Chapter LXIV

1875-1876.

Correspondence with Rev. J. Ryerson, Dr. Punshon, etc.

Dr. Ryerson went up to Simcoe to preach the anniversary sermons there, in December, 1874, and hoped to have gone to Brantford to see his brother John, but was prevented. He therefore wrote to him a New Year's letter, on the 3rd January, 1875: I have often prayed for you, thinking sometimes that I was even praying with you. We have spoken of you more than once during the recent holiday salutations and good wishes, and have wished you happy returns of this season of kindly greetings and renewed friendships.

I feel to bless God that during the last several weeks I have experienced, in a deeper and brighter degree than I ever experienced before, "the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge." The pages of God's book seem to shine with a brighter lustre and a more luminous, comprehensive and penetrating power than I ever beheld in them. Without care, without fear, without a shadow of doubt, I can now, through God's wonderful grace, and by His Holy Spirit, rest my all upon Christ--lay my all upon His altar, and say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

On Sunday afternoon we had the renewal of the Covenant Service, in the Metropolitan, and the Communion. It was a good time. I think there were more than five hundred at the Communion--the largest number I ever witnessed in America, even at a camp-meeting. It took Rev. Dr. Potts and I more than an hour to distribute the elements.

I am anxious to go up to my cottage for change and retirement, so as to be quite alone for a few weeks with my books and papers.

I am at work, as hard as I can, upon my history. On New Year's Day I worked at it for fifteen hours--writing upwards of twenty pages of foolscap, besides researches, comparing authorities, etc. I am anxious to complete the two volumes of the New England Loyalists, before I go to England in May.

In reply to Dr. Ryerson's letter of 3rd January, his brother John wrote:--

My health is still precarious.... My attention to religious duties
(reading the Scriptures, private and meditative self-examination,
etc.,) I unremittingly persevere in, but my religious enjoyment is
low and my faith weak.... This winter I have read the Life of Dr.
Bradshaw, an eminent clergyman of the Church of England, some time
Rector of Colchester, then of Birmingham, and then of a Rectory in
the suburbs of London, where he died in 1865, at the age of
eighty-nine. His ministry extended over more than sixty years. He
was one of the most devoted, and singularly pious ministers whose
memoirs I ever read. O! into what dwarfishness the morality, and
the spiritual and elevated attainments of most Christians sink in
the presence of such men! Dr. Bradshaw's life was written by Miss
Marsh, the authoress of the Life of Captain Vicars, and other
excellent books. I have also read the Life of Miss M. Graham, a
most eminently pious and devoted lady, also a member of the Church
of England. She died at the early age of twenty-eight. Another
memoir--of Mrs. Winslow, from the reading of which I ought to have
derived much profit, one of the holiest women of whom I ever read,
was a devoted member of the English Church. She was the daughter of
a wealthy West India planter, and born in the West Indies. Her
father died when she was quite young. She was married to a Captain
in the British army, in one of the regiments stationed in the
Island of Jamaica, but singular to say, not long after her
marriage, was wonderfully converted, and towards the close of his
life, was the means of saving her affectionate and devoted husband,
who was a nephew of the once Governor of the Colony of
Massachusetts. He was very wealthy, besides his West India
estate--owning a large estate in England. The wonderful piety of
this devoted saint, during the long years of her widowhood, ought
to humble pigmy Christians, like me, in the dust. Oh, can I ever be
saved, if such men and women are only saved?

I am now reading the life and labours of Rev. Dr. Shrewsbury, a
Wesleyan missionary to the West Indies and South Africa--then late
in life back to England, where he died in 1866, aged seventy-three
years. He was a man of ability, much industry and zeal, and of more
than the medium piety of Methodist preachers generally.

In reply to this letter, Dr. Ryerson wrote to his brother on the 21st of February and said:--

You speak of the want of joy in your religious experience. I do not
pray for joy, I simply pray for the indwelling of Christ, for the
stamp of His image upon my soul, and for the harmony of every
desire, and thought, and feeling, with His holy will, and divine
glory; and there comes a "peace that passeth all understanding," a
rest of the soul from fear, and anxiety--a sinking into God,--and
now and then greater or less ecstacies of joy. I think we mistake
when we make what is usually termed joy, the end of prayer, or of
desire. I believe that even heaviness, and especially when
superinduced by bodily disease, is not only consistent with a high
state of grace, but even instrumental in its increase--especially
of faith; the faith which realizes things invisible, as visible,
and things to come, as things present.

I should like to read the biographies of which you speak,
especially that of Rev. Dr. Marsh, but my time is insufficient to
read what I have to read for my historical purposes. After all,
biographies are very much what the biographers choose to make of
their heroes. The writings of the Holy Apostles are the simple and
true standard of Christian experience, practice and privilege, and
help us also from sinking into despondency by the illustrations
they give of human imperfections and infirmities, and directing us
so plainly to the source of all strength and supply, as well as to
the "God of all consolation." We will talk more of these things
when I see you.

Rev. John Ryerson, in his letter of February 24th, said:--

I never pray for joy in religion; to pray or seek for such a thing
would be to begin at the wrong end; but truly pious persons might
have joy as the fruit of a real experience, as growing out of a
life "hid with Christ in God," joy in believing, joy in the Holy
Ghost--but what I do offer my poor prayers for, is to know my sins
forgiven, my acceptance with God; that I have a lot among the
sanctified, that I have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus
Christ. If I had an abiding evidence of such an experience, it
would produce more or less joy. Surely the Bible is the best book;
it is "The Book;" but still he may find many blessed illustrations
of its truths, of its morality, its spirituality, in the experience
and lives, not only of saints of ancient days, but many of modern
times. Rev. Dr. Marsh was one of these. He was a man of great
learning, and extensive reading, but he loved the Bible infinitely,
and above all books, read it (I was going to say) almost
continually, and died with the New Testament in his hand. I try to
read God's blessed Word. I am reading the Bible through by
course--five or ten chapters every day in the Old Testament, and
two or so in the New, besides on my knees, I read all the Psalms
through every month. But what does this amount to? Nothing, so long
as I am not saved from pride, irritability, selfishness, etc.,
within; the workings of which, more or less, I daily feel. This
greatly troubles and distresses me; besides the remembrance of my
sins of unfaithfulness, wanderings, backslidings, is grievous to
me, and sometimes a burthen too heavy to be borne. The temptations,
trials, sorrows, of true saints sometimes shed a little light upon
my dulness, and give some strength to my weak and wavering faith.

On the 28th of February, Dr. Ryerson replied:--

I thank you for your kind and interesting letter. I did not suppose
you had made joy an object or subject of prayer; but from the tone
of your letter, it appeared to me that the absence of joy, or
"heaviness of spirit," had led you to judge of your state too
unfavourably. I quite agree with the views you express on the
subject. I have not seen Rev. Dr. Marsh's life: but I can conceive
him quite worthy of what is written, and of the opinion you express
respecting him. During my attendance at the Wesleyan Conference in
Birmingham, in 1836, my host invited Rev. Dr. (then Mr.) Marsh,
Rev. John Angell James, and several other clergymen and persons of
note, to meet me. I was very much struck with Mr. Marsh's
appearance, and the more so from a circumstance mentioned to me by
the hostess. A short time before that, a publisher there wished to
get a portrait of the Apostle St. John, to have it engraved as an
illustration in some book or publication he was issuing; and Mr.
Marsh was solicited to sit for the artist, as his countenance was
supposed to reflect more strongly the purity and loveliness of the
Apostle than any ideal that could be found. In consequence of this
circumstance, I was told that Mr. Marsh was often called St. John
the Apostle, from his Apostolic character and truly lovely manner
and countenance. His praise was then in every mouth, as I was told,
among the Dissenters as well as members of the Church of England.
(See page 163.)

After Dr. Ryerson became President of the General Conference in 1874, he was gratified at the many kind things said to him by his brethren and other friends. None were more kind and loving than those contained in a letter from his friend, Rev. Dr. Punshon, who speaks of his own elevation to the Presidency of the British Conference. Dr. Punshon, in his letter to Dr. Ryerson of the 19th of February, said:--

First of all, let me congratulate you most heartily upon your
well-merited elevation to the Presidency of the General Conference.
They did themselves honour, and you will do them honour in their
choice. My elevation here was unexpected, but very grateful,
although the responsibility and work which it entails make me long
for July, when, if God wills, I shall doff my regalia. I hope most
earnestly to have the pleasure of seeing the Canadian
representatives at the next Conference in Sheffield. I have already
spoken for a very sweet home for you. It will be a great
gratification to see you once again, and to enjoy sweet converse,
with you as of old. Mr. Gervase Smith and I are to be with
relatives just across the road. So please do not delay your coming
for another year, as no one knows to what place the Conference will
be carried. It seems almost improper to talk about it when we
remember the heavy loss into which, as into an inheritance, we have
all come by the death of dear Wiseman. You would, I am sure, be
very grieved to hear of it. It fell on all here like a
thunder-clap. But the Lord is good, and knows what is best for us
all. There is a sorrowfully-occasioned vacancy at the Mission
House, which the friends say I must fill, but I cannot tell how it
will go, and of course, all is premature as yet. The Lord will
direct us as He has always done.

By the way, I have been set seriously thinking by Mr. Wiseman's
removal, whether I had sufficiently secured, by the document I gave
to Rev. Dr. Rice, that the principal of the Testimonial Fund, given
to me on leaving Canada, should, at my death, pass to the Canadian
Conference for the benefit of the worn-out ministers and widows. I
found on enquiry that it was not so secured as to be beyond doubt.
I have been in consultation with my solicitor as to the best method
of effecting this. I have therefore given directions for a deed of
trust to be prepared, which will state that I hold this money in
trust for the "Superannuated Minister's Fund of the Methodist
Church of Canada." I advise you of this as the honoured President
of the General Conference. I was, on the whole, satisfied with the
proceedings of the General Conference. I felt a little pang at the
hasty change of name. It was inevitable to do it, at the same time,
but it showed rather a leaping desire of freedom, and a wish to get
as far as possible from the old mother at once, which might have,
perhaps, been spared. This was not, I dare say, present to all who
desired the change. I admit all the force of your able reasoning
for the present--but twenty years hence the General Conference will
meet as strangers, with no community of interest, and I dread the
result, without a visible bond of cohesion.

Writing to me from Port Rowan in September, 1875, Dr. Ryerson said:--My friends here think that I am stronger, walk better, and appear more active than when I was last in this village. This is a common remark to me, and for which I cannot feel sufficiently thankful to my Heavenly Father. He is my portion; my all is His; and I feel that He is all and in all to me--my joy as well as my strength.

Writing from his Long Point cottage to me on the 13th April, 1876, Dr. Ryerson said:--Next Sunday will be Easter Sunday--the 51st anniversary of my ministerial life, and what a life! Much to lament over; much to humble; with many exposures and hardships; full of various labours; abounding in heavenly blessings.

* * * * *

Dr. Ryerson was appointed as a representative of the Conferences of British America to the General Conference of the United States in 1876. Being unable to go, he addressed a letter to Bishop Simpson, from which I take these extracts:--

I regret that I have been unable to fulfil my last public mission in behalf of our Canadian Church to the Conference of British Methodism to go to Baltimore to look upon your General Conference, and bid a last earthly farewell to brethren whom I esteem and love so much--with whom I was first brought into church membership, by whose Bishop Hedding I was ordained both deacon and elder, and with whom I feel myself as much one this day as I did half a century ago.

My first representative mission was in 1828, to visit and urge upon the late Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk, of Wilbraham, Conn., the request of our Conference to become our first bishop; and had he consented, or Dr. Bangs afterwards, I believe it would have been a great blessing to Methodism in Canada; but an overruling Providence ordered it otherwise, and the extension of the work of God, through our ministry and Church, down to the present time, is one of the greatest marvels to ourselves and to others.

For thirty-one years and upwards, by the annual permission of my Conference, I have administered the governmental system of public instruction in this country; but the Government and Legislature have at length acceded to my request to retire, and have done so without reducing my official allowance; and now, in the seventy-fourth year of my age, and fifty-second of my ministry, I am enabled, in the enjoyment of good health, to go in and out, as aforetime, among my brethren, with a brightening hope and increasing desire of soon being permitted to "depart and be with Christ, which is far better," and where I feel sure of joyously meeting thousands of fellow-ministers and labourers whom I have known in the flesh on both sides of the Atlantic.

* * * * *

In May, 1876, Dr. Ryerson went to England to consult works on the history of America in the British Museum Library. Writing to me from near Leeds, just after his arrival, he says:--I was most cordially received by Rev. Gervase Smith, and Dr. Punshon. The latter insisted upon my being his guest first, as he had the strongest claim upon me. I was his guest for eight days--and they were very agreeable days to me. When I came here I was enthusiastically received by the Methodist New Connexion Conference--a most cultured, gentlemanly, and respectable body of men--their whole body being not numerous, but select.

I have thus far enjoyed my visit to this country most thoroughly--free from care, and surrounded by most kind friends and agreeable associations.

Writing to me from London, on the 17th July, he says:--I experienced a great pleasure in my visit to Ireland, in becoming personally acquainted with many of the Irish preachers, and in witnessing their conferential proceedings. They are a faithful, hard-working body of men; they have hard work to do, and their success the last year has been in advance of that of preceding years.

I have seen Mr. Longman in regard to publishing my history. He was very cordial and complimentary. I explained to him in brief the origin and scope of what I had written, and of what I intended to write, and gave him the table of contents of the first fifteen chapters--to the end of the reign of Elizabeth, and the 13th chapter on the "Protestantism of Queen Elizabeth," as published in the _Canadian Methodist Magazine_.

I was at the Houses of Lords and Commons a part of one afternoon and evening. Sir Stafford Northcote, hearing that I was there, came to me under the Speaker's gallery, and conversed with me nearly half an hour. Other members also spoke to me. Earl Grey recognized me in the street, and stopped and conversed with me.

I go to the Wesleyan Conference at Nottingham next Monday, and may probably remain there ten days. I attended four services yesterday--at 8 a.m. (communion), at the parish Church of St. James, near Piccadilly, where I was lodging; at the Temple at 11 a.m., a grand service, delightful music, and an excellent sermon from Rev. C. J. Vaughan, Master of the Temple; at 3 p.m. at Westminster Abbey--prayers read by the Dean of Lichfield, and sermon by the Dean of Richmond on the words, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,"--a plain, practical sermon, but the music, etc., inferior to that of the Temple. In the evening I went to one of the most fashionable and advanced Ritualistic Churches; poor singing, poorer preaching. Everything pretentious, and certainly not attractive to me. In all three churches, the hymns and tunes were old Methodist hymns and tunes, and well sung.

Dr. Ryerson did go to the British Conference as President and Representative of the General Conference of Canada. The London _Methodist Recorder_, speaking of his presence there, said:--Rev. Dr. Punshon, the President, gave a brief and discriminating introduction to Dr. Ryerson. The Doctor's personal appearance is very prepossessing; he is grey-haired; of a fine, healthy complexion; has a gentle eye; and a full, emotional voice. He dresses in the style of the "fine old English gentleman," with a refreshing display of "linen clean and white." One scarcely knows which most to admire--the simplicity of the man, his well-furnished intellect, or his practical good sense; which most to wonder at, the real progress which has been made in this one lifetime, or the boundless possibilities of the future to which that progress leads. It is something to have rocked the cradle of an empire-Church. The audience was several times deeply moved by the Doctor's allusions to the memories of the past, but most of all when, in the conclusion of his address, he said "farewell," with a tearful expression of his own rejoicing "in the hope of eternal life."

Rev. D. Savage, who was also Representative of the General Conference, in a private note, said:--It is a grand Conference, distinguished by remarkable manifestations of Divine power. The reports which will come to you through the press cannot do justice to the influence that is abroad. Dr. Ryerson's address was eloquent and impressive. The fact that Dr. Ryerson was representative to the British Conference in 1833, and that after the lapse of forty-three years, he has returned in the same capacity, is in itself a most extraordinary event. The words in which Dr. Punshon introduced Dr. Ryerson were eloquent and kindly.

The following letters were addressed to me by Dr. Ryerson while in London, at the dates mentioned:--

_September 19th._--My lodgings are just opposite the British Museum, the library of which I find of great use to me. I am absorbed in revising and completing my work. Whether it will be a success or not, is one of the uncertainties of the future.

I am glad to be here, instead of being in Toronto, during the ensuing session of our Legislature, as I do not wish to be where any party can call upon me, or use my name in respect to any measure that the Government may think proper to bring forward on the subject of education.

_November 14th._--The Earl of Dufferin enclosed flattering letters of introduction to the Earl of Carnarvon and the Dean of Westminster, both of whom have received me with great cordiality. The Earl of Carnarvon shook hands with me two or three times, and said how glad he was to see and shake hands with an old Canadian, whose services to his country were spoken of as Lord Dufferin has spoken of mine. His Lordship told me he would give instructions, whenever I desired, to have every possible facility and aid given me in the Record Office in referring to any documents or papers there, relating to the history or affairs of the British Colonies.

I submitted to the Dean of Westminster the last (14th), recapitulating summary chapter on the "Relations of Early English Puritanism to Protestant Unity and Religious Liberty," for his judgment. I last evening received a kind note from him (returning the manuscript), in which he says: "I have gone through the summary of the reign of Elizabeth, and find it full of just views, rendered the more attractive by the impartiality of judgment, and by the exact knowledge of the subject which pervades the chapter." The Dean kindly suggests the use of some neutral word, such as "Roman Catholics" for "Papists," and not to use the words "Ritualists," "Ritualism," as all these words are terms of reproach, and the use of them may lay me open to the charge of partizanship. I shall adopt his suggestions.

_December 7th._--With your letter I received day before yesterday a long letter from my brother John--a real news letter with some sparklings of wit. He mentions that during each of two preceding Sabbaths he had attended a quarterly meeting on neighbouring circuits, and on each day he had conducted a love-feast, preached at half-past ten in the morning, administered the Lord's Supper (one to-day to 150 alone) and preached again at half-past six in the evening, riding several miles in the afternoon between each appointment, which, I think, as he says, "is pretty well for an old man in his seventy-seventh year."

I am wonderfully well--having no pain of back, or limb, or head. I am careful of my living and exercise; but during the last three years I have worked fifteen hours each day. I have every possible facility of books, retirement, and an amanuensis; and am doing what I would have to do under less favourable circumstances on my return to Canada. It is singular that your History and other books are almost the only ones which have been furnished to the British Museum, and are found on its catalogue. I have read every word of your essay on a Central University and think it admirable, exhibiting much research, acute observation, and profound thought.

_December 14th._--My present purpose is to finish and publish my purely Canadian History of the United Empire Loyalists as soon as possible, and leave the other to my executors--yourself and others--to do as you please. I am assured that my two volumes on the Puritans in Old and New England will raise a storm on both sides of the Atlantic. I wish to have nothing more to do with controversy, and I do not wish to die in a storm. I am now popular with all parties. I am sure I am right and just on the character and relation of the Puritans and their opponents; but I am strongly inclined to believe what I have written in regard to them (for I am done with them) will perhaps take better if left as a legacy, than if now put forth by myself. My reputation, and the pleasure to my country, will chiefly depend upon my United Empire Canadian History, and to that my all of strength and time is now directed until I finish it.

_December 26th._--I heard Dean Stanley preach in Westminster Abbey, on Christmas Day. His sermon was able and eloquent, but disappointed me by the absence of all mention of the guilt and depravity of man, and the "good tidings," including an atonement for the pardon of guilt, and the power of the Holy Spirit to regenerate and sanctify. He is a very amiable man, and looks at the good side of everything. He enumerated ten blessings brought to man by the Incarnation of Christ, as distinguished from all the advantages of science and philosophy; but I felt, if I had not received through Christ the two blessings he omitted to mention, I should never have received the blessings, to which I owe my all, of renewal, pardon, strength and comfort and hope, in the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

* * * * *

The award to the Ontario Educational Collection at the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, was made during Dr. Ryerson's absence in England. Being a government exhibit, no medal could be awarded for it. A diploma was, however, granted by the Centennial Commission, which was declared to be--

For a quite complete and admirably arranged Exhibition,
illustrating the Ontario system of Education and its excellent
results; also for the efficiency of an administration which has
gained for the Ontario Department a most honourable distinction
among Government Educational agencies.

Such was the gratifying tribute which a number of eminent American educationists paid to the Ontario system of Education, and through it to its distinguished founder, in estimating the results of his labours as illustrated at the Centennial Exhibition.

Having communicated this to Dr. Ryerson, in England, he replied:--I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude with you to our Heavenly Father, for His abounding care and goodness in connection with the Education Department, in prospering us in our past work, and in sustaining us during all these years against attacks and adversaries on all sides. It is a singular and gratifying fact, that the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia should afford us, at this juncture (the year of my retiring from office), the best of all possible opportunities, to exhibit the fruits (at least in miniature) of our past policy and labours. To you, with myself, equally belongs the credit, as I am sure the pleasure and gratitude, of these signal displays of the Divine goodness to us.

During his stay in England Dr. Ryerson received a note from Rev. Dr. Jobson, dated January 25th, 1877, in which he said:--

It will afford me lasting pleasure to think that I have said or
done anything towards augmenting your enjoyment on what you have
been pleased to term your 'last visit to England.' I remember with
pleasure your former visits, and our associations together with
Princes in our Israel who have passed to "the better country--even
a heavenly." And, for more than a quarter of a century, I have
traced your course as an acknowledged leader and counsellor for
Methodism in Canada. The result of this has been to produce within
me deep reverential esteem and affection towards you, which have
been only slightly expressed by such attention and acts that you
are pleased to acknowledge. My best wishes will accompany you on
your return to Canada; and I am sure that I express the feeling of
all my ministerial friends when I say that your appearance among us
at our late Conference in Nottingham heightened its interests with
us and that your utterances in it render it joyously memorable to
us.