y thereto,--Strachanism must seek a more congenial climate.
_March 19th, 1829._--Dr. Ryerson had, at this time, met with an
accident, but his life was providentially spared. Elder Case, writing
from New York, at this date, speaking of it, says:
Thank the Lord that your life was preserved. The enemies of our Zion
would have triumphed in your death. May God preserve you to see the
opponents of religious liberty, and the abettors of faction frustrated
in all their selfish designs and hair-brained hopes!
I have seen a letter from the Rev. Richard Reece, dated London, 19th
January, to Mr. Francis Hall, of the New York _Commercial Advertiser_
and the _Spectator_, in which he says:
I am of opinion that the English Conference can do very little good in
Upper Canada. Had our preachers been continued they might have raised
the standard of primitive English Methodism, which would have had
extensive and beneficial influence upon the work in that province, but
having ceded by convention the whole of it to your Church, I hope we
shall not interfere to disturb the people. They must, as you say,
struggle for a while, and your bishops must visit them, and ordain their
ministers, till they can do without them. He speaks of being highly
gratified at the conversion of the Indians in Canada.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Rev. Henry Ryan was born 1776 entered the ministry in 1800, and
died at his residence, in Gainsborough, on the 2nd September, 1833, aged
57 years.--H.
[22] The post-office endorsement on this letter was as follows:--Paid to
Lewistown, N.Y., 25c. postage; ferryage to Niagara, 2d.; from Niagara to
Hamilton, 4-1/2d.; total, 36 cents postage, for what in 1882 costs only
one-twelfth of that amount.--H.
[23] The title of this pamphlet (in possession of the Editor) is: Claims
of Churchmen and Dissenters of Upper Canada brought to the test in a
Controversy between several Members of the Church of England and a
Methodist Preacher. Kingston, 1828. pp. 232. (See note on page 80, and
also Chapter viii.)
Rev. Dr. Green, in his _Life and Times_, thus speaks of the effect of
the publication of these letters upon Rev. Franklin Metcalf and
himself:--The sermon was ably reviewed in the columns of the _Colonial
Advocate_, in a communication over the signature of "A Methodist
Preacher." Mr. Metcalf and I took the paper into a field, where we sat
down on the grass to read. As we read, we admired; and as we admired, we
rejoiced; then thank
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