desired to have the subject publicly discussed in Conference.
They felt that a serious practical difficulty surrounded the question
itself--difficulties which could not be surmounted by public discussion.
Many of them also knew that in calmly discussing, without personal
feeling, the abstract principle involved in the rule, it would be found
that their judgment and loyal feeling to the Church would go one way,
while their uniform practice in the administration of the rule would
often be at variance with both, owing to peculiar circumstances. On the
other hand, Dr. Ryerson thought, that not only should preaching and
practice in this matter agree, but that theory and practice should also
agree. And hence he felt that as his preaching and practice agreed in
opposition to the rule, he was not loyal to the Church in ministering at
her altars, while he was heartily and conscientiously opposed to the
fundamental rule of membership prescribed by that Church. Hence, on the
2nd of January, 1854, he addressed the following letter to the Rev. Dr.
Wood, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference (I omit extraneous
matter):--

I hereby resign into your hands, my membership in the Conference, and my
office as a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church--herewith
enclosing my parchments of ordination, thus taking my place among the
laity of the Church.

I have resolved to take this step after long and serious deliberation,
but without consulting any human being. I take this step, not because I
do not believe that the Wesleyan ministry is as fully authorized as the
ministry of any other branch of the universal Church, to exercise all
the functions of Christian priesthood; not because I do not as
unfeignedly as ever subscribe to all the doctrines of the Wesleyan
Church; not because I do not profoundly honour the integrity and
devotedness of the Wesleyan ministry; not because I do not think that
Christian discipline is as strictly, if not more strictly, maintained in
the Wesleyan Church than in any other Christian Church in the world.

But I resign (not my connection with, but) my ministerial office in the
Wesleyan Church, because I believe a condition of membership is exacted
in it which has no warrant in Scripture, nor in the practice of the
primitive Church, nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and in consequence
of which condition, great numbers of exemplary heads of families and
young people are excluded from all recognition and