In a letter from New York (dated 9th May) Dr. Ryerson said:—Much to my surprise to-day, while in New York on my way to Baltimore, I received a note from the Governor-General's Secretary, T. W. C. Murdoch, Esq., as follows:—
By direction of the Governor-General I send you the enclosed bill of exchange for £100 stg., the receipt of which I would request you to acknowledge.
You will have seen the English papers which hold out every prospect that both the Union and the Clergy Reserve Bills will be satisfactorily settled. I feel that I may congratulate you, and every friend of Canada, on such a result.
I acknowledged this kind and generous act, but at once returned the Bill of Exchange to His Excellency—at the same time respectfully assuring him, that under no circumstances could I receive anything for what I had done, or might do, to support the policy and administration of Her Majesty's Government, in the peculiar circumstances of the Province.
One of the chief points discussed in Upper Canada, in connection with the proposed union of the provinces, was the effect it would have on the Protestant character of the government and institutions of the county. Mr. John W. Gamble, a public man, and a leading member of the Church of England, in Vaughan, writing to Dr. Ryerson on the subject, said:—
I feel deeply the conviction that the time has now arrived when Protestants must sink all points of minor consideration, and unite in defence of our common faith. The union of the provinces will most assuredly result in giving not only a preponderance, but a large majority to the Roman Catholics in the united legislature; and this taken in conjunction with the plans now in operation for pouring a large Roman Catholic population into these provinces, surely ought not only to excite the fears, but rouse the energies of those who know and love the truth as it is in Jesus. I am altogether ignorant of your opinion upon the union question, but I call upon you as a Protestant to unite with me in endeavouring to avert the threatened calamity.
Mr. Gamble was for many years afterwards an earnest opponent in the Legislature of United Canada of the extension of the Separate School system in the province.
Although greatly enfeebled in health, yet Dr. Ryerson's Mother was enabled to write to him occasionally. In a letter written by her in 1839, after returning from seeing him, she said:—
I suppose you are anxious to know the state of my mind. I yet feel that the Lord is my trust, and I am waiting daily till my change come. I feel that when the "earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, I have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Dear Egerton, I feel very much as I did when I left you—a great deal of weakness. I am anxious to live to see you all once more, perhaps for the last time. Do not neglect to come up, one and all, as soon as convenient, if you only stay one day. When you come fetch some books, such as you think would be profitable for me, and one of your good-sized Bibles; also three of your likenesses. I thought that your Father had brought them up when he came. Do not fail to come up and see us. Don't let me be denied the happiness of seeing you soon.