Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-01-26

nm creed WAS e5seutially correct, ~
was reverent toward COD ana good
ness: and rel, II conduct, often lit
tie better than one Of the wicked
He acknowledged God as his Gre
ator. preserver and judge: the object
Of worship and the nearer of prayer.
He accepted the divinity of Christ and
regarded religion a the only true So
lace of life.
He was always grateful for a cody
ancestry, and pitied those devoid of it.
"Once, when under the surgeons
care by reason of q bruised limb, that
disabled him for six weeks, he quaint
ly wrote: 4 have taken tooth and
nail to the Bible; it is really a glor-
ious book
"In Tam O'Shanter' he rebukes late
c~arousing. In The Cotter's Saturday
Night he breathes the spirit of wor-
ship.
The ntr blasts.
"The aimlessness and want of self
control in Burns no doubt had a de-
teriorating effect, both upon his NOR
ais and religion. But especially upon
his material circumstances.
These failings entered far into max
ing his material circumstances what
they were, and his circumstances went
far in making him what he was; or
rather. in preventing him from doing
what he might have done.
eff the Scotchmen of his generation
may be censured for their sin OF
omission, Burns cannot escape entire
ly from the sin of commission.
ut cannot be doubted but that such
an independent and sensitive spirit as
that Of Burns sank under the burden
of adverse circumstances, and. added
to his designations, hurried him to an
untimely grave.
The MatchIess Flower.
Turning to the writings of Burns,
we must note that poetry was his
native dowry-a gift at birth.
GAS Coleridge expressed it: He
was Natures own beloved bard The
poet himself was humbly conscious OF
this his endowment.
SIN the preface to the first edi-
ton of his poems, he says: The poetic
genius of my country found me, as the
prophet Elijah did Elisha, at the
pillow, and threw her inspiring mantle
over me. l turned my wild artless
notes as she inspired
an this apparent boasting there is
really no boasting. 1t is simply a nat
ural account of his call to his work.
and a call quite outside of the ordin-
airy sphere of personal preparation.
"Of education he had but little. He
knew, however, the traditions of
Scotia, and the sweet songs of Fer
guson and Ramsey-the romance and
legends of Ayrshire.
when gauging ale and dressing fax
and blowing in the field he was first
and last a son of song, and felt that
he had a mission from Heaven to full
fill.
Few narratives in English history
are more impressive than that in
which the poet gives us an account Of
his contemplated abandonment of
poetry in an hour of encouragement;
and the way in which his ambitions
were rekindled, and his courage re-
newed by the presence of the Scottish
muse in her flowing mantle, calling to
him in the name of all that is inspir-
ing, to rise from his dependency
take up again his Tyre and show
Scotland once more that poetic genius
was still his choice profession.
He was the poet of man. And
noUhlng delighted him more than to
satirize those naughty classes who
disdained to stand on a common plane
with peasants and plowboys. and to
teach them the sacredness of the great
law of equality of men before God and
human law.
His keen eye pierced beneath all
social DISCUSSES in order to ascertain
whether a mar was a man, or merely
the snowy apology for one, and, when
he penned his poems, it was always in
behalf of the common veal. By an
other poet his songs are called lyrics
of the lowly.'
I'm perfect agreement with the char
acter of Burns, as a poet, is the pre-
vailing tone of his verse as national.
THE muse who called and conse-
Grated him to his work was the
of Scotia. Upon her mantle were fig
ured the hills and streams Of Scot
land, and the Scottish heroes, with
Wallace at their head.
"As beautiful as were the shamrock
and rose, the thistle to him was the
symbol dear
Scotland was his mother-land, and
it is not strange that we see him in
Dumfernshire, kneeling and kissing
the tombstone of the gallant Bruce.