"The story of my life"

by Egerton Ryerson

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 passions, and prejudices, and divisions of professing Christians themselves are a distressing hindrance to the attainment of this noble 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 God, 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 assaults 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 Lordship'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 relationship 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.