f human
praise or censure--where all earthly ranks and distinctions are
lost in the sublimities of eternity--I have the melancholy
satisfaction of bearing my humble testimony to his candour,
sincerity, faithfulness, kindness and liberality. A few days before
the occurrence of the accident which terminated his life, I had the
honour of spending an evening and part of a day in free
conversation with His Lordship; and on that, as well as on former
similar occasions, he observed the most marked reverence for the
truths of Christianity--a most earnest desire to base the civil
institutions of the country upon Christian principles, with a
scrupulous regard to the rights of conscience--a total absence of
all animosity against any person or parties opposed to him--and an
intense anxiety to silence dissensions and discord, and render
Canada contented, happy and prosperous.

... The day before his lamented death he expressed his regret that
he had not given more of his time to religion.... The last hours of
his life were spent in earnest supplications to the Redeemer, in
humble reliance upon whose atonement he yielded up the ghost.

After the publication of this letter in the _Guardian_, Dr. Ryerson
received the following acknowledgment from T. W. C. Murdoch, Esq., late
private Secretary to Lord Sydenham:--

I ought to have thanked you before for the numbers of the
_Guardian_ containing your letter on the death of Lord Sydenham.
That letter I have read over and over again with the deepest
emotion, and I cannot but feel how much more worthily the task of
writing the history of his administration might have been confided
to your hands than to mine. That I shall discharge the duty with
affectionate zeal and good faith, I hope I need not assure you, but
I fear my inability to do justice to so statesmanlike an
administration, or to make apparent to others those nice shades of
policy which constituted the beauty and insured the success of his
government. In the meantime what are we to hope or expect from the
new Governor Sir C. Bagot. My principal confidence is that Sir R.
Peel is too prudent a man to wish discredit to his administration
by allowing the re-introduction of the old, bad system, and that
consequently Sir Charles will be instructed to follow out to the
b