The Story of My Life; Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada Part 74

In the matter as relating to Sir George E. Cartier, I may remark, that the President of the Wesleyan Conference stated to me the week before its annual meeting, that a communication had been addressed by himself, and the Missionary Secretaries, to Sir George Cartier respecting our sending a Wesleyan Minister with the Red River expedition, to supply the spiritual wants of many members of our own congregations, and proposing to confer with him (Sir G. C.) as to the arrangement; that he regarded the treatment of their letter by Sir George as discourteous, and that he thought the Conference should be informed of it, and that it should take some action on the subject. The Rev. Dr. Wood, senior Missionary Secretary, read to the Conference the correspondence and the draft of four resolutions, on the subject of which he gave notice. I was not in the Conference when this took place. On reading Dr. Wood's resolutions, I suggested some modifications of them, and prepared resolutions which he preferred to his own, and which I proposed for adoption the day after giving notice of them.

As to Sir George's courtesy, I may observe that the letter addressed to him, proposed a conference with him on the subject: that his Deputy, in reply, by direction of Sir George Cartier, as he says, acknowledged the receipt of the letter addressed to him, but though that letter was dated at Toronto, and signed officially, the answer to it was addressed simply to the "Rev. Mr. Punshon, Montreal," and no further notice taken of it to this day. And it seems that Sir George did not think it worth his while even to mention, much less submit the letter, to you and your colleagues from Upper Canada.

In regard to the question of chaplain, our view is, and the proposal contemplated by our President and Missionary Secretaries was, that the Government should not pay any salary to the chaplain, but simply provide his rations and accommodations. It is our view that the Government should not pay or appoint any chaplain, but leave to each denomination the right of doing so, if it should think proper. Each chaplain thus nominated and paid, to be recognized by the military authorities, and be subject, of course, to the military regulations. In such circ.u.mstances, it is probable there would have been three Protestant chaplains--Church of England, Presbyterian, and Methodist. I infer or a.s.sume this on the ground of experience. In our Normal School of one hundred and fifty students, each is asked his religious persuasion, and the chief minister of that persuasion is furnished with a list of the names of students adhering to or professing his Church, and the day, and hour, and place where he can give them religious instruction. The result is, that by mutual consultation and agreement of ministers, all the Presbyterians, including even the Congregationalists and Baptists, meet in one cla.s.s, and receive religious instruction from one minister, the ministers agreeing to take the labour in successive sessions--one minister performing all the duty one session. The arrangement voluntarily exists among the different cla.s.ses of Methodists--though Wesleyan ministers do all the work. A Church of England minister attends to the instruction and religious oversight of the Church of England students, and the chief Roman Catholic priest does the same in regard to the Roman Catholic students. Nothing can be more fair, practical, and satisfactory than a similar arrangement in regard to the Red River expedition. What may be the peculiar views, habits, etc. of the Church of England chaplain appointed and salaried by the Government, I know not; but you know as well as I do that a man being a clergyman of the Church of England is no longer a guarantee that he does not entertain and teach views and practices more subversive of unsophisticated Protestant principles and feelings than could be as successfully done by a Roman Catholic priest.

Besides, as a general rule, men, especially young men, do not regard, and are not controlled, as to their own wors.h.i.+p and pastorate, except by the services and pastoral oversight to which they are accustomed and attached; and without such influence and aid to the preservation and strengthening of moral principles, habits, and feelings, more young men are liable to be demoralized and ruined in military expeditions, such as that of the Red River, than are likely to be killed in battle or die of disease.

This is the view for which the Methodist body will contend, whatever may be the result. The Secretaries of the Bible Society went among the volunteers, while at Toronto, and proffered a Bible to each one that would accept of it, and found on inquiry, that four-fifths of the volunteers, even from Lower Canada, were Protestants, and a much larger proportion of the volunteers of Upper Canada, and a large number of them not members of the Church of England but Methodists and Presbyterians.

Of course, it answers the Roman Catholic purpose, and will doubtless be acceptable to many members of the Church of England, for the Government to appoint and pay chaplains of those persuasions; but I am persuaded there will be little difference of a contrary opinion on the subject among the ministers and members of the excluded persuasions. I wish I could share with you in your expressed confidence in Sir George Cartier, but I have no such confidence in him, and especially in the ecclesiastical influence under the dictation of which he acts. Wherein I may have been misinformed, and may not have stated matters correctly, I shall be prepared to correct any such errors, when I come to reply to the various attacks which have been made upon me, in vindication of myself, and the Wesleyan Conference in regard to the complaint made, and the position a.s.sumed in respect to Sir George E. Cartier, and the Red River business.

On the 30th June, Mr. James Wallace, of Whitby, addressed Dr. Ryerson a letter on the subject, in which he said:--

A stranger to you personally, although not so to your many able, pungent, and truthful letters, connected with public matters, that have from time to time appeared in the public press: I trust you will excuse this liberty, and accept my congratulations on your last effort in that connection as published in the _Globe_.

I have some knowledge of the Red River matter, having been there during the first stages of the rebellion, and had, therefore, chances of becoming acquainted with its origin and progress that few men had; and when I see one in your position come forward so bravely and lay bare the origin of that infamous revolt, I must say that I feel proud of you as a Canadian, and not only of you, but of the body with which you are connected, who so n.o.bly sustained you.

On the 24th August, 1870, the corner stone of the Metropolitan Church, Toronto, was laid. Dr. Ryerson felt that it was a memorable day in the annals of Methodism in Toronto. I was honoured (he said) by being selected to lay the corner stone of the Metropolitan Church. Rev. Dr.

Punshon, President of the Conference was present, and delivered an admirable address. He also read one which I had prepared, but which I was unable to deliver myself. The auspicious event of the day amply repaid me for the anxiety which I had so long felt in regard to the success of the enterprise, and for the responsibility which, with other devoted brethren, I had personally a.s.sumed to secure the site, and carry to a successful issue the erection of a building which would be an honour to Methodism, and a credit to the cause in Toronto.

On the 17th March, 1871, Dr. Ryerson received a letter from the venerable Rev. Dr. James Dixon, dated Bradford, Eng., 2nd inst. In it he says:--In my eighty-third year, blind, deaf, and so paralyzed as to be unable to walk without a.s.sistance, I feel that the world is fast receding. Having sense and affection remaining, I feel desirous of holding a little fellows.h.i.+p once more with you, my dear old friend. The world to me looks like one of your forests with the trees cut down, except here and there one a little stronger than the rest. I look upon you as one of those, vigorous forest trees still remaining. And may you long remain, a blessing to your country and the Church! After referring to his own religious life and experiences, he concludes:--As long as I live my affection for you will never vary. I also remember other Canadian friends with great interest and affection. Farewell! my dear old friend. We shall meet again before long in a brighter world. If you can find time, I shall be most happy to receive a line from you.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Dr. Ryerson did find time to respond to the letter of his dear and valued friend Dr. Dixon. His venerable aspect was well remembered, when, as President of the Canada Conference in 1848, he did good and valued service for the Methodist Church in Canada.

On the 29th of June, 1871, Mr. John Macdonald and Rev. Dr. Evans having asked Dr. Ryerson to enclose to Rev. W. M. Punshon a letter urging him to continue his n.o.ble work in Canada, he did so most heartily, as the letter to be enclosed expressed the real sentiments not only of the ministers and members of the Church generally, but those of the country at large. Dr. Ryerson accompanied the letter with a note from himself, in which he said to Mr. Punshon:--To have the power, as G.o.d has given you, to mould, to a large extent, the energies and labours of six hundred ministers, and developments of the Canadian Church, and to control largely the public mind in religious and benevolent enterprises--looking at the future of our country--appears to me to present a field of usefulness that Mr. Wesley himself might have coveted in his day. All that G.o.d has enabled you to do already in this country is but the foundation and beginning of what there is the prospect of your doing hereafter by the Divine blessing. You know this is the old ground on which I first proposed to you to come to this country, and which I am sure you have no reason to regret. This is the only ground on which I ought to desire your continued connection with it.

A pleasing episode in the _Globe_ controversy respecting Dr. Ryerson's "First Lessons on Christian Morals," occurred in June, 1872. Bishop Bethune, in his address to the Synod of the Diocese of Toronto, spoke of the increasing spread of evil, and of the duty of the Church, under her Divine Master, to cope with it. He said:

Her work is, confessedly, to lead fallen man to the true source of pardon, and to teach him to aim at the recovery of the moral image in which he was at first created. If the pa.s.sions, and prejudices, and divisions of professing Christians themselves are a distressing hindrance to the attainment of this n.o.ble and dutiful aspiration, we have much in the condition of the world around us to warn and rouse us to a vigorous and united effort to arrest the increasing tide of sin and crime. The developments of a grossly evil spirit at the present day fill us with horror and alarm; the profligacy and wanton cruelty of which we hear so many instances, make us tremble for our social peace and safety.

It is but right to enquire to what all this enormity of wickedness is traceable, that we may come, if possible, to the remedy. That is largely to be ascribed, as all must be persuaded, to the neglect of religious instruction in early life; to the contentment of peoples and governments to afford a shallow secular education, without the learning of religious truth, or the moral obligations that it teaches. The child taught and trained for this world's vocations only, without a deep inculcation of the love and fear of G.o.d, and the penalty hereafter of an irreligious and wicked life, will have but one leading idea--self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence, and will be checked by no restraint of conscience in the way and means of securing them. Gigantic frauds will be perpetrated, if riches can thus be acquired; atrocious murders will be committed, if these will remove the barrier to unholy and polluting connections, or cast out of sight the objects of jealousy and hatred.

I have no disposition to reprobate this defect in the system of education, prevailing with the authority and support of Government among ourselves. I know the difficulty, the almost impossibility, of securing the temporal boon with the addition of the spiritual; how hard it must prove in a divided religious community to introduce among the secular lessons which are meant for usefulness and advancement in this world, that lofty and holy teaching which trains the soul for heaven. The irreverent and fierce a.s.saults recently made upon a praiseworthy effort of the Superintendent of Education in this Province to introduce a special work for moral and religious instruction amongst our common school pupils, testify too plainly the difficulty of supplying that want.

I have confidence in the good intentions and righteous efforts of that venerable gentleman to do what he can for the amelioration of the evils which the absence of systematic religious teaching of the young must induce; so that we may have a hope that, from his tried zeal and unquestionable ability, a way may be devised by which such essential instruction shall be imparted, and the terrible evils we deplore to some extent corrected.

In response to this portion of his address, Dr. Ryerson addressed the following note to the Bishop on the 1st of July.

I feel it my bounden, at the same time most pleasurable duty, to thank you with all my heart for your more than kind reference to myself in your official charge at the opening of the recent Synod of the Diocese of Toronto; and especially do I feel grateful and gratified for your formal and hearty recognition of the Christian character of our Public School System, and of the efforts which have been made to render that character a practical reality, and not a mere dead and heartless form.

It has also been peculiarly gratifying to me to learn that your Lords.h.i.+p's allusions to myself and the school system were very generally and cordially cheered by the members of the Synod.

My own humble efforts to invest our school system with a Christian character and spirit have been seconded from the beginning by the cordial and unanimous co-operation of the Council of Public Instruction; and without that co-operation my own individual efforts would have availed but little.

Since the settlement of the common relations.h.i.+p of all religious persuasions to the State, there is _a_ common patriotic ground for the exertions of all, without the slightest reasonable pretext for political jealousy or hostility on the part of any. On such ground of comprehensiveness, and of avowed Christian principles, I have endeavoured to construct our Public School System; such, and such only has been my aim in the teachings of my little book on Christian Morals; and such only was the aim and spirit of the Council of Public Instruction in the recommendation of it,--a recommendation to which the Council inflexibly adheres, and which it has cordially and decidedly vindicated.

The Bishop replied on the 3rd of July, thus:--I have to thank you for your letter of the 1st instant, received last evening, and to express my gratification that I had the opportunity to bear my humble testimony to your zealous and righteous efforts to promote the sound education of the youth of this Province.

I believe that in the endeavours to give this a moral and religious direction, you have done all that, in the circ.u.mstances of the country, it was in your power to accomplish. I was glad, too, to give utterance to my protest against the shameless endeavours to hold up to public scorn the valuable little work by which you desired to give a moral and religious tone to the instruction communicated in our Common Schools. If more can be done in this direction, I feel a.s.sured you would a.s.sume any allowable amount of responsibility in the endeavour to effect it.

Wis.h.i.+ng you many years of health and usefulness, I remain, dear Dr.

Ryerson, very faithfully yours,

A. N. Toronto.

This correspondence affords a striking instance of the fact that the very earnest discussions between the writers of these notes in past years, had not diminished in any way the personal respect and kindly feeling which happily existed between them. And it was so with the late venerable Bishop Strachan, with whom Dr. Ryerson more than once measured swords in days gone by. Among his very latest utterances on the Separate School Question in the Synod of 1856, he thus referred to the Head of the Education Department and his labours:--

One new feature, which I consider of great value, and for which I believe we are altogether indebted to the able Superintendent, deserves special notice: it is the introduction of daily prayers. We find that 454 schools open and close with prayer. This is an important step in the right direction, and only requires a reasonable extension to render the system in its interior, as it is already in its exterior, nearly complete. But till it receives this necessary extension, the whole system, in a religious and spiritual view, may be considered almost entirely dead.

I do not say that this is the opinion of Dr. Ryerson, who no doubt believes his system very nearly perfect; and so far as he is concerned, I am one of those who appreciate very highly his exertions, his unwearied a.s.siduity, and his administrative capacity. I am also most willing to admit that he has carried out the meagre provisions of the several enactments that have any leaning to religion, as far as seems consistent with a just interpretation of the law.--_Charge of 1856, pp.

15, 16._

In a note dated Toronto, 2nd October, 1872, Hon. W. B. Robinson sent to Dr. Ryerson an extract from the Barrie _Northern Advance_ containing an obituary notice of Dr. Ryerson. In enclosing it, Mr. Robinson said:--

I send you a Barrie paper that I think will amuse you. It is not often we are permitted to "see ourselves as others see us" when once we go "hence and are no more seen,"--but you are an exception, and I congratulate you on such being the fact; and hope the Editor will be satisfied that he is in "advance" of the times, and may have cause to give you credit for much more good work in the position you have so long held, with so much benefit to the country. I observed the death of your brother William in the papers a short time ago, which I suppose accounts for the mistake.

The extract from the Barrie paper is as follows:--

Most of our readers are aware of the fact that the great champion of education in Upper Canada has gone to his rest. Coming generations, so long as time lasts, will owe a debt of grat.i.tude to Dr. Ryerson, as the only real founder of a comprehensive school system in Ontario. Through evil report and through good report he has steadily worked on his way; neither daunted by the abuse he has received, nor unduly elated by the unmeasured tribute of praise paid to his efforts in the department to which his whole life was devoted. He kept the even tenor of his way, and we think most people, unblinded by partisan prejudice, will acknowledge that his life purpose has, more than that of most men, been accomplished. He leaves behind him a structure so nearly completed that men with a t.i.the of his enthusiasm, and infinitely less knowledge of the educational requirements of the Province, can lay the capstone, and declare the work complete.

Hon. Marshall S. Bidwell died in New York shortly after his visit to Canada in 1872. Hon. Judge Neilson, his friend, wrote to Dr. Ryerson for particulars of Mr. Bidwell's early life, with a view to publish it in a memorial volume. This information Dr. Ryerson obtained from Sir W. B.

Richards, Clarke Gamble, Esq., Q.C., and Rev. Dr. Givens, and, with his own, embodied it in a communication to Judge Neilson. In a letter to Dr.

Ryerson, dated 30th April, 1873, the late Rev. Dr. Saltern Givens said:--

A short time since, Hon. W. B. Robinson informed me that a letter of condolence was written by the late Mr. Bidwell to Lady Robinson and her family, on the death of Sir John, and that he thought it would answer your purpose.... I am sure that you will peruse it with as much pleasure as I have done.

It ought to be a matter of devout thankfulness and congratulation with us Canadians, that two of our most distinguished statesmen and jurists have left behind them such unequivocal and delightful testimonies of their faith in Christ, and of their experience of the power of His Gospel, in extracting the sting from death and in comforting the bereaved.

I am sure that Sir John's letters to Mr. Bidwell, under his similar trial, if you could obtain them, would be read with a thrill of delight and profit by their many friends throughout Canada.

When witnessing--as we have done, some forty years ago--those fierce political contests in which our departed friends were involved, how little did we think that in the evening of their days they would have been united in the bonds of Christian love and sympathy, as this interchange of friends.h.i.+p evinces.

The following is Mr. Bidwell's letter to Hon. W. B. Robinson, dated 24th February, 1863:--

I thank you for your kind and friendly letter, and for the particular account of the closing scenes of the life of your honoured and lamented brother. The wound inflicted by his death can never be altogether healed. The grief which it produces is natural and rational, and is not inconsistent with any of the precepts, or with the spirit of the Gospel. It is a duty, however, to keep it within bounds, and not to allow murmurs in our heart against Divine Providence. The language of our hearts should be that of the Patriarch, "The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Grat.i.tude for the gift should be mingled with our deep sorrow for the loss of it. In my own case, a consideration of the unspeakable goodness of G.o.d in having bestowed upon me such an inestimable blessing has been continually present to my mind, and trust such feelings will abound in the bosom of Lady Robinson, her family, and yourself. He, whose removal from earthly scenes your hearts deplore, was all that you could have desired, in his public and private character, and in the homage of universal veneration and esteem. Where will you find one like him? Was there not great and peculiar goodness in G.o.d's bestowing him upon you?

Was he not the joy and pride of your hearts continually? Did not his presence irradiate his home, and make it like an earthly Paradise? Every pang which you may suffer attests the value of the blessing which you have so long had. Your grat.i.tude to G.o.d, the author of every good and perfect gift, ought to be in proportion to your grief. It is to be remembered, also, that he was not cut down prematurely in the midst of his days, but had pa.s.sed the period which Moses, the man of G.o.d, in his sublime and pathetic prayer (Psalm xc.) considers as the ordinary boundary of human life, and retained all his powers and faculties to the last; and that during this long life he had not been absent from his family, at least not from Lady Robinson (if I am not mistaken) except during the transient separation when he was on the circuit. It is natural that your hearts should yearn for him, should long to see him again, and enjoy the pleasure of his company; yet death must sooner or later have separated you, and longer life might have been a scene of suffering. Would it not have been inexpressibly painful to you all to have seen his mental and bodily powers decay and fade away? Such a spectacle would have been distressing and mortifying. Now his memory is a.s.sociated with no humiliating recollections; but you remember him as one always admired, respected and loved. Death has set his seal upon him, and although he is removed from you to return no more to earthly scenes, you know that it is only a removal, and that he is now in a state of exalted and perfect, though ever progressive, felicity. I trust you have the most consolatory evidence that this is now his present and unalterable state, and that you constantly think as David thought and said, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." In the meantime you have the consolation of knowing that while you remember him with the tenderest affection and interest, he has not forgotten you, but has a more distinct and perfect recollection of you than you have of him. That this is literally true is the conviction of my understanding, founded not only upon reason and a.n.a.logy, but upon the irrefragable testimony of divine revelation. There surely is nothing in such a thought that is improbable. We have daily experience of the revival in our minds of past events long forgotten; they lived there, though dormant. Then how many well authenticated and well known instances, where persons recovered from drowning have stated that before they lost consciousness, all the scenes and incidents of their lives flashed instantaneously, as it were, upon their minds, and appeared to be present to their view. They had been treasured up there, though latent. Death does not extinguish the mental faculties, thought does not cease, but the conscious and thinking being pa.s.ses from scenes present to scenes eternal. "Mortality is swallowed up of life." There would be good ground for this conviction, if revelation gave us no higher proof; but it is explicit. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to G.o.d." This necessarily implies a perfect recollection of our lives. We are to answer for all the deeds done in the body; for every idle word, for every secret and sinful thought and feeling.

This requires a perfect recollection of every event, sentiment, and emotion of our lives. The soul, therefore, must carry into the unseen world a perfect recollection of its a.s.sociates and friends; and as there will be no decay then of mental powers, this will be an abiding, ever-present recollection. Every holy feeling will also continue after death--conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal affections are holy; they are expressly enjoined upon us by divine authority. Love, indeed, pure, fervent affection, is the characteristic element of Heaven. It is impossible, therefore, that the holy affections should cease at death. I have, therefore, a conviction that our departed friends, whose death we mourn, remember us distinctly and with tender affection. I have dwelt upon this subject because it has afforded me in my great affliction much consolation, and if I had time, I might expatiate more fully upon it, and adduce further evidence in support of its truth.

Yes! it is a truth, and therefore it is full of consolation. While we are thinking of our departed friends with grief, they, too, are thinking of us, with at least equal affection, and this they will continue to do until we meet. In the meantime we may comfort ourselves with the thought that, to use the language of a sober and judicious commentator on the sacred Scriptures, "The separation will be short, the re-union rapturous, and the subsequent felicity uninterrupted, unalloyed, and eternal."