Reminiscences of Scottish Life & Character Part 5

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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's grace, antic.i.p.ated the views and aspects they present on a deathbed.

I must tell you how you helped us to pa.s.s 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 a.s.sociated 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 sh.o.r.es. "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 a.s.sembly."

It is a feature of modern times how anecdotes, sayings, expressions, etc., pa.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.sumption 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 advent.i.tious 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 _eloge_, 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 ma.s.ses of mankind hopelessly bound to vice and misery by chains of pa.s.sion, 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 a.s.sure 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 Fevrier 1870,

10 Rue Billault.

Sir--Je m'a.s.socierai avec un vrai et serieux plaisir a l'erection d'une statue en l'honneur du Dr. Chalmers. Il n'y a point de theologien ni de moraliste Chretien a qui je porte une plus haute estime. Sur quelques unes des grandes questions qu' il a traitees, je ne partage pas ses opinions; mais j'honore et j'admire l'elevation, la vigueur de sa pense, et la beaute morale de son genie. Je vous prie, Monsieur, de me compter parmi les hommes qui se feliciteront de pouvoir lui rendre un solennel hommage, et je vous remercie d'avoir pense a moi dans ce dessein.

Recevez l'a.s.surance de mes sentiments les plus distingues.

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. lx.x.xi.)

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

Hawarden Castle, Chester,