The cowardly conduct of the Toronto press, with one or two exceptions, in reference to Ingersoll's lectures, was as astonishing to liberal-minded men as it was deplorable to all, especially in the "Queen City of the West," which is, or ought to be, the centre of intellectual activity and progress in Canada. This exhibition of narrow-minded bigotry on the part of the Toronto press excited (rather unexpectedly to them, no doubt) great surprise and severe animadversion from many quarters. The daily _Globe_ and _Mail_ have, of course, a very wide circulation, and being the leading newspapers in the country, their numerous patrons look to them for _all_ the news on _all_ public questions and events. Imagine, therefore, their surprise and indignation on opening their papers and looking for reports of Col. Ingersoll's lectures in Toronto, to find not a word there! Not a syllable by these puritanical publishers is vouchsafed to their expectant patrons, who pay their money for--not merely what suits the religious whims and prejudices of publishers and editors--but for _all_ the news. But they would scarcely repeat this mistake--or rather imposition on their readers. They have since unmistakably learned that in this act of pusillanimous servility to the priesthood, they took a false measure of their constituencies; and lamentably failed to gauge correctly the intellectual and moral status of a majority of their patrons. The honorable exceptions to this servility of the Toronto press, were the _Evening Telegram, Weekly Graphic_, and _National_. In Belleville, also, there was, I believe, one commendable exception to the narrowness of the press in reference to Ingersoll's lectures. This was the _Free Press_, which has on former occasions proved itself broader than most of its contemporaries. The Montreal _Canadian Spectator_ is another notable exception to this vassalage of the Canadian press; for, though edited by a clergyman, it has proved itself in favor of freedom of speech and liberty of conscience, and boldly denounces the narrow prejudice and bigotry which would gag Ingersoll to-day if it could, and would have burned him two or three centuries ago at the stake. Chief among the "Replies," and "Refutations" which have issued from the press in Canada since Ingersoll's departure, is that by Hon. Geo. R. Wendling. This honorable gentleman has, for some months past, been shadowing Mr. Ingersoll from place to place with his "reply from a secular stand point;" albeit in Toronto he _preceded_ his opponent, and replied (?) before the people of that city to a lecture of Ingersoll's which they had never heard. But, as with the Dutch judge, so with our Christian friends, _one side_ of the case was enough to hear in order to be able to give a verdict, and Mr. Wendling was duly applauded for his "satisfactory answer" to the absent heretic!