inclination and intention,
sheathed for ever. History, and our own experience to some extent,
abounds with monitory lessons, that personal disputes may convulse
churches, that ecclesiastical controversies may convulse provinces,
and lead to the subversion of governments....

In his private note to Mr. Kent, Dr. Ryerson said:--

I have long been impressed with the conviction that Canada could
not prosper under the element of agitation. I supported the Union
of the Canadas with a view to their civil tranquility. I believe my
expectations will be realized. In our new state of things I desire
not to be considered as standing in an attitude of hostility to the
Church of England, any more than to any other Church. I have wished
and resolved to leave civil and ecclesiastical party politics with
the former bad state of things. Travelling, observation and
experience, have been a useful school to me, and time will do
justice to the merits or demerits of my motives and conduct.

On the 22nd of December, Mr. Kent replied to Dr. Ryerson:--

Do not think that I wish to meet you coldly. I would gladly fling
away the weapons of strife. The warfare in which I am engaged, and
which I dare not decline, is literally embittering my existence,
and pressing upon me very severely. I am not aware that I have in
any way personally attacked you, or ever by name, since the
commencement of my editorial career. I should hail a day of concord
with overflowing joy. I should rejoice to see your powerful, acute,
and vigorous mind exerting itself in a manner that we should all
consider serviceable to the cause of loyalty and the Protestant
religion.

From a glance at your letters, I fondly hope that some gleam of
light is breaking in upon us all. My firm conviction is that the
doctrine of the apostolical succession will be the bond of union
and the cementer of differences, now apparently impossible. You
must have studied the question--and how can your vivid and clear
mind elude its force? Must there not be some one apostolical mode
of conferring the ministerial functions, or must it be open to all,
and Quakerism be right? I do not think I have been the assailant.
The _Guardian_ is outrageously personal and unscrupulous in its
misstatements.... I am far from thinking that I am meek a