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,