DR. RYERSON.* 
 
 > < ♦ > > 
 
 A KEVIEW AND A STUDY. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. ANTISELL ALLEN. ESQ., 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 »<•»< 
 
 Note. — This Review was written by Mr. Allen for The Week, as stated 
 on page 10. It is worthy of careful study, as it gives an admirable estimate 
 of the life and labours of Dr. Ryerson. It also presents a brief yet compre- 
 hensive view of the value of the services which that distinguished man 
 rendered to his native country. 
 
 The Literary Trustees and Publisher desire to append this note, and 
 to thank Mr. Allen for his candid and impartially written paper. 
 
 ToBONTO, March, 188k. 
 
 *"Thb Story of My Life." By the late Rev. EgtsAlon Ryerson, 
 D.D., LL.D. ; being reminiscences of sixty years' public service in Canada. 
 Prepared under the supervision of his Uterary trustees — the Rev. S. S. 
 Nelles, D.D., LL.D. ; the Rev. John Potts, D.D. ; and J. George Hodgins, 
 Esq., LL.D. Edited by J. George Hodgins, LL.D., with portrait and 
 engravings. Toronto : William Briggs, 78 and 80 King Street East. 1883. 
 
> 
 
 i 
 
DR. RYERSON. 
 
 I HAVE been engaged lately in reading " The Story of My 
 Life," and if that which stimulates the mental and moral 
 faculties and stirs the best sympathies of our nature in behalf 
 of the good . man struggling with all the force that is in him 
 against the deadly might of manifold wrong, results in profit 
 to us, then do I moat heartily recommend to the public this 
 excellent work. 
 
 I am myself glad I have read it ; for though I always felt 
 that what came from the pen of Dr. Ryerson was sure to be 
 stamped with the marked idiosyncrasies of his vigorous mind^ 
 yet I knew nothing of his private life or early history, and saw 
 nothing in the few letters of his, chiefly controversial, which 
 had drifted in my way, that seemed calculated to endear to me 
 the man himself. I was the subject, too, of misconceptions 
 impressed on me from without, through persons who honestly 
 entertained the views which they expressed, and who, I thought, 
 must have had good grounds for entertaining them; and though 
 I never penned a line against him, yet unacquaiilted as I was 
 with his true history, I had little friendly feeling towards 
 him; and I hope that those who regarded him as a thorough- 
 paced politician and self-seeker, using his ascendency over a 
 .large religious denomination to achieve his own ambitious ends, 
 will, shaking themselves loose from every prejudice, with an 
 honest desire to learn the truth respecting him, peruse this book 
 with the care which it deserves. If they do so, they can, I think, 
 hardly fail to see that a half-view of the man — seen too, per- 
 haps, under specially unfavorable circumstances, and when their 
 own minds were disturbed by what they deemed a wilful or 
 contemptuous disregard on his part of the force and truth of 
 the reasons urged by them, and which to their minds carried 
 full conviction — that a half-view of the man so seen is like 
 seeing the moon on its dark side only. 
 
But let them read these pages without preposessions of any 
 kind, and I think it will be found that they bear such an 
 unmistakable stamp of sincerity that, unless the reader be 
 wholly incapable of appreciating character and of weighing, 
 and being affected by, moral evidence, they must bring con- 
 viction home; especially as I know that to every generous 
 mind anger and indignation are a heavy and galling weight, 
 which the good man will gladly shake from him when he can. 
 
 I am no Methodist, nor connected with any party in Church or 
 commonwealth, but simply a looker-on, who is happy to welcome 
 good wherever he sees it ; and I see it in this man in so high a 
 degree that I cannot help saying so, and if I failed in my 
 judgment in respect of the living man, I will at least be true 
 to his memory, and so make the only reparation in my power. 
 
 The struggle of high minds for predominance has too often 
 a tendency to produce a certain vitiation of moral character. 
 The very eminence of another puts him into a kind of antag- 
 onism to ourselves, and if he have any faults, self-love backed 
 by ambition is sure to pounce upon and exaggerate them, until 
 at last we become almost blind to the virtues of a powerful 
 opponent; and if he stands in the way of our ambition, or if he 
 hurts our sensibilities, we are too apt to regard him as an enemy; 
 and thus is the man of pre-eminent ability made to pay the 
 penalty of his. own high gifts. 
 
 " Urit enimfulgore suo, qui prcegravat artes 
 Infra se positas" 
 
 But now that the battle no longer waxes hot, I trust the closing 
 words of the verse will also prove true, " extinctus amahitur 
 idem;" and that the mists of misconception having lifted 
 themselves out of our horizon, we may see the man himself, in 
 the dry light of the understanding, as he really lived and acted, 
 and take measure more accurately of his true proportions. 
 
 And, indeed, there is hardly a foot-length of our civilization 
 on which he has not left his mark. For those who believe 
 that, on the grounds of expediency, a government is justified 
 in interfering with the ordinary working of the great human 
 life-struggle, and so, in taking one man's money to benefit 
 another man's children, that is to a majority so overwhelming 
 
as to come almost under the category of universal, as to be every 
 one's belief — what system of general education can recommend 
 itself more fully, or work more smoothly, than does his ? In 
 his struggles in this direction, neither seduced by friends, nor 
 cowed by enemies, nor damped in his ardour by the vastness of 
 the undertaking — turning neither to the right hand r c to the 
 left — he has raised to himself a "Tnonumentum perennius csre." 
 and has bequeathed to us and posterity a system of public and 
 high-school education second to none anywhere, and, making 
 some deductions for possible mistakes incident to our weak 
 humanity, a system almost as perfect as we in this generation 
 are perhaps capable of generally acquiescing in. 
 
 But great as were his achievements, I am more really con- 
 cerned with the man himself than with what he effected. I once 
 had a slight tussle with him, when, in the indignation of his 
 heart, he handled me not over gently, using the Queen's eng- 
 lish, as he could do it, with incomparable skill ; and thor.gh I 
 thought that I had treated the matter with a truer insight and 
 a farther-reaching analysis, yet he came down upon me so like 
 a whirlwind, and with the hammer of a Thor of terrible pointed 
 invective, that, in the opinion of the impartial public, I doubt 
 not, I lay wholly crushed. 
 
 But, indeed, I care very little what opinions men hold, pro- 
 vided only that they do hold them — hold them honestly. To 
 be honest with ourselves in the formation of our opinions is 
 the true touchstone of character. That we send not the cun- 
 ning intellect in search of arguments to serve the interests of 
 the passions is the real heart of the matter, and not the opinion 
 held. Motive is the all in all ; not the action done, but the 
 spirit that underlies and prompts it. And so, though differing 
 with Dr. Ryerson, toto ccelo, in many things, yet I cannot with- 
 hold my admiration from one who thought so honestly and 
 worked so vigorously and fought his life-battle to the end so 
 valorously and well, and I am proud o* the humanity which 
 was equal to giving birth to such a man. 
 
 Nor ought we, while wishipg to bring them to a better mind, 
 to entertain the slightest ill-feeling towards those who think 
 differently of him. They thought of him as they did, natur- 
 
ally, perhaps necessarily. Possibly they saw the one side of 
 his character, and this at his worst moments, and perhaps, also, 
 when they were at their own worst moments, too. He took 
 them not, as he ought to have done, into his confidence — per- 
 haps he was too proud for that. It might have shaped itself 
 to his mind, falsely, as unnecessary humiliation. He showed 
 them net his whole heart. They never once entered the " Holy 
 of Holies " of the man, possibly believed there was no " Holy " 
 there at all, nothing at bottom but the mere hardpan of pre- 
 tence. But now, having in our hands this beautiful " Story of 
 My Life," with his inward anatomy bared to view, we have an 
 opportunity of seeing him as he was really, and of reversing 
 our judgment of him ; and I think we ought to be glad of it, 
 for no Sinbad would carry, if by roiy possibility he could shake 
 him off, his old man of the sea of bitter feeling for his fellow- 
 man. 
 
 But we must not try to impose on ourselves either. There 
 may be a wide-yawning chasm here hard to leap; for it is 
 hard, especially hard to some men, to acknowledge, save in 
 general terms, that they are not infallible. When we descend 
 to particulars the case is altered quite. Then those who have 
 held long-formed opinions and expressed them, or have long 
 nursed honest feelings of hostility, which all in process of 
 time, imbedded in the very brain-substance, have come at last to 
 be entertained by them as moral certainties — these, I say, do 
 not readily resign their opinions so formed ; and they are to be 
 pardoned if they do not at once capitulate. But as true men 
 are touched by truth, and noble men by nobility, and as by the 
 straightness of our own minds we are led to recognize straight- 
 ness in others, so do I trust that eventually every one who feels 
 within the pulse-beats of a true and noble manhood will come to 
 recognize the same in him. 
 
 For in his yearning and inextinguishable love of liberty and 
 fair play, in his ardent patriotism, in his devotion to those 
 interests he regarded as the highest^ — in these and for these he 
 lived and wore out his life, working almost to the last with the 
 old untiring energy and unconquerable spirit. 
 
 " The Story of My Life " is not a biography merely, but a 
 
history of our times ; for so intimately are his doings and writ- 
 ings interwoven with all the transactions of the times in which 
 he lived, that he scarcely says or does anything that is not of 
 public concern. And when in the long future some one under- 
 takes to write the history of our country, where will he find 
 such ample and trustworthy materials on which to found a 
 judgment of the manner of life of its early settlers, and of the 
 struggles of parties for ascendency on the one hand, and for 
 liberty on the other, and when what this man did such fierce 
 battle for shall have come to be recognized everywhere as the 
 merest elementary principles of common right — the very a, b, c, 
 of legislation, imbedded firmly in the ordinary habits of think- 
 ing of the people — I can hardly think that this foremost cham- 
 pion of these principles will not bo made to stand out in his 
 true proportions. We may try to belittle him, but the calmness 
 of the future makes his place secure. 
 
 For though there are no positive criteria by which we can 
 form such an ex cathedra decision respecting the purity of the 
 motive that seems to influence any man, as there are of the 
 purity of a metal by its proper tests ; yet where there is the 
 genuine man, there will be generally recognizable, by at least 
 cognate souls, the ring of the true metal; for in his words, and 
 ways, and actions, will keep cropping up from time to time, and 
 constantly, such convincing evidences of real inward worth, that 
 every pale ghost of a doubt vanishes from our minds, and we 
 accept with gladness the man for what he is. And in this man 
 are those evidences not abundant ? 
 
 When a very young man, instead of joining, as it was urged 
 upon him, the respectable and time-honoured Church of Eng- 
 land, he, in obedience to the voice of conscience, and throwing 
 all worldly considerations to the winds, cast in his lot with an 
 unrecognized and humble people ; and when his Father, in 
 stern anger and disappointment, bade him leave the Methodists 
 or leave him, he takes the latter alternative, though not know- 
 ing whither to betake himself ; and when, after a little, he 
 obtained the place of assistant school-teacher, and his Father 
 accused the Methodists of having stolen his son from the farm- 
 work and from him, he hired out of his pittance a farm-labourer 
 
8 
 
 for his Father, and when this proved unsatisfactory, and his 
 Father bade him come home again, fearing that, if he did not 
 obey the summons, his religion might be held up to reproach, he 
 returned to his Father and worked like a very slave; yet with 
 the cheerfulness of a man who felt the smiles of an approving 
 conscience. And what a hunger and thirst for knowledge, and 
 what a brave determination to conquer every disadvantage, 
 overworking the poor brain till a brain-fever laid him low. Still 
 he moves on undauntedly, resolved to furnish and polish his 
 mind ; to be no smatterer, but a fully equipped man : and what 
 tasks he set himsolf, and to what a height he finally attained ! 
 Indeed, few could measure swords with him in the battle of life. 
 
 Say that in his over self-confidence he attempted something 
 which only the disciplined specialist is equal to, and which none 
 else should attempt. "What, then? He only did in a few 
 instances what thousands are in many cases doing every day — 
 writing about what they know little of, or, if possible, have 
 thought less. 
 
 Allowing, too, that he hit hard sometimes, writing sharply 
 and stingingly. Well, but was he not struck hard at and 
 wounded deeply, and if the wound spurted back again some- 
 times gall with the blood, is it to be wholly wondered at ? — 
 nemo mortaliurn omnibus horia aapit. He was, indeed, a 
 thorn in the side of all monopolists of special privileges, but 
 the warm, gentle ally of all who loved the open sunshine, and 
 the free, wholesome air of equal human rights. 
 
 Then he was narrow-minded in some things ! Well, are we 
 all so broad-soaled that we can aiford to cast the stone ? Are 
 we all able to say with a clear conscience that we are willing 
 to lie passive on the waters, and let the currents of truth and 
 right carry us where they will ? 
 
 But narrowness is rather an evasive term, its meaning, when 
 used in connection with men, being as widely different as are 
 the minds and judgments of those who employ it. A^ without 
 deeming himself narrow, may feel himself bound by stricter 
 rules of interpretation than 6, who, laying claim to a wider 
 liberty, deems A narrow ; while C, who grants himself still 
 greater indulgence, or even gives full swing to the mental 
 pendulum, pronounces B narrow. Thus the meaning of narrow 
 
9 
 
 ia &a we are, and changes as we change, ever growing as we 
 grow, or the contrary. Thus are men right or wrong, wide or 
 narrow, according to the tape-line of our infallibility ! 
 
 But how kind and loving he was to his friends, and how 
 love begat love, true, deep, and abiding, this loving tribute to 
 his memory by his most cherished friend. Dr. Hodgins, proves; 
 and in this charming biography the two friends go down to- 
 gether to posterity, bound heart and hand by the bond of like 
 principles, and by the like love of what they ever held to 
 involve the highest interests of humanity. So warm, indeed, 
 and glowing are the feelings of Dr. Hodgins, who knew him 
 intimately, and so jealous is he for his good name, that to 
 many a reader his work may seem, possibly, a picture too 
 highly coloured for the prose of our ordinary life. 
 
 But look for a little into the diary of Dr. Ryersoii. How 
 abounding in zeal for Christ and human well-being, wherein 
 we see, as through a transparency, bared to our view the very 
 heart of the man himself. Certainly, he must be strangely 
 compounded who can doubt the deep sincerity of this able 
 man. And when, towards the close of his career, at the ripe 
 age of seventy -five, he reviews his past life, he adds, " I have 
 no melancholy feelings or fears. The joy of the Lord is my 
 strength. I feel that I am now on the bright side of seventy- 
 five. As the evening twilight of my earthly life advances, my 
 spiritual sun shines with increased splendour. . . . Here 
 on bended knees I give myself, and all I have and am, afresh 
 to Him whom I have endeavoured to serve, but very imper- 
 fectly, for more than three-score years," — and so on. Does this, 
 then, with one foot in the grave, go for nothing ? I pity the 
 man, if such there be, who thinks so. 
 
 Dr. Ormiston, too, after " an intimacy of nearly forty years," 
 witnesses to " his lofty intellectual endowments, his great 
 moral worth, and pervading spiritual power," and adds, " I owe 
 more to that noble, unselfish, kind-hearted man than to anyone 
 else." The last letter he ever wrote, with trembling hands and 
 almost illegible, contains these latest written words, "I am help- 
 less myself . . . but God has been with me, my strength 
 and my comforter." 
 
 To make the story of his life complete, to show the diffi- 
 
10 
 
 culties of his position, the enemies he had to contend with, the 
 aspersions of his motives by the revolutionary leaders of the 
 period, the falling away of friends, and his final triumph. Dr. 
 Hodgins has been at vast pains to collect materials frqm all 
 sides from which to select the most important, and to so 
 arrange them in serial order as to form out of them a con- 
 nected and luminous whole ; and this he has done with such 
 painstaking skill and ability — that the full picture of the chief 
 actors in the drama and of the state of mind of the general 
 public of the time stands out before us in such clear colouring 
 and distinctness — that every one may understand for himself 
 the fears, and hopes, and aspirations and plottings of the rest- 
 less minds of this troublous and eventful period. But to enter 
 into details would carry me far beyond the limits I have 
 assigned to myself in this paper. Those who wish to study 
 the matter fully must have recourse to the book itself. 
 
 Now I close this most interesting book. Dr. Ryerson had 
 his faults, say : Who has not ? But the hahit of the tree is 
 the main thing, — its trunk erect and pointing upward, — and 
 though the storm may disfigure it and the winter nip its 
 leaves ; yet if only life be there and the constitution sound, it 
 soon renews itself with fresh vernal growth. Even so with 
 ourselves; it is the normal habit of the soul, the vitalizing 
 principle within, that is of chief account in judging of char- 
 acter, and not what happens occasionally, when the gusts of 
 passion take us at unawares, and mar to some extent the beauty 
 of our lives. So let him be tnought of. 
 
 J. Antisell Allen. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 This review of "The Story of My Life" was written for, 
 and accepted by, the Editor of The Week. But on the resigna- 
 tion of the then Editor it was withdrawn as he had intimated! 
 that if it were to be inserted at once, he would be obliged to 
 shorten it, otherwise it could not be published for some timo, 
 owing to the quantity of material in advance of it. 
 
 It was not tnought desirable either to shorten the article, or 
 to defer its publication, hence its appearance in its present 
 form. 
 
 ToBONTO, March, 1884.