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.