ically repudiated by the Legislature; and, in 1854, the last
semblance of a union between Church and State vanished from our Statute
Book.[30]--J. G. H.

_Dec. 18th, 1830._--In the _Guardian_ of this day, Dr. Ryerson published
a petition to the Imperial Parliament, prepared by a large Committee, of
which he was a member, and of which Dr. W. W. Baldwin was Chairman. In
that petition the writer referred to the historical fact, that, had the
inhabitants of this Province been dependent upon the Church of England
or of Scotland for religious instruction, they would have remained
destitute of it for some years, and also that the pioneer non-Episcopal
ministers were not dissenters, because of the priority of their
existence and labours in Upper Canada. The petition, having pointed out
that there were only five Episcopal clergy in Canada during the war of
1812, and that only one Presbyterian minister was settled in the
Province in 1818, declared that:

The ministers of several other denominations accompanied the first
influx of emigration into Upper Canada, (1783-1790,) and have
shared the hardships, privations, and sufferings incident to
missionaries in a new country. And it is through their unwearied
labours, that the mass of the population have been mainly supplied
with religious instruction. They, therefore, do not stand in the
relation, of Dissenters from either the Church of England or of
Scotland, but are the ministers of distinct and independent
Churches, who had numerous congregations in various parts of the
Province, before the ministerial labours of any ecclesiastical
establishment were, to any considerable extent, known or felt.

_Jan. 20th, 1831._--As an evidence that the views put forth by Dr.
Ryerson, in the _Guardian_, against an established Church in Upper
Canada, were acceptable outside of his own denomination, I give the
following letter, addressed to him at this date from Perth, by the Rev.
Wm. Bell, Presbyterian:

Though differing from you in many particulars, yet in some we
agree. Your endeavours to advance the cause of civil and religious
liberty have generally met my approbation. Some of your writings
that I have seen discover both good sense and Christian feeling.
The liberality, too, you have discovered, both in regard to myself
and in regard of my brethren, has not escaped my observation. Be
not discouraged b