order of an over-ruling Providence to the more perfect establishment of civil and religious liberty in the country. The introduction of British Methodism was a conservative influence at a point where a conservative influence was essentially necessary. The later growth to extensive influence of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the severance of the Canadian Wesleyans from the British once more reinforced the ranks of reform and progress at a point when powerful forces in this direction were needed; and thus a divided Methodism, while the least political of all our Canadian churches, has been most potential in the political advancement of the province. But this will appear more fully as we turn back for a few years to follow up another chapter in the life work of Mr. Ryerson as one of the makers of Canada,

CHAPTER V

MR. RYERSON IN THE POLITICAL ARENA

DOWN

OWN to 1833 Mr. Ryerson's work in its interest and motive was purely religious. He was a Methodist preacher standing for the rights and liberties, the interests and prosperity of the church and people which he represented. The circumstance that these rights and interests must be maintained on the side of their political relations was entirely beyond his control. The circumstance that they coincided with the principles of one political party, and that they were invaded and threatened by the policy of the other, was also a matter beyond his control. The party with which he acted was not the party of his hereditary sympathies or of his settled political convictions, so far as he had formed any; but he was working not for political party or policy, but for religious freedom and equal civil rights. So far as one may judge he was as sensible as any other clergyman of that time of the gravity of unnecessary intermeddling with politics; and the concessions made to Dr. Alder in 1832 were doubtless due in part to the influence of this principle on his own mind and those of his associates. So far was he from having formed any new or progressive political theories

that it may be questioned whether he had fully comprehended the importance and far-reaching influence of the voluntary principle, notwithstanding the fact that it was a principle as important to religion as to political life. He was rather seeking justice under the existing constitution of government than such a change of political constitution as would conform the government to the will of the people. His method, too, had been appeal to argument and free discussion by the use of the press. We have no intimation that he took any part in political meetings or conventions, or in the elections, or in the petitions which moved the legislative assembly to action. For the first time, so far as we can learn, in 1833 he stepped aside from this guarded course by becoming the bearer to England of a petition, signed by 20,000 people, setting forth the grievances of the Canadian people, and praying that the clergy reserves be devoted to education. The passage of the Reform Bill in 1832 and the accession to power of the Whigs under Earl Grey had doubtless raised hopes in the minds of the advocates of Canadian reform that their cause might be undertaken by the home government. In the fulfillment of this mission he not only presented the petition of which he was the bearer, but also, as we have seen, supported it by an able presentation of the entire Canadian case to the secretary of state for the colonies. At this time, also, he gave close attention to the debates in the British House

ENGLISH POLITICS

of Commons and studied the English political parties and party leaders with careful scrutiny. We have already referred to the results of this new experience, as embodied in the series of papers known as the "Impressions," published in The Guardian in November, 1833. These studies, without doubt, shaped more definitely Ryerson's future political opinions and conduct. Of the English parties, the moderate Tories represented by Mr. Gladstone secured his most complete approval as guided by justice and religion. The ultra Tories and even the Duke of Wellington seemed too near akin to the Canadian Tories-arrogant, despotic and bigoted; while the Whigs seemed to be too much governed by "expediency." But of all the English political parties the most abhorrent to him seemed to be the Radicals, and these, unfortunately, were the friends and almost representatives in the English parliament of the Canadian party of constitutional reform. We have already seen how the "Impressions" affected Mr. Mackenzie's attitude towards Mr. Ryerson. The effect of these first studies of English politics was scarcely less pronounced on the mind of Mr. Ryerson himself. Seeing danger both to British monarchical government and to religion and morality in the principles of the English Radicals, he began to be suspicious of their Canadian friends. The treatment which he received from the reform press on his return home certainly did not tend to allay this feeling; and the

extreme language which they used and the covert threats they uttered led him to a full conviction that they were secretly meditating the erection of a republic in Canada, or the annexation of the province to the United States. This conviction he did not hesitate to express thirty years later. It cannot be said, in view of subsequent events, to have been an altogether groundless suspicion, and yet it did injustice to the great body of honest reformers, including many who were still Methodists, though now separated from the Wesleyan body.

For two years Mr. Ryerson contended, as editor of The Guardian, against this new and now rapidly increasing danger, at the same time endeavouring to maintain, as best he could, his old-time position of contention against a state church and for equal civil rights in religious matters. Speaking three years later of his efforts at this time, he says: "It will be seen that the object I have had in view at all times and under all circumstances was a just, liberal, and popular, as well as constitutional government, in this province. The majority of the late House of Assembly (i.e., the House prior to the election of 1836) put it out of my power to act with them because they made the clergy reserve question subservient to other objects which I had never embraced and with which I could not identify myself individually nor the Methodists as a body, whatever might be the free opinions of the individual members."