The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1913-01-31

ment by classes. Men even sought to give
q divine sanction to this arrangement.
There were men and women who put art
and music and culture above the human
soul The Greeks did it, Napoleon did it.
The Greek civilization was a civilization
of the few, with time to study art and
poetry and music, but it was a civilization
which was based upon a horrible sub
stratum OF human slavery. Napoleon sack
ed cities, burned homes, slaughtered help
less thousands, and brought back the pic
lures and statues to Paris and made it
one of the art centers of the world. In
England and in Scotland few prospered
and owned the land, and the millions were
debased. We know how the Highlands were
turned into deer parks, and how, today,
large percentage of the population OF
England pauperS.
But the Great Prophet of men taught a
different gospel, and Robert Burns inter
preted that gospel into the universal lam
guage of the common man. The Great
Democrat of the Ages believed in art and
music and literature and discovery, but
there was something TO him that was
more perfect than the statue, more beau
tiful than the picture, and more harmo-
NOUS than the melody of the organ. In
his sight the most beautiful thing in the
world was a human life, human being,
uplifted and ennobed-the most inartistic
thing was human life and human being
dwarfed, misShapen and deformed. And
greater still and lovelier still than an eX-
allied individual was an exalted race and
an exalted humanity. Before these things
could be we needed to destroy for all time
the race and the class snObbishneSs of the
past. We needed to learn that "A man
was a man for a that" and Robert Burns,
in his humble way, has been an apostle of
the Great Prophet of Men
THE MAN FROM JUDEA.
Eighteen centuries ago, a laborng man
of Judea taught gospel and lived a life
which made him king among men. He
was carpenter by trade, and yet he
overthrow the Roman empire of force
| He lived at a time when labor was de-
based and the few were exalted. Rome
and Athens were the centers of art, liter
ature and music, but this was but a few
IA privileged class. Beneath was a hor
rible sub-stratum of human slavery. Those
at the top, the alleged upper classes-the
aristocracy, as they modestly termed them
selves had n theory which has more or
less been INDUCED in ever since that it
was necessary that the millions should be
debased in order that a few might find
time to cultivate art and music and liter
AZURE and poetry. But this Man taught
different doctrine. AS he went through the
corn and gave them to his disciples, he
was criticised for violating the Sabbath
day. He answered that the Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sab
bath. And in the same way he taught
That man was not made for art or music
or discovery, but all these things were
made for man--for all men. He taught
the simple truth that man was royal born
by right divine; that there was something
diviner than the divine right of kings, and
that was the divine right of man, himself
OF all men. When he prayed he would
stand amidst the rich men and the poor
men, laboring men and lawyers, employ
ers and employees, masters and slaves, and
say, Our Father which art in Heaven
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on
earth as it is in Heaven" When he went
into the market places he would put his
hands upon the head of the child of the
peasant of the child of the rich man. of
the prince, of the centurion, of the Jew,
or the Gentle, and of the slave and would
say, Suffer the little children to come
unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven" He taught the Fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man,-of all
/ men, When he prophesied he would pro-
! phesy that some day, at some time, the
meek should inherit the earth Not the
man who made sharp bargains; not the
man VINO ruled by force; not the man who
cornered the market, but the man whom
Lincoln would call the Simple Folk
should inherit the richness and the full
ness of the earth. And in the Eighteenth
Century it was given to humble peasant
OF Scotland to serve as an unmitred min
lister to him whose pulpit was the tenn.
pied hills, and to interpret, in the songs
and the poems of the simple folk and in
a simple and universal language the great
! gospel of humanity which before had mere
ly been given in Latin and in Greek, and
in the stately English of the scholar. Rob-
ert Burns was frail and sn-worn, but he
had the tenderness and the human ideals
of the Great Prophet of men.
CREATURE OF HIS TIMES.
The critics of Burns speak of him as a
roysterer and as a drunkard The fact
really was that he was a creature of his
times. In his day the roysterer and the
drunkard was everywhere to be found
and, worst of all, the hypocrites. Roysterer
he sympathized in love. Roysterer and