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 circumstances 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 assured you would assume any allowable amount of responsibility in the endeavour to effect it.
Wishing 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 assiduity, 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:—