During all the years of his public life he co-operated heartily with every enterprise of his Church, and was always ready to preach at the shortest notice for any of his brethren who required his help. In his later years there was an increasing spirituality and unction observable in his ministrations.
Though not exempt from the faults and failings of humanity—yet his wide range of information—his broad and statesmanlike views—his intense devotion to a great work—his patriotic interest in all public questions—his wonderful personal energy and force of character—and his long and intimate connection with Canadian Methodism—warrant us in saying:
"He was a man, take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again."
Rev. Dr. Douglas, in a letter to the Guardian, says: A great man and a prince has fallen in our Israel! The last of the illustrious three who bore the name of Ryerson has gone to enrich the heavens. Henceforth that honoured name will be enshrined in the history of our land.
Egerton Ryerson's patriotic service to the State, in resisting the introduction of feudal distinctions and ecclesiastical monopolies will ensure to him enduring recognition, as one of Canada's noblest benefactors. No statues of marble or of bronze need be raised to perpetuate his memory. The academies and schools which his organizing genius brought into existence, lifting up successive generations to the dignity which education ever confers, will make that name immortal. For nearly six decades he laid his great powers of intellect and heart on the altar of service for Canadian Methodism—winning for her ministry equality before the law, and for her people a status which allowed no coign of vantage to a favoured class—vindicating her polity and proclaiming her distinctive truth....
Now, when the sepulchre has received him, will not a grateful Church arise and give a permanence to his name more lasting than marble, by the founding of a Ryerson Chair of Philosophy with whatever is required to augment the usefulness of the institution which his great manhood loved, and for which he toiled with a life-lasting endeavour? Would that every minister, who bows his head in sorrow for a fallen chieftain, might in every circuit gather the piety, intelligence, and financial strength of the Church together, and in this supreme hour of the Church's grief, decree that before the spring-time shall come with its emerald robe enamelled with flowers, adorning the resting-place of our honoured dead, the name of Egerton Ryerson will be inwrought with our University, as an abiding inspiration to the student-life that shall throng her halls along the coming years.
The Methodist Ministers of Toronto, in a sketch of Dr. Ryerson's life and character, written by Rev. W. S. Blackstock, say: To most of us, from our early childhood, the name of Egerton Ryerson has been a household word, and we learned to esteem and love him even before we were capable of estimating his character, or the greatness of the service which he was rendering to his own and coming generations; and the knowledge of him which we have been permitted to acquire in our riper years, has only tended to deepen the impressions of him which we received in early days.
As the fearless and powerful champion of civil and religious liberty, and of the equal rights of all classes of his countrymen, he is associated in our memory with the patriotic and Christian struggles of a past generation, which have resulted in securing to our beloved land as large a measure of liberty as is enjoyed by any country under the sun. In respect to the incomparable system of Public Instruction, to the perfecting of which he devoted so many years of his active and laborious life, and with which his name must ever be associated, we feel that he has laboured and we have entered into his labours. We can hardly conceive how either our country or our Church could have been what they are to-day, but for his fidelity and the work which he accomplished.
The lively interest which he took in every patriotic, Christian, and philanthropic movement, especially those which tended to increase the influence and usefulness of his own Church—the zeal with which he laboured for them, and the large-hearted, generous liberality with which he contributed of his means for their support—awaken our gratitude and thankfulness, and will be a perpetual inspiration in our efforts to promote those objects which lay so near his heart, and to further the interests of that cause which he served so well.