_Nov. 6th, 1832._--Archdeacon Strachan, in his sermon, preached at the visitation of the Bishop of Quebec at York, on the 5th of September, speaking of the Methodists, said that he would--
Speak of them with praise, notwithstanding their departure from the Apostolic ordinance, and the hostility long manifested against us by some of their leading members.
In reply to this statement, Dr. Ryerson wrote from St. Catharines to the Editor of the _Guardian_. He pointed out that:--
It was not until after Archdeacon Strachan's sermon on the death of the former Bishop of Quebec was published, in 1826, that a single word was written, and then to refute his slanders. In that sermon, when accounting for the few who attend the Church of England, the Archdeacon said that their attendance discouraged the minister, and that--
His influence is frequently broken or injured by numbers of uneducated, itinerant preachers, who, leaving their steady employment, betake themselves to preaching the Gospel from idleness, or a zeal without knowledge ... and to teach what they do not know, and which from their pride they disdain to learn.[33]
Again, in May, 1827, Archdeacon Strachan sent an "Ecclesiastical Chart" to the Colonial Office, and in the letter accompanying it stated that:--
The Methodist teachers are subject to the orders of the United States of America, and it is manifest that the Colonial Government neither has, nor can have any other control over them, or prevent them from gradually rendering a large portion of the population, by their influence and instructions, hostile to our institutions, civil and religious, than by increasing the number of the Established Clergy.
Who then [Dr. Ryerson asked] was the author of contention? Who was the aggressor? Who provoked hostilities? The slanders in the Chart were published in Canada, and in England, by Dr. Strachan before a single effort was made by a member of any denomination to counteract his hostile measures, or a single word was said on the subject.
_Nov. 19th, 1834._--In connection with this subject I insert here the following reply (containing several historical facts) to a singularly pretentious letter which Dr. Ryerson had inserted in the _Guardian_ of this date, denouncing the opposition of a certain "sect called Methodists" to the claims of the Church of England as an established church in the Colony. The reply was inserted in order to afford strangers and new settlers in Upper Canada correct information on the subject, and to disprove the statement of the writer of the letter, Dr. Ryerson mentioned the following facts:--