ber, 1875, Dr. Ryerson said:--My
friends here think that I am stronger, walk better, and appear more
active than when I was last in this village. This is a common remark to
me, and for which I cannot feel sufficiently thankful to my Heavenly
Father. He is my portion; my all is His; and I feel that He is all and
in all to me--my joy as well as my strength.

Writing from his Long Point cottage to me on the 13th April, 1876, Dr.
Ryerson said:--Next Sunday will be Easter Sunday--the 51st anniversary
of my ministerial life, and what a life! Much to lament over; much to
humble; with many exposures and hardships; full of various labours;
abounding in heavenly blessings.

* * * * *

Dr. Ryerson was appointed as a representative of the Conferences of
British America to the General Conference of the United States in 1876.
Being unable to go, he addressed a letter to Bishop Simpson, from which
I take these extracts:--

I regret that I have been unable to fulfil my last public mission in
behalf of our Canadian Church to the Conference of British Methodism to
go to Baltimore to look upon your General Conference, and bid a last
earthly farewell to brethren whom I esteem and love so much--with whom I
was first brought into church membership, by whose Bishop Hedding I was
ordained both deacon and elder, and with whom I feel myself as much one
this day as I did half a century ago.

My first representative mission was in 1828, to visit and urge upon the
late Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk, of Wilbraham, Conn., the request of our
Conference to become our first bishop; and had he consented, or Dr.
Bangs afterwards, I believe it would have been a great blessing to
Methodism in Canada; but an overruling Providence ordered it otherwise,
and the extension of the work of God, through our ministry and Church,
down to the present time, is one of the greatest marvels to ourselves
and to others.

For thirty-one years and upwards, by the annual permission of my
Conference, I have administered the governmental system of public
instruction in this country; but the Government and Legislature have at
length acceded to my request to retire, and have done so without
reducing my official allowance; and now, in the seventy-fourth year of
my age, and fifty-second of my ministry, I am enabled, in the enjoyment
of good health, to go in and out, as aforetime, among my brethren, with
a brightening hope and increasing desire of soon being permitted to
"depart