"The story of my life"

by Egerton Ryerson

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 Constitution 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 circumstances the assumption 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 passages from established authors, which would be suitable for a miscellany at the end of each number, to illustrate 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]:—

In retiring from taking any public part in the civil affairs of this country, I beg to express my grateful sense of the frankness, kindness, and condescension which I have experienced from Your Excellency. You are the first Governor of Canada who has taken the pains to investigate the character and affairs of the Wesleyan Methodist Church for himself, and not judge and act from hearsay; the first Governor to ascertain my sentiments, feelings, and wishes from my own lips, and not from the representations of others. As a body, considering our labours and numbers, we have certainly been treated unjustly and hardly by the Local Government. Every effort was used here to deprive us of the Royal liberality, and Lord Glenelg's recommendations in regard to the Upper Canada Academy. I think Lord John Russell himself was prepossessed against me by the representations of Rev. Mr. Alder, and probably of Sir George Arthur and others. But by your condescension and courtesy I have been prompted and emboldened to express myself to Your Excellency on all questions of civil government and the affairs of this country, more fully than I have to any man living. My private opinions and public writings have been simultaneously before Your Excellency, together with all the circumstances under which I have expressed the one and published the other. I feel confident, therefore, that however I may be misrepresented by some, or misunderstood by others, I shall have justice in the estimate and opinions of Your Excellency—that I have been anything but theoretical or obstinate—that I have shrunk from no responsibility in the time of need and difficulty—and that my opinions, whether superficial or well-considered, are such as any common-sense, practical man, whose connection, associations, and feeling are involved in the happiness and well-being of the middle classes, might be expected to entertain.

It is not my intention or wish to obtrude my opinions upon your attention, except in so far as may be necessary to acquaint Your Excellency with the interests and wishes of the body whom I have been appointed to represent. In regard to the many other important questions embraced in the great objects of your Government, I shall abstain from any officious interference; although all that may be in my mind or heart on any subject shall be at the service of Your Excellency when desired.

From what I have witnessed and experienced, I have no doubt that every possible effort will made to prejudice me in Your Excellency's mind, and induce Your Excellency to treat the Methodist body in this province as preceding Governors have done. But I implore Your Excellency to try another course of proceeding, whether as any experiment, or as an act of justice. I am persuaded that Your Excellency has found no portion of the people of this Province more reasonable in their requests, or more easily conciliated to your views and wishes than the Representatives, members and friends of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada; and, I doubt not, Your Excellency will find them cultivating and exhibiting the same spirit during the entire period (and may it be a long one!) of your administration of the Government of Canada.

On the 8th of the same month, Dr. Ryerson felt himself constrained to address a note to Lord Sydenham in regard to the policy of Lord John Russell's Clergy Reserve Bill, so far as it might affect the question of public education, in which he was deeply interested. He said that he conceived the Bill to be most unjust in its provisions, as he had stated to His Lordship (while it was under consideration of Parliament). He added: Should the partial and exclusive provisions of the measure pervade the views and administration of Government in Canada, in regard to a general system of education, etc., I should utterly despair of ever witnessing social happiness, general educational culture, or unity in this country. But I have no doubt the exclusive powers with which the Bill invests the Governor, will be exerted to counteract the inequality of its other provisions, and that Your Excellency's whole system of public policy will be based upon the principles of "equal justice to all classes of Her Majesty's Canadian subjects." Under these circumstances, I have suggested to the conductor of the Christian Guardian (from the editorship of which I retired last June) not to make any remarks on the Bill which may tend to create dissatisfaction; nor do I intend, for the same reasons, to publish the letter which my brother and I addressed to Lord John Russell on the subject. His Lordship said, indeed, that the Bill was not what he wished, nor could he say it was just; but he had clearly ascertained that a more liberal one could not be got through the House of Lords, and he thought that that Bill was better than none.

The Hon. Isaac Buchanan, in a letter to the Editor, dated April 1882,—speaking of these times and events—said:—

I was one of Dr. Ryerson's oldest friends and coöperators that have survived him. I was first in Toronto (then York) in 1830. Although not then 20 years of age, I came out to Montreal as a partner in a mercantile firm; and in the fall of 1831 I came up to York to establish a branch House. From that time I have known Dr. Ryerson, and then formed that high opinion of both his abilities and his character which went on increasing more and more; so that for the last forty years of his life I have regarded him as Canada's greatest son. Of late years I seldom met him, but when I did, it was an inexpressible pleasure to me, as an interchange of the most unbounded mutual confidences took place between us in our views and objects. He knew my view of religion,—that as with Spiritual Religion (which is nothing to the mind unless it is everything), so with the Religion of Humanity (my name for the removal of all impediments out of the way of the employment, and of the enjoyment of living of our own people)—it will not take a second place, but must be the first question in the politics of every country—otherwise its Government is a mere political machine. He knew my belief that the Church Question being in the way of this people's question, it took the first place among the causes of all the industrial evils in England and Ireland. With me, therefore, it was a sine qua non to get quit of our dominant Church nuisance in Canada, viewing it as a thing in the way of the prosperity of the people, and therefore as a thing insidiously undermining their loyalty. I am sure that his views were not far removed from mine in this matter, and yet not a particle of enmity to the Church ever affected me, and, I believe, the same thing was true of Dr. Ryerson. But I felt the insufferable evil of the position it had in this country, not only as usurping the first place in politics, which the Labour Question should occupy, but as rendering the connection with England odious and short-lived. Being one of those sent for by the Governor-General (Mr. Poulett Thompson) on the clergy reserve question, I told His Excellency plainly that although my countrymen, the Scotch, did not hesitate to dissent, as a matter of conscience, they would not be loyal to a government that made them dissenters by Act of Parliament.