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followed his remains to their last resting-place beside those of his wife in the peaceful country graveyard was over 200. Among them were numerous representatives of Burns Clubs and other friends of Dr. M'Naught from the outside world, and as the cortege passed from his house to the graveside, amid the scenes which he knew and loved through a lifetime of intimate association, it was followed also by a very large representation of the male population of Kilmaurs. All business in the village was suspended while the funeral was taking place. Shops were closed and their windows shuttered, and the blinds of dwelling-houses were drawn. Several flags were flown at half-mast, and at a local factory the staff was lined up in front of the building as the funeral procession passed. Little groups of the villagers stood at various points on the route paying homage in respectful silence to the memory of a well-loved teacher and friend. It was a striking and spontaneous tribute.

The Burns Federation was represented by Sir Robert Bruce, LL.D., President; Mr. Alexander Pollock and Mr. J. Taylor Gibb, Vice-Presidents; Mr. Thomas Amos, Hon. Secretary; Major G. A. Innes, Hon. Treasurer; Mr. J. C. Ewing, Editor of the Burns Chronicle; and by members of Burns Clubs at Kilmarnock, Ayr, Dumfries, Glasgow, and Liverpool. A wreath of flowers sent by the Burns Federation was placed upon the grave by the President.

AN APPRECIATION.

The death of Dr. M'Naught has severed the last link which bound together the Burns Federation of to-day with that of the past; for he was the last of the pioneers. Although his interests in life were many, and his outlook on life genial and broad, it will be by his personal work in and for the Federation that he will be most lastingly remembered. Pre-eminent as a devoted student and expositor of Burns, he was fearless in his exposure of

false myth, crude ignorance, and ungenerous calumny. From the rich mass of material which he so laboriously yet joyously gathered, so carefully sifted and stored, he minted fresh gold of truth, and much of both his initial and matured work remains in the pages of the Burns Chronicle, which he edited through thirty-three years, laying down his pen only when his fingers stif fened in death. The magnum opus, however, of this ripe Burns scholar, the last almost of the old parochial schoolmasters of Scotland, is his Truth About Burns. As free from cant as from pernicious eulogy, he sought in it to give to the world the real Burns, the human man -the man with the essential weaknesses common to humanity, but with that also which is not common to humanity, the splendour of the supreme man; to uncover something of the universal heart of fine gold that beat so strongly in that Ayrshire breast. To do these things, to make for truth and expose error, is fine work; all the finer, surely, when the subject thereof is a world genius -a flash of meteoric fire, enshrined in the alike enduring legend and personality of Robert Burns. Born and bred in the cottage and country, with the fecundity of mother earth before his eyes, its tilth odour in his nostrils, and its fibres in his being, Burns drew inspiration from the heart of nature as he drew milk from his mother's breast. The heritage of this primal man is a mighty heritage; and if, unlike Burns, Dr. M'Naught could not rise with him, as who may, to Pisgah's height, he could at least see the mountain top and discern the chariot of fire, and so envisage something of the truth about Robert Burns, his vision of humanity, its brotherhood and its warmth, the nobility of the human heart, its unscaled heights and its unplumbed depths.

In the Great War we realised more, perhaps, of the splendour of that vision of brotherhood than we have since known; and, having been once by ourselves seen,

it cannot die in a day. As we grow older-else are we to be pitied-we become the more impressed by the oneness of all things in nature; and so the thought comes that we are ourselves less individuals than members of a great family. This the war seemed to teach, because of the very universality of suffering and death. These things were so near to us and so open before our eyes that, although sore bereavement came to each one of us individually, yet they were also so universal as to bind all in the common bond of suffering humanity. It has been written, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And surely in those days many were purified.

To-night, in front of me as I write, and every one bearing the autograph of the giver, are the thirty-four volumes of the Burns Chronicle, a serried row of not a little fine material; and even if none more were added, it is none the less a mine from which much pure ore may be drawn. Then there was the kindly personality, the delightfully forgivable glimpses of the latent vanity of the man, like salt to food; the gentleness which the strong mind and determined will hid from many; while for those who knew the warm hospitality exercised by himself, and that sweetest of women who was his wife, it will remain a memory which none shall readily forget. It was never forced, never ostentatious, never unreal. If he liked you, then he showed it; if he did not, it was made unmistakably plain; and those whom Dr. M'Naught did not like had usually in them something undesirable.

Quick to read men, and contemptuous of sycophancy, he pierced beneath the surface; and his natural power of restraint, when restraint was good, impelled him to keep his opinions at times to himself, when it did not involve infringement of principle. Like all strong men, he was sometimes difficult to thole, but when work had to be done, especially work for the Federation and for Robert

Burns, the spirit of the man rose above all lesser things. He made his mark, and he lived his day.

He did not have long to wait after his wife, whom he followed soon, because his spirit was with her; and no long, wearying illness vexed one to whom inaction meant a restraint not easily borne. Happily, he passed quickly, and his spirit has gone to those Elysian fields, those green pastures and still waters of the uncharted land whence none returns.

To us of the Federation his heritage has been willed; we follow in the succession, and if we labour as he laboured, with as stout and unwearying hands and as true a heart, then the truth which Burns left, the vision of a universal brotherhood yet to be, will be ours also, to carry onward as best we may. It is a great heritage, and one that has no harbour with grim war-engines of destruction speeding through the elements to waste life, and cities, and humanity. Rather is it the spirit of a more enduring because divinely inspired influence, which the seers of old foresaw in the time when "the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den."

Thus is it that in the lowly homes of the poor of all peoples, not less than in the palaces of the mighty, wherever are the humble and simple in heart, there also are to be found the richest jewels of humanity; none the less beautiful because, like the rose, they grow on many a wayside hedge.

And so, quietly and reverently, on one of the days of glorious summer, we laid our old friend to rest beside his wife, the helpmeet of many years. With the sun shining brightly, the air mellow, and all living things around us fresh and green, we left these two together, and took our quiet way up the narrow country loaning, past the old churchyard with its high stone wall and ancient graves, and so to our own homes.

JAMES A. MORRIS.

THE MOVEMENT FOR PRESERVATION OF THE SCOTTISH VERNACULAR.

A new and vital impulse has been given to the Burns Federation by the leadership it has assumed, under the Presidency of Sir Robert Bruce, in the movement for the wider study and more general understanding of the Scottish vernacular. Some years ago Burns Clubs woke up to the fact that a general knowledge of Scottish vernacular literature was necessary to the understanding and appreciation of Burns himself. At the same time it was realised that the younger generation in Scotland was growing up in almost complete ignorance of the language of Ramsay, Fergusson, Burns, and the old Scottish balladists. The Federation was doing good work by promoting school competitions; but it was felt that something more required to be done.

With the instinct of a born leader, the President of the Federation has now concentrated the movement upon a vital objective, namely, the study of the vernacular in elementary and secondary schools. He has secured the active support of leading Scots like the Earl of Rosebery, Sir Donald MacAlister, Professor R. S. Rait, and Professor W. A. Craigie, and has won the sympathy of the Scottish Education Department. At the Conference of the Federation in Edinburgh, in September last, the Executive Committee was authorised to take such steps as seemed expedient to secure the end in view, and the President announced that he had received an official invitation from the Education Department to send in any suggestions of a positive character," which would receive consideration at a conference between Dr. George MacDonald and the Chief Inspectors. Thus the way was paved for an arrangement for giving the Scottish vernacular a place in the curriculum of Scottish schools.

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