Norwich bulletin., 1914-01-23
BIRTHDAY OF sCOTLAND'S BARD
18th Anniversary of Robert Burns Celebrated With Banquet Song and Story-Oration on The Poet Given by Rev. G. w. Chrste-EIon C. P. McCeland and Judge John H. Barnes Make Responses to Toasts.

 as glowed in a living heart
 His poems are perva,ded by a grace ful mixture of the elegant and the homely, the lofty and the lowly; scenes of tenderness or tears,of great mirth or open laughter SucceSSiVely appear. While through all is diffused, as the scent of summer fioWers,a moral mean ing, a beauty which sweetens and sancitifies the whole. How rich in hu- nor is his Tam o'Shanter? What a rapt enthusiasm in his Mary in Heav- en? What a glowing picture of con tentment and piety is conveyed in his Cotter's Saturday Night? How perfect ly natural is o Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad?7 What touching pa thos is that song composed on his death bed to Jessie Lewars What a fire-eyed fury in his Scots, Who Hae wi Wallace Bled, the grandest war ode that was ever penned.
 Made Scotch Dialect a Classic.
 Burns is also dear to us because dialect and his songs are set to their own native mountain airs. The world owes a large debt to Robert Burns. hut Scotland more than all. He exalted the Scottish race and preserved their dialect For some time before his day Scotland was losing it's prestige and place among the nations. Since the two kingdoms were united Scotland seemed lapsing into obScurity. She had poets and historians of renoWn but no trace of their nationality or tongue could he found in their works. In fact they seemed careful to exclude any hint of their native idiom and it seemed doomed. Then 1t Was that Burns appeared and in burning words asserted that Scotland was still. ex- tant. He sang her praises in Scottish phrase and preserved the Scottish did- IePt fnreUar for Inc xxv0Tld yvi1 let die the language in which Burns songs and ballads are enshrined. The language of the f1reside, its idioms and phrases he embalmed in the sweetest of verse and the association of these words and the music of the songs. stir up in the heart of Seotchmen a whole army of home recollectionS an1 awaken the golden memories of au!i lang syne. By his genius Burns has made the rude speech of his countrymen rich with melody and classic forever.
 He went not to far-o lands nor did he seek in history or romance for his themes, but he turned his Tyre to the most common topics, the scenes Of eY- ery-day life and endowed them with character and passion with life and beauty. He clothed the stern seen cry of his northern home with the sun niness and sweetness of his own songs. Bathed in beauty not only the Bifks of Aberfeldy and the Braes of Bal locknlyle. but by the glory of his gf- nius he has steeped forever the whole land of the thistle and the heather in the hues of heaven.
 His Sturdy Independence.
 Burns is also beloved by Scotia $ sons and daughters on account 3f the spirit of sturdy independence. t4le spirit of liberty and manliness which breathe through all his writings. It is because, with all his love of na- ture he still had a livelier love for man. and gave birth to those great truths which as soon as they were uttered, became the property, the Ian guage and the Watchword Of toiling humanity. Burns was the manifest soul of the eighteenth century. Through all the nineteenth they heard the homespun prophet singing, Its coming yet for a that. When man to man the world OCT shall brithers be for a that. The twentieth century has only broadened the watchWord into the brotherhood of man and I9a- therhood of God.
 Believed All Men Created Equal. He was no worshipper of titles. rank or wealth, He would not have eX- changed his hardship for a crown. The holly round his head bound by Scotia's muse was a richer diadem tO him than a coronet set with Orient pearls. He did not believe that Cne- ndII or humanity was ElIue OL CfjIl mon mud and the other oI norcelain clay, but that all men are created equal and what makes one man better than another is not his titles, wealth or broad lands, but his manhood, ge- nius and worth. Hugh Miller, says Robert Burns, was the mar who frs; 1 taught the Scottish people to stand erect. Sprung from the peasant class himself he taught ther that although they were poor. they might still hold their heads aloft. be many and inde- pendent.
 l How grandly he sings:
 i ''Is there for honest poverty
 l That hangs his head and a'that? ! The coward-slave, we pass him by, ! We dare be poor for that;
 | For a'that, and a'that,
 l Our tolls obscure and a'that, 1 The rank is but the guinea stamp.
 The mans the gowd for a'that." The stream of time washes away the soluble foundations of many poets but