Note 3 — Chapter II

These voluminous diaries and journals are full of detail, chiefly of Dr. Ryerson's religious experience. They are rich in illustration of the severe mental and spiritual disciplinary process—self-imposed—through which he passed during these eventful years of his earlier life. They are singularly severe in their personal reflections upon his religious shortcomings, and want of watchfulness. They are tinged with an asceticism which largely characterized the religious experience of many of the early Methodist preachers of Mr. Wesley's time—an asceticism which strongly marked the Methodist biography and writings, which were almost the only religious reading accessible to the devoted Methodist pioneers of this country,—J. G. H.