The Arkansas banner., 1844-11-06

Nay, they have told us that they are not akin in nature. But akin they are; and grief and pity 'tis that ever they should be disuni- ted But mark in what hateful, because hypocritical spirit, such advces as these have not seldom been preferred, till salutary truths
 were perverted by misapplication into per
 nicious falsehoods. For these malignant
 counsellors sought not to elevate virtue, but
 to degrade genius: and never Tn any other
 instance have they stood forth more'glarng- lv selfconveted of the most wretched lgno- rance of the nature both of the one and the
 other. than in their wilful blindness to so
 many of the noblest attributes of humanity
 in the character of Burns. Both gifts are
 alike from heaven, and both alike tend heaven
 ward. Therefore, we lament 10 see genius
 soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament
 10 see virtue, where no genius Is, fall before
 the tempter. But we, in our own clear nat ural perceptions, refuse the counsel of those who with the very breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound Iound the heads of the Muses' sons by peoples grat- itude-who, ill affected zeal for religion and morality, have so deeply violated the spirit of both, by vile misrepresentations, gross congregations, and mercless denunciations of the lrailties of our common nature i'll illus trious men--nen who, in spite of their ab- errauons, more or less deplorabe, from the right path, were not only in their prevailing moods devout worshippers of virtue, but in the main tenor of their lives exemplary 10
 their brethren And such a man was Burns.
 In boyhood- -youlh-manhood- such peasant as he And if in trouble, and in
 trial, from wh ell his country may we'll turn in self reproach, he stood, not always fast, yet shame and sin it were, and indellible in- fanny, were she not noao to judge his life as Christianity commands. Preyed upon alas !! by those anxieties that pierce deepest into the noblest hearts-anxieties for the sakes- even on account of the very means of sub sistence-of his own household and his own hearth--yet was he m his declining, shall we call them disastrous years, on the whole faith ful 10 the divine spirit with which 1t had pleased heaven 10 endow him-on the whole obedient 10 it's best inspirations; while he rejoced to illumne the paths of poverty with light which was light from heaven, and from an mexhastable frncy, tceming to the heart in midst of chill and gloom, continued to the very last to strew along the weary ways of this world flowers so beautiful in their lresheess, that to eyes too familiar with tears they looked as if f.dropped from heaven.
 These are sentiment with which rejoice to hear the sympathy ofthis grcatassemblage thus unequyocaly eXpressed-lor my words but awaken thoughts lodged deep in all con- ,,h, ,>C,, i., tl,oro whom, known or unknown, alas there is not so much that needs to be forgiven ?- Which of Us that Is not more akin to Burns in his heShly frallties than in his diviner spirit? That conviction regards not merely solemn and public celebrations of revefentiai as this it pervades the ten or of our daily life, runs ill our hearts blood, sits at our heafths, wings our loftiest dreams of human exaltation. How, on this earth, could we love, or revere, or emulate, Il, In our contemplation of the human being, we could not surrender the noble, the fair, the gracious, the august, from the dregs of mor
 tality, from the dust that hangs perishable about him the impershable We judge ill love, that in love we may be judged. Al our hearthsides, we gained more than we dared desire by mutual mercy; at our hearthsides we bestow and receive better love, by this power of soft and magnanimous oblivion.- We are ourselves the gathers, when thus we honor the great dead IHey hear not-they feel not, excepting by an illusion of our own moved imaginations, which fill mp chasms off awful, impossible separation; but ,ce hear aOe feel; and the echo of the acclaim which hills and skies have this day repeated, we can carry home in our hearts, where 1t shall settle down into the composure of love and pity, and admiration and gratitude, felt to be due for ever 10 our great poets shade.
 In no other spirit could genius have ever dared, in elegies and hymns, to seek to per petuate at once a whole peoples triumph, and whole peoples grief, by celebration of king, sage, priest or poet, gone to his re- ward. From the natural mfirmities of his meanest subjects, what King was ever free Against the golden rim that rounds his mortal temples come the same throbbings from blood in disease or passion hurrying from heart to brain as disturb the aching head of the poor hind on his pallet of straw. But the king has been guardian, restorer, deliyerer; therefore his sins are buried or burned with his'body and all over the land he saved, generation after generation continues to cry aloud-"o king, live foreverm The Sage, who, by long meditation on mans nature and mans life, has seen how liberty rests on law, rights on obligations, and that his pas sions must be fettered, that his will be free how often has he been overcome, when wrestlong in agony with the powers of evil, in that seclusion from all trouble in which reverent admiration nevertheless believes that wisdom for ever serenely dwells The ser want of God, has he always kept his heart pure from the world, nor ever held up in prayer other than spotless hands A hum- ble confession of his own unworthness would be his reply alike to the scofler and to him who believes. But, unteriied by plague and pestlence, he had carried com fort into houses deserted, but by sin and des- pair; or he had sailed away, as he truly be- leved for ever, to savage lands, away from the quiet homes of Christian men-among whom he might have hoped to lead life of peace, il may be of aflluence and honor-for