LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

in it. In this opinion I am not alone. Your remarks on the Clergy Reserve question were very timely and highly satisfactory. A number of our brethren have wished me to express to you the pleasure they feel in the course which you have pursued as editor. There has been very great prejudice against you in these parts, among preachers and people, but I think they are dying out and will, I trust, shortly entirely disappear. I hope we shall soon see "eye to eye."

      March 5th.—In the Guardian of this day, Dr. Ryerson intimated that:—

      Among many schemes resorted to by the abbettors of Mr. Mackenzie to injure me, was the circulation of all kinds of rumours against my character and standing as a minister. For proof, it was represented that I was denied access to the Wesleyan pulpit in this town. When these statements were made early in the year, the stewards and leaders of the York Society met on the 11th of last January, and passed a resolution to the effect

      That being anxious, lest, under exciting circumstances, you might be tempted to withhold your ministrations from the York congregation, they desire their Secretary to inform you that it is their wish, and they believe it a duty you owe to the Church of Christ, to favour it with your views on His unsearchable riches as often as an opportunity may present itself.

      As these rumours have now been revived, I published this resolution in the Guardian of to-day.

      The capital offence charged against Dr. Ryerson in publishing his "impressions" was his exposure of Joseph Hume, M.P., the friend and patron of Mr. Mackenzie. (See pages 118 and 123.) In the Guardian of December 11th, Dr. Ryerson fully met that charge. Among other things he pointed out:—

      1st. That, having voted for a Church establishment in India, Mr. Hume was the last man who should have been entrusted with petitions from Upper Canada, against a Church establishment in Upper Canada. 2nd. That Methodists emigrating to this country, when they learn that Mr. Hume is regarded as a sort of representative of the principles of the Methodists in Upper Canada, immediately imbibe strong prejudices against them, refusing to unite with them, and even strongly opposing them, saying that such Methodists are Radicals—a term which, in England, conveys precisely the same idea that the term Republican does in this Province. Thus the prejudices which exist between a portion of the Canadian and British Methodists here, are heightened, and the breach widened. 3rd. That even adherents of the Church of England here who were Reformers in England join the ranks of those opposed to us when they know that Mr. Hume is a chosen representative of our views in England; for the personal animosity between the Whigs and Reformers and Radicals in England is more bitter, if possible, than between the Radicals and Tories, and far more rancorous than between the Whigs and Tories. There is just as much difference between an English Reformer and an avowed English Radical as there is between a Canadian Reformer and an avowed Canadian Republican. In the interests of the Methodists, therefore, religiously and politically, the allusion to Mr. Hume was justifiable and necessary. Dr. Ryerson continues:—

      I may mention that so strongly impressed was I with these views, that in an interview which I had with Mr. Secretary Stanley, a few days before the Clergy Reserve petitions were presented by Mr. Hume, I remarked that the people of Upper Canada, not being acquainted with public men in England, had sent them to the care of a gentleman of influence in the financial affairs of Great Britain, but that I was apprehensive that he was not the best qualified to advocate a purely legal and religious question. Mr. Secretary Stanley smilingly interrupted me by asking "Is it Hume?" I replied, "It is, but I hope this circumstance will not have the least influence upon your mind, Mr. Secretary Stanley, in giving the subject that important and full consideration which its great importance demands." Mr. Stanley replied: "No, Mr. Ryerson, be assured that the subject will not be in the least prejudiced in my mind by any circumstance of that kind; but I shall give it the most important and grave consideration."

      May 24th.—Within three months after Dr. Ryerson had stated these facts in regard to Mr. Hume, overwhelming evidence of the correctness of his statement that Mr. Hume was unfit to act as a representative, in the British Parliament, of the people of Upper Canada, was given by Mr. Hume himself in a letter addressed to Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, dated 29th March, 1834. In that letter Mr. Hume stated that Mr. Mackenzie's

      Election to, and subsequent ejection from the Legislature, must hasten that crisis which is fast approaching in the affairs of the Canadas, and which will terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother country.

      He also advised that

      The proceedings between 1772 and 1782 in America ought not to be forgotten; and to the honour of the Americans, for the interests of the civilized world, let their conduct and the result be ever in view.

      Dr. Ryerson added: There is no mistaking the revolutionary and treasonable character of this advice given to Canadians through Mr. W. L. Mackenzie. Yet I have been denounced for exposing the designs of such revolutionary advisers!

      The following is an extract from Mr. W. L. Mackenzie's remarks in the Colonial Advocate on Mr. Hume's letter:—

      The indignant feeling of the honest old Reformer (Hume), when he became acquainted with the heartless slanders of the unprincipled ingrate Ryerson, may be easily conceived from the tone of his letter. … Mr. Mackenzie will be prepared to hand the original letter to the Methodist Conference.

      June 4th.—In the Guardian of this date, Dr. Ryerson replied at length to Mr. Hume's letter, pointing out how utterly and totally false were Mr. Hume's statements in regard to himself. He, in June, 1832, expressed his opinion of Mr. Hume (pages 118 and 123). He then said:—

      That was my opinion of Mr. Hume, even before I advocated the Clergy Reserve petition in England—such it was after I conversed with him personally, and witnessed his proceedings—such it is now—and such must be the opinion of every British subject, after reading Mr. Hume's revolutionary letter, in which he rejoices in the approach of a crisis in the affairs of the Canadas, "which will terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother country!" I stated to Mr. Mackenzie more than once, when he called upon me in London, that I could not associate myself with his political measures. But notwithstanding all my caution, I, in fact, got into bad company, for which I have now paid a pretty fair price. … I cannot but regard it as a blessing and happiness to the Methodist connexion at large, that they also, by the admission of all parties, stand so completely distinct from Messrs. Hume and Mackenzie, as to be involved in no responsibility and disgrace, by this premature announcement of their revolutionary purposes.

      Oct. 25th.—As to the final result of the agitation in regard to the "Impressions," Rev. John Ryerson, writing from Hallowell (Picton), at this date, says:—

      The work of schism has been pretty extensive in some parts of this District. There have as the result of it left, or have been expelled, on the Waterloo Circuit, 150; on the Bay of Quinte, 40; in Belleville, 47; Sidney, 50; Cobourg, 32; making in all 320. There have been received on these circuits since Conference 170, which leaves a balance against us of 150.

      Remarks on the Result of the "Impressions."

      The result (on the membership of the Societies) of this politico-religious agitation was more or less the same in other parts of the Connexion. The publication of the "impressions" was (to those who had for years been in a state of chronic war with the powers that be) like the falling of the thunderbolt of Jove out of a cloudless sky. It unexpectedly precipitated a crisis in provincial affairs. It brought men face to face with a new issue. An issue too which they had not thought of; or, if it had presented itself to their minds, was regarded as a remote, if possible, contingency. Their experience of the working of "British institutions" (as the parody on them in Upper Canada was called), had so excited their hostility and embittered their feelings, that when they at first heard Dr. Ryerson speak in terms of eulogy of the working of these institutions in the mother country, they could not, or would not, distinguish between such institutions in England and their professed counterpart in Upper Canada. Nor could they believe that the great champion of their cause, who in the past had exposed the pernicious and oppressive workings of the so-called British institutions in Upper Canada, was sincere in his exposition of the principles and the promulgation of doctrines in

Скачать книгу