equal denominational rights and the supremacy of religious liberty. All
of these questions are now happily settled "upon the best and surest
foundation." But it might have been far otherwise had not such men as
Dr. Ryerson stepped into the breach at a critical time in our early
history; and if the battle had not been fought and won before the
distasteful yoke of an "establishment" had been imposed upon this young
country, and burdensome vested interests been thereby created, which it
would have taken years of serious and protracted strife to extinguish.

As the fruits of that protracted struggle for religious equality have
been long quietly enjoyed in this province, there is a disposition in
many quarters to undervalue the importance of the contest itself, and
even to question the propriety of reviving the recollection of such
early conflicts. In so far as we may adopt such views we must
necessarily fail to do justice to the heroism and self-sacrifice of
those who, like Dr. Ryerson, encountered the prolonged and determined
opposition, as well as the contemptuous scorn of the dominant party
while battling for the rights which he and others ultimately secured for
us. Those amongst us who would seek to depreciate the importance of that
struggle for civil and religious freedom, must fail also to realize the
importance of the real issues of that contest.

To those who have given any attention to this subject, it is well known
that the maintenance of the views put forth by Dr. Ryerson in this
controversy involved personal odium and the certainty of social
ostracism. It also involved, what is often more fatal to a man's courage
and constancy, the sneer and the personal animosity, as well as
ridicule, of a powerful party whose right to supremacy is questioned,
and whose monopoly of what is common property is in danger of being
destroyed. Although Dr. Ryerson was a gentleman by birth, and the son of
a British officer and U. E. Loyalist, yet the fact that, as one of the
"despised sect" of Methodists, he dared to question the right of "the
Church" to superiority over the "Sectaries," subjected him to a system
of petty and bitter persecution which few men of less nerve and
fortitude could have borne. As it was, there were times when the tender
sensibilities of his noble nature were so deeply wounded by this
injustice, and the scorn and contumely of his opponents, that were it
not that his intrepid courage was of the finest type, a