I thank you most cordially for the delicacy with which you refer to the “most stedfast adherence to conviction” of one who has long been convinced that no differences in matter of polity or forms of worship ought to violate that “unity of spirit,” or sever that “bond of peace,” in which we should ever seek to join all those whom we believe sincerely to hold the truth as it is in Jesus.—­I am always, with sincere regard, yours truly and obliged,

     E.B.  RAMSAY.

     DEAN RAMSAY to Mrs. CLERK, Kingston Deverell.

     23 Ainslie Place,

     Edinburgh, March 14, 1865.

Dearest Stuart—­I take great blame and sorrow to myself for having left your kind letter to me on my birthday so long unanswered.  It was indeed a charming letter, and how it took me back to the days of “Auld lang Syne!” They were happy days, and good days, and the savour of them is pleasant.  Do you know (you don’t know) next Christmas day is forty-two years since I left Frome, and forty-nine years since I went to Frome?  Well! they were enjoyable days, and rational days, and kind-hearted days.  What jokes we used to have!  O dear!  How many are gone whom we loved and honoured!  I often think of my appearing at Frome, falling like a stranger from the clouds, and finding myself taken to all your hearts, and made like one of yourselves.  Do you know Mrs. Watkins is alive and clever, and that I constantly correspond with her?  You recollect little Mary Watkins at Berkely.  She is now a grandmother and has three or four grandchildren!—­ay, time passes on.  It does.  I have had a favoured course in Scotland; I have been thirty-seven years in St. John’s, and met only with kindness and respect.  I have done much for my church, and that is acknowledged by every one.  My Catechism is in a tenth edition—­my Scottish Book in an eleventh; 3000 copies were sold the first week of the cheap or people’s edition.  I meet with much attention from all denominations.  A very able man here, Dr. Lindsay Alexander, an Indpendent, has just dedicated a book (a good one) to Dean Ramsay, with a flattering dedication.  But I don’t expect to hold on much longer.  I feel changed, and at times not equal to much exertion.  It was a terrible change for me to lose my companion of twenty-nine years, and I have never, of course, recovered that loss.  It is a great point for a person like me to have three nieces, quite devoted to care of me and to make me happy:  cheerful, animated, and intelligent, pretty also—­one of them an excellent musician, and organist to our amateur choir for week days in the chapel.  By the by we have a glorious organ.  How I have gone on about my miserable self—­quite egotistical.  “If I may be allowed the language” (the late Capt.  Balne).  But I thought you would like it.  Good-bye.  Love to Malcolm Kenmore.  When do your boys come?  Your ever loving and affectionate old friend,

     E.B.  RAMSAY.