ays when I
counted him the beau-ideal of elegance in manner and style in
pulpit and on platform, he bore himself with much of his former
stately demeanour and fine felicity of diction. Ryerson was hale
and hearty as of yore, and with perhaps less of the old tendency to
tremble while speaking which surprised me so much when I first
witnessed it, for, under the influence of strong feeling, and a
sort of constitutional timidity, linked in him with indomitable
pluck, his limbs--indeed often his whole massive frame--so shook
that I have felt the platform quiver. The Rev. George Goodson told
me in an undertone of an unkind remark made by a distinguished
member of the Conference to his neighbour as Dr. Ryerson got up to
speak, and that he had rebuked him for it, not knowing at the time
who he was. This gentleman, it came out in course of conversation,
was closely related to Elder Henry Ryan, a well-known minister in
the old Canada Methodist Church, with whom Dr. Ryerson, in his
early days, carried on a keen warfare. The Ryan-Ryerson controversy
is one with which the older Canadian Methodists are familiar.
Without hinting at the rudeness of his relative, I alluded to Elder
Ryan when conversing with Dr. Ryerson, and got from him in graphic
detail, the history of that ancient controversy in which he was a
principal party. It was very keen while it lasted, but there was no
bitter animus in the recital--though the old war horse pricked up
his ears and seemed to "hear the sound of battle from afar." I then
discovered a reason for the sharp tone of the gentleman's remarks,
aforesaid, which drew forth Brother Goodson's rebuke. Though but
four years of age when he left Canada, he had imbibed a dislike to
his old relative's chief antagonist, and to the very people amongst
whom the Ryerson party had proved victorious. Hence his remark on
another occasion to a lady friend of mine, with reference to his
early connection with Canada, to the effect that he was "ashamed of
being born there," which so roused her patriotic spirit that she
promptly retorted: "Well, I am ashamed of you for saying so." The
gentleman was then one of the rising hopes of that great
denomination, and has since risen to a foremost rank in it. When
this little incident was mentioned to Dr. Ryerson, h