RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL POEMS was persecuted by the Church in Mauchline, "Learn three mile prayers and half mile graces. I warrant then you're nae deceiver; 8. He despised the "unco guid," who dearly loved to compare their holiness with the wickedness of their neighbors. "The rigid righteous is a fool, The rigid wise another." He sums up his wise philosophy of Christian sympathy in his poem the "Unco Guid" in the beautiful stanza : "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord its various tone, Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute But know not what's resisted." Burns attacked the things that he believed to be evils in connection with religion, but never religion. He made his position clear in his epistle to Rev. John McMath, when he said: 1 Churches. "All hail, religion! maid divine, To stigmatize false friends o' thine "But," objectors say, "Burns was a skeptic, so he could not be a religious man." Let Burns answer this by three of many similar quotations from his own letters. To Mrs. Dunlop he wrote: "My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little skeptical, but the necessities of my heart always give to my cold philosophizings the lie." To Dr. Candlish he wrote: "Despising old women's stories, I ventured in the daring path Spinoza trod, but experience of the weakness-not the strength of human powers made me glad to grasp revealed religion." To Mrs. Dunlop he wrote: "In vain do we reason and pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a very daring pitch, but when I reflected that I was opposing the most ardent wishes and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct." In his Epistle to a Young Friend, he says: Burns was a deeply religious man. RELIGIOUS AND ETHICAL POEMS He wrote to Mrs. Dunlop: "Religion all my life has been my chief dependence and my dearest enjoyment." To Allan Cunningham he said: "I will imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion." In his Epistle to a Young Friend he wrote: "A correspondence fixed wi' heaven Is sure a noble author." Burns held correspondence with heaven, by having family worship every day that he was at home. In a friendly letter to Robert Aiken he wrote: "Almighty God, who has lighted reason in my breast, and blest me with immortality, I have frequently wandered from Thee, but Thou hast never left me nor forsaken me." His exquisite love letters to Allison Begbie are lighted by a truly religious spirit. No one can read "The Cottar's Saturday Night" without being convinced that Burns was a reverently religious man. RELIGIOUS CREED OF ROBERT BURNS In his own language, selected from his letters 1. Religion should be a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. 2. There is a great and incomprehensible Being to whom I owe my existence. 3. The Creator perfectly understands the being he has made. 4. There is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue. 5. There must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave. 6. From the sublimity, the excellence, and the purity of His doctrines and precepts, I believe Jesus Christ came from God. 7. Whatever is done to mitigate the woes, or increase the happiness of humanity is goodness. 8. Whatever injures society or any member of it is iniquity. 9. I believe in the immaterial and immortal nature of man. 10. I believe in eternal life with God. MY FATHER WAS A FARMER MY FATHER WAS A FARMER My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing; For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding. Then out into the world my course I did determine; Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming: My talents they were not the worst, not yet my education. Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation. In many a way, and vain essay, I courted Fortune's favour; Some cause unseen still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour; Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd, sometimes by friends forsaken; And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken. |