“In an address to the Bishop of Glasgow, signed by sixty-two clergymen, it is stated that the service contemplated in the chapel of the University of Glasgow would be a ’lax proceeding, and fraught with great injury to the highest interests of the Church,’ Accordingly the Bishop of Glasgow prohibited the service, to guard the Church from complicity in a measure which he considered subversive of her position in this country.’  In other words,” says Dean Ramsay, “we are called upon to believe that, as members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, it is our bounden duty to withhold every appearance of any religious sympathy with our Presbyterian fellow-countrymen and fellow-Christians.  I now solemnly declare for myself that, had I come to the conclusion that such was the teaching of our Church, and such the views to which I was bound—­viz. that her object was thus to sever man from man, and to maintain that the service proposed at Glasgow was really ’fraught with great injury to the highest interests of my Church,’ because it would promote union and peace—­the sun should not again set till I had given up all official connection with a Church of which the foundations and the principles would be so different from the landmarks and leading manifestations of our holy faith itself.  Were the principles and conduct laid down in this address and in the answer to it fairly carried out, I cannot see any other result than the members of our Church considering the whole of Scotland which is external to our communion as a land of infidels, with whom we can have no spiritual connection, and whom, indeed, we could hardly recognise as a Christian people.”

The Dean’s letter is chiefly remarkable as showing that age had not frozen his charity.  It called forth many letters like that of Dr. Candlish, and one from the little Somersetshire society which he loved so well.

     JOHN SHEPPARD, Esq., Frome, to DEAN RAMSAY.

     The Cottage, Frome, 21st March 1872.

Very dear and reverend Sir—­I have to thank you for the Scottish Guardian which you have kindly sent me.  I regret the divisions which appear to have arisen in your church.  Whatever comes from your pen has special interest for me; and I am glad to see it (as it always has been) pleading the cause of Christian charity.  It appears to me that the welfare of your church would have been promoted by acceding to the invitation,

I think I have mentioned to you that we had lately a visit from good Archdeacon Sandford, which we much enjoyed.  We learn with sorrow that since attendance at the Convocation and a stay at Lambeth Palace, he has been suffering great weakness and exhaustion, and been confined to his bed for a month.  He is now slowly recovering; but we fear his exertions have been beyond his strength, and that his life must be very precarious.

     I hope your health is not more seriously impaired; but we
     must be looking more and more, dear sir, towards the home
     which pain and strife cannot enter.