Reminiscences of Scottish Life & Character Part 2

July 18, 1845.--"Returned to London: did little more there: arrived in Edinburgh for Mr. Sandiland's marriage, a great stretch of friends.h.i.+p in me, for it has discomposed all our summer plans." On 15th August there is an entry too characteristic to be omitted:--"Have been thinking a great deal about the state of matters at present, and the sort of demeanour I should exhibit to the world. I should be very cautious--hardly give an opinion if conflicting statements, and certainly not gossip about them--certainly not speak harshly or severely of any. Keep my own course, work hard, and endeavour to conciliate; rather lean to high than low side." November 10, 1845: "at a meeting to hear Dr. Simpson, Mr. Macfarlane, and Norman Macleod give an account of their mission to North America: interesting. Macleod a real clever fellow."

26th November 1845.--"The consecration of Dalkeith Chapel: we went out and stayed the day; all good and well managed: Sermon preached by Rev.

E. B. R: approved: three bishops, twenty clergy. It is really a fine thing for a man to have done; a beautiful chapel; hope it won't be extreme."

Dec. 2.--"Warden to College appointed; looks like business!"

Dec. 7.--"Heard astonis.h.i.+ng news--William appointed to the 'Terrible, the largest steam man-of-war in the service--in the world."

Dec. 14, 1845.--"Sermon on Christ the True Light. Collection for Scottish Episcopal Church Society, 151."

15th March 1846.--"Sermon, 'Am I your enemy because I tell you the truth?' Here a sad blank, for I have been very ill, and out of chapel two Sundays, and could not go to confirmation, and all sorts of horrors.

I have communed a good deal with myself, and I have made up my mind to a conduct and demeanour in Church matters almost neutral. I positively will not again mix myself up in any way with party, or even take part. I will confine myself to St. John's and its duties. This is my _line_--hear what every one has to say, and keep a quiet, conciliatory, and even tenor. It is more striking the more I think of the different way in which different minds are affected by religious truth." ...

April 16.--"Synod meeting and Society. I took the moderate and conciliatory side. Did right this time."

April 29.--"Preached the Casuistry sermon. Mrs. R. made it A 20."

June 1.--"Busy preparing for journey;" he leaves home for his summer holiday "with rather less spirit and expectation of enjoyment than usual."

Mr. Ramsay was appointed Dean of the Diocese of Edinburgh by Bishop Terrot in 1846, after having previously declined, as we saw, the dignity of the Bishopric of New Brunswick, offered him by Sir Robert Peel. He afterwards refused the Bishopric of Glasgow in 1847, and the Coadjutor-Bishopric of Edinburgh in 1862.

And now is the beginning of constantly recurring complaints of depression--low spirits, a "cloud upon my spirits; headache, even pain and violent pain." He was disappointed at not getting to see the "Terrible;" was low and depressed. "Went to Bath. Delighted with Torquay; interested at Exeter; the service there the very best. Is cathedral service more than a solemn concert?" Then he went by Beaminster to see his nephew Alexander and his family. He stayed a short time at Crewkerne with his niece Mrs. Sparks. "Church a fine one: To Frome: This visit full of interest. How kind and good! The only drawback is parting. We spent a week at Frome, and did enjoy it much. Much kindness, heartiness I should say, intelligence, and real goodness.

Changes I found, and saw how time had told on many a face and frame. My dear companion was much pleased and interested in our visit.... July 16.--Left Frome, and sorrowed at parting. Saw Sydney Herbert's gorgeous church at Wilton. Too much! With the exterior of Salisbury not at all disappointed; with the interior a little. Arrived at Farnborough by eight o'clock, and a most cordial welcome we had from all the inmates of its pretty rectory. Went back to London on Friday, and returned to Farnborough Sat.u.r.day, and spent Sunday. July 19.--Was glad for Isabella to have an opportunity of seeing a Sunday in a country place in England.

I preached twice, and we were interested. Aug. 4.--Came to York.

Glorious! Chapter-house restored by Mr. Bell."

January 1, 1851.--"Having preached on Sunday last regarding improvement and good resolutions, I would now do the same for myself. I have made some resolutions in my own mind, chiefly regarding the control and regulation of temper, irritability, forbearance, more composed and calm temperament, order, diligence, dispatch of work, etc." On January 6th there is a Ragged School meeting--"a long and tiresome meeting; the Duke of A---- speaks well; Guthrie amusing; Fox Maule good; Candlish clever--very."

On his birthday in 1853 he writes: "I have just made two resolves--first, never to give way to temper, fret, ill-humour, party spirit, or prejudice; second, to work my best in what I may have still to do."

There is a great deal more of the journal, but one or two additional extracts will show sufficiently the nature of the man, his devotion to his sacred duty, his gentleness, and love of peace. The High Churchman may think him unduly careless about forms and ceremonies; but, loving him very well, I yet wish to represent the Dean as he really was. Above all things full of charity, loving religion as he understood the religion of the Gospel, and not much concerned, not really deeply concerned, about the shape and dress in which it presented itself. He held, however, that the Protestant Episcopal Church, as established in England, as disestablished in Scotland, for he never would separate them, was in all its belongings the most desirable, its service the most decent.

1858 was a sad year for the Dean. Mrs. Ramsay had been very ill, and sinking in strength and spirit visibly, till, on the 23d July the afflicted husband makes this entry:--"It pleased G.o.d to visit me with the deep and terrible affliction of taking away my friend, companion, and adviser of twenty-nine years." It was a heavy blow, and for a time it seemed to paralyse the Dean. This journal, never regular, becomes from this time quite broken.

Looking back from this point, which to the Dean seemed the end of happiness, he could acknowledge how duty supplied the place of pleasure.

He was grateful also for many mercies. In one respect he was singularly fortunate. His Bishop and he, I may say during all the time he served in St. John's, were cordially of the same way of thinking. Bishop Terrot was indeed a very different man from himself, but in the relations of Bishop and Dean they were very happy. The Dean wrote a little memoir of Bishop Terrot, which he published in the _Scottish Guardian_ (May 15, 1872), where he prints the remarkable letter from the Bishop to himself, answering the question why he declined communion with Mr. Drummond, and ending with the sentence--"These are matters of _ecclesiastical police_ which each local church has a right to manage in its own way, subject to the law of the Catholic Church, i.e. the Bible." The Dean then bore testimony that he had always found his Bishop an interesting companion, a kind friend, a faithful and judicious adviser, and he speaks highly, and surely not too highly, of his great intellectual powers, as well as of his moral qualities. I am myself a very hearty admirer of Bishop Terrot, and I think it not out of place to add something to our knowledge of him, by printing a few letters which concern him and his family.

COLONEL TERROT to DEAN RAMSAY.--Without date, but of the year 1872.

Very Rev. and dear Sir--There is one little incorrect deduction in your kind memoir, or at least a deduction which may be made from what you say of my father deriving his intellect from his mother---that my grandfather was inferior in such respects. From deep feeling and devotion to his memory, my grandmother never spoke of her husband to us, but from others I have heard that he was a bright, handsome and talented young man, who, with the very imperfect education given at that time to officers in the army, and employed in active service in America at the age of fourteen, was yet distinguished for ability, especially in mathematics and engineering matters, so that he was employed by those in command of the siege, and was actually riding with the engineer who was in charge of the sieging operations when a cannon-ball struck and killed him. He was in an English infantry regiment, and not in the Indian service, except that the regiment was serving in India at the time. He met my grandmother in the s.h.i.+p which took them to India. She was going to a maternal uncle, Colonel Hughes, who was considerably displeased on her announcing at Madras that she was engaged to a poor young officer who had offered to her during the voyage. But the young couple being determined, he gave his consent, and continued kind to his niece, and my father was born in his house, and at his father's request called Hughes after him. My grandfather was twenty-five and his bride eighteen at their marriage, and she was a widow before she was twenty, from which time till she died at eighty-five she was a widow indeed, making her son the chief object of her life, living in and for him.

His uncle William, whom he succeeded at Haddington, was never married, and was exceedingly attached to my father. He was a singular man; in his early days very gay and handsome, and living in some matters, I know not what, so incorrectly, that on offering himself for holy orders, the then Bishop of Durham wrote to him mentioning something he had heard, and telling him if it was true he was not fitly prepared for taking orders. My uncle acknowledged the accusation as far as it was true, and thanked the Bishop for his letter, and abstained from coming forward at that time, but took the admonition so to heart that it led to an entire conversion of heart and life. He then came forward in a very different state to receive ordination, and was through his whole life a most zealous and devoted man, a friend of Milner and Wilberforce. An old lady, Mrs. Logan of Seafield, told me that once when Mrs. Siddons was acting, uncle William walked twenty miles to see her and persuade her not to go, and, whether by arguments or eloquence, he succeeded. Though kind and gentle he was a strong Calvinist, and by his zeal and energy in preaching such doctrines, injured himself in a worldly point of view. He was always poor, and often gave away all the little he had, and lived from hand to mouth. He was very much admired and beloved by ladies, which perhaps prevented his marrying. He was very happy and useful among the sailors, and died at his sister's, Mrs. Jackson, at Woolwich. She, as Elizabeth Terrot, had been a beauty, and was to the last a fine, happy, spirited, contented and joking old lady, very fond of my father, to whom she left all she had. She was bright, unselfish and amusing, even on her deathbed incapable of despondency or gloom.

Excuse my troubling you with these details; and believe me to be truly grateful for your graceful tribute to our dear father. I send a few lines for your private eye, written by my sister Mary, expressing what she felt on last seeing him, and it expresses, too, exactly what I felt that last Good Friday as he sat in that chair in which he had so long suffered. I never saw him there again, With deep respect, gratefully yours, S.A. TERROT.

LINES by MISS MARY TERROT, now MRS. MALCOLM.

I.

Sad, silent, broken down, longing for rest, His n.o.ble head bent meekly on his breast, Bent to the bitter storm that o'er it swept; I looked my last, and surely, then I thought, Surely the conflict's o'er, the battle's fought; To see him thus, the Saviour might have wept.

II.

His rest was near--his everlasting rest; No more I saw him weary and oppressed.

_There_ in the majesty of death he lay For ever comforted: I could not weep; He slept, dear father! his last blessed sleep, Bright in the dawn of the eternal day.

III.

And thou, whose hand _his_, groping, sought at last, The faithful hand that he might hold it fast!

Once more, when parting on the eternal sh.o.r.e, It may be, when thy heart and hand shall fail, Entering the shadows of death's awful vale His hand shall grasp thine, groping then no more.

DEAN STANLEY to DEAN RAMSAY.

My dear Dean--Many thanks for your very interesting memoir of Bishop Terrot. His remark about _humdrum_ and _humbug_ is worthy of the best days of Sydney Smith, and so is a hit about table-turning[10]. I once heard him preach, and still remember with pleasure the unexpected delight it gave to my dear mother and myself. We did not know in the least what was coming, either from the man or the text, and it was excellent.--Yours sincerely,

A.P. STANLEY.

Deanery, Westminster, 1872.

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

Hawarden, May 26, 1872

My dear Friend--I have read with much interest your graceful and kindly memoir of Bishop Terrot, which you were so good as to send me.

He had always appeared to me as a very real and notable, and therefore interesting man, though for some reason not apparent a man _manque_, a man who ought to have been more notable than he was. I quite understand and follow you in placing him with, or rather in the cla.s.s of, Whately and Paley, but he fell short of the robust activity of the first, and of that wonderful clearness of the other, which is actual brightness.

Your account of the question of Lords.h.i.+p is to me new and interesting. I have never called the Scottish Bishops by that t.i.tle. I should be content to follow the stream, but then we must deal equally, and there is the case of the Anglo-Roman bishop to meet, especially now that the Ecclesiastical t.i.tles Bill has been repealed; but only on Friday I addressed one of the very best among them "Right Rev. Bishop M----."

You will, I am sure, allow me the license of private judgment in the two expositions about the church in p. 5. You praise both, but the second the more highly. To me the first seems excellent, and the second, strange to say, wanting in his usual clearness and consecutiveness. For having in head (1) most truly said that Christ "inst.i.tuted a society _and_ revealed a doctrine," he then proceeds as if he had quite forgotten the first half of the proposition, and conceived of the society only as (so to speak) embedded in the doctrine.

Also, I complain of his depriving you of the character of [Greek: iegeus], which indeed I am rather inclined to claim for myself, as "He hath made us kings and priests" ([Greek: hiegeis]).

I hope you are gradually maturing the idea of your promised summer expedition to the south, and that before long I shall hear from you on the subject of it.

Will you remember me kindly to Miss Cochrane, and believe me, ever affectionately yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

The Dean was greatly affected by a terrible calamity, which happened in his house in Ainslie Place, where, in June of 1866, his niece Lucy Cochrane, one of his family, was burnt to death; out of many letters of condolence which he received at the time, I have only s.p.a.ce to insert three--one from the Rev. Dr. Hannah, then head of Glenalmond College, an accomplished scholar, to whom our Dean was much attached, and upon whom he drew very freely in any questions of more recondite scholars.h.i.+p, another from the Rev. D.T.K. Drummond, and the third from the Premier:--

Rev. Dr. J. HANNAH to DEAN RAMSAY.

Trinity College, Glenalmond, N.B.

June 15, 1866.

Dear Mr. Dean--I _must_ write one line, though I know you will be overwhelmed with letters, to say how deeply distressed and shocked we are at the news in this morning's paper, and how profoundly we sympathize with you under this fearful affliction. I thought instantly of Mr. Keble's lovely poem in the Lyra Innocentium:--