MR ANDREW CARNEGIE ON BURNS.

MR

R ANDREW CARNEGIE, on 7th August, 1912, unveiled the Montrose Burns Statue, which has been erected in the Mid-Links of the burgh. The ceremony

was witnessed by a vast assemblage.

Ex-Provost Foreman, chairman of the Statue Committee, in tracing the history of the movement said they were met to witness the final act in a work which had its

inception thirty years ago. Of the original promoters only nine survived. Among the early subscribers to the movement was Mr Carnegie, who was to unveil the statue. To the energetic action of the Burns Club, which was instituted in September, 1908, they were enabled to witness that day the unveiling of that long-belated Burns statue. He had great pleasure in introducing Mr Andrew Carnegie, who had shown his interest in their desire to honour the Poet of Scotland by coming that day to unveil the statue. Mr Carnegie was the best known Scotsman of the present day; his name was known the world over for his many and princely benefactions, and for his great and noble efforts to promote peace among the nations. He was no stranger to Montrose; he was en honorary burgess of their town, and they were that day, in their Public Library, enjoying one of the very many gifts which he had made toward the spread of education and knowledge throughout this and other countries.

MR CARNEGIE'S TRIBUTE.

Mr Carnegie, who was cordially received, said:Provost and fellow-citizens of Montrose.-We are met to-day to testify that the Immortal Bard still lives in our memory, that his fame increases with time-that his place in the

world as in our hearts, strengthens with the years-and that the debt we owe him is indeed unpayable. No man who ever lived has so many memorial statues in so many lands, and yet we meet to-day in Montrose to dedicate still another. It was not his genius, his insight, his vision, his wit or spirit of manly independence, nor all of these combined, which captured the hearts of men. It was his spontaneous, tender, all-pervading sympathy with every form of misfortune, pain, or grief; not only in man, but in every created form of being. He loved all living things, both great and small. Repeated are the proofs of this overflowing tenderness. The nest of the mouse destroyed by the plough which had "cost many a weary nibble,” appeals to his heart, and the lesson is enforced :—

"But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promised joy!"

Burns seems to have divined what science to-day proclaims, that all life is kin; listen to this outburst of emotion :

"I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
And fellow-mortal!"

We murmur to ourselves," beyond this it is impossible for mortal to go, this must be the utmost limit." But wait a moment. We are told that talent does what it can but genius what it must, and Burns, sweeping upward and onward under this law, startled the world by his next leap, clear out of all bounds, at which it still keeps wondering, for no mortal before or since has ever dared to entertain the idea of reformation and pardon for the Evil One :

"But fare-you-weel, auld 'Nickie-ben!'
O wad ye tak' a thought an' men'!
Ye aiblins micht-I dinna ken-

Still hae a stake;

I'm wae to think upo' yon den,

Ev'n for your sake."

The Poet was ever the reformer, and, true to his mission, he ventures to intimate that his Infernal Majesty might vary one of his recreations with advantage :

"I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,

To skelp and scaud poor dogs like me,
An hear us squeal!"

A RELIGIOUS TEACHER.

In such familiar terms Burns addresses the Arch Fiend, enemy of God and man-whom Milton thus describes :—

"Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and, like a comet, burned

In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war."

Fortunately the stern doctrines literally interpreted in the Poet's day remain with us in our day only as helpful allegories in man's progress to higher conceptions. Not till another poet reaches this towering height upon which to-day one sits alone in solitude can the ascendency of Burns ever be questioned as the genius of the overflowing, sympathetic heart, ever alive to the sorrows of man, beast, mouse, or devil. There are two stanzas which give Burns high place as a truly religious teacher of men :—

"The fear o' Hell's a hangman's whip,

To haud the wretch in order,
But where you find your honour grip,
Let that aye be your border;
Its slightest touches, instant pause,
Debar a' side pretences;

And resolutely keep its laws,

Uncaring consequences."

In the "Cottar's Saturday Night we have the finest picture of humble life ever painted, inculcating the mosttruly religious lesson:

'Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Power, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacredotal stole ;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol."

I venture to submit that one line of Burns has not received due attention as constituting a rule of life-a pure gem :

"Thine own reproach alone do fear."

Having from our own conscience-the Judge withinreceived a verdict of approval, we have little to fear from any other tribunal. The Judge within" sits in the Supreme Court. The prophets in days past were stoned as Burns was, but the assailants of Burns in his day were wrong. He saw the great light before they did, as the prophets and leaders of mankind invariably do and must do, else they were not prophets. The day has now arrived when he, the proclaimer of the royalty of man, stands revealed to us as the true Poet-Prophet of his age. What he proclaimed has proved to be the needed gospel for the advancement of man, especially for us of the Englishspeaking race. I have ventured to hail him as the PoetProphet of his age. That he was a Poet will pass unquestioned, but was he not also a Prophet.? Did he not see, in advance of his fellows, the certain growth of the rights of man through the spread of democracy, and was he not awake to the crude and repulsive theology of his day, and at the same time saw the coming of the better day in which we now live, when the God of wrath who condemned man

to everlasting torment has become displaced by the Heavenly Father, who can be trusted to deal mercifully even with the sinner? In these changes we recognise the work of Burns; it was he who laid the axe to the root of the tree of ignorance and superstition, and in doing so made mankind his debtor. Our Republic was founded upon the rights of man-his political gospel-which permeated both Britain and America, and in more recent times has won sway over all your self-governing colonies-Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-so that to-day Burns's political gospel rules our English-speaking race, which is marching steadily, though more slowly than we could wish, to the full fruition of the ideal of our Poet-Prophet.

THE JUST TAXATION OF MILLIONAIRES.

Let us rejoice that we live in this age when the march of man upward is so pronounced. In one department the Motherland is in advance of the Republic and her Colonies. She has established a law first proclaimed by another famous Scot, foremost of all in his branch of study. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations marked an era in the world's history, and no statement made by him has proved so important for man's advance to true democracy as this:

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the Government, as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation."

This doctrine was such a shock to the statesmen of the day that even his editor, Professor Thorold Rogers, absorbed a full page in small type to point out how his author had stumbled. In the view of to-day the injustice lies in not taxing according to value. This just taxation the millionaires of the Republic and Colonies have so far escaped, but their day is coming; and properly so. Let us rejoice that the old home is here in the lead, an example for her