The Story of My Life Part 75

_Kingston June 8th._--The official lay members of the Church in the city of Kingston presented a congratulatory address to the Conference this forenoon, in which they referred with great feeling and force to the University question, also to the representatives of the Conference at Quebec, and especially to myself--requesting that the _Guardian_ might be more and more the medium of furnis.h.i.+ng the connexion with facts and information on the subject, and that my Defence should be inserted in it for the information of our people.

Rev. G. R. Sanderson, seconded by Rev. W. Jeffers, moved a vote of thanks to the official members of Kingston for their address. Rev. J.

Spencer, Editor of the _Guardian_, regarded the address as an attack upon himself, and said the lay members had been instigated to make the attack upon him. Dr. Wood showed that the address simply made a request.

Mr. Spencer was considered to have made a great mistake for himself.

The feeling of Conference in regard to myself is very cordial and very enthusiastic on the University question. The article in _The Canadian Church_ is much admired. A copy of it has been sent to the Montreal _Gazette_, also to the Kingston _Daily News_. It is an able and most scholarly article.

_Kingston, June 13th._--Yesterday afternoon, the Conference considered and unanimously and cordially adopted a series of resolutions on the University question--thanking those who were at Quebec, especially myself--endorsing the memorial pamphlet. My name was received with cheers, whenever mentioned in the resolutions. In the evening, a public meeting was held, and it was a perfect ovation to myself. Some of those present thought that that was the object of the meeting. Rev. W. Jeffers, the new editor, made an excellent speech. Rev. Lachlan Taylor read extracts in a most amusing and effective manner from the Hamilton _Spectator_, _Colonist_, _Echo_, and _Church Press_. The Hon. Mr. Ferrier spoke most happily on the effect of the discussion, and also of the effect of my speech on the members of both branches of the Legislature. I was cheered throughout, and sat down with four long rounds of cheers. There was much laughter, and occasional deep feeling during my criticisms on the variations, and some of the topics of the speeches of my opponents at Quebec, especially the after-dinner speeches at the Toronto University gathering.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] Since established and supported, as is the one in Montreal, by contributions from the Methodist people.

CHAPTER LIX.

1861-1866.

Personal Incidents.--Dr. Ryerson's Visits to Norfolk Co.

During the years of 1861-1866, Dr. Ryerson was chiefly engaged in his official duties, and part of the time with the University question.

There is, therefore, little to record during these years except personal matters. The following letters from two of his brothers indicate how strong was their attachment to him:--

_Brantford, 4th October, 1861._--Rev. John Ryerson writes: I have derived more benefit from reading Milner's History this time than I ever did before; especially the experience, writings, &c., of St.

Augustine, Cyprian, Bernard, Luther and Zwingle. St. Augustine's conversion and "confessions" have been much blessed to me. I have been led to examine with more care and prayerful attention than ever before, the power, influence, and fruits of vital G.o.dliness, as experienced and manifested in the hearts and lives of both the Greek and Latin Fathers; and also the princ.i.p.al instruments of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. O! the power, wisdom, and goodness of G.o.d; displayed in all these scenes, matters and lives!

_Kingston, May 8th, 1862._--The Rev. Geo. Ryerson writes: We arrived here safely this morning. I write this by the first mail because I feel anxious concerning you. I fear that if you undertake a journey to Quebec in your present state of weakness and disease, that it will be fatal to you. You are providentially unable to bear the bodily and mental exertion. G.o.d does not send a sick man to labour in any good work, and he requires us to use ourselves tenderly, when he weakens us.

_Brantford, May 9th._--Rev. John Ryerson writes: I had no idea that you had been so seriously ill. It is, however, gratifying now to learn that you are convalescent, and the loss of a little of your "fleshly substance" may prove no great calamity. Were I to lose "forty pounds," as you have, there would be very little of me left!

_Brantford, December 22nd._--Rev. John Ryerson writes: During my long missionary tour I preached about ten times, always with liberty and freedom. Since I returned home I have resumed all of my domestic and private devotional exercises, and after my missionary labours realize the return of quiet peace and spiritual communion.

Recently, after much prayer, I received a great blessing to my soul, the peace of G.o.d coming down upon my heart and going all over me, and I still have peace. G.o.d is my portion, my righteousness, and my salvation all the day long.

In September, 1864, Dr. Ryerson wrote the following account of visits which he made to his native county of Norfolk:--

In compliance with many requests, I have thought it would not be improper, and might be acceptable to my Norfolk friends, for me to give an account of my visits during the last two years to my native place, and to the Island within Long Point, which my father obtained from the Crown, and which now belongs to me--marked on old maps as Pottahawk Point, but designated on later maps, and more generally known, as "Ryerson's Island."

I may remark, by way of preface, that for more than thirty-five years of my public life my const.i.tution and brain seemed to be equal to any amount of labour which I might impose on them; but of late years, the latter has been the seat of alarming attacks and severe pain, under any protracted or intense labour; and the former has been impaired by labour and disease. Change of scene and out-door exercise have proved the most effectual remedy for both.

My first adoption of this course (apart from foreign travel) was two years since, when a month's daily sea-bathing, boating and walking, at Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, State of Maine, contributed greatly to the improvement of my health and strength.

After again resuming my usual work for several weeks, I found that my relief, if not safety, required a further suspension of ordinary mental labour, and diversion of my thought by new objects. I determined to visit the place of my birth and the scenes of my youth. At Port Ryerse I made myself a little skiff after the model of one I had seen at the sea-side, and in which I rowed myself to and from Ryerson's Island, a distance of some thirteen miles from Port Ryerse, and about four miles from the nearest mainland--the end of Turkey Point.

Last autumn I lodged two weeks on the farm on which I was born, with the family of Mr. Joseph Duncan, where the meals were taken daily in a room the wood-work of which I, as an amateur carpenter, had finished more than forty years ago, while recovering from a long and serious illness.

When invited to meet and address the common schools of the county of Norfolk, at a county school picnic held in a grove near Simcoe, the 24th of last June, I determined to proceed thither, not by railroad and stage, as usual, but in a skiff fifteen feet and a half long, in which I had been accustomed for some months to row in Toronto Harbour, between six and eight o'clock in the morning.

Providing, as far as possible, against the double danger of swamping and capsizing, by a canvas deck, proper ballast, and fittings of the sail, I crossed Lake Ontario alone from Toronto to Port Dalhousie in nine hours; had my skiff conveyed thence to Port Colborne on a Canadian vessel, through the Welland Ca.n.a.l, and proceeded along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, rowing in one day, half-way against head wind, from the mouth of Grand River to Port Dover, a distance of forty miles, taking refreshments and rest at farm houses, and bathing three times during the day. The following day scarcely conscious of fatigue, I delivered two addresses; the one to a vast a.s.semblage of school pupils and their friends, in a grove; the other a lecture to teachers and trustees in the evening.

After visiting my island and witnessing the productive and excellent garden of the family that occupies it, I returned to Toronto in my skiff, by the way of Niagara river, sailing in one day between sun-rise and sun-set (stopping for three hours at Port Colborne) from Grand River to Chippewa, within two miles of the Falls. I had my skiff conveyed on a waggon over the portage from Chippewa to Queenstown (ten miles), and started from Niagara to Toronto about noon of the first Friday in July. When a little more than half way across the lake, I encountered a heavy north-east storm of rain and wind, and a fog so thick as to completely obscure the Toronto light-house, which was within a mile of me. When it became so dark that I could not see my compa.s.s, I laid my course, with the sail reefed, by the wind and waves, reaching (a mile west of my due course) the east side of the Humber Bay, between ten and eleven in the evening, and making my way, by a hard pull, to the Toronto Yacht Club House a little before midnight.

About four weeks since my son and myself made the voyage in the same skiff from Toronto to Long Point, but proceeding by railroad from Port Dalhousie to Port Colborne, intending to spend a week or two on the farm, and two or three days on the Island.

I conclude this epitomised sketch with three remarks. I am satisfied of the truth of what I have long believed, that a small boat is as safe, if not safer, than a large one, if properly constructed, fitted out, trimmed, and managed. I believe that many a large open boat, if not capsized by the wind, would have been swamped by the waves over which my little craft rode in safety.

I have never experienced the benefit of out-door exertion and the comfort of retirement to the same degree as during these excursions, besides daily riding on horseback and preparing all the wood consumed at my cottage. Between two and three years ago I found it painful labour to walk one mile, I have since walked twelve miles in a day, besides attending to other duties--an improvement of my general system, which is already acting sensibly and encouragingly on the seat of thought and nervous influence. In my lonely voyage from Toronto to Port Ryerse, the scene was often enchanting, and the solitude sweet beyond expression. I have witnessed the setting sun amidst the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps, from lofty elevations, on the plains of Lombardy, from the highest eminence of the Appenines, between Bologna and Florence, and from the crater summit of Vesuvius, but I never was more delighted and impressed (owing, perhaps, in part to the susceptible state of my feelings) with the beauty, effulgence, and even sublimity of atmospheric phenomena, and the softened magnificence of surrounding objects, than in witnessing the setting sun the 23rd of June, from the unruffled bosom of Lake Erie, a few miles east of Port Dover, and about a mile from the thickly wooded sh.o.r.e, with its deepening and variously reflected shadows. And when the silent darkness enveloped all this beauty, and grandeur, and magnificence in undistinguishable gloom, my mind experienced that wonderful sense of freedom and relief which come from all that suggests the idea of boundlessness--the deep sky, the dark night, the endless circle, the illimitable waters. The world with its tumult of cares seemed to have retired, and G.o.d and His works appeared all in all, suggesting the enquiry which faith and experience promptly answered in the affirmative--

With glorious clouds encompa.s.sed round Whom angels dimly see; Will the unsearchable be found; Will G.o.d appear to me?

My last remark is the vivifying influence and unspeakable pleasure of visiting scenes endeared to me by many tender, and comparatively few painful recollections. Amid the fields, woods, out-door exercises, and a.s.sociations of the first twenty years of my life, I have seemed to forget the sorrows, labours and burdens of more than two score years, and to be transported back to what was youthful, simple, healthy, active, and happy. I can heartily sympathise with the feelings of Sir Walter Scott when, in reply to Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, who had expressed disapprobation in the scenery of the Tweed, immortalized by the genius of the Border Minstrel, he said,--

It may be partiality, but to my eyes these gray hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land. It has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery of Edinburgh, which is ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my honest gray hills, and if I did not see the heather at least once a year I think I should die.

Dr. Ryerson was very bold and skilful in the management of a sail boat, as may be inferred from the foregoing incidents. On one occasion, a few years ago, while sailing on the Toronto bay in his skiff, he was overtaken by a gale, during which the steeple of Zion Church was blown down, but, through G.o.d's goodness, he reached _terra firma_ in safety.

He frequently sailed his little craft, as he has mentioned, from Port Ryerse and Port Rowan to his Long Point cottage--a distance of thirteen and nine miles respectively--and that, too, in all sorts of weather, and sometimes when much larger boats would not venture outside of the harbour.

For many years Dr. Ryerson was considered one of the best shots at Long Point. When over seventy years of age, he killed from seventy to eighty duck in one day in his punt and with his own gun. In the spring of 1880, when in his seventy-eighth year, he was overtaken by darkness, and, not being able to reach his cottage, was compelled to remain all night in the marsh. Rolling himself up in his blankets, in his boat, he quietly went to sleep. In the early morning he was rewarded by capturing nine wild geese.

He crossed Lake Ontario, between Toronto and Port Dalhousie, four times alone in his skiff (only sixteen feet long), and three times accompanied by his son. Fear was unknown to him, and he never lost his presence of mind, even in the most perilous circ.u.mstances.

Another favourite recreation of his was riding. He was often seen before six o'clock in the morning enjoying a canter in the suburbs of Toronto.

Writing to me from Ridgeway in August, 1866, he said:--

To-day I left Toronto in my little skiff for Port Dalhousie. The lake was as smooth as gla.s.s the greater part of the day, and the latter part of the day there was not a breath of wind, so that I had to row. I got into Port Dalhousie in the evening. I was at the Queen's Own camp at Thorold yesterday. I visited a large number of tents, and examined the whole mode of living, and especially of cooking. It was amusing, among other cases of the same kind, to see several young gentlemen of Toronto cooking, and others a.s.sisting. I saw them cutting their meat, etc. They have the reputation of being the best cooks in the battalion. I go to Port Colborne in the rail cars, and will proceed in my skiff to Port Ryerse, or rather to Port Dover first. I hope to get there to-morrow. I went over the battle-ground here last evening.

As many people were curious to know how Dr. Ryerson spent his time at his Long Point cottage, the following letter, written to his cousin, Major Ryerse, in April, 1873, will supply the information. It relates to one day's experience, and was about the average of these experiences there:--On leaving the island cottage, I paddled and pushed my boat about six miles in the marsh, Monday forenoon. I rowed all the way to Port Ryerse against a head wind, one part of the way so strong that I s.h.i.+pped a good deal of water, and got wet. I was from two to eight o'clock rowing from my cottage to Port Ryerse. I was too wet and fatigued to walk to your house, but went to bed at nine, got up at five, and started for Simcoe at six. I walked eight miles out of ten on the ice, from Port Rowan over--going the other two miles by water, in a skiff which we took with us on a hand-sled. During the first eight days I did not go out in the marsh at all, but devoted myself wholly to my papers and books. The second week I went out three times, about three hours each, got a little game, but not enough to leave any on the way, except to a few friends. I am now beginning to enjoy rest more than exertion; and am not certain when I shall come again, or whether I shall come at all again.

While on his educational tour in 1866, Dr. Ryerson wrote to me from Napanee, and said:--There was a very large meeting in Picton on Sat.u.r.day and another here to-day, and both went with me in everything, with showers of compliments and almost enthusiastic feeling.

A large number of the oldest settlers and Methodists were invited to meet me last night at Mr. Dorland's, in Adolphustown. The service in the evening was to them a feast of fat things, and some of them spoke of it as the happiest occasion of their lives. I felt very happy with them.

They said it reminded them of "old times."

CHAPTER LX.

1867.