The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1910-01-27

meagerness of his physical surround
ings that unconsciously we have come
to think of him as having similar
poverty Of education. This is grave
mistake. Burns received an education
far above the average of his time. Mr..
Murdoch, his principal teacher, was
a man of strong personal magnetism,
scholarly attachments, and such an en-
thusiasm, and genius for teaching that
as his, pupil, Burns had opportunities
of systematic training such as few
boys had. In addition lie had the in
tengent sympathy and guidance Of an
unusually clear-headed, we'll read, am
bilious father, who daily sought to i'm
prove the mind and develop the oh.
serving powers of his boys. This he
did, chiefly, by earnest confidential
conversation, he was an elder brother
with his boys, and then he had the
strong personality, and the shrewd
common sense of his mother to quick
en-, stimulate and foster every gift she
saw her boy possessed. Thus by
sympathetic teacher, .and the intelli-
gent devotion of highly endowed par
ents Burns had much to awaken his
genius, foster his ambition and well
come his efforts. These home cOndi-
tions and sympathies no doubt made
him par excellence the poet on the
home and of the heart-enabled him
to see and to sing that there is moth
ling greater in life than for man
ito be a true man, and for a woman
to be true woman. And in his best
moments he made clear to us that
such man is one who loved God, and
being true to Him was by that very
fact genuinely true to his fellow man.
Had Burns not had such father and
mother and such home there would
have been no "Cottars Saturday
Might" that mastery, yet tender pic
ture Of religious Scottish home was
painted from his own home expert
ence. The big ha' Bible lay on his
fathers table, and the man who turn
ed it DER with patriarchal grace was
his own honored father. And it was
these same genuinely deep, spiritual
Impressions made on his own soul,
forcing him to feel the grandeur of
true simple religion, that reused him
to write the "Holy Fair" and his
other scathing satire against the many
crude and unseenly religious forms
of his day. Indeed, we thank Burns
with all our heart for pulling the veil
aside and giving US this CLINT into
the sane, wholesome religious life of
Scottish family, and how its men,
bers spent the evening hours to-
gether.
These are the home touches that
have made the men and the women
of Scotland, whom the world have
come to know.
Thus we speak of Burns as a man
in whom, whether lin the peat bog cut
ting the winters supply, astonishing
his fellows by the sparkle OF his wit,
the brilliance Of his thought, the sun
shine OF his nature, the warmth of his
heart and the indebtedness OF his
genius; as in his experiences in the
homes of fashion and wealth and in
tellectual greatness in Edinburgh; or
in his experiences as lover, hus-
band, a father, a friend; or in the
bitter experiences of poverty, unrec-
ompensed labor in the field and at the
desk-there CLEANS the same sturdy
manly man who appeals to our hearts,
to our sympathies, to our patriotism,
to our minds as one of Gods finest
noblemen, who, though trailing few
rags in the dirt, and his face resolute-
ly, loyalty toward God, and his hand
out in sympathetic warmth to give
freedom and Joy, and to uplift his fel
low men.