The Story of My Life Part 44

Rev. Messrs. William Case, Ephraim Evans, Benjamin Slight, James Norris, Thomas Fawcett, William Scott, John G. Manly, Edmund Stoney, James Brock, Thomas Hurlburt, Matthew Lang, John Douse, William Steer, John Sunday, and C. B. Goodrich.

The leave-taking was said to have been very tender and sorrowful. Of the members of the Canada Conference who left it, Dr. Ryerson said:--

Among the ten who seceded from the Canada Conference to the London Wesleyan Committee was the venerable William Case, who took no part in the crusade against his old Canadian brethren, but who wished to live in peace and quietness, with the supply of his wants a.s.sured to him in his old, lonely Indian Mission at Alnwick, near Cobourg, isolated alike from the white inhabitants and from other Indian tribes, where he continued until his decease.

The character of this untoward contest with the British Conference party--so far as it related to Dr. Ryerson--can be best understood from the conclusion of his five hours' speech before the Special Conference.

He said:--

I am aware that a combined effort has been determined upon and is making to destroy me as a public man, and to injure this Connexion, as far as my overthrow can affect it. I rejoice to know that the strength and efficiency of our Church are not depending upon me; but I am not insensible to the advantages which it is supposed will be gained over the Church if I can be put down. Our adversaries seem to have abandoned the idea of answering my arguments, or of diverting me from my purposes, in regard to my position, and views and feelings towards this Connexion. The only expedient left is that which requires no strength of intellect--no solid arguments--no moral principle--but abundance of confidence, malignity, and zeal. It is the expedient of impeaching my moral integrity, and blackening my character. And this is attempted to be accomplished. One cla.s.s of adversaries, not by an appeal to reason, or even to official doc.u.ments, but by the importation and retail from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and one end of the province to the other, and from house to house, of bits and parcels of perverted private conversations--a mode of warfare disgraceful to human nature, much more to any Christian community. History apprizes me that, in such a warfare, some of the best of men have not triumphed until long after they slept in death, when the hand of time and the researches of impartial history did them that justice which the cupidity and jealousies of powerful contemporaries denied them. I know not the present result of existing combinations against myself. On that point I feel little concern, though I am keenly alive to their influence upon my public usefulness. I engaged in the Union, because I believed the principles upon which it was founded were reasonable, and the prejudices against it on all sides were unreasonable. I do not regret the opposition which I have experienced--the reproaches which I have incurred--the labours I have endured; but I do regret--and every day's reflection adds fresh poignancy to my regrets--that in carrying out a measure which I had hoped would prove an unspeakable blessing to my native country, I have lost so many friends of my youth. No young man in Canada had more friends amongst all Christian denominations than I had when the Union took place. Many of them have become my enemies. I can lose property without concern or much thought; but I cannot lose my friends, and meet them in the character of enemies, without emotions not to be described. I feel that I have injured myself, and injured this Connexion, and I fear this province, not by my obstinacy, but by my concessions. This is my sin, and not the sins laid to my charge. I have regarded myself, and all that Providence has put into my hands from year to year, as the property of this Connexion. I can say, in the language of Wesley's hymn--

"No foot of land do I possess, No cottage in the wilderness; A poor wayfaring man."

And it is to me a source of unavailing grief, that after the expenditure of so much time, and labour, and suffering, and means, one of the most important measures of my life may prove a misfortune to the Church of my affections and the country of my birth. I have only to say, that as long as there is any prospect of my being useful to either, I will never desert them.

We have surveyed every inch of the ground on which we stand: We have offered to concede everything but what appertains to our character, and to our existence and operations as a Wesleyan Methodist Church. The ground we occupy is Methodistic, is rational, is just. The very declarations of those who leave us attest this.

They are compelled to pay homage to our character as a body; they cannot impeach our doctrines, or discipline, or practice; nor can they sustain a single objection against our principles or standing; the very reasons which they a.s.sign for their own secession are variable, indefinite, personal, or trivial. But the reasons which may be a.s.signed for our position and unity are tangible, are definite, are Methodistic, are satisfactory, are unanswerable.

The effect of this disruption was disastrous to the peace and unity of the Wesleyan body, especially in the towns and cities.

Some time after the Conference, Dr. Ryerson received the following characteristic letter from the venerable Thomas Whitehead, the President of the Canada Special Conference:--

I have been not a little pleased with the expectation of seeing you this evening, and of hearing you speak of the sorrows and joys of Wesleyan Methodism in Upper Canada. G.o.d grant that you and I and all of us, when our labours, sorrows and joys on earth are ended, may meet around the throne of G.o.d and the Lamb. Your labours, sorrows and joys for these years past have been unparalleled, and to the present they are increasing. Well, you have been called (with not a few invaluable a.s.sistants) to stand up in defence of the Gospel, and have been sometimes placed near the swellings of Jordan; however, you still rejoice in your labours, and the effects thereof, and so do I; and, blessed be G.o.d, the Pilot of the Galilean lake is still on shipboard, and he will soon speak peace to the troubled waters, and there will be a great calm. I have no doubt but Brother Green and Brother Bevitt (a comical soul) and yourself have had cold travelling (I hope good lodging) in your western rides; I am persuaded you have met with friends, and a generous people. G.o.d bless them!

I greatly rejoice that our brethren in the ministry are faithful, affectionate, and successful in defence of all that appertains to the privileges of the glorious Gospel of the Son of G.o.d, long, long preached by the Wesleyan Methodist ministers in the wilds of Upper Canada, and I trust they will, by all Christian means and measures, support Her Majesty's Government in Canada. May the Holy and Blessed G.o.d give us peace, and good government in our day. I have been a little vexed with the travelling gab of one of our own former friends, who is pleased to inform the people that you were the sole cause of the late rebellion. I must tell him, the first time I meet with him, that the meaning of his sing-song is not understood, and that if he will explain his hidden meaning, it will be, that he is ready to prove that the Rev. Egerton Ryerson was the sole cause of the rebellion in Heaven, by the fallen angels. In that case no one would mistake his meaning.

In a letter of congratulation, written in May, 1841, to Rev. Dr. Bangs, on his appointment to the Presidency of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., Dr. Ryerson said:--

I hope and pray that you may be able to continue without abatement to favour and edify the religious public with the rich results of your varied reading and matured thinking. On this ground I desire to express my personal obligations; and not the least for your "Letters to young Ministers of the Gospel," which were the first I recollect of reading. Many of your remarks and suggestions, on the subjects which they treat, have been of great service to me.

Speaking of the rupture of the union between the British and Canadian Conferences, and of alleged personal obstacles which he presented in the way of a reunion, Dr. Ryerson said:--The agents of the London Missionary Committee have not injured the Societies generally; although the scenes of schism which have been and are exhibited in many places are highly disgraceful. I am not aware that Elder Case has taken any active part in these transactions, and he has continued an acting and useful member of the Academy Board, notwithstanding his strange secession from our Conference. I have observed by the discussion, especially in the pamphlet lately published by the Committee in London, that the whole affair is made to appear, as much as possible, a matter of difference between the Committee and me personally, and epithets have been multiplied against me in proportion to the want of facts. I have always resolved not to allow myself to be the ground of difference between two bodies. If I can make this circ.u.mstance instrumental in effecting an amicable adjustment of differences, such as would be agreeable and advantageous to my brethren, I have thought it would be best to do so, and retire personally from the Conference, either employing my pen for the religious and general interests of my native land, or seeking a more peaceful field of labour in your part of the world, where I almost wish I had gone last year as proposed--although I know not that I could have done otherwise than I did, in accordance with what is due to personal honour and character.

The Imperial Parliament has disposed of the clergy reserves in a manner the most unfair, unjust, and corrupt, although the old Const.i.tution of Canada provides for the disposal of them by the Provincial Legislature.

Wide-spread, secret dissatisfaction exists in the country; a majority of the new a.s.sembly (which has not yet met) are friends of the people, but many are afraid to move, or to say what they think. My own apprehension is that, notwithstanding all exertions to the contrary, under the present system of things the morals and intelligence of the people will be on a level with their liberties. Whether my continued silence in such circ.u.mstances is a virtue, or a crime; or whether I should retire from the country, or remain and make one Christian, open, and decisive effort to secure for my fellow-countrymen a free const.i.tution and equal rights among their churches, is a perplexing question to me, as well as to my brothers. It is believed by some intelligent men, who have talked on the subject, that if I would come out as the advocate of the country, there would be no doubt of success, from my knowledge of the subject, from a general, and, as I think, overweening confidence on the part of my friends in my powers of concentration, perseverance and energy, and from the feelings of the country. It is also thought that, if there should be a failure of success, I could then honourably retire to the United States. I am no theorist, but I hate despotism as I do Satan, and I love liberty as I do life; and my thoughts and feelings flow so strongly in favour of the religious and civil freedom of my native country, that with all my engagements and duties, I cannot resist them, at least half of the time. I would be most grateful to you for your opinion on this general matter, irrespective of details, with which, of course, you cannot be acquainted.

To this letter Rev. Dr. Bangs replied as follows:--

I feel much for my Canadian brethren, and I can never be indifferent to their weal or woe. I have never had but one opinion respecting your separation from us, and that is, that it was an erroneous step at the time, originating with the ambition of one man--Henry Ryan. (See page 87.) Regrets, however, are useless now.

The die has been cast; but from that unhappy moment you have been tossed about from one point of the compa.s.s to another. What a sad condition the people are in, according to your representation! And who shall right them? I suppose you cannot do it, although you cannot be indifferent to their interests, temporal and eternal.

Respecting your leaving the country, I would say, that if your brethren judge it best, you will receive a cordial welcome among us; as I am sure you would from me. In the meantime, you would do well to consult Bishop Hedding, who presides among us this year. I thank you for the expressions of affection. Whatever of good you may have received from my poor labours, let G.o.d have the praise and glory. I never undertook any duties with more appalling feelings than I did the present ones; and yet I have been wonderfully blessed and favoured by providential indications. When I was called to the Presidency of the Wesleyan University, I dared not say no; but I accepted it with a trembling sense of my responsibilities, and thus far I have been greatly blessed and comforted. I shall be glad to see you, and remember that I have a prophet's room, and a bed and a table for you.

From Rev. Dr. D. M. Reese, a noted member of the New York Conference, Dr. Ryerson received the following letter:--

I am at a loss to say what is the opinion of our great men here, touching your Canadian conflict with the British Conference; though all our sympathies are with you. All concur that you have the victory in your pamphlet war. I have not heard a different opinion from any one who has read them. I suppose you may have learned how cavalierly Rev. R. Newton treated Rev. Mr. Gurley, though introduced to him by letters from those to whom Mr. N. was largely indebted here. He refused to introduce him to Dr. Bunting, etc., although this favour was solicited. He neither invited Mr. G. to see him again, nor even called on him. This British reciprocity of American politeness is humiliating, and resembles the treatment you and your brother received at his hands, as well as that of other great men in the Wesleyan Conference towards you.

At the Special Conference of October, Dr. Ryerson was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society of Upper Canada. On the 10th November he issued a statement and appeal on behalf of the Society. In it he indicates definitely the secret causes which led to the disruption of the Union. He said:--

Zealous attempts have been made to lead astray sincere friends of Methodism and religion by the pretense that party politics is the [difficulty]. Never was a pretext more unfounded.... It will be seen by the proceedings of our Conference-- ... and is even admitted in the report of the ... English Conference--that no political party question should, on any account, be suffered amongst us, ... or in our official organ, and that we did not even desire the continued discussion of the clergy reserve question.... But with even silent neutrality on all questions of civil polity ..., the authorities of the English Conference were not satisfied; they insisted that we should "admit and maintain, even in this Province, the principle of Church and State Union"--a question which has been the most exciting and baneful topic of party feeling and party organization of any question which has ever been discussed in Upper Canada. They also insisted that we should concede to the Conference in England the right of an "efficient direction over the public proceedings" of the Connexion in this province.... These are the real grounds of the difference between the two bodies.

In a letter on this subject, written by Dr. Ryerson, 13th November, he said:--

Herewith is a copy of a letter which I addressed to the late Rev.

Richard Watson in 1831 [see _Guardian_ of November 18th, 1840], deprecating the interference of the London Committee with our work in this province, and explaining our views and operations as a body.... In going one day into the Wesleyan Mission House, when in England in 1833, I found one of the clerks copying that letter into the official books of the Committee. That letter is of some importance on several accounts. It will show that we were just as moderate, and as reasonable, and as const.i.tutional in our views as a body in 1831, as we have been from that time to this, and that the representations to the contrary are the fabulous creations of party feelings.... [It will also show] that [the London Committee]

fully understood our views on the question of a church establishment in Upper Canada, respecting which they have not even pretended that we ever made the slightest compromise; and that we as a body were in a prosperous condition before the Union.

It was not, therefore, without full knowledge of Dr. Ryerson's views on this subject, and of the state of the Methodist body in Upper Canada, that the British Conference in 1833, and again in 1840, sought to interfere with the work in this province and divide the Societies. By Dr. Ryerson's mission to England this evil was averted by a union in 1833, which proved to be but a hollow truce, as the events of 1840 demonstrated.

That the evil genius of Rev. Robert Alder exercised a baneful influence upon both Conferences, is abundantly evident from his own subsequent conduct and other events. And that this was the case is more clearly manifest from the fact that when he ceased to exert any influence in the Connexion, and when Dr. Ryerson and the Canadian Representatives were able to lay the whole case before the British Conference in 1847, that body, led by Dr. Bunting himself, entirely endorsed the consistent action of the Canada Conference in all of this painful and protracted business. He said: "The Canadian brethren are right, and we are wrong."

(See a subsequent Chapter on the subject.)

Looking at the facts of the case in the light of to-day, can any one wonder at the pertinacity and zeal with which Dr. Ryerson resisted the unnatural and unwise system of foreign dictation sought to be imposed upon the Canadian Connexion. This he did at a great sacrifice of personal feeling, and of personal friendship, as well as of personal comfort and popularity. He maintained, as he had stipulated in the articles of Union, that "the rights and privileges of the Canadian preachers and Societies should be preserved inviolate." He knew that a Church in a free country like Canada, characterized as it was by Methodistic zeal and vigour, and yet tempered by the moderation of Canadian inst.i.tutions and manners, possessed within itself a spirit of independence and of growth and progress which would never brook the official control of a Committee thousands of miles away. To be subject to even the generous control of such a Committee, possessed of no practical experience in Canadian matters, would, he knew, doom the Church to a dwarfed, and unnatural, and a miserable existence. Events had already proved to Dr. Ryerson (while the Union during 1839-1840 was in a moribund state) that the Church, controlled by a dominant section of the British Conference, would be a prey to internal feuds and jealousies. In the conflicts that would then ensue spiritual life would die out, missionary zeal would be fitful in its efforts, and every Church interest would partake largely of a sectional and partizan character, destructive alike to the symmetry, growth and harmony of development of a living Church, endowed with rich spiritual life and free and vigorous in its independent action.

To a person of the statesman-like qualities of mind which Dr. Ryerson possessed in so high a degree, these things must have been ever present.

They gave evident decision to his thoughts and vigour to his pen. He was no novice in public or ecclesiastical affairs. He had been trained for fifteen years in a school of resistance, almost single-handed, to ecclesiastical domination, and had detected and exposed intrigues,--one of which was of parties in this conflict, which was entirely derogatory to the dignity and independence of Methodism in Canada. (See pages 238-241.)

His knowledge of public affairs and of party leaders gave him abundant insight into the motives and tactics of men bent upon accomplishing pet schemes and favourite projects. And all of this knowledge had so ripened his experience that it rendered him the invaluable and trusted leader in Canadian Methodism, which in those days made his name a household word in the Methodist homes of Upper Canada. This trust and confidence he never betrayed. His unswerving fidelity to his Church and people cost him dearly--the loss of many friends, and the reproaches of many enemies. But he survived it all, and was enabled, under Providence, to mould the inst.i.tutions of Canadian Methodism and even of his native country. He has left on some of them the impress of his mind and genius, which it is the pride of Canadians to recognize and acknowledge to this day.

FOOTNOTES:

[111] The more important parts of the painful proceedings at this Conference are given in "Epochs of Canadian Methodism," pages 341-358.

The result of this formidable attack on Dr. Ryerson by the English Missionary party before the Canada Conference, is thus stated by Rev.

Dr. Carroll: "When the Rev. Matthew Richey's motion of condemnation on the Rev. Egerton Ryerson for his interference in the matter [of the Government grant of 900 to Wesleyan missions] was put to the Conference, there were only eight in its favour, several of whom, after obtaining further light, wished to change their votes; and fifty-nine against it. Three were excused from voting."--_Case, etc._, vol. iv., page 298, note.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

1840-1841.

Last Pastoral Charge.--Lord Sydenham's Death.

The following paragraphs, prepared by Dr. Ryerson, refer to this period of his history:--

In the autumn of 1840, on returning from England, when the English Wesleyan Committee and Conference seceded from the Union with the Canadian Conference, I was appointed to Adelaide Street station in Toronto, which had been filled for two years by the Rev. Dr. Richey--an eloquent and popular preacher. The separation between the two Conferences had taken place the week before I a.s.sumed the charge of Adelaide Street station. Dr. Richey had carried off the greater part of both the private and official members of the Church, and I was left with but a skeleton of each. When I ascended the pulpit for the first time, the pews in the body of the church, which had been occupied by those who had seceded, were empty, and there were but scattered hearers, here and there, in the other pews and in the gallery. By faith and prayer I had prepared myself for the crucial test, and conducted the services without apparent depression or embarra.s.sment. I made no pretensions, and had never made any, to pulpit eloquence--the motto of my ministry being to make things plain and strong by previous thought and prayer, and without verbal preparation. I often went from lying on my back in my study, in an agony of distress and prayer, to the pulpit, where a divine anointing seemed to rest upon me, such as I had never before experienced. There were frequent prayer-meetings in my own study, at six o'clock in the morning. The result was, by the Divine blessing, that the church was filled with hearers, and the membership was more than doubled.

At the first Annual Missionary Meeting in the Church after the division, the President of the Executive Council presided; several members of the Government were on the platform, and the collections and subscriptions were more than double those of any previous year. The pretext for this separation of the English Wesleyan Committee and Conference from the Canadian Conference, was professed loyalty in Church and State; but both the Imperial and Canadian Government of that day approved the position of the Canadian Conference, withdrew and suspended the grant previously made to the London Wesleyan Missionary Committee during the seven years of its hostility to the Canadian Conference, and only consented to its restoration for the joint interests of the two Conferences, and on recommendation of the Representatives of the Canadian Conference, after the reconciliation and reunion of the two Conferences, in 1847.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old Newgate Street (afterwards Adelaide St.) Wesleyan Church, 1832-1872.]

In October, 1840, Dr. Ryerson addressed a letter of congratulation to Lord Sydenham, on his elevation to the peerage. He again referred to the publication of the _Monthly Review_, proposed by His Excellency. In regard to the latter he said:--

The publication of a monthly periodical such as I suggested to your Excellency last spring, appears to me now, as it did then, to be of great importance, in order to mould the thinkings of public men and the views of the country in harmony with the principles of the new Const.i.tution and the policy of Your Excellency's administration, and to secure a rational and permanent appreciation of its objects, and merits; and it would have afforded me sincere satisfaction to have given a proper tone and character to a publication of that kind. But what I have written publicly in reference to the principles and measures of Your Excellency's Government has already been productive of serious consequences both to myself and the Body with which I am connected.

In the discharge of my ecclesiastical duties, I have to devote several hours of four days in each week to visiting the sick, poor, and other members of my pastoral charge, and am preparing a series of discourses on the Patriarchal History, and the Evidences of Christianity, arising from the discoveries of modern science, and the testimony of recent travellers, besides the correspondence and engagements which devolve upon me in the office I hold in the Methodist Church. Under such circ.u.mstances the a.s.sumption by me of the management of such a periodical is impracticable. I could not do justice to it, nor to my other appropriate duties. I might, in the course of my miscellaneous reading, select pa.s.sages from established authors, which would be suitable for a miscellany at the end of each number, to ill.u.s.trate and confirm the principles discussed in the preceding pages of it. I might now and then contribute a general article on the Intellectual and Moral Elements of Canadian Society; or, on the Evils of Party Spirit; or, on the Necessity of General Unity in order to General Prosperity, etc., etc.; but even in these respects I fear I could not render much efficient aid, from the exhaustion of my physical strength in other labours, and for want of the requisite time for study, in order to write instructively and effectively on general subjects.

In the same letter, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to his determination to take no further part in the discussion of public affairs, owing to the hostility which his support of Lord Sydenham's policy had excited in various quarters[112]:--