jects which lay so near his heart, and to further the
interests of that cause which he served so well.

But standing, as we are to day, with bowed heads and stricken hearts,
beside the grave which has just closed upon the mortal remains of our
venerable departed brother, though we would not forget what he had done
for us, we prefer to think of what, by the grace of God, he was, than of
what by God's good Providence he was permitted to accomplish. We delight
to cherish the memory of his penitent and childlike faith in Christ--the
sinner's only Saviour and hope--and of those graces of the Holy Spirit
which gave so much beauty and sweetness to his character, and which were
more and more conspicuous in his declining years.

Though Dr. Ryerson was a man of positive views and devotedly attached to
his own Church, he was distinguished for his comprehensive charity, and
his genuine appreciation of great and good men from whom he differed
widely in opinion. His goodness no less than his greatness will serve to
keep his memory fresh among us, and the recollections of his virtue is
to us a powerful incentive to a fuller consecration to the service of
God.

The General Conference at its Session of 1882, passed the following
resolution:--

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God, in His divine wisdom, to call from
a life of faithful service in the Church of Christ on earth to his
everlasting reward in heaven our reverend and honoured father in the
Gospel, the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., LL.D., the first President of
the General Conference of the Methodist Church of Canada, this General
Conference desires to place upon record its deep feelings of gratitude
to God for His gift to the Methodist Church and to the people of this
land for so many years of a man so richly endowed with native gifts and
so largely adorned with the Christian graces and its profound sense of
the great loss the Church and country have sustained in his death. As
the devoted Christian missionary and pastor; as the faithful defender of
the rights and liberties of the people of this land against
ecclesiastical assumptions and civil disabilities; as the Editor for
many years of the _Christian Guardian_, the official organ of our Church
and the first religious journal in Canada; as the President of the
University of Victoria College, the oldest institution of higher
learning of Canadian Methodism; as the trusted representative of his
Church in the religious councils