The Story of My Life; Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada Part 75

I have felt peculiar sympathy for Lady Robinson. I am sure her affliction must be extreme. I hope the Son of G.o.d is with her in the furnace, and that she has a consciousness of His presence. He can give both support and consolation, and both she must greatly need. He can gently, and imperceptibly, bind up and heal her wounded and bleeding heart.

I wish that I could furnish reminiscences that would be interesting to you, for I should be glad to testify my respect for the memory of your brother, but I cannot tell you anything with which you are not familiar. I remember distinctly his appearance the first time I saw him. He had just returned to Canada, after his first visit to England. I was a student at law, and had gone from Bath to Toronto, to attend the Court of King's Bench at Michaelmas Term. He, and Lady Robinson, came from Kingston in the steamer "Frontenac." I think that Mr. Hagerman was on board also. From another pa.s.senger, I heard that on the voyage they were overtaken at night by a storm, which stove in the dead-lights, and poured a flood of water into the cabin. It was a time of alarm, probably of danger; your brother was perfectly composed. He came into court on his arrival, and upon that occasion I saw him. His appearance was striking. His features were cla.s.sically and singularly beautiful; his countenance was luminous with intelligence and animation; his whole appearance that of a man of genius and a polished gentleman, equally dignified and graceful. Altogether his features, figure and manners filled my youthful imagination with admiration, which subsequent acquaintance, and opportunities to hear him at the Bar and in Parliament, only strengthened, and which was not diminished by the difference between us in our views and opinions on public affairs.

I heard him frequently at the Bar, and upon some occasions, I had the honour to be junior counsel with him.

He was a consummate advocate, as well as a profound and accurate lawyer. He had extraordinary powers for a speech _impromptu_, and needed as little time for preparation for an address to a jury, or an argument to the Court, as any one I have ever known. But he was never induced by this readiness to neglect a patient and careful attention to his client's case.

No one could be more faithful. He studied every case thoroughly, examined all the particular circ.u.mstances, made himself master of its details, and considered it carefully, in all its aspects and relations. I do not think he ever delivered a speech from memory.

He was self-possessed in the trial, his mind was vigilant, his thoughts flowed rapidly, he had rapid a.s.sociation of ideas, great quickness of apprehension, as well as great sagacity, and a power of arranging anything in his mind, luminously and instantaneously; his fluency was unsurpa.s.sed.

I was present upon those occasions in Parliament which aroused him to great exertions.

He was at all times a correct, elegant, interesting speaker, but upon those occasions he spoke with great force and effect.

The fire of his eye, the animation of his countenance and the elegance of his manner, combined with dignity, cannot be appreciated by any one who did not hear him. No report of his speeches, no description of his manner and appearance, can convey to others a just and adequate idea. To report him _verbatim_ was impossible. His ideas flowed so rapidly, and he had such fluency of language, that no reporter could have kept pace with his delivery.

He was an admirable parliamentary leader. He never exposed himself by any incautious speech or act, and never failed to detect and expose one on the other side. He was sincere and earnest in his opinions, uncompromising, frank and fearless in the expression of them. He never attempted to make a display of himself, or indulged in useless declamation; but spoke earnestly and for the purpose of producing an immediate effect. I heard that when he was in England in 1823 (I think that was the year), the ministry had under consideration introducing him through one of their boroughs into Parliament. If it had been done, I have no doubt he would have become a distinguished member of the House of Commons, and I think it probable that he would have attained to the highest honours of the land. During two years I had the honour to be Speaker of the House of a.s.sembly, while he was Speaker of the Legislative Council; our official stations rendered it necessary for us to confer together concerning the business before Parliament. He was always courteous, communicative and obliging. The difference between us on political questions while I was in Parliament precluded intimate or confidential relations, but he was always pleasant and candid, and more than once did I share in that elegant hospitality which was dispensed so cordially and so gracefully by him and Lady Robinson.

I have had the honor to receive friendly letters from him occasionally since I have been here, and after my great affliction last spring he wrote to me two very kind letters for which I shall ever be grateful.

I should be sincerely glad to evince my respect for his memory. I have not s.p.a.ce left to add anything respecting his judicial character and career, but this is unimportant. Every one in Canada knows it.

Writing to me after the Conference at London, in June, 1873, Dr. Ryerson said:--The proceedings of the Conference were very harmonious, and the discussions very able and courteous upon the whole. I received many thanks for my labours in connection with the scheme for Methodist Confederation and for union with the New Connexion Methodists. I trust I have been able, through Divine goodness, to render some service to the good cause.

In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from Rev. Dr. Punshon, dated 2nd December, the latter expressed some fears as to one or two points in the future of the General Conference arrangement. He says:--

I am looking with some solicitude to the result of the Appeal to the Quarterly Meetings on the Union question. I hope it will be carried, though your modifications of the scheme do not quite meet my approval, as one who would like to see a statesman's view taken of things. I do not see the bond of cohesion twenty years hence, when those who are now personally known to, and therefore interested in, each other, have pa.s.sed off the stage. Then the General Conference will meet as perfect strangers, having hardly a common interest but that of a common name; and as there are no General Superintendents, who know all the Conferences, there will not be, as in the States, any link to bind them together. I trust some remedy will be found for this, or the lack of such link will be disastrous.

We are losing our prominent men. You will have seen that Mr. Heald has pa.s.sed away--also Mr. Marshall, another Stockport "pillar." I am greatly concerned about my dear friend, Gervase Smith, the Secretary of the Conference. He has overtaxed himself, and is very ill. Absolute rest is enjoined for some time. It would be a sad day for me, if dear Gervase were to pa.s.s from my side. We have just heard of the loss of the "Ville du Havre," with 226 lives. Emile Cook, from Paris, was on board, and injured by the collision. How terrible! Now, my dear Dr. Ryerson, the good Lord be with you, and make you always as happy in His love as you desire to be, and spare you yet for many years, to counsel and to plan for His glory and the benefit of Canada.

Writing from his Long Point Cottage to me on the 12th of April, 1873, Dr. Ryerson said:--Some days I have felt quite young; but upon the whole, I doubt whether the means which have been so successful in the past in renewing my strength, can be of much use any longer to "stave off" old age. A medical gentleman here from Port Rowan said yesterday, I looked the perfection of health at my age; but my strength I feel already to be "labour and sorrow." So true are the words of inspiration to practical life.

The union question having been carried, and the General Conference established, that body met in Toronto in September, 1874. Speaking of it Dr. Ryerson said:--In 1874 I was elected the first President of the first General Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada; consisting of an equal number of ministers and laymen, and representing the several Annual Conferences of the Dominion of Canada.

On his return home from the General Conference held in Toronto in 1874, Hon. L. A. Wilmot, a former Judge, and late Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, wrote to Dr. Ryerson a note, in which he said:--How can we ever repay you and your dear family for the warm-hearted hospitality and the intellectual repast we so much enjoyed while with you? To me it is much more than a sunny memory, as you have so enriched me with treasures of thought, and words of wisdom. Really, I long to see you again, and I cannot express to you the pleasure it will afford us to welcome you all to our suburban home. We have room enough for you all, and sincerely do we pray that we may all be spared to meet again. [Mr. Wilmot has since then gone home to his reward.]

CHAPTER LXIV.

1875-1876.

Correspondence with Rev. J. Ryerson, Dr. Punshon, etc.

Dr. Ryerson went up to Simcoe to preach the anniversary sermons there, in December, 1874, and hoped to have gone to Brantford to see his brother John, but was prevented. He therefore wrote to him a New Year's letter, on the 3rd January, 1875: I have often prayed for you, thinking sometimes that I was even praying with you. We have spoken of you more than once during the recent holiday salutations and good wishes, and have wished you happy returns of this season of kindly greetings and renewed friends.h.i.+ps.

I feel to bless G.o.d that during the last several weeks I have experienced, in a deeper and brighter degree than I ever experienced before, "the love of Christ which pa.s.seth all knowledge." The pages of G.o.d's book seem to s.h.i.+ne with a brighter l.u.s.tre and a more luminous, comprehensive and penetrating power than I ever beheld in them. Without care, without fear, without a shadow of doubt, I can now, through G.o.d's wonderful grace, and by His Holy Spirit, rest my all upon Christ--lay my all upon His altar, and say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

On Sunday afternoon we had the renewal of the Covenant Service, in the Metropolitan, and the Communion. It was a good time. I think there were more than five hundred at the Communion--the largest number I ever witnessed in America, even at a camp-meeting. It took Rev. Dr. Potts and I more than an hour to distribute the elements.

I am anxious to go up to my cottage for change and retirement, so as to be quite alone for a few weeks with my books and papers.

I am at work, as hard as I can, upon my history. On New Year's Day I worked at it for fifteen hours--writing upwards of twenty pages of foolscap, besides researches, comparing authorities, etc. I am anxious to complete the two volumes of the New England Loyalists, before I go to England in May.

In reply to Dr. Ryerson's letter of 3rd January, his brother John wrote:--

My health is still precarious.... My attention to religious duties (reading the Scriptures, private and meditative self-examination, etc.,) I unremittingly persevere in, but my religious enjoyment is low and my faith weak.... This winter I have read the Life of Dr.

Bradshaw, an eminent clergyman of the Church of England, some time Rector of Colchester, then of Birmingham, and then of a Rectory in the suburbs of London, where he died in 1865, at the age of eighty-nine. His ministry extended over more than sixty years. He was one of the most devoted, and singularly pious ministers whose memoirs I ever read. O! into what dwarfishness the morality, and the spiritual and elevated attainments of most Christians sink in the presence of such men! Dr. Bradshaw's life was written by Miss Marsh, the auth.o.r.ess of the Life of Captain Vicars, and other excellent books. I have also read the Life of Miss M. Graham, a most eminently pious and devoted lady, also a member of the Church of England. She died at the early age of twenty-eight. Another memoir--of Mrs. Winslow, from the reading of which I ought to have derived much profit, one of the holiest women of whom I ever read, was a devoted member of the English Church. She was the daughter of a wealthy West India planter, and born in the West Indies. Her father died when she was quite young. She was married to a Captain in the British army, in one of the regiments stationed in the Island of Jamaica, but singular to say, not long after her marriage, was wonderfully converted, and towards the close of his life, was the means of saving her affectionate and devoted husband, who was a nephew of the once Governor of the Colony of Ma.s.sachusetts. He was very wealthy, besides his West India estate--owning a large estate in England. The wonderful piety of this devoted saint, during the long years of her widowhood, ought to humble pigmy Christians, like me, in the dust. Oh, can I ever be saved, if such men and women are only saved?

I am now reading the life and labours of Rev. Dr. Shrewsbury, a Wesleyan missionary to the West Indies and South Africa--then late in life back to England, where he died in 1866, aged seventy-three years. He was a man of ability, much industry and zeal, and of more than the medium piety of Methodist preachers generally.

In reply to this letter, Dr. Ryerson wrote to his brother on the 21st of February and said:--

You speak of the want of joy in your religious experience. I do not pray for joy, I simply pray for the indwelling of Christ, for the stamp of His image upon my soul, and for the harmony of every desire, and thought, and feeling, with His holy will, and divine glory; and there comes a "peace that pa.s.seth all understanding," a rest of the soul from fear, and anxiety--a sinking into G.o.d,--and now and then greater or less ecstacies of joy. I think we mistake when we make what is usually termed joy, the end of prayer, or of desire. I believe that even heaviness, and especially when superinduced by bodily disease, is not only consistent with a high state of grace, but even instrumental in its increase--especially of faith; the faith which realizes things invisible, as visible, and things to come, as things present.

I should like to read the biographies of which you speak, especially that of Rev. Dr. Marsh, but my time is insufficient to read what I have to read for my historical purposes. After all, biographies are very much what the biographers choose to make of their heroes. The writings of the Holy Apostles are the simple and true standard of Christian experience, practice and privilege, and help us also from sinking into despondency by the ill.u.s.trations they give of human imperfections and infirmities, and directing us so plainly to the source of all strength and supply, as well as to the "G.o.d of all consolation." We will talk more of these things when I see you.

Rev. John Ryerson, in his letter of February 24th, said:--

I never pray for joy in religion; to pray or seek for such a thing would be to begin at the wrong end; but truly pious persons might have joy as the fruit of a real experience, as growing out of a life "hid with Christ in G.o.d," joy in believing, joy in the Holy Ghost--but what I do offer my poor prayers for, is to know my sins forgiven, my acceptance with G.o.d; that I have a lot among the sanctified, that I have peace with G.o.d, through our Lord Jesus Christ. If I had an abiding evidence of such an experience, it would produce more or less joy. Surely the Bible is the best book; it is "The Book;" but still he may find many blessed ill.u.s.trations of its truths, of its morality, its spirituality, in the experience and lives, not only of saints of ancient days, but many of modern times. Rev. Dr. Marsh was one of these. He was a man of great learning, and extensive reading, but he loved the Bible infinitely, and above all books, read it (I was going to say) almost continually, and died with the New Testament in his hand. I try to read G.o.d's blessed Word. I am reading the Bible through by course--five or ten chapters every day in the Old Testament, and two or so in the New, besides on my knees, I read all the Psalms through every month. But what does this amount to? Nothing, so long as I am not saved from pride, irritability, selfishness, etc., within; the workings of which, more or less, I daily feel. This greatly troubles and distresses me; besides the remembrance of my sins of unfaithfulness, wanderings, backslidings, is grievous to me, and sometimes a burthen too heavy to be borne. The temptations, trials, sorrows, of true saints sometimes shed a little light upon my dulness, and give some strength to my weak and wavering faith.

On the 28th of February, Dr. Ryerson replied:--

I thank you for your kind and interesting letter. I did not suppose you had made joy an object or subject of prayer; but from the tone of your letter, it appeared to me that the absence of joy, or "heaviness of spirit," had led you to judge of your state too unfavourably. I quite agree with the views you express on the subject. I have not seen Rev. Dr. Marsh's life: but I can conceive him quite worthy of what is written, and of the opinion you express respecting him. During my attendance at the Wesleyan Conference in Birmingham, in 1836, my host invited Rev. Dr. (then Mr.) Marsh, Rev. John Angell James, and several other clergymen and persons of note, to meet me. I was very much struck with Mr. Marsh's appearance, and the more so from a circ.u.mstance mentioned to me by the hostess. A short time before that, a publisher there wished to get a portrait of the Apostle St. John, to have it engraved as an ill.u.s.tration in some book or publication he was issuing; and Mr.

Marsh was solicited to sit for the artist, as his countenance was supposed to reflect more strongly the purity and loveliness of the Apostle than any ideal that could be found. In consequence of this circ.u.mstance, I was told that Mr. Marsh was often called St. John the Apostle, from his Apostolic character and truly lovely manner and countenance. His praise was then in every mouth, as I was told, among the Dissenters as well as members of the Church of England.

(See page 163.)

After Dr. Ryerson became President of the General Conference in 1874, he was gratified at the many kind things said to him by his brethren and other friends. None were more kind and loving than those contained in a letter from his friend, Rev. Dr. Punshon, who speaks of his own elevation to the Presidency of the British Conference. Dr. Punshon, in his letter to Dr. Ryerson of the 19th of February, said:--

First of all, let me congratulate you most heartily upon your well-merited elevation to the Presidency of the General Conference.

They did themselves honour, and you will do them honour in their choice. My elevation here was unexpected, but very grateful, although the responsibility and work which it entails make me long for July, when, if G.o.d wills, I shall doff my regalia. I hope most earnestly to have the pleasure of seeing the Canadian representatives at the next Conference in Sheffield. I have already spoken for a very sweet home for you. It will be a great gratification to see you once again, and to enjoy sweet converse, with you as of old. Mr. Gervase Smith and I are to be with relatives just across the road. So please do not delay your coming for another year, as no one knows to what place the Conference will be carried. It seems almost improper to talk about it when we remember the heavy loss into which, as into an inheritance, we have all come by the death of dear Wiseman. You would, I am sure, be very grieved to hear of it. It fell on all here like a thunder-clap. But the Lord is good, and knows what is best for us all. There is a sorrowfully-occasioned vacancy at the Mission House, which the friends say I must fill, but I cannot tell how it will go, and of course, all is premature as yet. The Lord will direct us as He has always done.

By the way, I have been set seriously thinking by Mr. Wiseman's removal, whether I had sufficiently secured, by the doc.u.ment I gave to Rev. Dr. Rice, that the princ.i.p.al of the Testimonial Fund, given to me on leaving Canada, should, at my death, pa.s.s to the Canadian Conference for the benefit of the worn-out ministers and widows. I found on enquiry that it was not so secured as to be beyond doubt.

I have been in consultation with my solicitor as to the best method of effecting this. I have therefore given directions for a deed of trust to be prepared, which will state that I hold this money in trust for the "Superannuated Minister's Fund of the Methodist Church of Canada." I advise you of this as the honoured President of the General Conference. I was, on the whole, satisfied with the proceedings of the General Conference. I felt a little pang at the hasty change of name. It was inevitable to do it, at the same time, but it showed rather a leaping desire of freedom, and a wish to get as far as possible from the old mother at once, which might have, perhaps, been spared. This was not, I dare say, present to all who desired the change. I admit all the force of your able reasoning for the present--but twenty years hence the General Conference will meet as strangers, with no community of interest, and I dread the result, without a visible bond of cohesion.

Writing to me from Port Rowan in September, 1875, Dr. Ryerson said:--My friends here think that I am stronger, walk better, and appear more active than when I was last in this village. This is a common remark to me, and for which I cannot feel sufficiently thankful to my Heavenly Father. He is my portion; my all is His; and I feel that He is all and in all to me--my joy as well as my strength.

Writing from his Long Point cottage to me on the 13th April, 1876, Dr.

Ryerson said:--Next Sunday will be Easter Sunday--the 51st anniversary of my ministerial life, and what a life! Much to lament over; much to humble; with many exposures and hards.h.i.+ps; full of various labours; abounding in heavenly blessings.

Dr. Ryerson was appointed as a representative of the Conferences of British America to the General Conference of the United States in 1876.

Being unable to go, he addressed a letter to Bishop Simpson, from which I take these extracts:--