_January 31st, 1833._--Under this date, Dr. Ryerson has recorded in his diary the following tribute to his first wife:--
A year ago this morning, at half-past five o'clock, the wife of my youth fell asleep in Jesus, leaving a son and daughter (John and Lucilla Hannah), the former two years and a half old, and the latter fourteen days. Hannah Aikman (her maiden name) was the daughter of John and Hannah Aikman, and was the youngest of eleven children. Hannah was born in Barton, Gore District, on the 4th of August, 1804. Her natural disposition was most amiable, and her education was better than is usually afforded to farmer's daughters in this country. At the age of sixteen she was awakened, converted, and joined the Methodist Church, of which she remained an exemplary member until her death. I became intimately acquainted with her in 1824, when she was twenty years of age, and after taking the advice of an elder brother, who had travelled the circuit on which they lived, at the strong solicitation of my parents, and the impulse of my own inclinations, I made her proposals of marriage, which were accepted. This was before I had any intention of becoming a preacher in the Methodist Church, either travelling or local.
About this time the Lord laid his afflicting hand upon me;[37] I was brought to the gate of death, and in that state became convinced by evidence as satisfactory as that of my existence, that in disregarding the dictates of my own conscience, and the important advice of many members of the Church, both preachers and lay, in regard to labouring in the itinerant field, I had resisted the Spirit of God; and on that sick, and in the estimation of my family, dying bed, I vowed to the Lord my God, that if He should see fit to raise me up and open the way, I would no more disobey the voice of His Providence and servants. From that hour I began visibly to recover, and, though the exercises of my mind were unknown to any but myself and the Searcher of hearts, before I had sufficiently recovered to walk two miles, I was called upon by the Presiding Elder, and several official members, and solicited to go on the Niagara Circuit, which was then partly destitute through the failure in health of one of the preachers. I could not but view this unexpected call us the voice of God, and, after a few days' deliberation and preparation, I obeyed, on the 24th of March, 1825, the day on which I was twenty-two years of age.