The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1871-01-21
Cd Man is o. Han for a. That"
BY j. Z. W. MARE.

BY J. F.. W. WARE.
Few men have made the kind Of lodgment
in mems hearts that Robert Burns has. Poor,
ploughman and poet, his name has outlived
that of kings; his influence is greater than
that of statesmen; his words repeated,
sung, loved by all classes wherever the Eng
lish tongue has gone. Other men have writ
ten greater things; other men have sung them
selves into the history of nation, into the
memories of a people; other men have shown
greater grasp Of intellect and have Stunned
his vices of character, and yet among them all
1 doubt if you will find one who has so gotten
into the heart, is so cherished where we cher
ish those we love. Other men have your honor,
your applause, your approval, your marvel;-
their names men will not let die and the i'm
mortal wreath surrounds their fame; but here
is one towards whom the feeling is quite other,
deeper, more personal. You take not his
words but him into your hearts-his words
braver, and broader and better and more cher
ished, because he is behind them. You do not
feel truth, power, sentiment, exquisite express
sion, tender emotion only, but the man. The
man is greater than his word. The word is
out of a living SOUL Its life is his life. he
bares himself to speak it. From his deepest
consciousness, experience, hope or struggle it
is. There is nothing in epistle, incident, po-
etry, that does not betray deep and earnest
life, the life of one
"StuLbling and falling in disastrous night
Yet hoping for the perfect day."
We love the words of Robert Burns and we
love the man Robert Burns, because of the
manhood in the man. Not perfect character
none of US are that-and men that are called
best oftentimes are not so perfect as others who
transgress glaringly, whose deeper life is tlled
| with all manner of daily sweetness those OF a
| more orthodox life lack. So much ofgrace and
| truth, the true grace of manhood, the best
truth of life was in him, that what he wanted
seems the sadder, while somehow it makes us
| tenderer. Far from perfect character, batf1ed
| by circumstances, tortured by his own lntirml-
| tv, he is a man for a. that and pleads for man.
| His joys are human joys; his sorrows human
| sorrows his failings human failings. He is
| not above, he is not below, he is atthe central
heart of manhood, lives, moves as man,
| expresses what men feel and tries to lift them
| into the broader life of which he, in part fail
| ed. Speaking of himself he says, "In the po-
ct l have avowed manly and independent
| sentiments which trust will be found in the
man." Because they are in the man, Burns
| the poet Burns has his peculiar Immortality.
| Imagine a man such as he, contempteously
told by one of his excise superiors that his bu-
siness was to act, not to think. Suppose Burns,
had only followed the plough, or run down
smugglers, had never thought-what gap IN
| the worlds pleasure, instruction and proht!
1t was while he was at Edinburgh, enjoying
the society of those his social superiors, among
whom he moved in the dignity ofhis own char
acter without fawning, no toadying, no Hun-
| keyism about him, man among men, that he
one morning met sin hoddin grey" west
country farmer, whom he shook heartily by
the hand and stopped to talk with. A young
Edinburgh blood took the poet to task for his
want of taste. "Why, you fantastic general,
said Burns, "it was not the grey coat the scone-
bonnet and the sanquhar boot-hose | spoke to,
but the man that acas IN them, and the man, sir,
for true worth would weigh you and me and
ten more such down, any day."
Now, that is the true sentiment, the only SEN
timent that is true. 1t is what we want to get
society squarely up to, what society as square
ly balks at. And by society don't mean a
great mponderable, irresponsible outside some
thing, convenient man of straw to hit, Dut
you and l, dear friends. 1t is not the man
that is in the clothes, but the clothes that are
on the man we judge by; not what his soul
does for him but what his clothes do upon
him. We measure him by the philosophy OF
clothes, by what is outside of him, what is not,
cannot be made part of man. Our standards
are all external. Is he man OF fashion, OF So
cial position, of place, of family, OF money !
These are our social grades and passports, and
conditions, and men must get the imprint OF
one or the other "to be recognized, as 1T is call
ed And to be recoqnized is one ofthe most COW
iect prices. Not content to go along upright
in their manhood, how many do we see stoop-
ing for that which has no value, which shit
of circumstances may sweep away, While no
change can get out the tarnish that stoop does
to their integrity. To see man OF breadth
and brains fawning before the man of money ;
the man of culture cringing to the woman OF
society grave, gray head or an intellect stamp
ed middle-aged one, fattering weak and fool
ish one; wisdom and worth bowing before lace
and ribbons integrity and honor before snobs
and upstarts and even clergymen acting the
hunkey to the parishioner who holds the gold
the really good and honest overcome by the
besetting littleness-it makes one doubt, al
most despair of the sanity, the integrity OF
his race; it makes one question if after all
there be a conviction of the worth of the man
the man independent of accident, antece-
dent and consequent. No; that is not right, ior
after all the deeper man is never satshed with
these things, not satisfied with himself, though
he NAV never have the courage to break from
his thrall, though hem may still fawn and cringe
There is no meaner feeling than that man
conyicts himself of when he has stopped and
done the thing he loathed and loathed himself
for doing. when he has paid for and eaten his
pottage, and finds it less than the froth OF syl-
iabub. 1t scourges him into the deepest recess
of his own soul, and keeps him shamed and
restless, though it never cure him OF his FOLLY.
And the calling thing TO add to that is the as
surance that every time he does it, steps out OF
or stoops in his place to get what he can't 9th
erwise and gets so to his own discredit, he be-
comes the object of ridicule to the very class
he tries to propitiate. Itmay accept HIM IN It's
necessity or vanity, or for its purpose, Dut IN
the very wreath with which it crowns him II
plants thorns that will sting and tester. l al
ways thought that there was something OF
wonderful truth and pathos in the little para
BILE in Ecclesiastes. "There was little city
and few men withinit; and there came great
King against it and beseged it; now there
was found in it poor wise man and he by his
wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remem-
bered that same poor man." But he remem-
bered himself lie did his duty and kept hon
or, and to-day he is the only one OF that un-
grateful city who has remembrance. He was
the man though poor, though despised, though
forgotten and the coronal about his dead name
is fadeless. u
grow to believe, Notwithstanding the still
| immense tendency to sacrifice the true man.
hood in us, that the world is getting tired OF
shams, and is preparing to throw their empire
| off If YOU look at the varied enginery brought
to bear against them, if you will consider the
! character and the power of that enginery, you
will find it com posed of things against whose
combination nothing can ultimately stand
wit, ridicule, the pulpit, the press, the pencil,
and that too much despised thing, common
sense, aided by that palpable yet invisible
stimulus which all things worthy win to
themselves from the spirit of the age. Hume
says, speaking of the crusades, "Such are the
strange contradictions in nature, though the
| clergy at that time could overthrow thrones
and had authority to send million men on
their errand to the deserts of Asia, they could
never prevail against the long pointed shoes"
And so the little things always stand out
| longest, while even they cannot stand forever,
and powers outside the clergy can do what
| they, always exciting antagonism, never could.
| The great powers of the world are now on the
| side of morals and honor and truth and man
hood They grow in strength and in volume
and in purpose They have inaugurated re-
action against shams. That is the crusade OF
the day-in lectures, periodicals, pulpits and
| press. They haunt themselves more and
more boldly and draw giddy men and wo-
men, but the great reactionhas begun
| Quacks of all sorts, merchants, lawyers,
! warriors, statesmen, philanthropists, clergy,
have had their best day. The business is
overdone. The thing we despaired of killing
| is helping to kill itself. Ithas brave outside,
| is contem ptuous and seems to prosper. So did
| Louis Napoleon's empire look up to the day it
| fell. But it was honeycombed, rotten, and at
| the first adverse touch it was gone, collapsing
| as the puff-ball does that the child pinches
between its fingers. No hope of such speedy
collapse here however. Generations will yet
| hug their old delusions, because you and |, and
/ all the other individual men and women are
| not going, in our own cases, only and always,
| to be severely honest and true, hearing and
| honoring only the manhood in ourselves, the
| manhood in others, and meyer, neUer, NEVER
down upon our knees before any social idol
however gilded, or any social ban however
/ Al io1 nd hnwnUar