e a debt of gratitude to
Dr. Ryerson, as the only real founder of a comprehensive school
system in Ontario. Through evil report and through good report he
has steadily worked on his way; neither daunted by the abuse he has
received, nor unduly elated by the unmeasured tribute of praise
paid to his efforts in the department to which his whole life was
devoted. He kept the even tenor of his way, and we think most
people, unblinded by partisan prejudice, will acknowledge that his
life purpose has, more than that of most men, been accomplished. He
leaves behind him a structure so nearly completed that men with a
tithe of his enthusiasm, and infinitely less knowledge of the
educational requirements of the Province, can lay the capstone, and
declare the work complete.

Hon. Marshall S. Bidwell died in New York shortly after his visit to
Canada in 1872. Hon. Judge Neilson, his friend, wrote to Dr. Ryerson for
particulars of Mr. Bidwell's early life, with a view to publish it in a
memorial volume. This information Dr. Ryerson obtained from Sir W. B.
Richards, Clarke Gamble, Esq., Q.C., and Rev. Dr. Givens, and, with his
own, embodied it in a communication to Judge Neilson. In a letter to Dr.
Ryerson, dated 30th April, 1873, the late Rev. Dr. Saltern Givens
said:--

A short time since, Hon. W. B. Robinson informed me that a letter
of condolence was written by the late Mr. Bidwell to Lady Robinson
and her family, on the death of Sir John, and that he thought it
would answer your purpose.... I am sure that you will peruse it
with as much pleasure as I have done.

It ought to be a matter of devout thankfulness and congratulation
with us Canadians, that two of our most distinguished statesmen and
jurists have left behind them such unequivocal and delightful
testimonies of their faith in Christ, and of their experience of
the power of His Gospel, in extracting the sting from death and in
comforting the bereaved.

I am sure that Sir John's letters to Mr. Bidwell, under his similar
trial, if you could obtain them, would be read with a thrill of
delight and profit by their many friends throughout Canada.

When witnessing--as we have done, some forty years ago--those
fierce political contests in which our departed friends were
involved, how little did we think that in the evening of their d