Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-01-29
INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE.


globe, of the centennial anniversary of the
birth of Robert Burns, ploughman and poet,
affords to the world sublime and striking il
lustration of the power and influence of indi-
vidual example and teaching upon the affairs
of men.
AS we read the eloquent periods of the ora
tors, among whom are numbered the most po-
tent and gifted of the age; as we drink from
the gushing fountains of poesy, that have been
opened upon this grand centennial occasion,
we are led to consider the reason why the world
holds carnival over tie birthday anniversary of
such man.
Robert Burns was born poor peasants
child he was a poor man, himself, all his life,
and his whole career was a constant struggle
with the vicissitudes, trials, and hardships
which are the inevitable lot of Britain's suffer-
ing poor. He never wentto college. He could
pile rig of barley, much quicker than he could
translate line of Virgil and pull an acre of
"lzail runts' in far less time than he could de-
monstrate the simplest problem in Euclid.
Tried by the strict rules of the "unco good"
he had many faults and failings, and the ''rig-
idly righteous" of his day and generation found
in his daily walk and conversation many occa-
sions for just condemnation and censure. But,
Notwithstanding all these disadvantages which
hung about him as clogs to his spiritual nature,
his memory is honored and his name is rever-
ed, to-day, in the hearts Of the great world of
mankind, as the memory of no other man is
II. ~. =
revered who has spoken the English tongue,
since good King Alfred sat upon the English
throne.
Indeed, it may well be doubted if the memo
ry and virtues of any man, in any age or coun-
try, since the world began, are so efectually
embalmed in the intense love and hearty ad-
miration of universal humanity, as is the name
and fame of Robert Burns.
And why Simply because the Ayrshire
poet was true man. Not because he was
great man for we all know that he was not
that, in any just or familiar Interpretation of
the term "great" as generally applied to NOR
tails but, because in his spirit and nature, in
termingled, no doubt with much that was evil,
there dwelt, in larger measure than in the
hearts of other men, those great and ennobling
attributes of humanity, which were the crown
ing glory of the Great Exemplar for US all.
Amid all the follies and errors of his youth;
in his strivings with temptation, and in his re-
peated overthrows by the tempter, in his later
years. his faith in God and his reverence for
all that wore the human form divine, appeared
to be no less than his. And more than this
that gentle and kindly nature which ever be-
gets kindness and gentleness, in all other ma
lures with which it comes in contact, did not
stop here. In the exercise of that comprehen-
sive benevolence which our Savior SO beauh-
fully illustrated as an attribute of the divine
power, by the statement concerning the two
sparrows, which, though sold for one farthing,
not one of them could fall to the ground with
out the cognizance of the Omnipotent Father,
Burns love for all things which God had made.
whether animate or inanimate, was equally
manifest; and the lines of tenderness with
which he addressed "Poor Malie dead" "The
Wounded Hare" "The little field Mouse"
"The Mountain Daisy" and even "Old Nick"
himself, who for all his wickedness he could
not hate with a downright sincerity, showed
how deep root those pious lessons of his pa
rents concerning the Divine goodness, had Ia
ken in his heart, and developed their fruitage
in his daily life. And here is the true secret
of the influence of the life and writings of Rob
ert Burns. Though at times, the allurements
of mortal passion, and the temptations of earth
ly pleasure, would seduce him for brief sea-
son, from the hard and rugged paths of virtue,
his honest noble nature, always reasserted
the principles of manly rectitude, and strug
gled nobly for the mastery of the right over the
wrong, while the burden of his song was at
tuned to the harmonious melodies of "The be-
attitudes"
AS few men in their lives have exerted such
an influence for good upon their race, what a
noble study do the life and writings of the
inspired plowman become to u.s. and what les
sons of wisdom, consolation and profit may we
all draw, who tread as he did, the common
walks of life, by stunning the errors that mar
red, and initiating the virtues that adorned his
character.
His individual example of sincerity and
manhood-his comprehensive love to God and
man-who can measure their influence, or
compute the sum total of beauty, goodness,
happiness, and JOY that they have added to
human lives? They defy computation they
cannot be estimated in the figures of arithme-
tic, but wherever, over this broad and beautiful
earth, human heart beats with warmer
throb of human feeling, or higher and holier
aspiration for purer and diviner life, upon the
birthday anniversary of the peasant bard there
we may trace the power and influence of the
example of a single individual manly soul !;
there we may behold the brightest indications
of the good time coming" there we may
mark the encouraging progress of mankind
in a single century, in escaping the thral-
dom Of superstition, kingcraft, and priestcraft
and there we may learn, how, through the
same instrumentalities, in these times as in the
the influence of human lives and examples,
even in the lowest and humblest walks of life,
to lead mankind forward and upward to that
higher, holier, and happier condition which all
the predictions Of the past, and all the auguries
oS the present, assure us is yet to be realized
10y the habitants of this earth on which we
dwell
.--~-=--------------
Nor BAD.-The N. Y. Evening Post thinks
monument to President buchanan should be
erected at Madrid, as he is the FIRST man who
has united the Spanish people. There can be
~ 41oir II