Holland. Visited six schools, admirable upon the whole. Three thousand poor children are taught in them, at an expense to the State. Visited the Museum, University, and Library; then proceeded to Haarlem, examined the schoolrooms of the celebrated Mr. Prinsen and afterwards heard his own views of the essentials of a good system of popular education: his remarks were profound and practical. He remarked, "a good system of education consists in the men. Theory and practice make the teacher. The government of the head, how acquired and how exercised. Few books; much exposition." His business for forty-four years has been to make school-masters. Religious instruction, history of his own career and of his own school. Afterwards examined Casler's monument and the church; heard the organ, and proceeded to Amsterdam.
Feb. 27th--Amsterdam.--Had some talk with the Government Inspector of Schools. Visited a school, taught by a Roman Catholic, in which there were 950 children in one room, all quiet, and all attentive. There were four masters and twelve assistants. They have prayers four times a day.
Feby. 28th.--Went to Saundau. Reflections on Peter the Great. Visited the palace, its paintings and museum. Took supper with the Rev. Mr. Jameson, Episcopal clergyman.
March 1st--Belgium.--Proceeded to Utrecht, thence to Antwerp.
March 2nd--Sunday.--Went to the cathedral; paintings by Rubens; earnestness and oratory of the preacher. Went to St. Pauls; the streets very quiet.
March 3rd.--Visited the Jesuit's church, and three schools; phonic and Lancasterian method of learning. Visited the museum, the city, the view from the tower of the cathedral, statues of Rubens, of the Virgin and Saviour. Proceeded to Brussels; visited three schools; courteously received; arrangements good. Visited the Hotel de Ville; Gobelin tapestry; history of Clovis; abdication of Charles V. Paintings. Reflections.
March 4th.--Spent three hours in examining the field of Waterloo. Went to Nivelles and visited the Normal School for south Belgium; all the arrangements perfect. Returned to Brussels.
March 3rd.--Left Brussels for Ghent; met a commissioner at the railway station, and visited the Government Model School; the views of the intelligent master were very excellent. Called on a Doctor to whom I had a letter of introduction. He explained the school system of Belgium with great clearness. Visited the prison, the celebrated establishment that excited the admiration of Howard, and after the model of which several prisons in England and America have been built. There were about twelve hundred prisoners--arrangements wonderful, discipline apparently perfect--kept by twenty-eight men. Visited a poorhouse, a benevolent establishment to assist poor old people; about three hundred inmates; grateful feelings, sympathy. Visited the celebrated convent, containing about eight hundred nuns, who come and remain voluntarily; none, it is said, have ever left. Visited the university buildings--the best I have seen on the continent; lecture-rooms very fine. Left for Lille, in France; courteously treated at the French custom house.
March 8th--Paris.--On our way from Lille we crossed a branch of the Rhine and the Meuse on the ice; country level and well cultivated; passed Cambray and other towns. Walked to the park, Tuileries, to the Triumphal Arch of Napoleon--a world of magnificence.
March 9th.--Studying French; walked through and around the Palais Royale in the boulevards--noble, splendid.
March 10th--Sunday.--Attended the Wesleyan chapel--about one hundred present--then the English Church; thence to the Madeleine Church--most magnificent; congregation vast; music and chanting excellent beyond description; discourse read; paintings and sculpture fine; church built by Napoleon.
March 11th.--Went to Dr. Grampier, the director of the French Protestant Evangelical Mission, a pious man, an able author, at the head of an excellent institution having missions in Africa as well as in different parts of France.
March 12th.--Removed to new lodgings; tolerably comfortable.
March 13th.--Went to the university; heard lecture on history; Attended an evening party at Dr. Grampier's; was introduced to several gentlemen of rank and wealth. Singing and reading of the Scriptures; much pleased with the party; as many ladies as gentlemen; assembled at eight, broke up at eleven o'clock.
March 14th.--Heard a most splendid lecture on astronomy from the celebrated Arago; audience very large; the professor had no notes; the subject was light--comets, causes of the changes in the color of the stars, etc., etc.; lecture two hours, much cheered.
March 15th.--Went to the French Chamber of Deputies; saw Guizot. Difference between the French Chamber of Deputies and the British House of Commons struck me--1st. The more ample accommodations for members; 2nd. The little attention which appeared to be paid to the President of the Chamber; 3rd. In the members going to the tribune to speak, and reading their speeches; 4th. In the position of the different officers of the House; 5th. The fine appearance of the servants, and the very convenient accommodations for them; 6th. The superior accommodations for strangers. Heard two lectures at the university, one on mineralogy; lecture good; specimens numerous--the other on electricity; splendid lecturer; fine illustrations.
March 16th--Sunday.--Went to the Oratoire, the principal Protestant place of worship; about seventy catechumens admitted; the dress of the females white. Sermon by Mr. Monod; text--"Mon fils, donne-moi ton coeur;" very practical and impressive; the singing peculiarly touching. He is a complete talking machine; read from Lamartine, as did M. Delille beautifully and effectively.
March 17th.--Close application to the study of French all day. Anecdotes at breakfast respecting the pride of Victor Hugo. Walked along the Seine, then across the river into Notre Dame--the Westminister Abbey of Paris--worthy of the appellation.
March 18th.--Pursued my studies till 7 p.m., when I attended a party given by Count Gasparin, M.H.D., who, with his father, is styled the Wilberforce of France--the one being a member of the House of Peers, the other of the House of Deputies. They are regarded as the representatives of Protestantism in the French Legislature. Had a good deal of conversation with Dr. Grampier, on the strength, state, and prospects of Protestantism in France; also the mode of instructing young persons for public recognition in the Church, and admission to the Holy Communion. These catechumens are instructed two or three times a week, for six months, in the evidences, doctrines, and morals of Christianity. They are then examined, and if they shew themselves qualified, they are publicly admitted. The ceremony of admission takes place twice a year, a little before Easter, and at Pentecost. None are admitted under fifteen years of age. Dr. Grampier considered that Protestantism was decidedly gaining upon Popery; and that his own university had been as successful amongst the Catholics, as amongst Protestants, in genuine heart conversions; that whole congregations in some parts of France had embraced Protestantism. His remarks respecting Guizot were interesting and curious. The mother of this great man is now eighty-four years of age, a woman of great vigour of mind; a saint, and nursing-mother in Israel; she offers daily prayers for her son. Guizot is an orthodox Protestant, employed Dr. Grampier to instruct and prepare his children for the Holy Communion, but never goes to church himself, but has told Dr. Grampier that he prays every day. He has been much afflicted in the loss of two wives whom he greatly loved; and also of a son, about twenty-one, a young man of most amiable disposition, great acquirements, talents and virtues. Conversed also with Count Gasparin, who appears to be a truly converted man; spoke of the inefficiency of a formal religion, and the necessity of the religion of the heart. Mentioned the readiness of Roman Catholics to hear Protestant missionaries. He believes that God is about to do a great work in France. The Count is an author; his father has been Minister of the Interior.
March 19th.--Heard lecture on chemistry by Prof. Dumas, one of the ablest chemists of the present day, and a most eloquent lecturer.
March 20th--Good Friday.--Went to hear a Protestant clergyman, one of the most pious and able ministers in Paris; his manner unaffected, eloquent, and impressive. No organ; singing good, all sang. It being a holy day, crowds were everywhere; streets for miles were filled with three, and sometimes four lines of carriages, of all descriptions; the broad sidewalks were literally crowded with pedestrians, forming solid masses from twenty to fifty feet wide, and extending two miles. Order was preserved by soldiers and cavalry, stationed at short distances. I never saw such a moving mass of people, embracing, no doubt, every nation in Europe and America. The attractions of the harlequins, jugglers, hucksters, etc., of all descriptions, surpass imagination. I walked to Napoleon's Arch of Triumph; observed the inscriptions and remarkable figures on that elegant and extraordinary structure; ascended to the top, and there enjoyed one of the most magnificent views I ever beheld, embracing all Paris and its environs for many miles, the day being cloudless; the serpentine Seine, the richly cultivated country, its parks, its gardens, its arcades of trees, its villas, churches, colleges, hospitals, palaces, squares, and monuments, together with the elegant Tuileries, the noble Louvre, the magnificent Champs Elysees, the playing fountains, the spacious streets, and the moving masses of people, presented a scene which for variety, splendour, and I may add, solemnity, could not be excelled by any prospect that might have been commanded on the pinnacle of Jerusalem's Temple. In fifty years the mass of this vast multitude will be numbered amongst a bygone generation; and these stately works of art shall perish. What a worm am I amongst such a multitude! yet I am destined to immortality; have but a few years to live in a probationary state, but an eternity to exist!
March 21st.--Went to the Louvre to see the paintings; about two thousand in number; some large and splendid, many beautiful, and some affecting; none of the paintings from sacred history equal those I have seen in England, Holland, and Belgium, especially in Antwerp.
March 22nd--Easter.--Went to the Oratoire, where a discourse was delivered, and the Lord's Supper celebrated. The preacher, Mons. Venueil, was so impressive and affecting that the greater part of the congregation were in tears several times. Being Easter Sunday, his subject was the resurrection, of Christ. He reminded me of Saurin. The spectacle presented of the communicants standing around a long table, and the minister in the midst, at one side, distributing the emblems with suitable addresses, reminded me of pictures I have seen of Christ at the Last Supper. The catechumens who had been received on the previous Sabbath, first partook. I, for the first time, communed with French Protestants, and I felt it good to be there. I attended the Wesleyan chapel; service in French; congregation about seventy-five; preacher (a little Frenchman), quite animated; he quoted many passages of Scripture, chapter and verse, proving the universality of the Atonement. The communion followed.
March 24th, 1845.--This day I am forty-two years of age! My life is more than half gone, at the best. The recollections of the past year are painful and humiliating beyond expression. It has been the least spiritual year of my Christian life. For some weeks past I have been revived in my purposes, devotions and enjoyments. By God's grace, my future life and labours shall be His. I have never before felt so keenly the weakness and depravity of the human heart; nor have I ever felt so deeply the necessity and the sufficiency of the atoning blood of Christ. He is all. All is wretchedness and death without Him.
March 26th.--Worked very hard at my French studies; much discouraged, but must not abandon my efforts to speak a new language. Visited the Pantheon--wondrous structure--a sovereign's pride, and a nation's monument. Visited the tombs of the dead; ascended to the dome--magnificent view; fine paintings in fresco. My impressions will never be effaced. This evening was in company with Count Gasparin and his noble father, and Mr. Monod, one of the principal Protestant ministers in Paris. Mr. Monod spoke strongly of Puseyism; mentioned that he was at a school this week where there were twelve Protestant young ladies sent from England to be educated in a Papal school, and every one of them had become Roman Catholics. He told me there was no intercourse between the Protestants in France and Holland; he considers vital religion is advancing in Holland.
March 27th.--Went to the Observatoire; heard lecture from Mons. Arago; room crowded. Visited the beautiful gardens of the Luxembourg.
March 30th.--Heard Mons. Armand Delille (my host) preach, in Dr. Grampier's Church; impressive service, and a comfortable place of worship outside the gates of the city.
March 31st.--Commenced receiving lessons in French from Mons. O. De Lille; believe I shall soon be able to speak. The name of God be praised for His help and blessing!
April 2nd.--Went to the College (Sorbonne); heard a lecture on Botany.
April 3rd.--Was strongly talked with for not speaking French; Oh, that God would help me; I desire to employ it to His honour. Heard Mons. Arago on Astronomy.
April 5th.--Commenced conversing in French, in good earnest. Heard a lecture by Mons. Despretz on Modern History, in which the eloquent lecturer drew a parallel between France and Rome, and the reign of Augustus and the career of Buonaparte, of course in favour of the latter.
April 6th--Sabbath.--Attended church both morning and evening. Received this morning a present of several books in French from the pious author of them; read the description and reflections upon "Jesus Benissant les Enfants"; was deeply affected with the remembrance of the manner in which my most pious and excellent mother brought me, in various ways, to the Saviour, when I was a little boy. I owe my all to her, as a divinely-owned instrument, in my early conversion and dedication of myself to God and His Church. She is now on the verge of heaven--may grace strengthen me to meet her there.
April 7th.--Heard four lectures this day on law, chemistry, theology, and philosophy. The lecture on theology was on the authenticity of the Scriptures--comparing the prophecies of Isaiah with the narrative of the evangelists. Lecture on philosophy was devoted to an admirable analysis of Locke.
April 8th.--Attended four lectures at the university at 9 o'clock. "Droit de la nature et des nations," (in the college of France) by Mons. de Postels; "Poesie latine," by M. Patin, the subject was Horace; "Anatomie, physiologie comp. et zoologie," by De Blainville; much of geological theory; "Physique-Acoustique," by M. Despretz; musical instruments.
April 9th.--Have attended five lectures: "Histoire de Litterature Grecque," by Egger; "Histoire Ecclesiastique," by l'Abbe Jager; "Botanique anat. et Physiologie Vegetales," by Payer; "Theologie Morale," by l'Abbe Receveur.
April 10th.--Attended three full lectures, and part of a fourth. 1st. Eloquence latine--Cicero, by M. Hanet; 2nd. Histoire Moderne, by M. Michelet, celebrated, (College de France) crowded audience and much applause; 3rd. Litterature Grecque; 4th. Histoire Moderne, par M. Sornement. I understood more than I ever did before. The name of the Lord be praised!
April 11th.--Attended five lectures. 1st. Civil Law of France; 2nd. Astronomical Geography; 3rd. Sacred Literature; 4th. Botany and Vegetable Physiology; 5th. French Eloquence. Read French and English with a young collegian. The name of the Lord be praised for the goodness of this day, and for the success of my labours!
April 12th.--Was enabled to make a long recitation this morning, and have attended five lectures at the university. Received a parcel from London, furnishing me with Canadian papers; how refreshing is news from home in a foreign country. Thus has my heavenly Father blest me with all good things.
April 13th--Sabbath.--Attended service at the Chapelle Tailbout; M. Bridel preached on prayer; thence to the Wesleyan Chapel, which was crowded. Read the religious intelligence from Canada. I rejoice to hear of the doings of my brethren; the success of the work in their hands; hope still to labour with them.
April 14th.--Attended four lectures at the university, besides my studies. I pray my heavenly Father to assist and prosper my exertions. I can do nothing without confidence in Him. To the glory of His name shall the fruit of my unworthy labours be consecrated.
April 15th.--Attended the meeting of the "Societe des Introits generaux du Protestantisme francais." Proceedings commenced with prayer. The meeting was addressed by a number of pasteurs; most of the speakers had notes. Also attended the annual meeting of the "Societe des Traites religieux" in the Chapelle Tailbout; report well read; speeches short and energetic.
April 16th.--Attended the Conference of the Protestant Pastors, in the Consistory of the Oratoire. About sixty present; the proceedings opened with prayer. The President then asked the members present to propose the subject of their friendly conversation; several were proposed. Two hours brotherly conversation took place on the duties, powers, and interests of the synod. Most of those who spoke had notes; delivered their sentiments sitting; were asked in order. Attended the twenty-fifth anniversary of the "Societe Biblique Protestante;" commenced with prayer and singing. The Count de Gasparin spoke extemporaneously, and with great elegance and ease. A number spoke with energy and force; the last speaker selected passages to show that the Gospel is not incomprehensible to the vulgar, as Romanists assert; also attended the annual meeting of the "Societe Evangelique de France;" Chairman read a very short address; several spoke; M. de Gasparin concluded by prayer.
April 17th.--Attended the Conference of Pastors; the proceedings the same as yesterday. At the annual meeting of the "Societe des Missions Evangelique;" the chair was occupied by a venerable old man, who seemed, from the allusions made, to be an old friend and supporter of the Society. The aged President read with a feeble voice a short address. There were nine speakers; the last the venerable Monod, who delivered a charge and parting address to the young men who were going to Africa. He embraced in his address the marrow of the Gospel, its power, its promises, its preciousness. The young men were deeply affected, as were all present. He directed them to the power and promises of Christ; assured them of the continued sympathy of the Protestant pastors and churches of France. Another pastor volunteered a few words of address to the young men, on the distribution of religious tracts, and everywhere proclaiming themselves as the missionaries of Christ from France. There was a most affectionate greeting of pastors and old friends. In the Consistory Chapel of the Oratoire de l'Eglise, there are four busts of ministers whose memory is cherished by their survivors. The names and epitaphs are as follows:--(1) F. Methezet--"Il se repose de ses travaux et ses oeuvres le suivent." (2) J.A. Barbant--"Je sais en qui j'ai cru." (3) J. Monod--"Christ est ma vie, et la mort est gain." (4) P. H. Marron--"O mort ou est ton aiguillon! O sepulcre ou est ta victoire!"
April 18th.--Attended the annual meeting of the "Societe Biblique Francoise et Etrangere." Count de Gasparin in the chair; speeches spirited; details of report interesting and encouraging. Went to Dr. Grampier's; a social meeting of pastors, to converse and pray on the subject of Missions; subject of conversations; the Missionary work and spirit. From thence went to an annual party, where there was much of fashion and elegance; magnificent tea; peculiar manners; conversed with Mr. Touse, an English clergyman, and with M. G. de Gasparin.
April 19th.--Attended the annual meeting of the "Societe pour l'encouragement et l'instruction primairie le protestants de France." The Protestants are not satisfied with the system of mixed schools; they wish to have exclusively Protestant schools. The report was full, explicit, and decided. Several speeches from the principal Protestant ministers, dwelling upon religious instruction in primary schools. Attended the morning conference; nothing new in the proceedings; but there was a marriage; but neither groomsmen nor bridesmaids. Address of the pastor. The bride led by her father, the brother-in-law leading the bridegroom; salutations of friends; the presentation of the wedding-ring by the father of the bride; presentation of a Bible to the newly-married couple; touching offering to the poor.
April 20th--Sabbath.--Went to the "Institution des Diaconesses de l'Eglise Evangelique de France." The situation is delightful. Several addresses and statements of affairs. Employed the evening in religious study. Witnessed much lightness among certain ministers of the Protestant Reformed Church. The prevalent views here respecting the sanctity of the Sabbath are very different from those which prevail either in England or Canada.
April 25th.--Visited several schools of the Protestant dissenters in Paris--called "Ecoles Gratuites." The first was the Female Normal School, containing nineteen pupils. I was impressed with the admirable arrangement of the school and its appliances, as well as the taste and neatness of the botanical garden. The dormitory was plain, neat, and airy; in it on the wall were pasted the following passages of Scripture, viz., Psalms xv. 5., Amos iv. 12. There were two schools for boys and girls attached to the institution, but these several departments constitute one school--all Roman Catholic children taught by Protestants, on strictly Protestant principles. The priests make no opposition. People independent of the priests.
April 26th.--Pursued my studies with encouraging success. Visited M. Toase who gave me useful information.
April 27th--Sabbath.--Heard M. Toase; went afterwards to the Madeleine; building magnificent; passed through the garden of the Tuileries; a paradise of a place; shades; walks; grass-plots; lakes; fountains; fish; statues; amusements; but, alas! what profanation of the Sabbath!
April 30th.--Went to Versailles; grand and little Trainon, magnificent.
May 1st.--The King's birthday and fete; illuminations; fireworks; appearance of the King Louis Philippe on the balcony of the palace. The Tuileries; the Champs Elysees; booths; fetes; riding; examples of physical strength; girls riding; jumping; great multitudes; good order preserved; Church of St. Roch; music; saw Lord Cowley; his kindness in lending me his ticket for the House of Peers; getting recommendations from the Government; documents on education, etc.
May 3rd.--Visited Notre Dame; Hotel-Dieu; Chambre des Pairs; Chapelle; gallery of paintings; nuns; few peers present; old men; session short; not imposing; fine paintings in the Chapel; admirable selection in the gallery; answer from Lord Cowley.
May 8th.--Have devoted several days to study, nothing worthy of remark.
May 9th.--Left Paris for Lyons; on the top of the diligence on the railroad to Orleans, level, fertile country; passed through Orleans; saw Cathedral; Jeanne d'Arc; Loire; historical recollections.
May 12th.--Examined the curiosities of the town; rough-looking people; homage to the Virgin; "Hotel du Midi;" view from the Observatoire; Roman antiquities.
May 13th.--Left Lyons in a steamer for Avignon; confluence of the Rhone and Soane; varied, beautiful, and sometimes bold; romantic scenery on the Rhone. Vienne; vineyards; wines; St. Villars; Pontius Pilate; river very narrow and crooked; Roch de Tain; Hannibal; vista of the valley of the Isere; Alps; Valence; St. Pay; Percy; wine of St. Peroy; Castle of Crupol; Drome; Montilvart; Viviers; rocks; canal; Ardiche; "Paul St. Esprit," great curiosity; Roquemon; women carrying stones; noble and extensive work on the banks of the river, and in the erection of new bridges.
May 14th.--Avignon; wall; view from the tower of the Cathedral; visit it; paintings very beautiful; palace; inquisition; left Avignon for Beaucaire; river uninteresting; thence to Nismes by railway; poor country; asses and mules used; women shoeing them; people athletic, but very passionate and quarrelsome.
May 15th.--Examined the antiquities of Nismes; truly wonderful and interesting.
May 16th.--Arrived at Montpellier; narrow streets; Citadel Fountaine; promenade; Jardin des Plantes; Mrs. Temple's tomb; read a passage from Young's Night Thoughts there; Baunia Palm; Ecole de Medicine; Cathedral; Museum of Painting.
May 17th.--Returned to Nismes; revisited the Amphitheatre and the Maison Caree; beautiful in proportion and execution. Returned to Beacaise; visited the Castle; very high, and remarkably strong; crossed the river to examine a castle, now a prison; historical recollections of both castles. Visited the Church dedicated to St. Martha; curious front. Visited St. Martha's Tomb; felt awful in the grim darkness, rendered barely visible by the flickering lamp; inscription at the head of the Tomb: "Solicita Noritubatur"; singular well; old women in the Church; the Image of St. Martha, with its knees and feet worn by kissing. Proceeded to Cette; the Amphitheatre is by no means as well preserved as that of Nismes, but larger; the walls immeasurably thick. Saw the remains of a Roman theatre; its curious workmanship attests its former magnificence.
May 18th--Sabbath.--Back at Marseilles, but no Sabbath here; theatres all open, and crowds pressing into them; saw some curious handbills about the Pope granting indulgences; holy water in the churches; children using it.
May 20th.--Coast from Marseilles, bold, varied, picturesque; barren rocks; vineyards and olive trees; entrance into the bay and harbor of Genoa very beautiful.
May 21st.--In Genoa the streets are very narrow; the buildings very high; the city clean; all preferable to Paris; left for Leghorn.
May 22nd.--At Leghorn, visited Smollet's tomb. At Pisa, saw the leaning tower; baptistry, etc.
May 23rd.--Entered Rome at sunset. We could see St. Peter's more than fifteen miles off.
May 25th.--Commenced visiting the churches of the city. 1. Temple of Antonius; column to his honour, and his victories inscribed. 2. Church of St. Ignazia; tomb of Gregory XV. 3. Pantheon of Agrippa--built 22 B.C., of Oriental granite brought from Egypt. The obelisk is from the Temple of Isis. 4. In the second chapel to the left, Raphael was buried in 1520. He gave orders to his scholar Lorenzetto to make the statue of the Virgin, behind which he is buried. It is ornamented by gold and silver offerings of trinkets, rings, and bracelets. 5th. Piazza della Minerva--formerly Temple of Minerva, another of Isis, another of Serapis, now a church obelisk. Statue of Michael Angelo. 6. Roman College. 7. Palace of Prince Doria. In the picture gallery I was especially struck by a beautiful painting of the Holy Family; also Titian, by himself, his last work. Visited the Church of St. Joseph--under which was the Mamertine Prison, where St. Paul was confined. Arch of Titus. The Church of St. Peter's in Vincola has twenty pillars from the Diocletian Bath, two of them Oriental granite. Michael Angelo's last work is a marble figure of Moses, with the two tables of the law under his right arm,--magnificent. There are also twelve magnificent marble figures of the twelve apostles.
May 26th.--Church of St. Maria, in Villicella; festival in honour of St. Fillippo. High mass was celebrated in presence of the Pope and cardinals. I stood near the altar, and had a good view of them all. The Pope passed twice within a few feet of me; was carried in a splendid chair by twelve men, who passed up the aisle into the vestry. He is eighty years of age, good looking and walked with a firm step; he blessed the people as he passed. The cardinals kissed the Pope's hand, the priests his toe or foot. Next went to the Church of the Jesuits, where there is a splendid representation of Religion, giving the foot to Protestant heresy in the person of Luther and Calvin.
June 1st--Sunday.--Went to the Roman College to the worship of the congregation of Jesuits. In another hall a discourse was being delivered to the pupils, some four hundred being present. At St. Paul's, was shown the house in which St. Paul resided during two years a prisoner in Rome. Witnessed an extraordinary but most impressive service in the celebrated Amphitheatre, where, it is said, 200,000 Christians were put to death in two centuries.
June 6th.--During the last five days have been studying Italian, and revisiting some of the more remarkable remains of Roman antiquities, colleges, and schools; also a prison for women, well managed and arranged; much attention is paid to their religious instruction.
June 10th--Sabbath.--Visited the Churches of St. John, and Maria Maggiore; visited one of the most important and interesting schools of the Christian Brothers; 400 pupils taught by four masters; 4,000 pupils are taught by the same fraternity. Visited also the College of Propaganda; was shewn by the Rector over the whole establishment; it is wonderful, the influence of which is felt in all lands; he shewed me the oldest and most curious MSS. I ever saw.
June 14th.--Arrived at Naples, after a stage journey of thirty hours. Peasants very lazy; passed the murdered body of a man. As we advanced we observed a great change in the manners and habits of the people.
June 15th--Sabbath.--Vesuvius was splendid last night, to a degree, I understand that has not been seen since 1839. Visited the Poor House; the establishment accommodates upwards of 2,000.
June 16th.--Visited Pompeii, and Herculaneum, and Vesuvius. Met with the Jesuit Prefect of Educational Institutions; and a Priest from the United States. From the Jesuit I obtained a full account of the educational institutions in Naples; from the American Priest much useful information on various subjects. Ascended Mount Vesuvius; when we reached the summit my face was burnt; lava falling all round us--God of dreadful majesty, who art a "consuming fire!" Beheld here the setting sun--God of glory who art "the light of the world!" Descending we reached our hotel about midnight; thank God for His protection and mercy.
June 18th.--Went to the museum to examine the antiquities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Left for Leghorn.
June 20th--Pisa.--Took a coach with two other gentlemen; a beautiful ride of eight hours along the valley of the Arno, from Pisa to Florence. The best cultivated country, and the best looking peasantry I have ever seen; the river walled, and the bridges fine.
June 24th.--The celebration of the Feast of John the Baptist, commenced by a chariot race, after the fashion of the chariots in the games of the Greeks and Romans.
June 26th.--The Grand Duke of Tuscany will not allow Jesuits in his dominion; but in Naples the Jesuits are all powerful--confessors to the king and royal family--and that even an artist cannot get employment who has not a Jesuit for a confessor.
July 19th.--This day I leave Florence after four weeks of study, and acquaintance with its schools, arts and science.
July 20th--Bologna.--Crossed the Appenines, and had a view of the Adriatic. Visited the Scoules Normali, containing upwards of 1,000 pupils.
July 23rd.--Left Bologna in a vetturina for Ferrara, in company with a German and two Americans. Ferrara is fallen, forsaken, solitary.
July 25th.--Crossed the Po in a curious ferry-boat, and entered the Lombardo-Venetian dominions of Austria. Here I met with the first instance in Italy of money not being asked by Custom House officers; every part of the proceeding indicated dignity unknown to the Papal States. Crossed the Adige by a ferry; passed through Monselice, near which is the town and castle of Este. North of Este is Argna, or Argnota, where Petrarch retreated, dwelt, and died! Next passed through Battaglia and Padua; on the left is Abano, the birth-place of Livy. Gothic laggia, vast hall, said to be the largest unsupported roof in the world, built by Frate Giovanni; bust and tomb of Livy.
July 30th.--Came on to Venice, where we spent four days; a wondrous city.
August 4th.--Have been in Munich nineteen days; visited its museum, churches, elementary schools, &c., &c.; conversed with many professors.
August 25th.--Left Munich; passed through Landsport; arrived at Ratisbon; visited Valhalla; descended the Danube to Linz.
Sept. 3rd.--The city of Vienna is the most perfect I have seen, in its buildings, streets, gardens, etc.; it would furnish me with materials for a volume were I a writer of travels.
Sept. 4th.--Came through Bohemia by the first railroad train from Vienna to Prague, where I remained two days. The houses in the villages through which we passed, were all of one story, thatched with straw; the peasants wear skins, and women work on the railroads.
Sept. 5th.--Left Prague in a small steamer for Dresden; visited Dr. Blockman's school; every appurtenance; very complete schools, both public and private. From thence on to Leipsic; visited all the principal buildings; visited the Burgher school, designed for the education of the middle ranks, and those of the upper ranks, if desired.
Sept. 15th and 16th.--From Leipsic went on to Halle (in Prussia); visited the schools on Franke's Foundations; several farms belong to the establishment; there are six schools, rather small; there are free scholars, orphans, and money scholars. Went to the University.
Sept. 17th--Wittemburg.--This morning visited the church in which Luther first preached the doctrines of the Reformation, and where both Luther and Melancthon are buried; I ascended the pulpit, and there prayed that the spirit of the Reformation might more abundantly rest upon me; I experienced strong sensations on entering the church; it is a plain building with a few monuments; the statue (bronze) of Luther is in the market-place, with the words:--
"Ist's Gottes Werk, so wird's bestehen; Ist's Menschen, so wird's untergehen."
We then visited the house in which Melancthon lived, now being repaired; Luther's chamber in the convent; his study, with his chair, table, and stove; his library, his bed-room; at his table I knelt and prayed, and renewed my covenant with my God. I afterwards visited the place where Luther burnt the Pope's Bull.
Sept. 18th--Berlin.--Employed the day in visiting the great schools of this magnificent city: Frederick William Gymnasium, Dorothean Higher City School, Royal Red School, embracing both the classical and scientific departments; went over the establishment.
Sept. 19th.--Visited the University and Picture Gallery; went through all the apartments of the City Trade School; the collection of apparatus and specimens to carry out the course of instruction is perhaps the most complete in Prussia, in schools of this class.
Sept. 20th.--Potsdam--a magnificent place; went into the Court, and visited several of the rooms of the Royal Military School--a noble establishment; visited the Normal School; witnessed the teaching of two of the pupil-teachers,--both used the blackboard, and both appeared thorough masters of what they were teaching, using no books,--other pupil-teachers were looking on; never saw a finer class of young men.
Sept. 23rd.--Berlin. Dined with the British Ambassador, and had an interview with the Prussian Minister of Public Instruction; witnessed the semi-annual parade of the Prussian army--more than 10,000 men; saw also the King of Prussia and the Empress of Russia.
Sept. 24th.--Hanover. Passed through several townships; visited the Palace; saw the gold and silver plate, much of which belonged to former British Sovereigns; visited Herrenhausen, favourite residence of George I. and II. of England.
Sept. 28th.--Cologne. Visited Cathedral and Churches; saw the tomb of Charlemagne, and the house in which Rubens was born.
Oct. 1st.--Bonn. Saw the University buildings; saw the great Catholic Normal School, at Bright.
Oct. 2nd.--Mayence. Ascended the Rhine from Bonn,--embracing all the magnificent scenery of this celebrated river.
Oct. 3rd.--Visited Wiesbaden, capital of Hesse-Cassel; went to Frankfort; visited Burgher School there, 700 children. Birth-place and monument of Goethe.
Oct. 5th.--Strasburg. Left Frankfort; passed through Darmstadt; heard two sermons in French, and one in German; visited the magnificent Cathedral, and Normal School.
Oct. 7th.--Zurich. Came to Bale yesterday; arrived here this morning; visited the great Cantonal Industrial School--noble building.
Oct. 8th.--Cargon. Obtained much information from the director of the Gymnase, Real and Higher Burgher School here.
Oct. 9th.--Berne. Travelled through a mountainous and picturesque country to Papiermuehle; walked three miles to the celebrated school of M. de Fallenberg; had the whole system explained--gymnasium, real, intermediate, poor, and limited to the number of thirty; dined at the Agricultural School,--situated on a gentle hill, in the midst of the valley of Switzerland, surrounded by mountains,--I have been abundantly repaid in spending a whole day in surveying such an establishment.
Oct. 11th.--Lausanne. Fine view of the Alps; visited the garden where Gibbon finished his History on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
Oct. 12th.--Geneva. Arrived here in heavy rain; attended three services; visited the tomb of Sir H. Davy; had a fine view of Mt. Blanc; left for Paris.
Chapter XLV
1844-1857.
Episode in Dr. Ryerson's European Travels.--Pope Pius IX.
One of the many episodes in my European travels which I have been requested by many to narrate led to my presentation to Pope Pius IX., and is as follows:--
On my arrival in England on my first educational tour, near the end of 1844, I was invited to a Christmas dinner party at the house of an English clergyman, where I was introduced to a young Russian nobleman, by the name of Dunjowski, who had attended lectures in several German universities, and came to England to learn the English language, in which he soon became a proficient. During his residence in England he became acquainted with a number of distinguished men, noblemen and others; among whom were the late Rev. Dr. Chalmers. This young Russian nobleman, having learned that I was on a tour of investigation of the educational institutions of Europe, proposed before the close of the evening to join me in investigating the educational institutions of western and central Europe, with a view to his writing an account of them on his return to St. Petersburg. I accepted his proposal; and in the course of a few weeks we commenced our tour through Holland and Belgium to Paris, of which some account will be found in the extracts from my Journal in the preceding Chapter.
At Paris my Russian friend conceived the idea of attending another course of lectures on some branch of Roman law at Tubigen. We parted, but he changed his mind, and instead of attending an additional course of lectures in a German university, he proceeded to Rome. A few weeks after my arrival there, I felt a tap on my shoulder at the dinner table, and, on looking up, I recognized my young Russian friend, who was already speaking Italian, with as much fluency as he had spoken English, French, and German, when we parted at Paris six weeks before.
We renewed our travels together, after having completed our tour of Rome, with its antiquities and institutions; we proceeded to Naples by stage, where we spent several days in examining its College of Nobles and other educational institutions, including its antiquities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, Vesuvius, etc. In the College of Nobles we met an American Priest, who was President of the Roman Catholic College at Georgetown, near Washington, and invited him to take a seat in our carriage the next day on an excursion to Herculaneum and Pompeii. In the course of the day a religious discussion took place between the American Priest and the Russian, who was very fond of controversy. I took no part in it, but I thought the Priest had rather the best of it. The result was, my Russian friend was persuaded to go into a house of retirement near Rome, and devote some weeks to solitary prayer, fasting, and meditation. I never afterwards saw him or heard from him for eleven years, though I remonstrated with him, and wrote him from Florence, entreating him to reconsider what he was doing; but he said that what I spoke and wrote rather confirmed him in his course, than diverted him from it.
When making my third educational tour on the Continent of Europe, I was, with my daughter, at Munich, in Bavaria, about the beginning of 1857, and while at dinner at our hotel, I felt two hands placed upon my shoulders; on looking up, I recognized, notwithstanding his present dress, my old friend, Dunjowski, who embraced and kissed me as a brother. After dinner we retired to the parlour, and talked over the past. I asked him what he had been doing these eleven years, how he had become transformed from a Russian nobleman, scholar, and lawyer, into a Roman Catholic priest, in full canonicals. He told me that after we separated at Naples, eleven years before, he went into a house of retirement at Rome, and by prayer, fasting, and meditation, devoted himself to God and His Church, without reserve of rank, fortune, or country; that he had ultimately decided to be a Catholic; that he had studied theology four years in France; that he had been appointed a Missionary to the North, and had been some years a Missionary to the Lapps, and had preached before the Kings of Denmark and Sweden; that he was then Missionary Apostolic to all the Catholic Missions in Europe and America, north of latitude 60; and that he might yet visit Canada. This extraordinary man had mastered the languages of the various countries in which he had travelled and laboured, and gave my daughter specimens of his writing in twenty-seven different languages. I never knew a man of more disinterestedness, more devotion, and singleness of purpose, than Mr. Dunjowski. He was up and out at prayers to his church before five o'clock, in the terribly cold mornings the last of December and the beginning of January, in one of the coldest capitals of Europe.
On the other hand he asked me what I had been doing during the last eleven years. I replied that I had devised and brought into operation a system of public instruction, which had been approved by the Government and Legislature, and by the people at large, whom I had consulted, in the several counties of Upper Canada. He wished to know what I had done in respect to his co-religionists. I shewed him the provisions of our School Act, and the Regulations founded upon it in respect to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada. My Russian friend thought that nothing could be more just and fair than these clauses of the law and regulations, and requested permission to shew them to the Pope's Nuncio (an Italian Archbishop), at the Court of Bavaria. The Pope's Nuncio was so pleased with them, that he requested the loan of them until he got them translated into German, and published in the Bavarian newspapers, to shew how fairly the Roman Catholics were treated under the Protestant Government of Upper Canada. The Pope's Nuncio afterwards desired me to call upon him; and during the interview, after some complimentary remarks, requested me to be the bearer of a medal from the King of Bavaria to Cardinal Antonelli, at Rome. I readily accepted the honour and the office, and found the Pope's arms and seal a ready passport when I got in a tight place among the avaricious Italian Custom House officers.
Dr. Ryerson thus describes his interview with Pope Pius IX.:
On my arrival at Rome I duly delivered my letters of introduction, and the King of Bavaria's medal to Cardinal Antonelli who received me with the utmost courtesy, offered me every facility to get pictures copied by my own selection at Rome, and proposed, if acceptable to me, to present me to His Holiness the Pope. I readily accepted the attentions and honours offered me; but told the Cardinal that I had a young daughter, and young lady companion of hers, whom I should wish to accompany me; His Excellency said, "By all means."
On the day appointed we went to the Vatican. Several foreign dignitaries were waiting in an ante-room for an audience with the Pope, but the Methodist preacher received precedence of them all. "Are you a clergyman?" asked the Chancellor, who conducted me to the Pope's presence; "I am a Wesleyan minister," I replied. "Ah! John Wesley. I've heard of him," said the Chancellor, as he shrugged his shoulders in surprise that a heretic should be so honoured above orthodox sons of the Church. We were then in due form introduced to the Pope, who received us most courteously, and stood up and shook hands with me and with whom I conversed (in French) for nearly a quarter of an hour; during the conversation His Holiness thanked me for the fairness and kindness with which he understood I had treated his Catholic children in Canada. Before the close of the interview, His Holiness turned to the young ladies (each of whom had a little sheet of note paper in their hands) and said, "My children, what is that you have in your hands?" The girls curtsied respectfully, and told His Holiness that they brought these sheets of paper in hopes His Holiness would have the condescension and kindness to give them his autograph. He smiled, and wrote in Latin the benediction: "Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Lord," and then kindly gave them also the pen with which it was written.
Thus ended our interview with Pope Pins IX., of whose unaffected sincerity, candor, kindness, and good sense, we formed the most favourable opinion, notwithstanding the system of which he is the head.
Dr. Ryerson also mentions another interview which he had:--
In addition to my letters of introduction to Cardinal Antonelli, my Russian friend, Dunjowski, gave me a letter of introduction to Father Thyner, the keeper of the Archives at Rome, and an intimate personal friend of the Pope; in which letter he referred to the school systems of Upper Canada, in reference to Roman Catholics. Father Thyner wished to see the Canadian school law and regulations, and shewed and explained them to the Pope, who afterwards spoke of their fairness and kindness, in my interview with His Holiness.
Father Thyner was once Librarian to the King of Prussia, and being a Roman Catholic, he went to Rome, where his varied learning and high character soon obtained him a high position at the Vatican. He, as well as the Pope, in his early life was an enemy of the Jesuits, and was regarded by them as such throughout his whole life.
I had a severe illness of some weeks at Rome, during which Father Thyner visited me almost daily, but never said one word to me on the grounds of difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
During my last visit to England in 1876-7, I spent part of a day at the residence of the Rev. Wm. Arthur, A.M., who showed me the works in his library from which he had derived the principal materials of his masterly work on The Pope and The People. Among other works he shewed me some volumes written by Father Thyner, containing an account of the proceedings of the Council of Trent. "Why," I said, "I know Father Thyner personally," and related my acquaintance with him. Mr. Arthur said in reply, "This work is the chief source of my knowledge of the proceedings of the Councils of Trent;" and added, "Father Thyner having determined to publish an account (which had never before been published) of this Council, was forbidden to do so, and banished, or driven from Rome, when he went to Hungary, and published his great work on the Councils."
I have observed in the papers, that Father Thyner died in Hungary a year or two since. He was a man of profound learning, of fervent devotion, of great moderation in his views, of uncompromising integrity. I visited him in his convent, near Rome, and drank the juice of the grape grown in his own garden, and pressed by his own hand.
Chapter XLVI
1844-1876.
Ontario School System.--Retirement of Dr. Ryerson.
Although I hope to be able to prepare a record of the private and personal history of the founding of our System of Public Education, and of the vicissitudes through which it passed, as requested by Dr. Ryerson (page 350), yet in this chapter I give a brief outline of the principles of that System.
After his educational investigations in Europe, in 1844-1846, Dr. Ryerson prepared an elaborate Report on a "System of Public Instruction for Upper Canada," which was published in 1846. In that report he says:--
By Education, I mean not the mere acquisition of certain arts, or of certain branches of knowledge, but that instruction and discipline which qualify and dispose the subjects of it for their appropriate duties and appointments in life, as Christians, as persons in business, and also as members of the civil community in which they live.
A basis of an educational structure adapted to this end should be as broad as the population of the country; and its loftiest elevation should equal the highest demands of the learned professions; adapting its gradation of schools to the wants of the several classes of the community, and to their respective employments or professions, the one rising above the other--the one conducting to the other; yet each complete in itself for the degree of education it imparts; a character of uniformity, as to fundamental principles, pervading the whole: the whole based upon the principles of Christianity, and uniting the combined influence and support of the government and the people.
The branches of knowledge which it is essential that all should understand, should be provided for all, and taught to all; should be brought within the reach of the most needy, and forced upon the attention of the most careless. The knowledge required for the scientific pursuit of mechanics, agriculture, and commerce, must needs be provided to an extent corresponding with the demand, and the exigencies of the country; while, to a more limited extent, are needed facilities for acquiring the higher education of the learned professions.
With a view to give a summary sketch of Dr. Ryerson's exposition of the system of Public Instruction which he desired to establish, I give the following additional extracts from his first Report. After combating the objection which then existed in some quarters to the establishment of a thorough system of primary and industrial education, commensurate with the population and wants of the country, he remarked:--
The first feature then of our Provincial System of Public Instruction, should be universality. The elementary education of the whole people must, therefore, be an essential element in the legislative and administrative policy of an enlightened and beneficent government. Nor is it less important to the efficiency of such a system that it should be practical than that it should be universal. The mere acquisition, or even the general diffusion of knowledge, without the requisite qualities to apply that knowledge in the best manner, does not merit the name of education. Much knowledge may be imparted and acquired without any addition whatever to the capacity for the business of life.... History presents us with even University Systems of Education (so called) entirely destitute of all practical character; and there are elementary systems which tend as much to prejudice and pervert, not to say corrupt, the popular mind as to improve and elevate it.
The state of society, then, no less than the wants of our country, requires that every youth of the land should be trained to industry and its practice, whether that training be extensive or limited.
Now education, thus practical, includes religion and morality; secondly, the development to a certain extent of all our faculties; thirdly, an acquaintance with several branches of elementary knowledge.
By religion and morality, I do not mean sectarianism in any form, but the general truth and morals taught in the Holy Scriptures. Sectarianism is not morality. To be zealous for a sect and to be conscientious in morals are widely different. To inculcate the peculiarities of a sect and to teach the fundamental principles of religion and morality are equally different.
I can aver, from personal experience and practice, as well as from a very extended inquiry on this subject, that a much more comprehensive course of biblical and religious instruction can be given than there is likely to be opportunity for in elementary schools, without any restraint on the one side, or any tincture of sectarianism on the other--a course embracing the entire history of the Bible, its institutions, cardinal doctrines and morals, together with the evidences of its authenticity.
With the proper cultivation of the moral feelings, and the formation of local habits, is intimately connected the corresponding development of all the other faculties, both intellectual and physical. The great object of an efficient system of instruction should be, not the communication of so much knowledge, but the development of the faculties. Much knowledge may be acquired without any increase of mental power; nay, with even an absolute diminution of it. (See Chapter li.)
In founding the System of Public Instruction, Dr. Ryerson wisely laid down certain great principles which he believed to be essential to the success of his labours. These general principles may be thus summarized: 1. That the machinery of education should be in the hands of the people themselves, and should be managed through their own agency; they should, therefore, be consulted in regard to all school legislation. 2. That the aid of the Government should only be given where it can be used most effectually to stimulate and assist local effort in this great work. 3. That the property of the country is responsible for, and should contribute towards the education of the entire youth of the country, and that as a complement to this, "compulsory education" should necessarily be enforced. 4. That a thorough and systematic inspection of the schools is essential to their vitality and efficiency. These, with other important principles, Dr. Ryerson kept steadily in view during the whole thirty-two years of his administration of the school system of Ontario. Their judicious application has contributed largely, under the Divine blessing, which he ever sought, to the wonderful success of his labours.
Notwithstanding the zeal and ability with which Dr. Ryerson had collected and arranged his facts, analyzed the various systems of education in Europe (largely in Germany) and America, and fortified himself with the opinions of the most eminent educationists in those countries, yet his projected system for this province was fiercely assailed, and was vehemently denounced as embodying in it the very essence of "Prussian despotism." Still, with indomitable courage he persevered in his plans, and at length succeeded in 1846 in inducing the legislature to pass a School Act which he had drafted. In 1849 the Provincial administration personally favourable to Dr. Ryerson's views went out of office, and one unfavourable to him came in. The Hon. Malcolm Cameron, a hostile member of the cabinet--although he afterwards became a personal friend of Dr. Ryerson--having concocted a singularly crude and cumbrous school bill, aimed to oust Dr. Ryerson from office, it was (as was afterwards explained) taken on trust, and, without examination or discussion, passed into a law. Dr. Ryerson at once called the attention of the Government (at the head of which was the late lamented Lord Elgin) to the impracticable and un-Christian character of the bill, as under its operation the Bible would be excluded from the schools. Rather than administer such an Act, Dr. Ryerson tendered the resignation of his office to the Government. The late Honourable Robert Baldwin, C.B., Attorney-General (the Nestor of Canadian politicians, and a truly Christian man), was so convinced of the justness of Dr. Ryerson's views and remonstrance, that he took the unusual course of advising His Excellency to suspend the operation of the new Act until Dr. Ryerson could prepare a draft of a bill on the basis of the repealed law, embodying in it, additional to the old bill, the result of his own experience of the working of the system up to that time. The result was that a law passed in 1850, adapted to the municipal system of the Province, so popular in its character and comprehensive in its provisions and details, that it is still (in a consolidated form) the principal statute under which the Public Schools of Ontario are maintained.
The leading features of that measure may be briefly summed up under the four following heads:--
1. The machinery of the system was mainly adapted to the circumstances of Upper Canada, from the school laws of the Middle (United) States.
2. The method of supporting the schools by a uniform rate upon property was adopted from the New England States.
3. The Normal and Model schools (established in 1847), were projected after those in operation in Germany.
4. The school text-books were originally adapted from the series then in use in Ireland, and acceptable to both Protestants and Roman Catholics.
In 1850, Dr. Ryerson, while in England, made preliminary arrangements for establishing the Library, and Map and Apparatus Depository in connection with his department; and in 1855 he established Meteorological Stations in connection with the County Grammar Schools. In this he was aided by Colonel (now General) Lefroy, R.E., for many years Director of the Provincial Magnetical Observatory, at Toronto. Sets of suitable instruments (which were duly tested at the Kew Observatory) were obtained, and in 1855, the law on the subject having been amended, twelve stations were selected and put into efficient working order. In 1857 Dr. Ryerson made his third educational tour in Europe, where he procured at Antwerp, Brussels, Florence, Rome, Paris, and London an admirable collection of copies of paintings by the old masters; statues, busts, etc., besides various articles for an Educational Museum in connection with the Department. In 1858-60, Dr. Ryerson took a leading part in the discussion in the newspapers, and before a committee of the legislature, in favour of grants to the various outlying universities in Ontario, chiefly in terms of Hon. Robert Baldwin's University Bill of 1843. He maintained that "they did the State good service," and that their claims should be substantially recognized as colleges of a central university. He deprecated the multiplication of universities in the province, which he held would be the result of a rejection of his scheme. In consideration of his able services in this contest, the University of Victoria College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1861.
In 1867 he made his fourth educational tour in England and the United States. On his return, in 1868, he submitted to the Government a highly valuable "special report on the systems and state of popular education in the several countries of Europe and the United States of America, with practical suggestions for the improvement of Public Instruction in Upper Canada." He also made a separate and extensive "Report on Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in Various Countries."
In a letter to a friend, Dr. Ryerson thus explained the principles upon which he conducted the educational affairs of the Province for upwards of thirty-one years. He said:--
During these years I organized the school system and administered the Education Department upon the broad and impartial principles which I had advocated. During the long period of my administration of the Department, I knew neither religious sect nor political party--I knew no other party than that of the country at large--I never exercised any patronage for personal or party purposes--I never made or recommended one of the numerous appointments of teachers in the Normal or Model Schools, or Clerks in the Education office, except upon the ground of testimonials as to personal character and qualifications, and on a probationary trial of six months.
In this way only competent and trained persons were appointed to the Normal and Model Schools, and to the Education Office, when a vacancy occurred by resignation or death. Each employe below the one who had resigned or died was advanced a step if deserving; and the most meritorious lad was selected from the Model school, or on other testimonials, and placed at the bottom of the list, and trained and advanced according to his merits in the work of the Education Department. Each one, thus felt, that he owed his position not to party, or personal patronage or favour, but to his own merits, and respected himself and performed his duties accordingly.
I believe this is the true method of managing all the Public Departments, and every branch of the public service. I believe it would contribute immensely to both the efficiency and economy of the public service. Needless and inefficient appointments would not then be made; and it would greatly elevate the standard of action and attainments, and emulate the ambition of the young men and youth of the country, when they know that their selection and advancement in their country's service depended upon their individual merits, irrespective of sect or party, and not as the reward of zeal as political party hacks in elections and otherwise, on their own part, or on that of their fathers or relatives.
The power of government in a country is immense, for good or ill. It is designed by the Supreme Being to be "a minister of God for good," to a whole people (without partiality, as well as without hypocrisy), like the rays of the sun; and the administration of infinite wisdom and justice, and truth and purity. But when government becomes the mere agency of party, and its highest gifts the prizes of party zeal and intrigue, it loses its moral prestige and power; and from the corrupt fountain would flow polluted streams into every Department of the public service, which would corrupt the whole mass of society, were it not for the counteracting and refining influences which are exerted upon society by the ministrations and labours of the different religious denominations.
I know it has been contended that party patronage, or, in other words, feeding partizans at the public expense, is an essential element in the existence of a government. This is the doctrine of corruption. The Education Department--the highest public department in Upper Canada--existed for more than thirty years without such an element, and with increased efficiency and increased strength in the public estimation, during the whole of that period. Justice and virtue, and patriotism and intelligence, are stronger elements of power and usefulness than those of buying and rewarding partizans; and if the rivalship and competition of public men should consist in who should best devise and promote measures for the advancement of the country, and who should exercise the executive power most impartially and intelligently, for developing and promoting the interests of all classes, then the moral standard of government and of public men would be greatly exalted, and the highest civilization of the whole country be advanced. But I will not pursue this topic any further. The truths I state are self-evident.
* * * * *
For many years after Confederation Dr. Ryerson felt that the new political condition of the Province--which localized as well as circumscribed its civil administration of affairs--required a change in the management of the Education Department. He, therefore, in 1869 and 1872, urged upon the Government the desirability of relieving him from the anomalous position in which he found himself placed under the new system.
The reasons which he urged for his retirement are given in a pamphlet devoted to a "Defence" of the System of Education, which he published in 1872, and are as follows:--
When political men have made attacks upon the school law, or the school system and myself, I have answered them. Then the cry has been raised by my assailants, and their abettors, that I was "interfering with politics." They would assail me without stint, in hopes of crushing me, and then gag me against all defence or reply.
So deeply did I feel the disadvantage and growing evil of this state of things to the Department and school system itself, that in 1868 I proposed to retire from the department.... My resignation was not accepted; ... when, two months later, I proposed that, at the commencement of each session of the legislature, a committee of seven or nine (including the Provincial Secretary for the time being) should be elected by ballot, or by mutual agreement of the leading men of both parties, on the Education Department; which committee should examine into the operations of the Department for the year then ending, consider the school estimates, and any bill or recommendations which might be submitted for the advancement of the school system, and report to the House accordingly. By many thoughtful men, this system has been considered more safe, more likely to secure a competent and working head of the department, and less liable to make the school system a tool of party politics, than for the head of it to have a seat in Parliament, and thus leave the educational interests of the country dependent upon the votes of a majority of electors in one riding. This recommendation, submitted on the 30th January, 1869, was not adopted; and I was left isolated--responsible in the estimation of legislators and everybody else for the Department--the target of every attack, whether in the newspapers or in the Legislative Assembly, yet without any access to it, or to its members, except through the press, and no other support than the character of my work and the general confidence of the public.
* * * * *
In 1876, however, Dr. Ryerson was permitted to retire on full salary from the responsible post which for nearly thirty-two years he had so worthily and honourably filled.
Chapter XLVII
1845-1846.
Illness and Final Retirement of Lord Metcalfe.
In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from Mr. Higginson, dated 27th May, 1845, he thus refers to Lord Metcalfe's increasing illness:--
I wish that I could answer your inquiries about Lord Metcalfe's health in a satisfactory manner. The torturing malady with which he is afflicted is no better; and although there is no decided change for the worse, yet there is in my mind too much reason to apprehend that the disease, though slow in its progress, keeps constantly advancing and threatens farther ravages. The pain is incessant and unabated. The resignation with which he suffers, and his unyielding determination to remain at his post as long as his presence can serve Canada, inspires a feeling of veneration which I will not attempt to describe. He seems to be quite prepared to realize, if necessary, that noble sentiment--
"Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori."
Mr. Higginson again wrote to Dr. Ryerson, from Montreal, on the 28th of October, as follows:--
As bad news travels fast, you will probably have heard before this reaches you of the aggravation of the painful malady from which Lord Metcalfe has so long suffered. No other man, in his present lamentable condition, would think of administering the Government. He seems quite ready to die in harness, if necessary, but is determined not to leave here as long as he can, at any sacrifice of personal considerations, continue to discharge the duties. I hope and believe that Her Majesty's Government will not hesitate to relieve him as soon as a successor can be found--it would be inhuman to delay any longer. How much of Canada's weal or woe depends upon the selection? It is far easier to mar than to mend the triumph my inestimable friend has achieved--to weaken than to strengthen its effects.
Mr. Higginson wrote to Dr. Ryerson on the 18th December:--
I, two days ago, had the pleasure to receive your kind and feeling letter of the 11th. It will afford me great satisfaction to communicate to my suffering friend the grateful sentiments to which you give expression.
Lord Metcalfe's retirement was, as you justly observe, strictly a providential dispensation. He remained at his post until it pleased the Almighty to render him physically incapable of discharging all its duties; and he was quite prepared to die at it, in the service of his country. The terms in which the Queen's permission to return home was acceded are, beyond measure, gratifying and complimentary. I shall have much pleasure in reading the despatch to you the first time we meet. Of the fearful malady, I can only say that its onward progress seems to be beyond human control, and that I entertain no hope of its being arrested. But the surgical skill of Europe may, and I earnestly pray to God will, alleviate the intensity of the blessed man's sufferings.
After Lord Metcalfe had returned to England, the Hon. D. Daly, Secretary of the Province, wrote to Dr. Ryerson, who had returned to Canada, on the 20th December, as follows:--
Your disappointment was naturally great at missing the only opportunity that, in all human probability, can be afforded you in this world of seeing our lamented and excellent Governor. In his late and most severe suffering, the greatness of that most inestimable man's character was, if possible, more resplendent than under the trials to which you saw him subjected. May he enjoy a peaceful termination to his useful existence! We can know nothing certain of his successor until the news of which he is the bearer has reached England, his relinquishment of the Government having been left entirely to his own free will. He had the comfort of knowing how fully his services were appreciated by his Sovereign; and his removal was effected in the most gratifying way by Her Majesty's command.
On the 9th May Dr. Ryerson wrote a farewell letter to Lord Metcalfe, from which I make the following extract:--
Having passed Your Lordship on the ocean, and being disappointed of the privilege of ever seeing you again in this world, I wrote by the first packet after my arrival to Mr. C. Trevelyan, requesting him to have the goodness to convey to Your Lordship the expression of those sentiments of gratitude and affectionate respect which I can never fail to cherish while memory remains....
In Your Lordship's retirement and suffering, ... I think it wrong to intrude further than to state my deep sympathy in your sufferings, and that my supplications are offered up daily to the God of all consolation, that He would grant you patience, resignation, and a "sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection to everlasting life;" and to assure Your Lordship that my life shall be sacredly devoted to the work in behalf of the youthful and future generations of Canada, for which Your Lordship's kindness has done so much, to enable me to qualify myself. With, these the strongest feelings of my heart, I have, etc.
The final letter received from Mr. Higginson was dated Montreal, June 10th, 1840:--
I beg you to accept my cordial thanks for your very kind communication of the 30th ult. I am not insensible to the high honour that has been conferred upon me by our Sovereign--far beyond my humble merits; but I have great satisfaction in feeling that I won it fighting shoulder to shoulder with you and the other advocates of those great British Constitutional principles of Government, for which we contended, and which were so fiercely assailed by the British Democratic party, who, I earnestly trust may never again be able to make head in Canada. That I, in the slightest degree contributed to the victory will be to me a source of pride. To the eminent Pilot who directed us no one knows better than yourself how much is due. Would that he had been spared to perfect the good work. My latest account of his health encourages the hope that I may yet be permitted to see him again.
We closed the session yesterday, which was got through with success, and I hope with some advantage to the public interests.
I regret very much that I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since your return from Europe. Farewell!
J. M. H.
* * * * *
The appointment which Mr. Higginson received from the Queen was that of Governor of Antigua. In his reply to an address from the Wesleyan missionaries of that island, on his arrival, he thus referred to his experience of that body in Canada:--
I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing in various quarters of the globe the untiring exertions of your brethren in the sacred cause of religion and humanity, and whether in the sultry heat of Asia, ... or struggling against the rigours of a Canadian winter, I have always found the Wesleyan missionaries animated by the same benevolent and philanthropic spirit, and undaunted by obstacles, however appalling, manifesting the same discreet zeal to spread far and wide the healing influence of the holy Gospel of Christ.
Chapter XLVIII
1843-1844.
Clergy Reserve Question Re-opened.--Disappointments.
Extraordinary efforts were put forth (as shown in Chapter xxxiii., page 263) by the leaders of the Church of England party in Upper Canada to prevent the Royal assent being given to Lord Sydenham's Clergy Reserve compromise Bill of 1841. Equally strenuous efforts were successfully made to ensure the fulfilment of Bishop Strachan's prediction that the rejected Bill of Lord Sydenham would form the basis of an Imperial Act, which would secure to the national Churches of England and Scotland, for all time, the lion's share of the proceeds of George the Third's ill-fated gift to Canada of the clergy reserves. Lord John Russell, the pretentious and vacillating Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time, proved himself to be, in this matter, a pliant instrument in the hands of Henry of Exeter. This prelate endorsed, con amore, all the extreme views of the Bishop of Toronto; and with the aid of Lord Seaton (Sir John Colborne) and the Bench and Bishops in the House of Lords, compelled the Government to perpetuate an act of legislative usurpation and injustice, which even the tyros in constitutional law, as applied to the Colonies, were wont at the time to instance in the press as examples of history repeating itself--quoting, as an illustration, the ill-advised Imperial legislation in the case of the Stamp Act, etc.
By a singular fatality, which often attends arbitrary and unjust proceedings, the success of the scheme, which had been so carefully prepared, and carried through the British Parliament in the interests of the Church of England, was destined to become a source of weakness to that Church, and a foreboding of financial disaster. On the 29th December, 1843, the Attorney and the Solicitor-General of Canada (as stated by the Bishop of Toronto in his pastoral letter of the 10th of December, 1844) reported that having attentively examined the provisions of the acts for this subject, it was their opinion that the proper construction of the law threw upon the revenues of Canada the burthen of making up any deficiency in the clergy reserve fund, in paying the usual and accustomed allowances and stipends to the Ministers, ... and, while that deficiency lasted, the Imperial Treasury could not be called upon to make any payments to the two Churches. (See page 4 of Pastoral.)
The Bishop then charges the Provincial Government with being the cause of this financial difficulty, and accounts for the deficiency in the fund by the mismanagement of that Government. He adds further on:--
But, alas! the mismanagement has increased, pending these difficulties; and while my clergy are left in a state of destitution, large sums continue to be wasted in remunerating services which are really worse than useless, and this to such an extent as to render hopeless the expectation that the clergy reserve fund will ever answer the wise and holy purpose for which it was established.
In this dilemma the Bishop states what he had done to extricate the Church out of its difficulty. In doing so, he uses language which partakes more of the character of a wail than of a simple statement of facts. He also draws a most gloomy picture of the prospective religious state of Upper Canada, should the dearly prized, and as dearly bought, Imperial Clergy Reserve Act prove, after all, to be an apple of Sodom.
It is curious to notice how the Bishop, in his despairing outburst, studiously ignores the active and successful labours of the several voluntary churches--whose claims to a share in the reserves he had so strongly and selfishly opposed--churches which were even then actively engaged in "spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land," without the aid of a penny from the State. In his Pastoral, the Bishop says:--
I applied to the venerable [Propagation Society] in England to advance, in the meantime, the salaries (only L100 per annum each) to my five suffering clergy,--assuring the Society that I had the fullest conviction it would be repaid as soon as it was decided which Government was liable.... The Society paid the stipends for the year ending 30th June, 1843, but have declined since that time to continue the advance.... In consequence, my five clergymen have been left without their stipends since June, 1843 [to December, 1844], ... and this large and increasing Diocese [then the whole of Upper Canada], already so destitute of the means of public worship (if the statute be allowed to operate as it has done for the last four years), will, in a spiritual sense, become, through half its extent, a wilderness. Not only are five clergymen in a state of want, but two parishes are left vacant, and the process is unhappily going on.... I have brought this disheartening and deplorable state of things under the notice of the Provincial Government.... I have pressed [the matter] upon His Excellency the Governor-General.... But all that was in my power to do has been without avail (page 6).
I also quote the foregoing passages from this noted Pastoral, as they throw a vivid side-light upon the course of the Bishop in so vehemently pursuing the shadow of a state endowment for the Church of England in Upper Canada. The subsequent utterances of the Pastoral show how persistently the otherwise clear-headed and practical chief ruler of that Church shut his eyes to the remarkable success and vitality of the non-endowed Churches in the Province, and how much he deplored the necessity of adopting their successful voluntary system in his own church.[128] He says:--
I represented to His Excellency, in May last, that, "on a review of this unfortunate subject ... the distress of my five clergymen, and the desolation with which it menaces the Church, it involves consequences so calamitous and imminent as to justify the representative of the sovereign in assuming more than ordinary responsibility in arresting their progress...."
On the 31st October, I again brought this painful subject at great length before the Provincial Government, and stated that, having failed to receive relief, I could only see one way left of mitigating the evil, and that is by an appeal to my people on the present critical situation of the Church, and in behalf of my destitute clergymen. It is indeed a step which I take with extreme reluctance, and which, were it possible, I would most willingly avoid.... (page 6.)
In a remarkable document, which the Bishop published in 1849, on "The Secular State of the Church in the Diocese of Toronto," he furnishes a painful and striking commentary on the effect of his own teaching: that it was the duty of the State to support the Church, and thus relieve the people of the chief obligation of supporting the Gospel amongst them. Speaking of "contributions to the Church within the Province," he says:
Till lately we have done little or nothing towards the support of public worship. We have depended so long upon the Government and the [Propagation] Society, that many of us forget that it is our bounden duty. Instead of coming forward manfully to devote a portion of our temporal substance to the service of God, we turn away with indifference, or we sit down to count the cost, and measure the salvation of our souls by pounds, shillings, and pence.... While we are bountifully assisted, and seldom required to do more than half; yet we are seen to fail on every side (page 19).[129]
On pages 34-40 of this pamphlet, Bishop Strachan is very severe on the clergy to whom Bishop Fuller refers, whom he accuses of putting forth efforts "to disturb the peace of the diocese--efforts which were rapidly being organized into something of a regular system of agitation, so common ... among the traders in politics" (page 34).
An agitation having been commenced by the Bishop and clergy in Western Canada, in 1843, for "better terms" and an amendment to the Imperial Clergy Reserve Act of 1840, the question was re-opened. The effect of this re-opening of the question was deprecated by Dr. Ryerson and others. Early in January, 1844, Mr. Surveyor-General Parke sent to Dr. Ryerson the copy of a letter written by Rev. Prof. Campbell, of Queen's College, Kingston, in which Mr. Campbell sets up the claim of the Kirk of Scotland, having a branch in Canada, as such, to a portion of the Canadian clergy reserves. Mr. Parke says:--
The writer of the letter arrives at two other conclusions, which, I think, are based on error, and calculated to interfere materially with the rights of the other bodies of Protestant Christians: namely, that the Kirk in Canada participate in the clergy reserves, solely by the right it has as a branch of the Kirk in Scotland; and that other bodies of Christians participate in them merely as an act of favour. To the first of these conclusions I entirely object, on the ground that the Act confers the reserves, purely and solely, on Canada, and for the benefit of interests and persons, absolutely within Canada. To the second conclusion or statement of the Professor, that is, that other bodies participate as a matter of favour, I object on every ground on which it is possible for equity to place the subject. What! shall the unexampled toils, and incessant labours of the early and later Methodists, and other pioneers of the christianizing of Canada, have doled out to them, as a matter of simple grace, and a body in Scotland, who never knew nor participated in the labour of sowing the seeds of the Gospel through the length and breadth of the land, claim as a matter of absolute right, for one of its branches, a participation in lands, purely Canadian in fact and law? This I can never assent to; it was the question on which, as a Methodist, I first became a Canadian politician, and it is the question on which I yet feel the keenest. I desire to call your attention to the matter, and solicit a correction from you of errors which, I think, are insidiously calculated to mislead the public mind, and make uphill work in combating other questions which may arise in unfortunate Canada, bye-and-bye. Some of the Kirk folks would monopolize for themselves, as far as they dare, and the Church of England too; but the general community, who have borne the burden and heat of the day--fought and won the battle--should not in any way have their interests and feelings trifled with by the unreasonable claims of a few, who at comparatively a late day entered the field.
As the agitation increased, Dr. Ryerson, who was in England in 1845, addressed a letter to Lord Stanley, Colonial Secretary, in January, on the injustice to the non-episcopal churches of the Act of 1840. He said:--
There is a subject which, in connection with transpiring circumstances in Canada, deeply involves the future condition of the government of Canada, and which can be considered by your Lordship alone: I refer to the withholding, to the present time, from the Wesleyan Methodist body in Upper Canada all benefit of the Act passed for the settlement of the clergy reserve question--a question which certain parties in Canada propose to re-open, with a view of depriving the Church of England of what is considered a disproportionate share of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The advantage afforded by such a subject of agitation would be eagerly seized upon by the leaders of the opposition in Parliament. The Wesleyan Methodist body in Upper Canada (now numbering 131 regular ministers, and 24,000 communicants), has for many years possessed and does still possess the casting vote between the contending political parties in that country; and should they join in the agitation contemplated, nothing but military power will prevent the wresting out of the hands of the Church of England their--the chief--pecuniary advantages which it derives from public sources. Hitherto the leading members of the Wesleyan Methodist body have declined any public agitation on the subject--though solicited by influential parties--contenting themselves with private communication to the Government until they should find them hopelessly unsuccessful. Should not their case be considered? I have reason to believe that they will at their next annual meeting, to be held in June, commence an appeal to the public and to the Local Legislature on the injustice done them; as they have ascertained that all the leading lawyers in Upper Canada of both parties, as well as three successive Governors considered them wronged in the manner in which they alone, of the four great leading denominations of the country, have been excluded from the benefits of an act, to the basis of which Lord Sydenham never could have obtained the consent of the Canadian Legislature without their most decided support.
I should deeply lament the re-agitation of the clergy reserve question in Canada. Such a step, on the part of the great Wesleyan body there, would doubtless be attended by the strengthening of the opposition in the Legislature, and to probable withdrawal of the support of several members from the present Government. In an interview with the official Committee of the Wesleyan body, shortly before I left Canada, I promised them to bring the subject before your Lordship during my stay in England. They, therefore, deferred appealing to the Local Legislature to interpose in their behalf, until they should learn the result of such an appeal to your Lordship....
I cannot suppose that it has been the wish of your Lordship, any more than the intention of the Crown officers, to perpetuate the exclusion of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada from their confessedly-just claim of which they have already been deprived for a period of four years. The amount of the claim is less than one-half of what has been secured to the Roman Catholic Church in Upper Canada--less than one-third of the amount paid the Church of Scotland, and less than one-tenth of what has been guaranteed to the Church of England. The Wesleyan body, whose members in Upper Canada have increased eight thousand during the last four years, will be satisfied on the payment of the sum admitted in their behalf. And I submit that the sanctioning of it by your Lordship will, in my humble opinion, be far better, even as a matter of policy--apart from higher considerations--than affording just ground for an agitation, the consequences of which cannot be easily foreseen.
No relief was, however, afforded by a change in the administration of the Act of 1840. The Act itself remained unrepealed until 1853.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] In process of time, the necessities of his Church compelled the Bishop to adopt a new financial scheme, which he laid before his clergy in 1841, one main feature of which was to incorporate the voluntary principle with a system of moderate grants--such as has been the rule adopted for some years by the Mission Board of the Diocese of Toronto.Return to passage
[129] In sending a copy of this pamphlet some years ago to the Editor of this volume, Archdeacon Fuller (now Bishop of Niagara), said:--This able and interesting document ... was drawn out from the late Bishop by the growing dissatisfaction amongst the clergy and laity, in consequence of Bishop Strachan managing the whole of the clergy reserve fund, without consulting anybody, and managing to get several thousand pounds of arrears paid to himself, as Bishop, and his protege, the present Bishop [Bethune], made Archdeacon of York, with a salary of L365 a year as Archdeacon, while he could not find means to pay the missionaries more than L100 a year.Return to passage
Chapter XLIX
1846-1848.
Re-Union of the British and Canadian Conferences.
During and before the period of the Metcalfe Controversy events were transpiring in Methodist circles in which Dr. Ryerson took an active part, and in which he was deeply interested.[130]
Important correspondence on the relations to each other of the British and Canadian Conferences took place in 1842. But as the issue of the contest between these Conferences was so prolonged, and involved so many important questions--religious and public--I think it desirable to give a brief preliminary outline of the origin of the difficulties between the two bodies. This is the more necessary, as Dr. Ryerson's own personal history and conduct became, from a variety of circumstances, most prominently mixed up with these controversies. His letters to the Government on the subject, and to the Missionary Secretaries, now first published, are also valuable Methodist historical documents--although they partake largely of a personal character--as he was the foremost figure in all of these connexional contests. They are highly characteristic of the courage and self-sacrifice of the writer.
Methodism, after its introduction into Upper Canada in 1790, was organized into a Church by preachers from the United States. In 1811, when Upper Canada was on the eve of being the theatre of war with the United States, several American preachers who had been appointed to Canada declined to come, while those here (Messrs. Roads and Densmore) applied to the Canadian Government in 1812 for leave to return to their own country.[131] Nevertheless, after the war, and on the representation of persons prompted by high churchmen, the London Wesleyan Missionary Society sent out missionaries to four of the larger towns in Upper Canada. This schismatical policy was pursued by the British Conference until 1820, when the American General Conference sent Rev. John (afterwards) Bishop Emory, as a deputation to that Conference to remonstrate. The result was that the following resolutions were passed by the British Conference in that year (1820):--
1. That as the American Methodists and ourselves are but one body, it would be inconsistent with our unity, and dangerous to that affection which ought to characterize us in every place, to have different societies and congregations in the same towns and villages, or to allow of any intrusion on either side into each other's labours.
2. That this principle shall be the rule by which the disputes now existing in the Canadas, between our missionaries, shall be terminated.
In transmitting these and several other resolutions on the subject to the British Missionaries in Canada, the Secretaries (Rev. Joseph Taylor and Rev. Richard Watson) said:--
We know that political reasons exist in many minds for supplying even Upper Canada, as far as possible, with British Missionaries; and, however natural this feeling may be to Englishmen, and even praiseworthy when not carried too far, it will be obvious to you that this is a ground on which, as a Missionary Society, and especially as a Society under the direction of a Committee which recognizes as one with itself the American Methodists, we cannot act.
The British Conference loyally observed this compact from 1820 until 1833. At that time (Dr. Ryerson says) the advocates of a dominant church establishment, though in a small minority in the House of Assembly, were all powerful in the Executive and Legislative Councils, and employed very naturally all the resources at their command to perpetuate their supremacy. For this purpose they appealed to the Wesleyan Missionary Committee in England, and solicited them upon the ground of their loyalty to the Church of England and to the Throne to send out Missionaries to Upper Canada, offering $4,000 per annum out of the Crown revenues to assist in so loyal a work. The English Wesleyan Missionary Committee sent out a representative agent, who contended that the engagement into which the English Conference had entered with the American General Conference in 1820, through Dr. Emory, to leave Upper Canada to the Canadian preachers, was no longer binding since the Conference in Canada has become separate from that in the United States, and the English Committee was therefore free to send missionaries into any part of Upper Canada. The Canadian Conference was thus confronted by a double danger--the danger of division in their congregations, and the danger of increased power against their claims to equal rights and privileges; and a two-fold duty devolved upon them--to prevent division if possible, and, at the same time, to secure the attainment of their own constitutional rights.
* * * * *
In the meantime other disturbing influences occurred. In 1824, an agitation was commenced, with a view to take the appointment of the Presiding Eldership out of the hands of the Bishops, and make the office elective by the annual Conferences. The Presiding Elders of Upper Canada (Rev. Henry Ryan and Rev. William Case) opposed this change, and, in consequence, failed in their election by the Genesee Annual Conference as delegates to the General Conference. Mr. Ryan was chagrined at this result, and on his return to Upper Canada commenced to agitate for an entire separation from the American Church. A memorial to that effect was sent to the General Conference. The request was not granted, but the Canadian work was set off to itself as the "Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada." This was not what Mr. Ryan wanted, and it displeased him. The theme of his complaint was "the domination of republican Methodism and the tyranny of Yankee Bishops." He therefore, set himself again to agitate for entire independence. Finally, after having been the means of stirring up personal strife all through the Connexion, the Conference of 1827 directed that he should be reproved and admonished by Bishop Hedding in presence of the Conference. This was done. Next day Mr. Ryan withdrew from the Conference. (See chapter vii.)
The high-church party encouraged Mr. Ryan in his disaffection; and when he withdrew, and set up a separate church organization, Dr. Strachan actually sent Mr. Ryan $200 to assist him in his schismatical efforts! (Epochs, page 305.) Hon. John Willson, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and formerly a Methodist, joined the high-church party, and did all he could to aid and encourage Mr. Ryan. Thus, in addition to the L50 sent to Mr. Ryan by Ven. Archdeacon Strachan, to aid him in his schismatical crusade against the Conference, a Government grant of L666 ($2,664) was made to the new organization at the instance of Mr. Willson in 1833, and L338 ($1,352) in 1834. (Epochs, page 359.)
The cry of disloyalty having been again raised, the Government and clerical party (for they were one under the control of the Archdeacon of York), lost no time, therefore, in maturing a plan to induce the British Conference again to undertake the occupancy of Upper Canada as missionary ground, and forthwith to send missionaries into the province for that purpose. A correspondence was opened between the head of the Canadian Executive Government, Sir John Colborne, and the Wesleyan Missionary Committee, on the subject of the new missionary enterprise into Upper Canada. (Epochs, page 305.) The result was, that in May, 1832, without notice, an intimation was received that the Rev. Robert Alder, and twelve missionaries were to be sent out to Canada. With a view to avert the calamity of again having hostile Methodist camps in every city and town in Upper Canada, Rev. John Ryerson suggested to Dr. Ryerson that the Canada Conference should endeavour to form a union with the British Conference, and thus secure harmonious action instead of discord and disunion. This was done, and provisional arrangements were made with Dr. Alder at the Hallowell Conference of 1832, subject to the ratification of the British Conference. This ratification was made, and took effect in 1833, and the union continued for four or five years only.
About the year 1840, a considerable controversy arose in regard to the payment of an annual grant of L900 by the Government, in aid of the general work of the Church. It may be well, therefore, to state the circumstances under which this grant was made, and then point out the personal causes which intensified the feeling of estrangement between the English and Canadian Conferences.
In a letter on this subject to the Provincial Secretary, dated 28th December, 1842, Dr. Ryerson said:--
Rev. Robert Alder was in Upper Canada in the spring and summer of 1833, negotiating on the subject of the grant and the union, which Sir John Colborne was anxious to promote. The Canadian Conference, aided by Dr. Alder's counsels, agreed to propose certain articles of union with the English Conference. Those articles contemplated a financial, as well as ecclesiastical union; and Dr. Alder expressed his conviction that the English Conference would grant L1,000 per annum out of its Contingent Fund, to aid our Conference, besides the aid granted out of the Mission Fund, in aid of Missions in Upper Canada. A copy of these proposed articles of union was forthwith laid before Sir John Colborne by Dr. Alder, and published in the Guardian, of the 29th August, 1832, five days after which Sir John Colborne wrote to Lord Ripon, recommending a grant to the Wesleyan Committee of L900 per annum [on terms of the comprehensive scheme mentioned on page 155]. But the Government delayed making any payment until October, 1833, after the ratification of the union by both bodies. In the meantime, however, the English Conference declined granting any aid out of their Contingent Fund, and had a clause inserted in the Articles of Union against any claims upon the funds of the English Conference on the part of the Canadian Preachers. Of this clause in the Articles of Union the Government seems never to have been made aware until Lord Sydenham came to Upper Canada in 1839.
In a long and valuable historical letter to Mr. Murdoch, Chief Secretary to Sir Charles Bagot, dated May, 1842, Dr. Ryerson further said:--
The first payment of the grant was made in October, 1833, a few days after the final ratification of the Articles of Union by the Canadian Conference; so that every payment of the grant was made and applied according to the "usage" prescribed by the Articles of Union....
Dr. Ryerson then discussed various matters relating to their "usage," and the articles of Union, and proceeded: Some weeks after Lord Sydenham's arrival in Toronto, His Lordship sent for me--as I was afterwards informed, at the recommendation of Sir Allan MacNab, Receiver-General Dunn, and others--but the interview, and one or two subsequent ones, related entirely to the objects of his Lordship's mission, in accomplishing which, he desired all the aid I could give him. The last week of the year 1839, and the first week of 1840, Lord Sydenham spent in seeing various parties and concerting a measure on the clergy reserve question. He sent for the Rev. Messrs. Stinson and Richey (agents of the London Wesleyan Committee) as well as for me. As all the present difficulties grew out of these interviews of the London Wesleyan Committee's agents and myself, with Lord Sydenham, I think it important to state the substance of them, and the evidence on which I make my statement.
First as regards myself. The proposed measure being intended to secure a continued payment of grants already made out of the Casual and Territorial Revenue, and the Clergy Reserve Fund, to the parties receiving them, I submitted to Lord Sydenham that, as the three principal denominations (Church of England, Church of Scotland, and Roman Catholics) received large aid out of one or both of these funds, it was clear that unless some assistance was granted to the Wesleyan Methodist Church before the passing of the Clergy Reserve Bill, and transferred with other charges by the provisions of the Bill, we would be effectually excluded from obtaining any aid for a series of years. I submitted to Lord Sydenham an application, which I had been directed to make, in behalf of the Upper Canada Academy--now Victoria College. His Lordship acceded to the justice of my views, but replied that aid was given to us also in the form of an annual grant. I replied, and sought to impress upon his Lordship, that the grant referred to by him had not been made to the Canadian Conference, and did not operate to its advantage, but to the sole advantage of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in England; and, at his request, I prepared a statement of the case in writing. It will be seen by the date of my letter that these communications took place January 2nd, 1840. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that up to that time there could have transpired between Lord Sydenham and myself, nothing relative to the transfer of the grant.
On the same day, Rev. Messrs. Stinson and Richey (agents of the Wesleyan Committee) had an interview with Lord Sydenham. They told him that the union between the English and Canadian Conferences was not likely to continue; and prayed (in their memorial, written the day after) "that the sum intended for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, should be given to the Wesleyan Methodists, who are now, and who may be hereafter, connected with the British Wesleyan Conference." I believe Lord Sydenham's laconic reply was, that he had to do with religious bodies in Canada, not in England.
It will be seen that the communication of Messrs. Stinson and Richey, as well as mine, served to impress Lord Sydenham that there was not an identity of interests between the English and Canadian Conferences, as he had supposed, and, as His Lordship said, Her Majesty's Government also supposed.
A day or two after Messrs. Stinson and Richey's interview with Lord Sydenham, I waited upon him, when I was given to understand that a memorial had been presented to him in behalf of the British Conference, on the ground of an anticipated dissolution of the Union. My feelings of surprise and indignation, and my remonstrances against such a monstrous proposition, may be easily conceived. It is known that Lord Sydenham, from the very first, viewed such a proposition with disapprobation; it was on this occasion also that His Lordship apprised me of the conclusions he had come to on the subject of any proposition for a grant to the Canadian Conference, previously to passing the Clergy Reserve Bill; that he was satisfied that the Canadian Conference had a just claim to assistance; that it did not derive any practical benefit from the grant to the London Committee, but that it ought to do so, as such were the original intentions of the Government in making it. Lord Sydenham stated his recollection of the intention of the Government in 1832 to be--and perhaps the recollections of Lord Stanley may be to the same effect--that it was supposed by the Government, from communications from Upper Canada, that the Wesleyans here were not quite as (conservatively) loyal as was desirable; that it being understood they were willing to unite with the English Conference, the Government thought it advisable to enable the English Conference to assist them, as it would exert a salutary influence upon their feelings and usefulness. Thus was the grant made; but from the peculiar nature of the articles of Union, the leading objects of the grant had never been accomplished, as the Canadian Conference had to support all its own members and institutions--except a few missions--as much since, as before the Union. He had, therefore, determined to write to Lord John Russell, and recommend a different distribution of the grant; believing that to accomplish the original and benevolent objects in Canada, it ought to be placed under the entire control of the Canadian Conference. In these views I did, of course, gratefully concur, although I never fully understood until then the intentions of the Imperial Government in making the grant. I also thought the course proposed would defeat the intimated project of breaking up the Union, and furnish real aid to the Church of which I was appointed advocate and representative. Leaving the matter in the hands of Lord Sydenham, I had no intention of saying anything more upon the subject, until, nearly a fortnight afterwards, when His Lordship requested me--as I was so familiar with the subject--to furnish him with a written statement of the financial relations of the English and Canadian Conferences, in regard to the grant, etc., as it would aid him in preparing his despatch to Lord John Russell. I did so. The letter, written at the request of Lord Sydenham, was intended as a memorandum for his Lordship. But he thought it best to transmit a copy of it with his own despatch to Lord John Russell, by whom it was enclosed to the Wesleyan Committee; and hence the present controversy. That letter is dated 17th January, 1840.
I cannot but feel that I labour under great disadvantages in the present discussion, from the numerous representations and statements which the Wesleyan Committee have made to the noble Secretary of State to my disadvantage. My standing, as a public man, is my all, and therefore, however small relatively, is as important to me as a kingdom to a monarch.
As the Wesleyan Committee have made me so prominent a subject in this affair, I have offered to submit to His Excellency, Sir Charles Bagot, or to the Executive Council--or to His Excellency and the Executive Council--or to the Lord Bishop of Toronto; or to the Moderator of the Synod of the Church of Scotland in Canada--or to the Lord Bishop of Toronto and the Moderator of the Scotch Synod--and to bind myself in any penalty to abide by the decision of such tribunal. When the Wesleyan Committee are accusers, judge, and jury in their own case, it is not likely they will be very impartial; but if there is a shadow of truth or justice in their accusations and statements, I have given them full opportunity to secure the confirmation of them, by the highest tribunals, in the country of my life and labours.
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The Wesleyan Committee declined to refer the matter in dispute to an independent tribunal, and Dr. Alder wrote to members of the Canadian Conference impugning Dr. Ryerson in the strongest terms, insisting upon his withdrawal of certain things which he had written, and making various threats. Dr. Ryerson decided then to address a final letter to Rev. Messrs. Bunting, Beecham and Hoole, Missionary Secretaries. This he did on the 19th October, 1842. This letter, and the preceding letter, are doubly valuable from the fact that they embody a number of interesting details of the interviews and correspondence between Lord Sydenham and Dr. Ryerson, and also between Sir Charles Bagot and Dr. Ryerson, which have not hitherto been published. There is a tone of manly dignity and independence in this letter which commends itself, and which were characteristic of Dr. Ryerson in his best moods as a controversialist. From the letter, which extends to thirty-four foolscap pages I make the following extracts. He said:--
I wish the most extended success to the general labours of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, however much they have sought to retard those of the Canadian Conference; nor have I ever objected to their labours among the "destitute white settlements" and heathen tribes of Canada; I only object to their works of schism, and division.... Did you ever think of sending missionaries, or of employing your money and men, in our regular circuits, before the breaking up of the Union?--Kingston, or Belleville, or Toronto, or Hamilton, or Brantford, or London, etc.?--places where there is no more need of missionary men or missionary money than there is in City Road, or Great Queen street circuits in London--places in which it is notorious that the soul, body, and strength of your societies consists, not in converts from the world, but in secessions from the Canadian Conference. When, therefore, four-fifths of your missionaries (so called) in Western Canada are employed on regular circuits of the Canadian Conference, is it surprising that I should complain, remonstrate, and condemn?
The burden of Dr. Alder's letter is that I have been the first, gratuitous, and wanton aggressor upon the character and motives of those "to whom the British Conference has entrusted the transaction of its most important business;" and, as such, the author and fomenter of the difficulties between the British and Canadian Conferences. And it has been more than once intimated on your part that if I, the Jonah, were thrown overboard, the commotion of the Methodistic element of Western Canada would soon cease, and mutual confidence and joy would be restored to the whole ship's company.... Need I add, that in the columns of your Watchman newspaper, and in the pages of pamphlets, and in your Wesleyan in Canada, not only my public conduct, but my character, my motives, my principles, have been impugned without delicacy or restraint? Need I add, that the Canada Conference and myself have been the defendants, and you the assailants, throughout? That in Dr. Alder's letter to Lord John Russell the proceedings of the Canada Conference are represented as revolutionary?
I am also impeached in almost every form of phraseology--the Christian integrity and loyalty of my brethren and myself have been impugned by your agents throughout this country--our fields of labour have been invaded, and our flocks divided, while our principles and feelings have been resented as dangerous to the safety and interests of the State. Yet Dr. Alder complains of the occasional exposure of these things in the Guardian, and is rampant at the application of the word divisionists, to those of your missionaries who are dividing our regular societies, and establishing rival congregations on our regular circuits!... But, in reply, there may be opposed to the unanimous resolutions of your Conference, adopted in Liverpool, in 1820, and the whole tenor and spirit of the New Testament, especially the writings of St. Paul, who denounces partialities for Peter, or Paul, or Apollos, as pretext for schisms in the Church of God.
Then as to my desire to protract litigation. Does my having done all in my power to have the affair referred to a third party--to any impartial tribunal you might prefer--evince the truth of such a charge? Or does your refusing to agree to any such reference look most like desiring to protract hostilities? Great Britain and other civilized nations have more than once submitted their differences to the decision of a third party; ancient churches did the same; I have advocated the same; you refuse; your refusal does not certainly argue a consciousness that you are right, or a desire for peace, whatever else it may argue.
Furthermore, as to my own feelings and conduct, I will let the following memorandum, which I presented at the late session of the Canada Conference, speak in reply to your various allegations:--
I hereby resign my seat in the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada.
I do not resign my membership in the Conference, but I resign all privilege and right to take part in its deliberations, or even to be present at its sittings. I hold myself as much as ever responsible and subject to the Conference, and am as ready as ever to do all in my power to defend the Conference and Institutions of the Church when necessary; but I voluntarily relinquish participating in any way whatever in its Executive or Legislative Councils. The following are the considerations which have induced me to take this step:--
1. My presence and participation in the proceedings of the Conference have been represented as forming an insuperable obstacle to any adjustment of differences between the Wesleyan Conference in England, and this Conference.
2. I prefer the unity of Methodism, and an honourable adjustment of differences between two branches of the great Methodist family, to the exercise of any influence I may possess, or may be supposed to possess in the Councils of this Conference; or to the profit and pleasure I may derive from attending the annual deliberations of my reverend and beloved brethren.
3. I can now take this step without incurring any imputation upon my character, and without injuring the interests of the Conference, or of the Church at large.
I respectfully request that this memorandum may be inserted in the journals of the Conference, as an official record and recognition of this my voluntary act.
(Signed) Egerton Ryerson.
Hallowell, June 14, 1842.
You will see from the above memorandum, that I proposed to relinquish all except my connection with a church which I had joined in obedience to conscience, and my connection with a field of labour to which I believed myself called by the voice and providence of God. My request was laid upon the table of the Conference for a day, and then pressed by me with as much propriety as I could employ on such a subject, but, with one exception (Andrew Prindle), was unanimously rejected, it being insisted that I should not be allowed to change my relations to the Conference, in any respect, on account of your differences with me. To relinquish my connection with the Church, and my labours as a Methodist minister, involve considerations which ought not to yield to the impulse of passion, or bow to the suggestions of expediency. By God's grace, therefore, I hope to be able to "stand in my place to the end of the day," say or do what you may....
Dr. Alder and his Canadian friends have advised you from the beginning that my standing and influence in Canada was merely political; that I was aware of this, and was, therefore, determined to employ myself in political affairs in order to gratify my ambition. My assertions to the contrary were, of course, rejected and scorned by you. Well, nearly three years have elapsed since, by common consent, I have had nothing whatever to do with the civil affairs of Canada, as all the public men in it know. My own conduct, therefore, has thus far refuted one part of the statements of your informers. As to the other part, has my standing as a public man declined? or, have all parties, during that period, awarded me a testimony of regard more gratifying than that which I had ever before received from any party?
You were also told that my principles were revolutionary, and were so viewed by the wealth and intelligence of this country, which would support you and repudiate me and those connected with me. What do you now see, but the Government at home and in Canada adopting the very system of administration, both in religious, educational, and civil affairs, which I maintained many years ago to be most suitable to the social condition of this Province; and the wealth and intelligence of our population (save a little knot of Puseyite ultras) rejoicing in its establishment; and the country in happy tranquility, and blooming with prosperity, under its operations? What do you see but Her Majesty possessing a strength far more formidable than that of swords or bayonets, in the hearts of her Canadian subjects? What do you see, but three branches of the Legislature unanimously incorporating as a College, with the privileges of a University, an institution under the direction of the Canada Conference (which you had repudiated), and in compliance with an application which I had the honour to have advocated, and according to the provisions of a Bill, verbatim et literatim, which I drew up? What do you see, but that same Legislature, with equal unanimity, granting L500 to the same institution, and lately, by the recommendation of His Excellency, Sir Charles Bagot, renewing that grant as an annual aid to the institution, now presided over by the individual against whom all your attacks have been directed? Can I but feel a grateful, as well as a dutiful attachment to a Government so perfectly consonant with my own feelings? Can I but feel an honest pride, retrospecting the past, and looking abroad upon the present, to see in the constitution and spirit of Her Majesty's Canadian Government my own views and wishes carried out to the very letter? Can I but rejoice, to see several members of the Government on our College Board and Senate--and to be aided by their counsel, abilities, and influence?
I advert to these facts with heart-felt thankfulness, as a practical vindication of my life and character against your imputations, and as an indication strong, if not providential, that I have, in the main at least, endeavoured to do my duty to my God, my Sovereign, and my country.... Unconnected as I am with any party, and on friendly terms with leading men of all parties, countenanced by the Government, aided by the Legislature, and sustained by the public, I can, by the divine blessing, employ my humble abilities, even under the weight of Dr. Alder's frowns, to rearing up a large body of well instructed youth, and a considerable number of ministers, who, I hope, will be a blessing to this their country, and to the church, and who will, doubtless, do justice to me when both Dr. Alder and myself shall be receiving our reward according to our respective works, "whether they be good or bad."...
My differences with you are wholly of a public and official character; personally I esteem and honour you as much as I ever did, and wish you God speed in your general works of faith and divine labours of love....
The only persons in England with whom I have the slightest personal difference are Dr. Alder and Mr. Lord, for their uncalled for and unjust personal attacks upon me. I cherish no ill-feeling towards them. But I ask not your indulgence; I fear you not; I know and admire you as distinguished servants of the Most High, but as greatly mistaken as to what truly appertains to one hundred and twenty-one itinerant ministers, and a large and growing branch of the Wesleyan body in Western Canada--a body now beginning, like yourselves, to raise up a regularly educated as well as a zealous ministry....
This epistle shall be my witness to the Government, to the church, and to posterity, that the dreadful disgrace and varied evils of perpetuating the present unseemly violation of Methodistic and Christian unity in Upper Canada, and the creation and continuance of unnatural and unchristian schisms and divisions in a Christian church, lie not at my door; and that for the sake of peace, I have offered to do all that could be demanded of me by reason of Christianity....
As the Government is interested in this controversy, I shall deem it my duty to enclose a copy of the present letter to His Excellency the Governor-General, with a request that His Excellency will have the goodness to forward it to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, that Her Majesty's Government, both at home and in this country, may fully understand the present posture of this affair, at least as far as you and myself are concerned, and with whom lies the responsibility of this continued controversy.
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For the reasons given above to the Secretaries of the Wesleyan Conference in England, Dr. Ryerson transmitted a copy of his letter to them to Sir Charles Bagot, on the 10th December, 1842, accompanied with an explanatory letter, from which I extract the following narrative connected with this matter:--Two weeks before the late Lord Sydenham's arrival in Toronto (in November, 1839), at a meeting of the agents of the London Committee, and the Executive Committee of the Canadian Conference, every matter of misunderstanding and jealousy, as far as I know, was satisfactorily settled. It was explicitly agreed on all sides, and recorded, that I should press the settlement of the clergy reserve question. On other things it was my wish and aim to remain neutral. This I did, until some weeks after Lord Sydenham's arrival. Parties were very equally divided on the question of the union of the Canadas, and the terms on which it should be effected. I was then Editor of the Guardian; I was desired by the agents of the London Wesleyan Committee and their friends (and some of my own friends), to oppose the union of the Canadas; Lord Sydenham sent for me, and earnestly solicited me to advocate it, and assured me that it should involve no change in the principles of our Constitution, but even secure greater privileges to the people of Canada, and that it was the only hope of Canada. He promised, in case he could get the Union measure through the Canadian Legislature, to apply himself to the settlement of the clergy reserve question, in accordance with such principles as I had expressed, and which he understood to be general in Upper Canada. After much consideration, I consented to give a decided support to the Government in that great measure. The agents of the London Committee were greatly offended, and were sure, as were many others, that Lord Sydenham would not be supported by the Imperial Parliament, and threatened a breaking up of the union between the English and Canadian Conferences; and in about three weeks afterwards, they intimated to Lord Sydenham that the union between the two bodies would not be continued, and sought to get the Methodist portion of the proceeds of the clergy reserves secured to those who should be connected with the British Wesleyan Conference. Lord Sydenham, learning the circumstances in which I was placed, opposed by the agents of the London Committee and all the opponents of the union of the Canadas, and by the "radical reform" portion of the press, for assenting to the application of the clergy reserves to religious purposes at all, and by many of the members of my own Church, because I assented to a Bill which recognized the Churches of England and Scotland by name, and not the Methodist Church,--assured me of all protection and support that his Government could give. I asked for nothing but a due consideration and protection of the interests of the Church which I represented. Of this I received repeated assurances; and when, a few months afterwards, Lord Sydenham received from Lord John Russell, a copy of Dr. Alder's first letter to his Lordship, Lord Sydenham not only renewed the private expression of his views and purposes, but introduced them voluntarily in an answer to a congratulatory address of the Canadian Conference. In reference to these very matters, out of which the present question has arisen, Lord Sydenham thus expressed himself, and pledged the faith of his Government. He said:--
Whilst I administer the affairs of the Canadas, it is my duty to look to the feelings of the people of that country; and you will find me ever ready and willing, whenever any question connected with the Executive Government may arise, to support the reasonable views, and maintain the just rights of your society, as expressed through your recognized authorities within these Provinces.
When it was ascertained that the English Conference would not abide by the articles of union, and that several months' delay had taken place without carrying out the views which Lord Sydenham had expressed--that an Act on the clergy reserve question had been passed by the Imperial Parliament, different in several important respects from that which Lord Sydenham had got through the Canadian Legislature, it was our intention to have the claims and interests of our Church in respect both to the grant and clergy reserves, brought under the consideration of the Canadian Legislature. But previously to taking this step, I was directed to proceed to Kingston (June, 1841), to ascertain what measures the Government were disposed to adopt; when I learned from Lord Sydenham that he had been empowered to settle the question of the grant, and that in that and all other respects he would consult the interests of our Church to the utmost of his power. It was not his wish to communicate his decision officially until near the close of the session of the Legislature, which, unhappily, proved to be the end of his life. What has since transpired is within the personal knowledge of Your Excellency.
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After all this correspondence, the question of reunion with the British Conference was often and earnestly discussed privately between leading members of the Canadian and British Conferences, as well as in the American Methodist journals.[132]
In October, 1843, Rev. Joseph Stinson, then in Sheffield, England, wrote to Dr. Ryerson on the subject, and said:--
There is a strong desire on the part of many of our most influential ministers that the work in Canada should be consolidated and made one. It is certainly most desirable that there should be one vigorous, united, and prosperous Methodist Church; in which the pure doctrines of Methodism, and of the Gospel, shall be preserved, and a refuge for those who really want to be saved shall be presented--to all those, I mean, who prefer our religious system to any other. Now, my dear sir, allow me to say, that I think that the only two men in the world who can effect this most desirable object, are yourself and Dr. Alder. If any plan could be adopted by which you and he could be reconciled to each other, the work would be done; and it will not be done effectually, I fear, until this is the case. I still entertain the hope of spending many happy and useful years in Canada; and I thank you sincerely for your kind offer with reference to Cobourg. I cannot forget the happy, and, I may say, holy hours we have spent together before God in prayer; and I hope and trust we shall yet be found side by side in the Church militant and in the Church triumphant.
Rev. Joseph Stinson wrote again in December, and was very urgent in regard to the reunion of the Conferences. He says:
Let us still labour and pray for the great object of union. Every day, and every aspect which the Church and the world presents, deepens the conviction of my mind of its necessity, and I hope we shall live to see a united and prosperous Church in Canada, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. We are now very busy with our Educational movements. We intend to raise L200,000 in seven years, and we shall, by the Divine blessing, succeed. Our people were never more united, and truly Methodistical in their feelings and purposes. God has a great work for us to do in the world, and if we are but faithful, we shall be a greater blessing to our Empire than we have ever been.
In November, 1844, after his arrival in London, Dr. Ryerson addressed a letter to his two friends, Rev. Joseph Stinson and Rev. G. Marsden, on the Union question. From Mr. Stinson he received a reply, from which the following is an extract:--
I heartily congratulate you on your promotion. I pray that you may be happy and useful in the interesting and responsible station assigned you by the providence of God and the Government of your country. I hope your visit to this country may be one of those Providential events which will lead to the accomplishment of an object which lies as near to my heart now as it ever did--the unity of our Methodist interests in Canada. The aspects of the times at home and abroad surely are plainly indicating that our very existence as a Church depends, in no small decree, upon our unity. In the meantime, if I can, by any little influence I have, be able to effect a reconciliation between you and our friends at the Mission House, nothing on earth will afford me so much pleasure.
Rev. G. Marsden, in his reply to Dr. Ryerson, said:--
Often have I reflected with deep interest on the whole of that very important affair--the union of the two bodies; and though it was afterward dissolved, I firmly believe that the union at that time was of God. It gave a favourable opportunity for our Conference reviewing and improving the code of Discipline, and I hope that it is now rendered permanent. In that respect I believe you in Canada are on good ground; and I could almost wish that it may be unalterable. There may be attempts made, under the pretence of improvements, to alter in future our Book of Discipline, but I trust that those preachers who were at the Conference when the Discipline was settled and solemnly agreed upon, will not hastily adopt any material alterations.
The union was also providential as it occurred before the rebellion commenced. So far it appeared to be in the order of Providence; and though in a few years the union was dissolved, yet you have gone on well in Canada, and the Lord has prospered you.
The position which you now occupy is one of great importance, as it respects the future good of Canada. If the youth of that country be trained up in sound Christian principles, the country, as it respects the inhabitants, may become one of the finest in the world. The old countries are formed, yours is in some measure yet to be formed; and as is the education, such in all probability will be the inhabitants in future.
Dr. Ryerson after his arrival in England, also addressed a letter to Dr. Bunting, dated December 11th, 1844, as follows:--
I desire your acceptance of the accompanying publication [relating to the Metcalfe controversy]. The Prefatory Notice and Address will explain to you the circumstances under which it was written.
I take the liberty of presenting you with this publication, not merely from feelings of profound respect for yourself personally, but also for the following reason:--That you may have the best possible proof of the sentiments which I have ever inculcated upon the public mind in Canada, and which are current among the ministers and members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in that country. In appendix No's. 3 and 4, pages 171-178, I have made extracts from what I wrote between the years 1838 and 1841, the period, in August, 1840, during which both my sentiments and conduct were impugned in your presence. You will probably recollect that I then stated that my principles were strictly British, and such alone as could perpetuate British authority in Canada. The fact that the present Governor-General of Canada, and Her Majesty's present Government--apart from a candid inquiry into the nature of them--have staked their character and authority in Canada upon those principles, is ample proof of their constitutional orthodoxy and essential importance; and the manner in which Sir Charles Metcalfe has been, and is, supported in Upper Canada, is sufficient evidence of their influence over the public mind there, without your expending some three thousand pounds a year of missionary money within the bounds of the regular self-supporting and missionary-contributing circuits of the Canada Conference in order to teach us loyalty. (See pages 282, 283.) Since I was last in England, I have not written a word on civil affairs, except a short obituary notice of the late Sir Charles Bagot (which was not inserted in the Christian Guardian, any more than what I have recently written) until the publication which I herewith transmit. By referring to pages 134, 153, 164, you will find that I have not, even as an individual, written for party, or in the spirit of party, but with a view of giving and securing the application of a Christian interpretation of the fundamental principles of the British Constitution, and of all good government.
I am thankful that I have been permitted to live and give to the British Government in England, and to the public in Canada, a more tangible and abiding proof of my principles and feelings than the representations which were made of them in your presence in 1840.
It may not be improper for me to add, that the appointment with which the Government has honoured me, in placing under my direction, the public educational instruction of the youth of Upper Canada, was not accepted by me, until after my ministerial brethren, officially, as well as unofficially, expressed their approbation of my doing so.
* * * * *
After the Conference of 1845, Dr. Ryerson (then in Europe) received a letter from Rev. John Ryerson, in which he said:--
The Conference received a note from the sub-Secretary of the British Conference, enclosing certain resolutions which had been passed two years ago, appointing a committee to settle matters with the Canada Conference respecting the differences between the two Connexions. Our Conference appointed a similar committee, and the Secretary was directed to communicate to the British Conference, and request it to make some proposals for settlement, as they had rejected all the proposals which we had made. In fact, parties here have taken advantage of the overtures which we have made to injure the Canada Conference, while there is no move on the part of the British Conference to indicate that they even desire a settlement. For my own part, I would have gone so far as to have made the proposal which you suggested; but I could not influence a majority of the Conference to do so. The belief here is gaining ground that the British Conference has no intention to settle the differences; that they are only tampering with us, and, at the same time, they are striving to get the L700. I believe that no settlement can be effected until that grant matter is adjusted, and that no grant will be paid until that settlement is made. I cannot forget the reprehensible conduct of the Missionary party, in sending a missionary to Bytown, at the very time that they were pretending to negotiate a settlement with us! Still I am anxious to do almost anything to effect an adjustment of our misunderstandings; but I fear that the British Conference, influenced by the Missionary party here, will accede to no feasible plan of settlement--at all events, not while these men are kept here, and are allowed to have the influence in England which they seem to possess.
You are aware, of course, that a party in Toronto have for these six months been publishing a paper, the object of which is by agitation among our people, to drive the Conference to censure you and your political writings. The Radical party in the Conference tried to get that body to pass some such resolutions as Rev. C. R. Allison introduced at Brockville, but they totally failed. The Conference in reply to two memorials--the one from Brantford, and the other from Cobourg--defended the resolutions passed at Brockville on political matters, and the pastoral address of the same year, and remarked that it saw no reason to say more than it had said. This was sadly mortifying to the parties opposed to you. However, every effort of that party in this and other questions totally failed. They were left in most miserable minorities in everything they undertook of a party and revolutionary character. The party has assailed all of our funds, especially our Missionary Society and Victoria College. Indeed, there was nothing connected with our institutions which they have not tried to injure, taking good care to connect your name with everything, so as to let the Church know that you would be a sacrifice entirely satisfactory to them.
Political matters in the country are in a state of great quiet. I think the present Government has got on strong ground--being assailed by the two extreme sharks--the Pilot and the Patriot.... The impartiality and high-minded justice of the Governor-General are becoming more and more apparent. Indeed, I do not think the Radicals will be able to recover their power in any degree while Lord Metcalfe remains, certainly not if he continues, in defiance of party strife, to administer the Government as it has been administered since the present Council has been organized.
The University Question is a most perplexing one, and the Ministry will find the utmost difficulty to so devise a plan of settlement so as to satisfy a majority of the people and carry the House with them.
After this correspondence on the Union question had taken place little was done and less resulted from it. When Dr. Ryerson returned to Canada, he wrote to Rev. Peter Jones, then in England, to see Rev. Dr. James Dixon, and urge him to come to Canada. In February, 1846, Rev. Mr. Jones replied:--
On receiving your letter I lost no time in calling upon Dr. Dixon, who appeared pleased with the invitation from our Executive Committee. He said that if he could see that his visit to Canada would bring about a reconciliation between the two Conferences, he would be most happy to go. I am very glad that the Committee have invited him to come and inspect the state of affairs. I believe that the invitation will do much good, whether Dr. Dixon goes or not, as it will be seen that our Conference is anxious for a settlement, and courts investigation.
I do assure you that we are getting very homesick; and I am heartily tired of the work of begging. I shall be glad when we are again quietly settled in our own wigwams.
In reply to this invitation, Rev. Dr. Dixon wrote a letter to Rev. Dr. Ryerson, in March, in which he foreshadowed the important Methodistic legislation which resulted in the establishment of the General Conference which met at Toronto in 1874, with Dr. Ryerson as its first President. Dr. Dixon said:--
My own idea is that a measure much more comprehensive than that of a mere settlement of these disputes is needed. The time must come when the North American provinces will be united ecclesiastically, by having a General Conference of their own, in connexion with the Provincial or District Conferences, after the manner of the United States. Things must come to this at no remote period; and this being the case, it seems reasonable to consider such a scheme in connection with the measure now under review. To do the thing well will require, of course, very much and mature deliberation. In case such a measure should be thought of, some form of fellowship, some bond of union--must be recognized betwixt the British Conference and such a body as I contemplate. Here is a ticklish point--it is at this point that all splits and quarrels begin. But clearly the line of justice, religion, and a Christian experience may be discovered, if honestly sought. I am deeply convinced myself that the organization of such a body as I refer to must, in the nature of things develop the energies of Methodism in the Provinces infinitely more vigorously than can be secured by the action of a distant government.
I venture to throw this out as my general feeling and impression. Of course, it has been thought of by others as well as myself; and I found the other day from Rev. Peter Jones that the subject is engaging the attention of different parties on your side of the water. Could you not open a discussion on this question in your periodicals? But it should be free from party bias, from angry passions, from national views and partialities; indeed, the discussion of such a subject requires the highest reason, philosophy and statesmanship. If a calm head and pure patriot could be found amongst you to argue such a point, it would be clearing the ground. Of the soundness of the principle that the Methodist body ought to be one in all the adjacent colonies; and I am convinced that it would be wise and expedient to establish as soon as men's minds are prepared for it, such an establishment as a general colonial Conference. And in the present state of things, I conceive it would be useful to receive a certain amount of British influence in such a Conference. You cannot do very well without us; and on this side there would be great alarm at the idea of an entire separation. But all these are questions of detail.
Let me say now, that I have a strong desire to visit your Provinces--I should like above all things to obey your call; but I see it possible not only to do no good, but to do harm, by exasperating parties on my taking up an independent position. Let me say, I think the object we desire is being promoted by your communication; and I hope that either myself, or some other one better fitted, will, ere long, appear amongst you as a messenger of peace. I long to see it.
It would afford Mrs. Dixon and I the highest gratification to see you in this country again--to have the very great delight to see you by our fireside, and experience over again some of the happy moments we dearly enjoyed in your friendly society. Thank God there is a Christianity infinitely above ecclesiastical divisions, and sub-divisions; and there is a depth of feeling and affection in the human heart which cannot be destroyed by the miserable squabbles of nations and churches.
At the Conference held at Kingston, after the receipt of this letter from Rev. Dr. Dixon, it was considered expedient to send a deputation from Canada to the English Conference. Rev. John Ryerson and Rev. Anson Green were selected for this important mission and soon left for England. In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from his brother John, dated Bristol, August 1st, he says that:--
The difficulties in the way of any proper adjustments of our differences seem to be almost insurmountable. Prejudices so strong and so extensive, have been excited against us that we, as the representatives of the Canada Conference, are looked upon with shyness, if not fear and contempt. Our situation is anything but pleasant; it is even distressing and painful.... Rev. Joseph Stinson is most cordial and affectionate, and is doing his utmost to further the object of our mission and promote peace in Canada; this is also the case of Rev. William Lord.
Subsequently Rev. John Ryerson wrote to say that:--
Dr. Alder presented the address of our Conference, and also the certificate of our appointment to the British Conference. It was moved by Dr. Bunting, and seconded by Dr. Alder, that the address be received, and that we be affectionately and cordially requested to take a seat in the Conference. The resolution was opposed, and it called up a warm debate. The opposers contended that their connection with the Canada Conference and its matters had only been a source of trouble and injury to themselves, and that, as the Union was now dissolved, they should keep aloof from all intercourse with us. The resolution was warmly supported by Doctors Bunting, Alder, Beaumont, Dixon, Mr. Lord, and Mr. Stinson. It at length passed triumphantly, and all things are coming out right, and will end well.
Rev. John Ryerson again wrote to Dr. Ryerson from Bristol:
Although we took our seats in the Conference last week, yet we were not formally introduced until yesterday. It is clear that Dr. Alder and others were resolved that we should not take our seats on the platform, but Mr. Lord and Mr. Atherton (the President) and others were resolved that we should. The President accordingly stated that the brethren from Canada, Representatives of the Canada Conference, would be introduced to the Conference, and would take their seats on the platform, which we did. What Dr. Alder may hereafter do, I know not; up to this time his conduct has been cold and repulsive; he, however, continually declares that he is in favour of an adjustment of matters in Canada.
In looking at matters here, I cannot express the painful anxiety of my mind; sometimes I can neither eat nor sleep, and it quite destroys all the satisfaction which I might otherwise enjoy from a visit to England. Had I known that things would be as I find them, I should never have come to England. I left Canada distressed in mind about our mission; the distress has only continued to increase every day since. Were I to follow the strong impulse of my mind, I should leave at once and return to America.
All this was changed, however; and on the 15th September Rev. John Ryerson thus writes to Dr. Ryerson as to the final issue of negotiations with the British Conference:--
After four days' conference in committee on Canada affairs, the whole business was brought to a happy and most amicable conclusion. When I wrote my last letter I was under most painful apprehensions respecting the results of our mission. Little change took place in the bearing of the leading men towards us, until we met in committee on the 9th inst. Then a most full, frank, and undisguised explanation of all missionary and domestic matters was entered into. After this full unburthening of ourselves, the one to the other, a totally different feeling seemed to come over Drs. Bunting, Alder, and the whole committee--which consisted of about thirty leading members of the British Conference. In consequence of the strong feeling which exists chiefly in Lower Canada, the British North American plan mentioned by Dr. Dixon in his letter to you, was thought not practicable at present. The plan of settlement to which we have agreed, is a union with the British Conference, on a basis similar to that by which the British and Irish Conferences are united. The British Conference appoints our President and the Superintendent of Missions, as in the former union; all of our missions become missions of the Wesleyan Missionary Society; our Missionary Society is auxiliary to their Society. The L700 grant is to be placed under the Missionary Committee, to be appropriated for missionary purposes in Canada. On the other hand, all the regular British Missionary circuits in Canada, are to be placed under the Canada Conference, the same as any other circuits; and there are to be no missionary districts; but the missionaries are to be members of the different districts in the bounds of which their missions are situated. The missionaries are to be stationed by our Stationing Committee, the same as other ministers. The British Conference is to appropriate L600 sterling annually to our contingent fund; and the Missionary Committee is to place L400 at the disposal of our Conference for contingent purposes.
More kindness, more nobleness of sentiment and feeling, I never witnessed than was manifested towards us after we had succeeded in removing suspicion, and allaying fears, etc. In the course of the conversations, your name came up frequently, but always in terms of great respect; only they all seemed to think that you got astray in the matter of the disruption of the union. I assured them, however, that no man in Canada was more desirous of a settlement of differences than you were, and in order to the attainment of it, you were desirous that all the past should be forgotten, and that henceforth in these matters all should become new. I assured Dr. Alder that no man in Canada would receive him more cordially than you would. This assurance seemed to be very gratifying to him and all the other ministers present.
On the 24th November, 1846, after the return of the Conference delegation from England, Dr. Ryerson addressed the following letter to Drs. Bunting and Alder:--At the suggestion of my brother, Rev. John Ryerson, and in accordance with my own feelings, I take the liberty of addressing you a few lines on adjustment of differences between the English and Canadian Conferences, and the concentration of the work of Methodism in Upper Canada. In the arrangement which has been mutually agreed upon between your Committees and the Canadian Representatives, I entirely concur. Into the consideration of a measure so purely Christian and Wesleyan, I have never allowed, and could not for a moment allow, any sense of personal injury to enter. I have had the pleasure of expressing to the Conferential Committee of the Canadian Connexion my appreciation of the honourable and generous arrangement to which you have agreed, and to propose a resolution expressive of the concurrence of that Committee in that arrangement, to which it assented cordially and unanimously. I have also had the pleasure of moving that Rev. M. Richey be invited to occupy the relation to Victoria College which I have for some years sustained, and to which the College Council has also unanimously agreed. Nor shall I hesitate to use every exertion in my power to complete and render beneficial an arrangement so honourable to the British Conference, and so eminently calculated to promote the best interests of Methodism in Western Canada.
Your treatment of my dear and most beloved brother, John, I regard and acknowledge as a favour done to myself. I did not do myself the honour of calling upon you personally when I was in England, nor should I feel myself at liberty to do so even now, were I again to visit London. It is not that you have objected to many things that I have said and done, and have expressed your objections in the strongest language. In this you have acted as I have done, and for which I ought not either to respect or love you the less. But, in your resolutions of April, 1840, you were pleased to charge me "with an utter want of integrity;" and in a subsequent series of resolutions, you were pleased to represent me as unworthy of the intercourse of private life. These two particulars of your proceedings attracted the painful notice of the late Sir Charles Bagot before I ever saw him, and, I have reason to believe, made no slight impression on the mind of his successor, the late venerated Lord Metcalfe; and they have sunk deeply into my own heart. But I have not so much as alluded to them in my official intercourse with my Canadian brethren, nor will I do so; and as a member of the Canadian Conference, I shall (if spared) receive and treat Dr. Alder with as much respect and cordiality as I ever did, and shall do my best to render his contemplated visit to Canada agreeable to himself, and successful in its objects. I have, more than once, through the press, disclaimed any imputation upon his integrity, motives, or character; but with his recorded declaration of my "utter want of integrity," and my unfitness for social intercourse in private life, I feel that my own conduct towards him should be confined to official acts and official occasions; in which I shall treat him with as much cordiality as I would any other member of the English Conference. Had it not been for the two particulars in your former proceedings to which I have referred, I should have as readily sought the opportunity of paying you my personal respects, during my recent visit to England, as I did in 1836.
I have thought this explanation, at the present moment, due both to you and to myself. I assure you at the same time of my personal regard, and of my desire and purpose to promote, in every possible way, the great objects which you have proposed, viz., the amicable reunion between the English and Canadian Connexions. [The amende was subsequently made.]
* * * * *
In order to place the English and Canadian reunion question fully and fairly before the English Wesleyan public, Dr. Ryerson was requested to prepare an article on the subject for the London Watchman. This he did. Rev. M. Richey writes from Montreal, on the 28th June, 1847, and thus acknowledges the service which Dr. Ryerson had rendered in this matter:--
Your promptitude in preparing an article for the Watchman, and the ability, as well as noble spirit of Wesleyan catholicity by which it is characterized, have afforded to Dr. Alder the highest satisfaction. The article perfectly corresponds to the ideal he had conceived of a production adapted to place the whole matter before the transatlantic public so as best to accomplish the important object. The article will doubtless appear in the earliest impression of the Watchman, to the joy of thousands of hearts. He has also to acknowledge the receipt of the address of the Canada to the British Conference. Permit me to assure you that Dr. Alder and myself most affectionately reciprocate your expressions of kindness and regard, and we have every confidence that no elements will be ever hereafter permitted to disturb either our ecclesiastical relations or our personal friendship.
On his return from Canada, Dr. Alder wrote to Dr. Ryerson, under date of the 17th September, expressing his grateful feelings at the result of his visit. He said:--
I assure you of the recollection which I cherish of the candid and manly part which you took, both in public and in private, in connexion with the various important matters of business which were brought before us during the sittings of the last Conference in Toronto, as well as previous to the meeting of that assembly. I have not failed in my communications since my return, to do you that justice to which you are so well entitled; and I trust, as I doubt not you do, that the good understanding which has thus been restored, will be as permanent as it is gratifying. Much will depend upon you, as well as upon myself, in securing the harmonious working of the union which has been accomplished; and I shall always be happy to receive from you free and full communications, which will be regarded by me as confidential.
Dr. Alder in a subsequent letter, to Dr. Ryerson, said:--
In the Watchman I have prefaced an account of our Missionary Anniversary by a few observations, in which I have taken occasion to bear testimony to the spirit and conduct of your brother William, as well as of your own, with a view, not merely to perform an act of justice to you, but to prepare the way for the appointment of one, or you both, coming, either now, or at some future period, in a representative character, to our Conference,--an arrangement which, I am persuaded, will be productive of much good in various ways.
In carrying out practically so great a measure as that of the union, difficulties of no ordinary kind will be felt. I have pressed upon, and fully explained our financial matter to, Earl Grey, who has, I believe, written to Lord Elgin on the subject. I think I have made Earl Grey understand the peculiarity of our case. You must press the matter on your side.
In the union matter you must have the greatest practical freedom of operation. I have explained my views to Dr. Dixon, your new President, who sailed last Saturday in the best of spirits.
In a fraternal letter, written in July, 1847, to the Rev. Dr. Olin, President of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., Dr. Ryerson gave some particulars as to the union with the British Conference. He said:--
You have, doubtless, ere this, heard that a complete adjustment of past differences between the Wesleyan Conferences in England and Canada, has been effected, and that provision has been made for a perfect oneness of their interests and labours in Upper Canada. This important object has been accomplished with a cordiality, and unanimity, and devotion, that I have never seen surpassed, and without the loss--so far as has yet been ascertained--of a single minister or member of either body, and to the universal satisfaction and even joy of both parties. We look upon it with gratitude and wonder, as the Lord's doing, and as marvellous beyond expression in our eyes.
In a reply to this letter written to Dr. Ryerson, in September, 1847, Dr. Olin discusses the question of the Union, and also the relations of the Church, North and South, on the Slavery question:--
I do most cordially rejoice at the happy termination of your negotiations with the Wesleyan body in England. I must confess, however, that I have been somewhat disappointed at the results of your attempts to get on as an independent Conference. In theorizing upon the subject, I have concluded that union would be far more likely to embarrass than to facilitate your movements. I have since learned that there were disturbing influences not discernible by observers at a distance, growing out of the occupancy of the field by conflicting agencies; the heterogenous character of your population and the power of home associations, etc. I rejoice that you have overcome these various obstacles, and are likely to have harmony for the future. All parties will probably be warned and instructed by the temporary interruption in your connexional relations. All must be now deeply impressed with the importance of forbearance and concessions after an experience so memorable of the necessity of union.
I deeply regret that you should have received anything but kindness from our side of the line. I think I can assure you that, as a Church, our sympathies are, and have been, strongly with you; but the natural and spontaneous feelings of the Body are not well expressed; and they are in imminent danger of being perverted on certain questions, which, unfortunately, become party questions amongst us. The Methodist Episcopal Church is passing through a crisis. It has fallen upon her to decide momentous questions under peculiar temptations to error. The ministers are pure and high, above all liability to be influenced by corrupt motives; but we are calamitously enough thrown into a position where we must judge between ourselves and our brethren, with powerful interests and more potent prejudices to mislead us. Beyond all reasonable doubt, we are coming to an issue for which, it is my opinion, the Church of Christ, the world and history, will not cease to reproach us. And yet we are coming to that issue with a good conscience, honestly, so far as party spirit and blind prejudice, and the most unfortunate leading, has left us the power of being honest. I wish my convictions of the right were not quite so unchangeably settled. It would afford me unspeakable relief to be able to suspect that the predestined course of the Church could be other than a flagrant violation of justice. I would gladly surrender my opinion, if I could avail myself of even the benefit of a doubt in favour of retraction. How we shall hereafter be looked upon by the world, is a consideration of less interest than another which perpetually thrusts itself upon my fears--what will God pronounce upon our policy? My only hope is in the indulgence wont to be extended to errors, and even to high offences which are the result of haste, excitement, or prejudice. All of these mitigations may be claimed in anticipation in behalf of the measures which will certainly prevail at our next General Conference. Of the vast majority, which will deny to the South what I esteem their unquestionable rights, I am sure I shall never suspect a man of doing an intentional wrong. I hope your public sentiment and your press will enable to temper their disapprobation with this needful infusion of charity.
After his return to England Rev. Dr. Dixon, in a letter to Dr. Ryerson, thus referred to the impression which his visit to Canada made upon him. He said:--
My impressions are strong respecting the importance of Methodism in Canada. It is at present a glorious religious element in the country, and will become much more powerful. The colony is destined to become, either in its present, or some new connection, a great empire. It is consequently of great importance to adapt your religious system to existing things, preserving points of doctrine.
I must say, that I never think of my intercourse with you; my journeys with your brother; my connection with the Conference; and the kindness of the brethren, but with feelings of intense interest. In imagination, I try to live everything over and over again. Many faces and persons are imprinted on my mind; and almost every scene through which I passed lives in vivid reality. I am often journeying down your glorious lakes and rivers, gazing on your woods and forests, and stretching myself in the expanse, as if there were room to live and breathe. Then, the affection and kindness of everybody! The people and the scenery agree. All is magnificent in America. I hope you may be able, by the divine blessing, to preserve the purity of religion amongst you. I have strong feelings on one point--viz.: the necessity of giving to all our movements an evangelic and aggressive character. We Methodists are so fond of organizations of every sort, and hence of legislating and placing everything under rule and order, that we leave no room for extension and for development. I am convinced that a religious system which does not act on the evangelic principle; and, moreover, have good people free to work and exercise the divine affection, must break down.
I consider myself much more in the character of an observer now, than an actor in anything. I have finished my mission, as regards public work. It ended in Canada; and the above are my last, and, I believe will remain, my unalterable convictions. Our danger is over-legislation; cramping the energies of living piety by decrees and rules; laying too much weight on the springs of individual movement; destroying the man in society, the committee, etc.
I am glad to hear that you preach constantly. This is all that I care about--to endeavour to do some little good in the way of saving souls. Noble work this! So let me intreat you never to let your other avocations interfere with this glorious calling. It is painful to see some men merge the ministerial character in some pitiful clerkship--some book-keeping affair. And worst of all, these parties take it into their head, generally amongst us, to consider themselves and their office as much higher than that of the messengers of Christ!
* * * * *
Two deaths of notable representative men in Canadian Methodism occurred during 1846:--Rev. Thomas Whitehead and Rev. James Evans. Rev. Thomas Whitehead was the venerated representative of the early pioneers of Methodism in Upper Canada, and Rev. James Evans was a remarkable type of the self-sacrificing and devoted missionaries of that Church in the great North-west. A brief sketch of each of these ministers will illustrate points in the history of Methodism in Upper Canada, without which the account of Dr. Ryerson's career and labours would be incomplete,--especially as he had to do with both of these ministers during his lifetime. Rev. Mr. Whitehead was one of these so-called "Yankee Methodists," whom Dr. Ryerson so often and so strenuously defended against the charge of disloyalty; and Rev. James Evans was one of the five brethren with whom he remonstrated so earnestly and yet so kindly in 1833. (See page 131.)
Rev. Thomas Whitehead was in many respects a strongly-marked representative man. He was elected President at the memorable Special Conference held, in the dark days of the Church, in 1840. (Page 274.) A characteristic letter from him to Dr. Ryerson will be found on page 276. Mr. Whitehead was born in Duchess County, New York, in December 1762, when it was still a British Province. He was, therefore, not a "Yankee Methodist," but a United Empire Loyalist. He commenced his ministry in 1783, and went on a mission to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where he remained from 1786 until 1804. In September, 1806, he was sent by Bishop Asbury to Upper Canada, where he resided for forty years. He preached his last sermon on Christmas Day, 1845. He was in the ministry 62 years, and died at Burford in January, 1846, aged 83 years.
Rev. James Evans was one of the most noted missionaries of the North-west; and was specially so from the fact that, by his wonderful inventions of the syllabic character in the Cree language, he has conferred untold blessings upon the Indian tribes and missions of all the Churches in that vast North-West territory, in which he only was permitted to labour for six years.
Mr. Evans was born in England in 1800. He was converted in Upper Canada, and in 1830 entered the Christian ministry, and was a member of the Canada Conference from that year. In 1840 he volunteered his services as a missionary to the North-west. At his station of Norway House, he devoted himself to his great work. Rev. E. R. Young, in the Canadian Methodist Magazine for November, 1882, thus speaks of Mr. Evans' eminent service to the mission cause by his famous invention. He says:--
The invention of what are known as the syllabic characters was undoubtedly Mr. Evans' greatest work, and to his unaided genius belongs the honour of devising and then perfecting this alphabet which has been such a blessing to thousands of Cree Indians. The principle on which the characters are formed is the phonetic. There are no silent letters. Each character represents a syllable, hence no spelling is required. As soon as the alphabet is mastered, the student can commence at the first chapter in Genesis and read on, slowly of course, at first, but in a few days with surprising facility.
When the invention became more extensively known, and other Churches desired to avail themselves of its benefits, the British and Foreign Bible Society nobly came to the help of our own, and the kindred Churches having missions in the North West, and with their usual princely style of doing things, for years have been printing, and gratuitously furnishing to the different Cree Indian missions, all the copies of the Sacred Word they require.
Rev. Mr. Young relates an interesting anecdote connected with this alphabet, which occurred when he was a missionary in the North-West. During Lord Dufferin's visit there he conversed with Mr. Young in regard to the Indians in these distant regions, and expressed his solicitude for the welfare and happiness of these wandering races, and made general enquires in reference to missionary work among them. Mr. Young adds:--
In mentioning the helps I had in my work, I showed him my Cree Indian Testament, in Evans' Syllabic Characters, and explained the invention to him. At once his curiosity was excited, and jumping up he hurried off for pen and paper, and had me write out the whole alphabet for him, and then with that glee and vivacity for which His Lordship was so noted, he constituted me his teacher, and commenced at once to master them. Their simplicity, and yet wonderful adaptation for their designed work became clearly recognized by him, for in a short time he read a portion of the Lord's Prayer. Lord Dufferin became quite excited, and, getting up from his chair, and holding the Testament in his hand, exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Young, what a blessing to humanity the man was who invented that alphabet!" Then continuing, he added, "I profess to be a kind of literary man myself, and try to keep up my reading of what is going on, but I never heard of this before. The fact is," he added, "the nation has given many a man a title, and a pension, and then a resting-place, and a monument in Westminster Abbey, who never did half so much for their fellow-creatures." Then turning to me again, he asked, "Who did you say was the author, or inventor of the characters?" "The Rev. James Evans," I replied. "Well, why is it, I never heard of him before, I wonder?" he answered. My reply was, "Well, my lord, perhaps the reason why you never heard before of him was, because he was a humble, modest Methodist preacher." With a laugh he replied, "That may have been it," and then the conversation changed. (Pages 437, 438.)
The following are examples of the
CREE SYLLABIC CHARACTERS.
[Cree characters] a, e, oo, ah. [Cree characters] pa, pe, poo, pah. [Cree characters] ta, te, tooh, tah. [Cree characters] cha, che, choo, chah. [Cree characters] na, ne, noo, nah. [Cree characters] ka, ke, koo, kah. [Cree characters] ma, mee, moo, mah. [Cree characters] sa, see, soo, sah. [Cree characters] ya, yee, yoo, yah.
The following is the mode of forming words:--
[Cree characters] Mah-ne-tooh--Great Spirit. [Cree characters] Oo-mee-mee--Dove. [Cree characters] Nah-pah-ne--Flour-making.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] In a letter to him from the Rev. A. Green, dated November, 1842, the desirability of a union with the Episcopal Methodists was pressed upon his attention. Mr. Green said:--The Episcopal Methodists are gaining ground in many circuits. It would be of much service to us, could we take them on board the old ship again. I learn from Brother Richardson that they are anxious for this, and that Mr. Reynolds would give up his claims, and many of their preachers would retire, could they effect it. But in some parts of the Province the re-union would be opposed; and some members have said, that they would even join the English missionaries if we were to be united with them (the Episcopals). You are a wise man, tell us what we should do. If we do not take steps soon, it will be entirely too late. I understand that they talk of having a Bishop elected soon,--and should Mr. Richardson or Mr. Smith be appointed, it would add greatly to the influence of the party; and yet I cannot now see what steps we could safely take, until we settle the English Union question, for they would take advantage, I fear, of such a reconciliation, to prejudice the old country members against us.Return to passage
I wish also to obtain your views upon the propriety of petitioning the Governor-General, at once, for a share of the public money granted for the purchase of Sabbath-school books. The sum of L150 goes into the hands of Dr. Strachan annually, for that purpose; and where is it? We are never benefited a farthing by it! Could we obtain one-half, or even one-third of the sum for our schools, it would be of great service to them.[b]
[b] I have no copy of the reply sent to this letter. The letter itself, however, shows what subjects were being discussed in Methodist circles in 1842.
[131] Epochs of Canadian Methodism, pages 292-294.Return to passage
[132] Dr. Thomas Bond, Editor of the New York Christian Advocate, having suggested in December, 1842, the basis of settlement of the differences between the English and Canadian Conferences, Rev. W. M. Harvard wrote from Quebec to Dr. Bond, dissenting from his proposition. Dr. Bond, in a letter to Dr. Ryerson, commenting on Mr. Harvard's objections, thus refers to the Canadian Connexion:Return to passage
The Canada Conference was sound in the faith, and well affected to primitive Wesleyan discipline, and when it came of age, the Methodist Episcopal Connexion allowed them, and aided them, to go to housekeeping by themselves. We knew of no objection on either subject, when we, with the kindest of feelings, have now hinted at the possibility of an amicable arrangement between our British and Canadian brethren.
Chapter L
1846-1854.
Miscellaneous Events and Incidents of 1846-1854.
After his return from England, Dr. Ryerson was engaged in the preparation of his Report on a "System of Public Instruction for Upper Canada," from which I have given extracts on page 368. In that report he gave the broad outlines of his proposed scheme of education, and fully explained the principles of the system which he proposed to found. He also prepared a draft of a Bill designed to give effect to some of the most pressing of his recommendations.
In a letter to a friend, dated 18th April, 1846, he said:--My report on a system of public elementary instruction occupies nearly 400 pages of foolscap. It will explain to all parties what I think, desire, and intend. But I would not hesitate to resign my situation to-morrow, and take my place and portion as a Methodist preacher, if I thought I could be as useful in that position to the country at large. My travels have added to my limited stock of knowledge, but they have not altered my principles, or changed my feelings.
To another friend he wrote about the same time:--As the science of civil government is the most uncertain of the uncertain sciences, if I should fail in my exertions--if counteracting influences should intervene which I cannot now foresee, and give success to the opposition against me, or paralyze my influence--I would not remain in office a day, or would I retain it any longer than I could render it a means of strength to our system of government as well as of good to the country. I would rather break stones on the street than be a dead weight to any government, or in any community.
* * * * *
It may be of interest at the present time to learn what was Dr. Ryerson's opinion of Mr. Gladstone in 1845. Writing in the Guardian of March 18th, 1846, in reply to strictures on that statesman, Dr. Ryerson said:--During my late tour in Europe, I was one evening present at the proceedings of the British House of Commons, and heard Mr. Gladstone, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, avow a change in his opinions in regard to ecclesiastical and educational matters. Sir Robert Peel's Government had determined to establish several colleges in Ireland, not connected with the Established Church. Mr Gladstone, in his book on "Church and State," had maintained that the National Church was the only medium through which the Legislature ought to instruct the nation in every department of knowledge.... There was, therefore, a complete antagonism between Sir Robert Peel's policy and Mr. Gladstone's book. On the night I was present, Mr. Gladstone ... frankly stated that he had written a book advocating an opposite policy to that which Her Majesty's Government had deemed it their duty to pursue, in establishing secondary colleges in Ireland; that further reflection and experience had convinced him that his views were not correct; that he fully concurred in the policy of the Government in respect to those colleges, and should, as an individual member of Parliament, give it his support; but that should he do so as a Minister of the Crown, after having publicly avowed very different sentiments, he would not be in a position to place his motives of action above suspicion. To exonerate himself, therefore, from the imputation, or suspicion, of being actuated by a love of office or power, to support, as a Minister of State, what he condemned as an author, he resigned his office; and to do justice to his present convictions of what he conceived the interests of Ireland demanded, he avowed his change of opinion, and his determination to support the Irish policy of Sir Robert Peel, with whom he declared he cordially concurred in every measure which had been discussed in the Cabinet.
Sir Robert Peel followed in a beautiful and touching speech--appealing to the sacrifice which the Cabinet had made in the loss of so able a member as Mr. Gladstone, as a proof of the sincerity of the Government, and the strength of its convictions in its Irish educational policy.
The conduct of those two distinguished statesmen (Dr. Ryerson adds) towards each other on that occasion, presented one of the finest examples of strong personal friendship between two public men that I ever witnessed.
* * * * *
No man excelled Dr. Ryerson in his respect and love for his parents. This was apparent from many incidents, and from the tone of his mother's and father's letters to him, as given in this volume. He generally wrote to them at the beginning of each year. His letter dated Toronto, 1st January, 1847, is, however, the only one which I have. It is as follows:--
My Dear and Most Venerated Parents,--
As heretofore, the first work of my pen is employed in presenting to you my filial respects, and offering you my dutiful and affectionate congratulations at the commencement of another year,--lifting up, as I most earnestly do, my heart to Almighty God, that, having brought you at so advanced an age to the beginning of this year. He will make it the happiest, as well as the holiest of your lives! I cannot but regard the lengthening out of your earthly pilgrimage so much beyond the ordinary period of human life--so much beyond what I expect to reach--as a special means and call of God to become fully ripe for heaven. You stand a long time on the margin of eternity--may that margin prove the verge of eternal glory! As the body grows feeble, may the soul grow strong! As the bodily sight becomes dim, may the heavenly vision become brighter, and the heavenly aspirations and assurances stronger! How great the privilege, and how soul-cheering the thought, especially at the approach of death, to know that "your life is hid with Christ in God." It is in safe keeping, and the disclosure of it bye-and-bye will be glorious beyond conception; for "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, shall we then appear like Him in glory." The sufferings of the present life, however severe and protracted, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which that life shall reveal. O, my dear parents, may that glory be yours in all the fulness of its splendour, and in all the perfection of its beatitudes!
I thankfully acknowledge the receipt of the two pairs of socks--the last of the many like tokens of my Mother's affection, and the work of her own hands. I scarcely ever put them on without a gush of feeling which is not easily suppressed. They every day remind me of the hand which sustained my infancy and guided my childhood, and the heart which has crowned my life with its tenderest solicitudes, and most fervent and, I believe, effectual prayers. Praised be God above all earthly things, for such a Mother! May I not prove an unfaithful son!
We are all well. I was at brother George's to-day. I hope to see you in the course of the winter. Each of the family unite with me in expressions of dutiful respect and affection to you. Please remember me to all those who reside with you, and to all relatives, and old acquaintances and neighbours.
With daily prayers at the family altar for your health, comfort and happiness, and anxiously desirous of hearing from you, I am, my most honoured Parents, your affectionate son,
Toronto, 2nd January, 1847.
Egerton Ryerson.
Between Dr. Ryerson and Rev. Peter Jones a life-long friendship existed. In a note to Dr. Ryerson, dated Credit, Nov. 1st, 1847, Mr. Jones says: I had the pleasure of receiving a set of your School Reports, for which I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I trust I shall receive much valuable information which may prove beneficial in our Indian School schemes.[133] My brother, I thank you for all the kindness you have ever shown to me and my dear family, and I hope and pray that the friendship which was formed between us many years ago will last for ever. Pray for us. Rev. Peter Jones had been an inmate of Dr. Ryerson's house during his last illness in 1856. As the crisis approached he desired to return to his own home in Brantford. After he reached there, Ven. Archdeacon Nelles visited him, and in a note to Dr. Ryerson, dated 25th June, said:--Mr. Jones has been gradually sinking ever since his return from Toronto. He enjoys great peace of mind, and I believe truly trusts on that Saviour whom he has so often pointed out to others as the only refuge and hope of poor sinners. May my last end be like his.
* * * * *
After the change of administration, consequent on the result of the recent elections, it was confidently stated that Dr. Ryerson would be removed from office. Having written to his brother John on the subject, his brother replied, on the 9th of February, 1847, as follows: It is quite certain that combined and powerful efforts are being made against you by certain parties, no doubt with a determination to destroy you as a public man, if they can. The feeling of the "radical" party is most inveterate. They are determined, by hook or by crook, to turn you out of the office of Chief Superintendent of Education. All the stir among the District Councils, and about the school law, etc., are but the schemes and measures set on foot by the party in power for the purpose of compassing the great object in view of ousting the "Superintendent of Education."
* * * * *
In a letter which I received from Dr. Ryerson, while at the Belleville Conference, dated June 13th, 1848, he said:--Every distinction has been shown me in the appointments and arrangements of the Conference; and I believe the great body of the preachers will sustain me in all future contingencies.
The Conference thus far has been the most delightful I ever attended. I took the evening service of yesterday, and preached with considerable freedom to an immense congregation; text, John xvii. 17--first part of verse.
There has been an advancement in every department of the interests of our Church during the year. This is very encouraging, and a ground of special thankfulness.
Judge then of Dr. Ryerson's surprise and of mine on seeing the following paragraph in the Globe newspaper, about the same time:
It is said that Egerton Ryerson is trying to get the Methodist Conference to deprive him of his clerical standing, because of his holding a permanent Government situation.
In the course of his reply, Dr. Ryerson said:--When the situation in connection with elementary education was offered to me, in February, 1844, before replying to the offer, I laid the letter containing it before the large Executive Committee of the Wesleyan Conference, and was authorized by that disinterested body to accept of the appointment. When, in the latter part of the May following, I placed the appointment again at the disposal of the Government, as absolutely as if no offer had ever been made or accepted, and determined in June not to accept it under any circumstances, should the offer again be made, a written address was got up to me, numerously signed by the Wesleyan ministers of the Conference which assembled that month, requesting me not to refuse it, should the offer be again made; and it is to the influence of that judgment, in which I confided more than in my own feelings, that the Globe and some other papers are indebted for the opportunity and privilege of abusing me in my present position these last four years. Sir, the Wesleyan Conference is as incapable of entertaining such a proposition as you have attributed to me, as I am indisposed to make it; and, though I am not insensible to the honour and importance of my educational office, I hold it as in all respects consistent with my relations and obligations to the Church, through whose instrumentality I have received infinitely greater blessings than it is in the power of any civil government to bestow.
At the proper time I shall be prepared to show, that I was personally as disinterested (whether right or wrong) in what I wrote in 1844, as in what I wrote in 1838 and 1839 in connection with the names of Marshall S. Bidwell and J. S. Howard, Esquires. I have ever maintained since 1827 what appeared to me right and important principles, regardless of man in high or low places, and favour or oppose what party it might. I have never borrowed my doctrines from the conclaves or councils of party, nor bowed my neck to its yoke; nor have I made my office subservient to its interests in any shape or form, but to the interest of the country at large, so far as in my power, irrespective of sect or party. I should contemn myself if I could perform one act or say one word to court party favour, or avert party vengeance, if such exists. I shall do as I have done, endeavour faithfully to perform the duties and fulfil the trusts imposed upon me, and leave the future, as well as the past, to the judgement of my native country, for the equal rights of all classes of whose inhabitants I contended in "perilous times," and for years before the political existence of the chief public men of any party in Canada, with the exception of the Hon. William Morris.
The question, incidentally raised by the Globe newspaper, after the Conference of 1848, as to Dr. Ryerson's retaining a ministerial status, while holding and administering a civil office was brought up at the next Conference, held at Hamilton, in June, 1849. In a letter to me from the Conference, dated 11th of the month, he said:--I brought my position before the Conference in consequence of a remark from one of the preachers, saying, while Mr. Playter's case was under consideration, "that there was a general opposition among the members of the Conference, occupying the position that Mr. Playter did, or a civil situation." Several of the senior members of the Conference spoke in a very complimentary way respecting me; and a strong satisfaction was expressed from all parts of the Conference with my position--the manner in which I had filled it, and consulted the interests of the Church--expressing their earnest desire that I would continue in it.
In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from his brother, Rev. E. M. Ryerson, from Brantford, on July 2nd, 1848, it would appear, from the foregoing, that some hostile movement was being generally formed against him. His brother said:--I found upon my return from Conference to Brantford that the general topic of conversation was your dismissal from your present office. When I told them it was not the case, some rejoiced, while silent grief and disappointment were visible on the countenances of others.
* * * * *
Dr. Ryerson having been called to Montreal on educational matters, in April, 1849, wrote a letter to me from that city, dated 27th of the month, in which he gave a graphic account of the state of the city during the crisis at that time:--You may well imagine my surprise and regret, on reaching Lachine yesterday, to learn that the Parliament House had been burnt, together with a noble library of 25,000 volumes, containing records of valuable books which can never be replaced. On arriving in Montreal, I found nothing but confusion and excitement, which, instead of subsiding, are increasing, and it is apprehended that to-morrow will be a more serious day than any that has preceded it. Yesterday, the court of the Government House was filled with soldiers, while the street in front of it was crowded with a multitude, who saluted every appearance of any members of the Executive Council, or any of their Parliamentary supporters with hisses and groans. This continued from one o'clock until eight or nine o'clock in the evening. Mr. Lafontaine came out in care of Colonel Antrobus and soldiers, to get into a cab, and he was pelted with eggs and stones. Not one of the Ministers can walk the streets. Last night Mr. Lafontaine's house was sacked, and his library destroyed; and Mr. Hincks' house was also sacked, but he had removed nearly all of his furniture, as well as his family. The scene of to-day was similar to that of yesterday. This afternoon a meeting of several thousands of persons was held in the Champs de Mars. I heard some of the speeches. They were moderate in tone, but the feelings of disgust and contempt for Lord Elgin exceed all conception. There have been two vast assemblages this evening--the one French, the other British--in different parts of the city. Companies of soldiers have been stationed in the streets between them, preventing persons going from one party to the other. I have heard their shoutings since I commenced this letter.
The next day Dr. Ryerson wrote to me again to say:--Nothing has occurred in the city since last night, worth noticing. Soldiers meet you at every turn almost. Two companies of soldiers were stationed to-day in the building in which the Legislative Assembly met. There was a long debate on the causes of the recent disturbances, and strong protestations from all sides of the House against "annexation."
* * * * *
An opportunity to appoint Hon. M. S. Bidwell to the Bench in Upper Canada having occurred, Dr. Ryerson, on the 3rd September, 1849, addressed the following letter to Hon. Robert Baldwin, urging the appointment:--There is one subject I take the liberty of mentioning, although it is contrary to my practice to interfere in any matter of the kind; but the peculiarity of it may excuse me on the present occasion. I allude to the appointment of Mr. Bidwell as one of the new judges in Upper Canada. The recent history of Europe affords many illustrations of circumstances being seized upon by despots to compel the departure of valuable and dreaded men from their own country. You know that it was under such circumstances that Mr. Bidwell was compelled to leave Canada. You know that it was the order of the Imperial Government to elevate Mr. Bidwell to the Bench, that prompted Sir Francis Head to adopt the course towards him that he did. You know, likewise, how long, and faithfully, and ably, Mr. Bidwell laboured to promote the principles of civil and religious liberty which are now established in Upper Canada; and that at a time when great responsibility and obloquy attached to such advocacy. Mr. Bidwell was the author, as well as the able advocate of the laws by which the religious denominations in Upper Canada hold Church property, and by which their ministers solemnize matrimony. I believe he has never altogether abandoned the hope of returning to Canada; but I believe he has felt that he was entitled to the offer of that position, which the Home Government contemplated conferring upon him in 1837. I felt it too delicate a question to propose to Mr. Bidwell when I saw him the other day; but my friend Mr. Francis Hall, of the New York Commercial Advertiser (who sees and converses with him every week), expressed his full conviction that Mr. Bidwell would accept a Judgeship in Upper Canada--that Mr. Bidwell had constantly taken the Canadian Law Reports, and procured the Canadian and English Statutes, and kept up his reading of them as carefully as if he had lived in Canada. I believe the appointment of Mr. Bidwell would be an honour to the Canadian Bench, and an act of moral and political gratitude most honourable to any party, and of great value to Upper Canada. You are aware of the reasons for which I feel a deep interest in this subject, and which will, I trust, excuse in your mind the liberty I take--believing, as I do, that it will be as grateful to your feelings as it will be noble in your character, to remember a man to whom our common country is so much indebted.
To this letter Mr. Baldwin replied, on the 20th September
With respect to the principal object of your letter, you need not, I assure you, have made any excuse for introducing it, even independently of the part taken by you formerly with reference to the case of my friend Mr. Bidwell, and which alone would give you a just claim to address me. I can never feel any suggestion, no matter from what quarter, having his good for its object, to be an intrusion on me, and be assured that nothing could have afforded me greater pleasure than to have had it in my power to have advised his appointment to the Bench. Nor have I ever ceased to do all that I could with propriety to get him to put himself in the position which might lead to such a result. You are aware of the steps I took in 1843 to have his pledge to Sir Francis Head cancelled. I sent you, I think, the correspondence respecting it. (See page 308.) On that being done, I wrote him a letter of which I preserved a copy, from which I send you one. By this you will see how earnestly I pressed him to return then. Had he come in, as I suggested, it was my intention to have offered him the Crown business on whichever of the Circuits he might have chosen. I have subsequently, as often as I felt I dared to do so, urged his return. But it has been felt impossible, until he had placed himself in the position of a practitioner, as formerly, at our own, and not at a foreign, Bar, to advise his appointment to the Bench of the Province. For myself, although friendship might have led me to have overlooked, or overstepped, this difficulty, my judgment, when appealed to, forced me to admit, with my colleagues, that the objection was insuperable.
I am not acquainted with the income he realizes from his profession in New York, but I doubt not it is much beyond what could be obtained in Toronto. Still, if he really does wish to return to Canada, the time is most propitious as far as professional prospects are concerned. Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Blake, and Mr. Esten being taken from the Bar leaves a space to be filled that, I should say, offers the best possible opening.
Had Mr. Bidwell been in his proper professional position here when the Government was called upon to appoint to the places now filled, or on the eve of being filled, by those gentlemen, there is not one of those high judicial positions to which it would not have been at once a pride and a pleasure both to myself and my colleagues to have advised his appointment. Vice-Chancellor Jameson's health, too, will probably ere long lead to his retirement. When that time arrives, will our friend's continued absence be still a barrier to the gratification of our wishes?
If the affairs of the Province shall be then conducted by the same Councils as now sway them, I may say, with almost the same confidence of that future as I do of the past, that it will be the only obstacle to such gratification. I should add, too, that last winter one of my colleagues who, as well as myself, has always taken a particular interest in Mr. Bidwell's return to the Province, wrote to him, informing him of the Judiciary measures intended to be introduced by the Administration, and giving him to understand as distinctly as could properly be done, that, if he had returned to this country when those measures were to go into operation, it would afford us and our colleagues the greatest pleasure to have it in our power to advise his being placed in a situation alike agreeable to his tastes, deserving of his talents, and satisfactory to the public at large. And though, when he wrote first, he expressed some doubt of the Bills becoming law during the last session, yet shortly after, when it was felt expedient to carry them through, he again wrote to inform Mr. Bidwell that this would be done if the sanction of Parliament was obtained to the measures. Whether, in my letters to Mr. Bidwell, on the subject of his return, I have appeared to him not to speak with sufficient warmth, I know not. It has, at all events, not been from indifference to the object. I certainly have felt that, in the uncertainty that must for the future attach to political power, there was a great responsibility in urging one in good business elsewhere to leave that and throw his fortunes again in with us here. I am naturally cautious, and my caution may have led me to speak less warmly than I felt, particularly when I found my first appeals unsuccessful. But he ought, and I hope, does, appreciate my motives. It is true his ear may be poisoned by having had unjust suspicions poured into it. I know I have never afforded any just grounds for such suspicions, and I feel confident that his generous nature would have been far above conceiving any such, had they not been suggested by others. I am, however, perhaps doing wrong. It may be that none such have ever been thought of by anyone. I trust it is so. If otherwise, it is but just to myself to say that they are the foulest, basest and most malignant that mortal ever breathed.
Rev. Dr. Bangs attended the Conference at Brockville in 1850, as a delegate from the American General Conference. On his return to New York he wrote a letter to Dr. Ryerson on the 3rd July:--
I think my trip to Canada was one of the most pleasant tours I ever made, and shall reflect upon it with peculiar delight. I have commenced, as you will perceive by the Christian Advocate, to give the public an account of my visit to your Conference.
The pleasure we enjoyed in our visit to Canada, and especially your hospitality at Toronto, makes us feel truly thankful to God for such hallowed friendships, and reminds us more forcibly than ever of that eternal union which the spirits shall enjoy in a future world.
Dr. Ryerson made a second educational trip to Europe in October, 1850. Writing to me from London on the 8th November, he said:--The day before yesterday, I left Lord Elgin's note of introduction, with my card, at the Colonial Office; the same evening I received a note, appointing yesterday for an interview. Mr. (afterwards Sir B.) Hawes, the Under-Secretary was present. It was most agreeable and gratifying. Lord Grey seemed much delighted with what had been done, educationally, in Upper Canada; and of which he was until then, entirely ignorant. Mr. Hawes asked if I had published any report of my tour in Europe, or the results of it; and as I happened to have a copy of each of the documents I brought with me, I presented Lord Grey with copies of them. He seemed surprised that he had not seen them before, and said he must write to Lord Elgin to send him a copy of each of them for the office. The conversation extended to the United States--our system of Government as contrasted with theirs, etc. Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes appeared entertained and pleased. His Lordship offered to aid me in any way, in his power, that I might devise; and asked me to dine with him.
Last evening, I received from Lord Grey letters of introduction to the Marquis of Lansdowne (President of the Privy Council Committee of Education) to the Rt. Hon. T. B. Macaulay, and Mr. Lingard, successor of Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, and an unsealed letter of introduction from Mr. Hawes, to Sir Henry Ellis, Librarian of the British Museum, in which he said: This will be presented to you by Dr. Ryerson, of Canada, who has rendered great services to the cause of education, not only by his writings, but by his great exertions.
Both Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes seemed to know something about me; and the above copy of note shows the spirit in which they are desirous of aiding me. I shall now commence my work here in good earnest.
Lord Grey introduced the subject of the Toronto University, and of the Bishop of Toronto's Mission to this country, and when he found that I had a copy of the amended University Bill, and the proceedings of the Wesleyan Conference on the subject, he requested them for perusal. In my next interview with His Lordship I shall introduce the subject of the clergy reserves.
I have been very cordially received at the Wesleyan Mission House. I was affected to see Dr. Bunting's great bodily weakness, and surprised to see his intellect clear, quick, and powerful as ever. When he walks, he can only step about six inches at a time. I expect to hear him on Sunday morning, in the same Chapel (Spitalfields Chapel--a once French church, in which the eloquent Saurin has preached, and made a collection for the refugee Huguenots to the amount of L3,000) in which I preached last Sunday, and aided in administering the Lord's Supper.
On the 10th January, 1851, Dr. Ryerson addressed the following note to Sir Benjamin Hawes, from Paris: I saw Cardinal Wiseman on the strength of your kind note of introduction. He appeared to be pleased with the compliment which my call involved--invited me to hospitalities which I think it would not be prudent for me to accept, and promised to have a list of popular (but not denominational) reading books prepared, and the books selected for my inspection on my return to London.
I most fervently hope that you will be prepared to bring before Parliament, early in the approaching session, a Bill to settle the Canadian clergy reserve question--the only remaining obstacle to the social harmony of Canada, and to its affectionate and permanent union with the Mother Country.
* * * * *
In 1852, the new buildings of the Education Department and Normal School, as shown in the accompanying engravings were completed. For Dr. Ryerson's Office see page 422.
Being in England in 1853, Dr. Ryerson wrote to me there:--
I was glad to learn that Lord Elgin was to go in the same steamship with you from Boston. I have no doubt it will have proved interesting to him as well as to you, and perhaps useful to you. I miss you very much from the office, but I do not like to employ any more aid without sanction of the Government, though I could get no one to take your place. I would wish you to write me what Lord Elgin may have thought or said as to our doings and plans of proceeding. If the Library plan succeeds, it will achieve noble results.[134] I feel that our success and happiness in the Department are inseparably united.
In 1854 Dr. Ryerson was appointed a member of Commission to enquire into matters connected with King's College, Fredericton, N.B. His fellow-commissioners were Hon. J. H. Gray, Dr. Dawson, Hon. J. S. Saunders, and Hon. James Brown. Mr. Grey the Chairman, in transmitting the Report of the Commission to the Provincial Secretary of New Brunswick, said:--
I beg to express, with the full conscience of my fellow-commissioners, our acknowledgment of the very valuable assistance offered us by Dr. Ryerson. His great experience, and unquestioned proficiency in all subjects connected with Education, justly entitles his opinions to great weight.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] Being a member of the Conference Committee appointed to confer with the Government on the establishment of Manual Labour Schools for the Indians, Rev. Peter Jones, in writing to Dr. Ryerson from the Credit, on the subject, in September, 1844, said:--You will be glad to see that our Indian brethren have subscribed liberally, which shews their ardent desire to have Manual Labour Schools established amongst them. We forwarded a copy to the Governor-General, and His Excellency was pleased to approve of the liberality of the Indian tribes. From the manner in which His Excellency has always spoken of Indian Manual Labour Schools, I am sure that he will take great pleasure in aiding their establishment. As you have access to the ears of our Great Father at Montreal, may I beg the favour of your explaining to him the object of my visit to England, and the necessity of His Excellency's sanctioning the payment of my expenses. As I intend to visit England for the purpose of augmenting the funds of the Manual Labour Schools, I think at least my expenses should be paid out of the Indian subscriptions of $400.Return to passage
[134] Lord Elgin always referred to Dr. Ryerson's library scheme in his educational addresses, as the "Crown and Glory of the Institutions of the Province."Return to passage