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DEAN STANLEY to DEAN RAMSAY.

Broomhall, Dunfermline,

7th August 1870.

My dear and venerable Brother Dean--It was very ungrateful of me not to have thanked you before for your most kind vindication of my act in Westminster Abbey. I had read your letter with the greatest pleasure, and must now thank you for letting me have a separate copy of it. I certainly have no reason to be dissatisfied with my defenders. All the bishops who have spoken on the subject (with the single exception of the Bishop of Winchester) have approved the step--so I believe have a vast majority of English churchmen.

How any one could expect that I should make a distinction between confirmed and unconfirmed communicants, which would render any administration in the abbey impossible, or that I should distinguish between the different shades of orthodoxy in the different nonconformist communions, I cannot conceive. I am sure that I acted as a good churchman. I humbly hope that I acted as He who first instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper would have wished.

You are very kind to have taken so much interest in my essays, and what you say of the Athanasian Creed is deeply instructive. You will be glad to hear--what will become public in a few days--that of the 29 Royal Commissioners, 18 at least--including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of St. David's and Carlisle and the two Regius Professors of Divinity--have declared themselves against continuing the use of it.

I found your note here when we arrived last night to assist at the coming of age of young Lord Elgin. We were obliged to pass rapidly through Edinburgh, in order to reach this by nightfall. In case I am able to come over this week to Edinburgh, should I find you at home, and at what hour?

It would probably be on Thursday that I could most easily come.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

DEAN RAMSAY to Rev. MALCOLM CLERK,

Kingston Deverell, Warminster, Wilts.

23 Ainslie Place, Edin., Sept. 5 [1872].

My dear Malcolm Clerk--Many thanks for your remarks touching the Athanasian Creed. I agree quite, and am satisfied we gain nothing by retaining it, and lose much. You ask if I could help to get facsimiles; I am not likely--not in my line I fear. Should anything turn up I will look after it. One of the propositions to which unlimited faith must be given, is drawn from an analogy, which expresses the most obscure of all questions in physics--i.e. the union of mind and matter, the what constitutes one mortal being--all very well to use in explanation or illustration, but as a positive article of faith in itself, monstrous. Then the Filioque to be insisted on as eternal death to deny!

People hold such views. A writer in the Guardian (Mr. Poyntz) maintains that God looks with more favour upon a man living in SIN than upon one who has seceded ever so small from orthodoxy. Something must be done, were it only to stop the perpetual, as we call it in Scottish phrase, blethering! I am always glad to hear of your boys. My love to Stuart, and same to thyself.--Thine affectionate fourscore old friend,

E.B. RAMSAY.

I am preparing a twenty-second edition of Reminiscences. Who would have thought it? No man.

I have not hitherto made any mention of the Dean's most popular book, the Reminiscences. I cannot write but with respect of a work in which he was very much interested, and where he showed his knowledge of his countrymen so well. As a critic, I must say that his style is peculiarly unepigrammatic; and yet what collector of epigrams or epigrammatic stories has ever done what the Dean has done for Scotland? It seems as if the wilful excluding of point was acceptable, otherwise how to explain the popularity of that book? All over the world, wherever Scotch men and Scotch language have made their way--and that embraces wide regions--the stories of the Reminiscences, and Dean Ramsay's name as its author, are known and loved as much as the most popular author of this generation. In accounting for the marvellous success of the little book, it should not be forgotten that the anecdotes are not only true to nature, but actually true, and that the author loved enthusiastically Scotland, and everything Scotch. But while there were so many things to endear it to the peasantry of Scotland, it was not admired by them alone. I insert a few letters to show what impression it made on those whom one would expect to find critical, if not jealous. Dickens, the king of story-tellers; Dr. Guthrie, the most picturesque of preachers; Bishop Wordsworth, Dean Stanley, themselves masters of style--how eagerly they received the simple stories of Scotland told without ornament.

BISHOP WORDSWORTH to DEAN RAMSAY.

The Feu House, Perth, January 12, 1872.

My dear Dean--Your kind, welcome and most elegant present reached me yesterday--in bed; to which, and to my sofa, I have been confined for some days by a severe attack of brow ague; and being thus disabled for more serious employment, I allowed my thoughts to run upon the lines which you will find over leaf. Please to accept them as being well intended; though (like many other good intentions) I am afraid they give only too true evidence of the source from which they come--viz., disordered head.--Yours very sincerely,

C. WORDSWORTH,

Bp. of St. Andrews.

Ad virum venerabilem, optimum, dilectissimum, EDVARDUM

B. RAMSAY, S.T.P., Edinburgi Decanum, accepto

ejus libro cui titulus Reminiscences, etc.; vicesimum

jam lautiusque et amplius edito.

Editio accessit vicesima! plaudite quiequid

Scotia festivi fert lepidique ferax!

Non vixit frustra qui frontem utcunque severam,

Noverit innocuis explicuisse jocis:

Non frustra vixit qui tot monumenta priorum

Salsa pia vetuit sedulitate mori:

Non frustra vixit qui quali nos sit amore

Vivendum, exemplo præcipiensque docet:

Nec merces te indigna manet: juvenesque senesque

Gaudebunt nomen concelebrare tuum;

Condiet appositum dum fercula nostra salinum,

Præbebitque suas mensa secunda nuces;

Dum stantis rhedæ aurigam tua pagina fallet,

Contentum in sella tædia longa pati!

Quid, quod et ipsa sibi devinctum Scotia nutrix

Te perget gremio grata fovere senem;

Officiumque pium simili pietate rependens,

Sæcula nulla sinet non[11] meminisse Tui.

The TRANSLATION is from the pen of DEAN STANLEY:--

Hail, Twentieth Edition! From Orkney to Tweed,

Let the wits of all Scotland come running to read.

Not in vain hath he lived, who by innocent mirth

Hath lightened the frowns and the furrows of earth:

Not in vain hath he lived, who will never let die

The humours of good times for ever gone by:

Not in vain hath he lived, who hath laboured to give

In himself the best proof how by love we may live.

Rejoice, our dear Dean, thy reward to behold

In united rejoicing of young and of old;

Remembered, so long as our boards shall not lack

A bright grain of salt or a hard nut to crack;

So long as the cabman aloft on his seat,

Broods deep o'er thy page as he waits in the street!

Yea, Scotland herself, with affectionate care,

Shall nurse an old age so beloved and so rare;

And still gratefully seek in her heart to enshrine

One more Reminiscence, and that shall be Thine.

From the DEAN of WESTMINSTER.

The Deanery, Westminster,

February 3, 1872.

My dear elder (I cannot say eldest so long as the Dean of Winchester lives) Brother--I am very glad that you are pleased with my attempt to render into English the Bishop's beautiful Latinity. …

Accept our best wishes for many happy returns of the day just past.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

On the publication of the Twentieth Edition of the Reminiscences, Professor Blackie addressed to the Dean the following sonnets:--

I.

Hail! wreathed in smiles, thou genial book! and hail

Who wove thy web of bright and various hue,

The wise old man, who gleaned the social tale

And thoughtful jest and roguish whim, that grew

Freely on Scotland's soil when Scotland knew

To be herself, nor lusted to assume

Smooth English ways--that they might live and bloom

With freshness, ever old and ever new

In human hearts. Thrice happy he who knows

With sportive light the cloudy thought to clear,

And round his head the playful halo throws

That plucks the terror from the front severe:

Such grace was thine, and such thy gracious part,

Thou wise old Scottish man of large and loving heart.

II.

The twentieth edition! I have looked

Long for my second--but it not appears;

Yet not the less I joy that thou hast brooked

Rich fruit of fair fame, and of mellow years,

Thou wise old man, within whose saintly veins

No drop of gall infects life's genial tide,

Whose many-chambered human heart contains

No room for hatred and no home for pride.

Happy who give with stretch of equal love

This hand to Heaven and that to lowly earth,

Wise there to worship with great souls above

As here to sport with children in their mirth;

Who own one God with kindly-reverent eyes

In flowers that prink the earth, and stars that gem the skies.

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

CHARLES DICKENS to DEAN RAMSAY.

Gad's Hill Place, Higham, by Rochester, Kent,

Tuesday, 29th May 1866.

My dear Sir--I am but now in the receipt of your kind letter, and its accompanying book. If I had returned home sooner, I should sooner have thanked you for both.

I cannot adequately express to you the gratification I have derived from your assurance that I have given you pleasure. In describing yourself as a stranger of whom I know nothing, you do me wrong however. The book I am now proud to possess as a mark of your goodwill and remembrance has for some time been too well known to me to admit of the possibility of my regarding its writer in any other light than as a friend in the spirit; while the writer of the introductory page marked viii. in the edition of last year[12] had commanded my highest respect as a public benefactor and a brave soul. I thank you, my dear Sir, most cordially, and I shall always prize the words you have inscribed in this delightful volume, very, very highly.--Yours faithfully and obliged,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dr. GUTHRIE to DEAN RAMSAY.

1 Salisbury Road,

30th October 1872.

My dear Mr. Dean--My honoured and beloved friend, I have received many sweet, tender, and Christian letters touching my late serious illness, but among them all none I value more, or almost so much, as your own.

May the Lord bless you for the solace and happiness it gave to me and mine! How perfect the harmony in our views as to the petty distinctions around which--sad and shame to think of it--such fierce controversies have raged! I thank God that I, like yourself, have never attached much importance to these externals, and have had the fortune to be regarded as rather loose on such matters. We have just, by God's grace, anticipated the views and aspects they present on a deathbed.

I must tell you how you helped us to pass many a weary, restless hour. After the Bible had been read to me in a low monotone--when I was seeking sleep and could not find it--a volume of my published sermons was tried, and sometimes very successfully, as a soporific. I was familiar with them, and yet they presented as much novelty as to divert my mind from my troubles. And what if this failed? then came the Reminiscences to entertain me, and while away the long hours when all hope of getting sleep's sweet oblivion was given up! So your book was one of my many mercies. But oh, how great in such a time the unspeakable mercy of a full, free, present salvation! In Wesley's words "I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."I have had a bit of a back-throw, but if you could come between three and four on Friday, I would rejoice to see you.--Ever yours, with the greatest esteem,

THOMAS GUTHRIE.

Miss STIRLING GRAHAM to DEAN RAMSAY.

Duntrune, 8th January 1872.

My dear Mr. Dean--I thank you very much for the gift of your new edition of "Scottish Reminiscences," and most especially for the last few pages on Christian union and liberality, which I have read with delight.

I beg also to thank you for the flattering and acceptable testimonial you have bestowed on myself.--Your most respectful and grateful friend,

CLEMENTINA STIRLING GRAHAM.

Rev. Dr. HANNA to DEAN RAMSAY.

16 Magdala Crescent, 11th January 1872.

Dear Dean Ramsay--I have been touched exceedingly by your kindness in sending me a copy of the twentieth edition of the Reminiscences. It was a happy thought of Mr. Douglas to present it to the public in such a handsome form--the one in which it will take its place in every good library in the country. I am especially delighted with the last twenty pages of this edition. Very few had such a right to speak about the strange commotion created by the act of the two English Bishops, and the manner in which they tried to lay the storm, and still fewer could have done it with such effect. One fruit of your work is sure to abide. As long as Scotland lasts, your name will "be associated with gentle and happy Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character." Mrs. Hanna joins me in affectionate regard.--With highest respect and esteem, I ever am, yours very truly,

WM. HANNA.

DEAN RAMSAY to Rev. Dr. L. ALEXANDER.

23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh.

January 29, 1872.

My clear Dr. Alexander--Since I had the pleasure of your most agreeable visit, and its accompanying conversation, I have been very unwell and hardly left the house. You mentioned the reference made by Dean Stanley (?) to the story of the semi-idiot boy and his receiving the communion with such heart-felt reality. I forgot to mention that, summer before last, two American gentlemen were announced, who talked very pleasantly before I found who they were--one a Baptist minister at Boston, and the other a professor in a college. I did not know why they had called at all until the minister let on that he did not like to be in Edinburgh without waiting upon the author of Reminiscences, as the book had much interested him in Scottish life, language and character, before he had been a visitor on the Scottish shores. "But chiefly," he added, "I wished to tell you that the day before I sailed I preached in a large store to above two thousand people; that from your book I had to them brought forward the anecdote of the simpleton lad's deep feeling in seeing the 'pretty man' in the communion, and of his being found dead next morning." To which he added, in strong American tones, "I pledge myself to you, sir, there was not a dry eye in the whole assembly." It is a feature of modern times how anecdotes, sayings, expressions, etc., pass amongst the human race. I have received from Sir Thomas Biddulph an expression of the Queen's pleasure at finding pure Scottish anecdotes have been so popular in England. How fond she is of Scotland!--With much esteem, I am very truly yours,

E.B. RAMSAY.

The Dean was an enthusiastic admirer of Dr. Chalmers, and on the evening of March 4, 1849, he read a memoir of the life and labours of Chalmers at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. That memoir, although it had been to a great extent anticipated by Rev. Dr. Hanna's fine and copious memoir of his father-in-law, was printed in the Society Transactions, and afterwards went through several editions when issued in a separate volume.

LORD MEDWTN to DEAN RAMSAY.

Ainslie Place, Thursday morning

My dear Mr. Ramsay--I beg to thank you most truly for your very acceptable gift so kindly sent to me yesterday evening. I had heard with the greatest satisfaction of the admirable sketch you had read to the Royal Society of the public character of the latest of our Scottish worthies--a very remarkable man in many respects; one whose name must ever stand in the foremost rank of Christian philanthropists; all whose great and various talents and acquirements being devoted with untiring energy to the one great object--the temporal and eternal benefit of mankind. What I also greatly admired about him was that all the great adulation he met with never affected his simple-mindedness; his humility was remarkable. There was the same absence of conceit or assumption of any kind which also greatly distinguished his great cotemporary, our friend Walter Scott; in truth, both were too far elevated above other men to seek any adventitious distinction. I wish our country could show more men like Chalmers to hold up to imitation, or if too exalted to be imitated, yet still to be proud of; and that they were fortunate enough to have admirers such as you, capable of recording their worth in an éloge, such as the public has the satisfaction of receiving at your hands. Again I beg to thank you for your kind remembrance of me on the present occasion.--Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very truly,

J.H. FORBES.

Dr. CANDLISH to DEAN RAMSAY.

4 S. Charlotte Street, Tuesday, 6th March.

My dear Sir--I cannot deny myself the pleasure of expressing to you the deep interest and delight with which I listened to your discourse last night, so worthy, in every view, of the subject, the occasion, and the audience. And while I thank you most sincerely for so cordial and genial a tribute to the memory of the greatest of modern Scotsmen, I venture to express my hope that we may be favoured with an earlier and wider publication of it than the Transactions of the Royal Society will afford.--Pray excuse this intrusion, and believe me, yours very truly,

ROB. S. CANDLISH.

Dean Ramsay.

I will indulge myself only with one phrase from the Dean's memoir of Dr. Chalmers:--"Chalmers's greatest delight was to contrive plans and schemes for raising degraded human nature in the scale of moral living. The favourite object of his contemplation was human nature attaining the highest perfection of which it is capable, and especially as that perfection was manifested in saintly individuals, in characters of great acquirements, adorned with the graces of Christian piety. His greatest sorrow was to contemplate masses of mankind hopelessly bound to vice and misery by chains of passion, ignorance, and prejudice. As no one more firmly believed in the power of Christianity to regenerate a fallen race, as faith and experience both conspired to assure him that the only effectual deliverance for the sinful and degraded was to be wrought by Christian education, and by the active agency of Christian instruction penetrating into the haunts of vice and the abodes of misery, these acquisitions he strove to secure for all his beloved countrymen; for these he laboured, and for these he was willing to spend and to be spent."

That high yet just character not only shows Dean Ramsay's appreciation of Chalmers, but seems to show that he had already set him up as the model which he himself was to follow. At any rate, he attempted to stir up the public mind to give some worthy testimonial to the greatest of modern Scotsmen. A few letters connected with this subject I have put together. I did not think it necessary to collect more, since the object has been attained under difficulties of time and distance which might have quelled a less enthusiastic admirer. It is pleasant to notice the general consent with which we agree that no one else was so fitted to recommend the Chalmers memorial as Dean Ramsay.

It was to do honour to my own little book that I ventured, without asking leave, to print the few lines which follow, from the great French writer, the high minister of State, the patron of historical letters for half-a-century in France, the Protestant Guizot.

M. GUIZOT to the DEAN.

Paris, ce 7 Février 1870,

10 Rue Billault.

Sir--Je m'associerai avec un vrai et sérieux plaisir à l'érection d'une statue en l'honneur du Dr. Chalmers. Il n'y a point de théologien ni de moraliste Chrétien à qui je porte une plus haute estime. Sur quelques unes des grandes questions qu' il a traitées, je ne partage pas ses opinions; mais j'honore et j'admire l'élévation, la vigueur de sa pensé, et la beauté morale de son génie. Je vous prie, Monsieur, de me compter parmi les hommes qui se féliciteront de pouvoir lui rendre un solennel hommage, et je vous remercie d'avoir pensé à moi dans ce dessein.

Reçevez l'assurance de mes sentiments les plus distingués.

GUIZOT.

Mr. E.B. Ramsay, Dean, etc.,

23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh, North Britain.

Some of Mr. Gladstone's letters, already printed, show that they were not the beginning of the correspondence between him and the Dean. The accident which made them acquainted will be mentioned afterwards (p. lxxxi.)

Right Hon. W.E. GLADSTONE to DEAN RAMSAY.

Hawarden Castle, Chester, Jan. 3, 1870.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I send you my rather shabby contribution of £10 to the Chalmers' Memorial. I wish it were more, but I am rather specially pressed at this time; and I think I refused Robert Bruce altogether not long ago.

I quite understand the feeling of the Scotch aristocracy, but I should have thought Lothian would be apart from, as well as above it.

But the number of subscriptions is the main thing, and very many they ought to be if Scotland is Scotland still. He was one of Nature's nobles. It is impossible even to dream that a base or unworthy thought ever found harbour for a moment in his mind.

Is it not extraordinary to see this rain of Bishoprics upon my head? Nor (I think) is it over; the next twelvemonth (wherever I may be at the end of it) will, I think, probably produce three more. Bishop Temple is a fine fellow, and I hope all will now go well. For Manchester (this is secret) I hope to have Mr. Fraser of Clifton--a very notable man, in the first rank of knowledge and experience on the question of education. Many pressed him for Salisbury. I can truly say that every Bishop who has been appointed has been chosen simply as the best man to be had. Ah! when will you spend that month here, which I shall never cease to long for?--Ever affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

Rev. Dr. CANDLISH to DEAN RAMSAY.

52 Melville Street, 7th Dec. 1870.

Dear Dean Ramsay--I should have acknowledged yours of the 1st sooner. I cannot say that I regret the conclusion to which you have come, though. I would have done my best to help on the larger movement. … I very willingly acquiesce in the wisdom of your resolution to accept the position, for it is one which you may well accept with satisfaction and thankfulness. You have accomplished what I doubt if any other man could have even ventured to propose, at so late a period after Dr. Chalmers' death. It will be a historical fact, made palpable to succeeding ages, that you have wiped off a discredit from Scotland's church and nation, by securing a suitable memorial of one of her most distinguished sons, in the most conspicuous position the Metropolis could assign to it. It will be for us of the Free Church to recognise in our archives the high compliment paid to our illustrious leader and chief in the great movement of the Disruption by one of other ecclesiastical convictions and leanings. But we must always do that under the feeling that it is not in that character that you know Chalmers; but in the far broader aspect in which you have so happily celebrated him as a Christian philanthropist, a patriot, and a divine.

I conclude with earnest congratulations on the complete success, as I regard it, of your generous proposal; and I am yours very truly,

ROB. S. CANDLISH.

Rev. Dr. DUFF to DEAN RAMSAY.

The Grange, 29th June.

Very Rev. and dear Sir--Many thanks for your kind note with its enclosures.

From my sad experience in such matters, I am not at all surprised at the meagre number of replies to your printed circular.

When I first learnt from the newspaper of the meeting held in your house, and of Dr. Guthrie's proposal, I had a strong impression that the latter was on far too extensive a scale--but remained silent, being only anxious, in a quiet way, to do what I could in promoting the general design.

Having had much to do during the last forty years with the raising of funds for all manner of objects, in different lands, I have come to know something of men's tempers and dispositions in such cases, and under peculiar circumstances and conditions. I therefore never expected the £20,000 scheme to succeed; unless, indeed, it were headed by a dozen or so at £1000, or at least £500 each--a liberality not to be expected for such an object at this time of day.

Your present plan, therefore, I think a wise one--viz., to constitute yourselves into "a statue committee," for the successful carrying out of your own original and very practicable design,--handing over any surplus funds which may remain to any other committee or body willing to prosecute the larger professorship or lectureship scheme.--I remain, very Rev. and dear Sir, yours very sincerely,

ALEXANDER DUFF.

I am indebted for the following letters to the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Alexander. If I wrote only for Scotsmen, it would be unnecessary to speak of Dr. Alexander as holding a place which he seems to me, ignorant as I am of Church disputes, to owe to his own high personal merit, and the independence which makes him free to think and to write as scarcely any clergyman fettered with the supposed claims of sect or denomination feels himself at liberty to do. As our Dean got older we find him drawing more kindly to those whose Christianity was shown in other guise than in sectarian precision with some spice of persecution.

23 Ainslie Place, Feb. 28, 1866.

I have found, as others have, the "Biblical Commentary" a very useful companion in sermon-writing. It gives you the Scripture parallel passages bodily, and saves the trouble of turning backwards and forwards to find the marginal references and to examine their relevancy. The work is published by Bagster, and he generally, I believe, gets his work pretty well done, and, so far as I can judge, it is judiciously selected, generally at least.

Now, dear Dr. Alexander, if you would accept of the copy of this work which I have sent, and accept it from me, and if it should prove a useful companion in your homiletical labours, I should feel much gratified. Perhaps it may be a remembrance amongst your books, when years have passed away, of one in his grave who had a sincere regard for you, and who now signs himself, yours very faithfully,

E.B. RAMSAY.

23 Ainslie Place, Jan. 11, 1866.

My dear Dr. Alexander--You will not suppose me to be an advocate for the donkeyism of vestment ritual. But I wish you not to have unfavourable impressions as regard our concern with such matters. We have a canon declaratory on vestments, asserting the ordinary surplice, gown, hood, and stole. It is stupidly worded, but the meaning is obvious. I was vexed from your experience to hear of such foolish proceedings at Bridge of Allan, contrary to canon and to common sense. … The green part of the dress which caused your wonder, naturally enough, is not a freak of new vestments, but is a foolish way which the Glenalmond students have adopted of wearing the hood, which our Bishops (not without diversity of opinion) had granted for those who had been educated at our College. It is a hood lined with green (Scottish thistle colour), and they have a way of wearing it in a manner which brings the coloured part in front. Pray, pray, don't think of answering this; it is merely to correct an unfavourable impression in one whose favourable opinion I much desiderate. I cannot tell you the pleasure I had in your visit on Tuesday.--With sincere regard, yours always,

E.B. RAMSAY.

23 Ainslie Place, June 8, 1866.

Dear Dr. Alexander--I forgot to mention a circumstance connected with my story of to-day. I have had a communicant thereanent with Dr. Robert Lee. The good Dr., although fond of introducing Episcopalian practices, which cause great indignation amongst some of his brethren, does not wish it to be understood that he has the least tendency to become an Episcopalian himself. In short, he hinted to me himself that were such an idea to become prevalent it would materially weaken his influence with many followers. "It is to improve my own church, not to join yours," were his words, or to that effect. In carrying out this idea he has a hit in his "Reformation of the Church of Scotland" against Episcopalians, and in the first edition he brings up Dean Ramsay and the unfortunate statement he had made, as a melancholy proof how hopeless were even the most specious of the Scottish Episcopal Church on the subject of toleration. I told him that so far as that statement went it proved nothing, that it had been wrung from me in an unguarded moment, and that I had for fourteen years borne unequivocal testimony to views which were opposite to that statement. He received the explanation most kindly, and offered to do anything I wished, but we both at length agreed that the best plan would be simply to omit it in the second edition, which was preparing and has since come out. It was omitted.

I am, dear Dr. Alexander, with true regard, ever yours most sincerely,

E.B. RAMSAY.

23 Ainslie Place, August 26, 1867.

Dear Dr. Alexander--I have lately returned to Edinburgh, having paid a visit to my own country on Deeside. On Saturday I drove down to Musselburgh, and had an express object in calling upon you to ask how you were. But I found I had been wrong directed to Pinkie Burn, and that to accomplish my visit, I must have made a détour which would have detained me too long. I had an engagement waiting me, and I found my strength pretty well exhausted. I wish, however, to notify my intention of a visit. I have had a very severe illness since we met, and have not regained my former position, and do not think I ever shall. I was very, very close upon the gate we must all pass, and I believe a few hours longer of the fever's continuance would have closed the scene. I don't think I dread to meet death. I have so largely experienced the goodness of God through (now) a long life, and I feel so deeply, and I trust so humbly, the power of his grace and mercy in Christ, that, I can calmly contemplate the approach of the last hour. But I confess I do shrink from encountering an undefined period of bodily and mental imbecility; of being helpless, useless, a burden. I have been so distressed to see all this come upon our bishop, Dr. Terrot; the once clear, acute, sharp, and ready man. Oh, it is to my mind the most terrible affliction of our poor nature. I have known lately an unusual number of such cases before me, and I hope I am not unreasonably apprehensive as to what may come. I hope your family all are well, and that you are fully up to your work in all its forms.--I am, believe me, with much regard, very sincerely yours,

E.B. RAMSAY.

Without date.

My dear Dr. Alexander--I feel deeply obliged by your kind gift to Bishop Whipple. His simple heart will be gratified much. I am so vexed at having mislaid two letters from him. I should have liked you to see and to know the bishop by seeing and reading them. They are models of simple, loving, Christian feeling. He went to Minnesota as to a new rough state just added to the United States. He took five clergymen. He has now above thirty and a college (for which he asked the books). He is beloved by all, and loves all. The Red Indians worship him. He is so considerate of them. They suffer from bad teeth, and on some occasions he has drawn 150 teeth before a prayer-meeting in the woods, from Indians who were suffering pain. … I will take care Bishop Whipple shall know of your goodness. I am so vexed I can't find his letters.

23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh,

November 26, 1871.

Dear Dr. Alexander--You will be sorry to hear that my brother, Sir William, is very ill. This morning we had given up all idea of his rallying, but since that he has shown symptoms of a more favourable character. His state is still a very precarious one, and I fear much we must make up our minds to lose him. God's will be done! We are sure he is prepared for his change. He has long been a sincere believer in the great work and offices of the Lord Jesus, and he has followed up his profession of belief by liberal and judicious expenditure on benevolent objects. I have heard of your being in London at the Revision, and you may probably be there now. But when you return to Edinburgh, the Admiral would be most glad to see you when able to call in Ainslie Place. Sir William is three years younger than I, but he has had a more trying life. His death (should such be God's will) must be a great blank for me. But for me it cannot be a long one.--Hoping you are well, I am, with much regard, most sincerely yours,

E.B. RAMSAY.

Very soon after the date of this letter Admiral William Ramsay died, who had lived with his brother the Dean in the most affectionate friendship for many years. Their duties and interests were identical. William Ramsay was known as the promoter of every scheme of benevolence in Edinburgh.

Right Hon. W.E. GLADSTONE to DEAN RAMSAY.

Hawarden, December 7, 1871.

My dear Dean Ramsay--It is with much grief that we have seen the announcement of the heavy loss you have sustained in the death of your brother. It was a beautiful union, which is now for the time dissolved. One has been taken, and the other left. The stronger frame has been broken, the weaker one still abides the buffetings of the sea of life. And I feel a very strong conviction, even at this sad moment, and with your advancing age, that the balance of your mind and character will remain unshaken through your habitual and entire acceptance of the will of God. I write then only to express my sincere regard for the dead, strong sympathy with the living. Such as it is, and knowing it to be pure, I offer it; would it were more worthy, and would that I, let me rather say--for my wife enters into all these feelings--that we were able in any way at this especial time to minister to your comfort.

I fear the stroke must have come rather suddenly, but no dispensation could, I think, in the sense really dangerous, be sudden to you.

Accept, my dear Dean, our affectionate wishes, and be assured we enter into the many prayers which will ascend on your behalf. Your devoted niece will sorely feel this, but it will be to her a new incentive in the performance of those loving duties to which she has so willingly devoted her heart and mind.--Believe me always your affectionate friend,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

Rev. D.T.K. DRUMMOND to DEAN RAMSAY.

Montpelier, Thursday.

My dear Friend--I did not like to intrude on you in the very freshness of your home sorrow. But you know how much I loved and respected your brother, and how truly and heartily I sympathise with you. There were few in Edinburgh so much beloved as Sir William, and it will be long indeed ere the memory of his goodness shall pass away. Such men in the quiet, private, and unassuming walk, are often much more missed and more extensively lamented than men who have been more in the eye of the public, and during their life have had much of public observation and favour. It is trying for us who are far on in the pilgrimage to see one and another of our brothers and sisters pass away before us. I have seen ten go before me, and am the only one left; and yet it seems as if the old feeling of their leaving us is being exchanged for the brighter and happier consciousness that they are coming to meet us, or at least that the gathering band are BEFORE us, and looking our way, expecting the time when we too shall pass through the veil, leaning on the arm of the Beloved. I earnestly pray, my dear friend, for the Master's loving help and comfort to you from henceforth even for ever. I cannot close this without, in a sentence, expressing my very great delight in reading your words regarding brotherly intercommunion among members of Churches who hold the same Truth, love the same Lord, and are bound to the same "better land." I do rejoice with all my heart that you have given utterance to the sentiments so carefully and admirably expressed by you. I go heart and soul with you in the large and liberal and Christ-like spirit of the views you propound; and feel with you that all such brotherly esteem and hearty and candid co-operation only makes me love my own church better, because such love is unmixed with the exclusiveness which sees nothing good save in the Communion to which we ourselves belong. Thank you most heartily for what you have written.--Ever very affectionately yours,

D.T.K. DRUMMOND.

When the Ramsays were under the necessity of selling most of their property in the Mearns, the purchaser of Fasque was Mr. Gladstone, not yet a baronet; and, what does not always happen, the families of the buyer and the seller continued good friends, and Sir John, the great merchant, by his advice and perhaps other help, assisted some of the young Ramsays, who had still to push their way to fortune. I believe William, afterwards Admiral, was guided by him in the investment and management of a little money, which prospered, notwithstanding his innumerable bounties to the poor. The Dean also was obliged to Sir John Gladstone, but only for kindness and hospitalities.

On the Ramsays going to London in the summer of 1845, the journal records what nice rooms they had, and how happy they were at Mr. Gladstone's, where they saw a good deal of their host--"a man who at eighty-one possesses the bodily and mental vigour of the prime of life." The Dean was struck with the old man's abilities. "Mr. Gladstone would have been successful in any undertaking or any pursuits--a man fitted to grapple with the highest subjects."

From that period much intercourse took place between the Premier and our Dean. There are mutual visits between Hawarden and Edinburgh, and I find a good deal of correspondence between them; at least I find the letters on one side. The Dean preserved Mr. Gladstone's letters, but the counterparts are probably not preserved. One-sided as they are, the little packet in my hand, of letters from the great Statesman to the rural clergyman is not without interest. The correspondence has been friendly, frank and confidential, the writers often differing in immaterial things, but showing the same liberality in "Church and State;" so that we are not surprised to find, when the time came, that of the friends, the churchman approved of Irish disestablishment as heartily as the layman who was its author.

Right Hon. W.E. GLADSTONE to DEAN RAMSAY.

10 Downing Street, Whitehall,

Jan. 20, 1869.

My dear Dean Ramsay--I need not tell you I am no fit judge of your brother's claims, but I shall send your letter privately to the First Lord, who, I am sure, will give it an impartial and friendly consideration.

Pray remember me to the Admiral, and be assured it will give me sincere pleasure if your wish on his behalf can be gratified.

I write from Hawarden, but almost en route for London, and the arduous work before us. My mind is cheerful, and even sanguine about it. I wish I had some chance or hope of seeing you, and I remain affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

The Bishop of Salisbury has been for days at the point of death. He is decidedly better, but cannot recover. Let him have a place in your prayers.

Windsor Castle, June 24, 1871.

My dear Dean Ramsay--The attraction of the Scott Centenary to Edinburgh is strong, and your affectionate invitation makes it stronger still. I do not despair of being free, and if free, I mean to use my freedom, so as to profit by both. At the same time the delays and obstructions to business have been so formidable that I must not as yet presume to forecast the time when I may be able to escape from London, and therefore I fear I must draw upon your indulgence to allow me some delay. The session may last far into August, but the stars may be more propitious.

We are all grumbling at an unusually cold year, and the progress of vegetation seems to be suspended, but I trust no serious harm is yet done; as Louis Napoleon said, tout peut se retablir. It would indeed be delightful could I negotiate for a right to bring you back with me on coming southwards. So glad to hear a good account of your health and appearance from our Lord Advocate; a clever chiel, is he not?--Ever affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.