most strange that rashness
should be attributed to you in the matter. It was the course best
calculated to defeat the objects they wish to counteract. I do not think
my letters would have appeared at all in the _Guardian_ had you not
pressed the matter as you did; and had I not taken the course I did at
Belleville, the questions could not have been brought before the body as
they can and must. I have written a reply to the _Guardian_--it contains
sixteen pages of letter paper. But after your suggestion, I will keep it
another week, and may, perhaps, substitute for it a note making my
acknowledgements to the daily press of Toronto, and stating my position
and intended course of proceedings. I think something of this kind may
be best to counteract the misrepresentations which they are no doubt
industriously circulating. Possibly I may not say anything at all, as
you suggest.

_Paris, 29th November._--I cannot but smile at the pamphlet on the
Class-meeting question, after it had been declared as the determination
of the Conference that the subject of my letters was not to be agitated.
I could not be more effectually aided in what I would wish to see
accomplished than by such a publication, as it will afford me an
opportunity to re-consider the subject, and to say what I please on the
general subject, and expose every petty sophism and absurdity of my
opponents, and to show what are really the rights of the members of the
Church in more senses than one. The strength of the opposite side of the
question is silence and Conference authority; the strength of my side is
discussion. For one on the opposite side to write and publish a pamphlet
is to give up Conference authority, and to come upon the ground of
reason and Scripture. It is also an abandonment of the pretence that the
question is not a debatable or open one. There being several writers on
one side and only one on the other, gives the latter an advantage. He
can point out the variations and weak points of the former, illustrating
the criteria of error and truth. The whole will afford me an opportunity
to deal with general principles, and curiosity and enquiry will be
attached to what I can say in reply to such efforts to prove me
heretical. I look upon all such occurrences as the ways of Providence to
open the way of truth and righteousness.

Dr. Ryerson returned to Canada in time to attend the Conference at
Brockville. While there he wrote to me, on the 6th of June,