: the tower and cloisters surpassingly fine. People do not
roar enough about the steeple of St. Mary's, Oxford--it is
_the finest_ in England, superior I think to that of
Salisbury. Are you aware that there is a modern church at
Oxford in the pure Norman style? My visit to Frome has given
me (except in parting) unmixed satisfaction. I cannot say how
much I have been gratified, and with what pleasure I look
forward to a renewal. I must to bed, my eyes cannot discern
the place to write in, and I am sleepy. Adieu, dearest
friends, one and all at the Field of Frome, the Hill of
Styles, the cottage of Keyford, etc. I rejoice to think that
my good friend _Kay_ is safe. Good-night! Woburn looks
well--"a great ornament," etc.

Marked by Mrs. Clerk--"Written on their way from F.F.--first
visit."

Mr. RAMSAY to Miss BYARD, Fromefield, Frome, Somerset.

Edinburgh, Dec. 17, 1831,

My dearest Friend, They have told me that you are not well,
and neither time nor distance can take away the feeling of
regard and friendship with which I sympathise with all that
occurs to you. I confess myself that I was some time since
disposed to look on all things around me with an anxious
aspect; but I am beginning to see in _all events_ but a part
of that dispensation which is so gloriously distinguished as
the work of _love_, and I think that public calamity or
private sorrow, sickness, pain, weariness and weakness, _may_
all be translated into the same language, and may be arranged
as synonyms of the same word. Yes! piety, goodness, the
favour and approbation of God, are all marked out by sorrow
and infirmity here. Why else did the blessed Jesus tabernacle
here below--a man of sorrows? and why else was he acquainted
with grief? It might make a Christian almost drink his cup of
sickness and pain with _greediness_ when he remembers that he
is tasting the same cup as that of which his Lord drank, and
he might hail with rapture the outstretched arm of death and
suffering as about to place on his head the diadem of eternal
glory. I am not to flatter you--you need it not, you ask it
not; but, my friend, you must feel and know that you have
been walking with God, walking _humbly_, doing good, neither
trusting to false presumptions nor to your own merits. Ch