A POET'S ANNIVERSARY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 109, 25 January 1918, Page 3

A POET'S ANNIVERSARY

, •* — BURNS AND HIS DISTINGUISHED NEPHEW A LINK WITH NEW ZEALAND The world's wealth is its original men; by these and their works it is a world and not a. waste; the memory and the record of what men it bore—this is tho sum of its strength, its sacred property for ever.—Carlylo. In tho Octagon, Dunedin, overlooked by tho massivo Town Hall, arc two monuments to distinguished men. One uf tho monuments is a life-size bronze stattio of Robert Burns, and the other is a tall column crowned with a Maltese cross erected 'to tho memory of 'Thomas Burns. The connection between those two is not a nicro accident of name. Robert and .Thomas Burns were related by ties of blood. The latter was the son of the poet's brother Gilbert, whose name figures so prominently in tho letters of Robert Burns. They are related also in other ways. The poet sang out tho praise of grand 'Meals, and his distinguished iiephew helped to work out these ideals in actual life.

Thomas Burns was born on the farm of Mossgiel, near Mauchline, on April 10. 1796, and was thus three months old when his uncle tho poet died. His birthplace is commemorated' in New Zealand, for a township some ten miles from Dunedin hears the name of Mossgiel. The farm of Mossgiel was taken by Robert and Gilbert Burns after their father's death, and therethev found a home for their mother

and themselves': It was during his life at Mossgiel that Burns wroto the larger part'of his works. The surroundings of Thomas's early' boyhood were thus tho same as those of his uncle when his genius worked at its best. Youth and Marriage. At sixteen years of age Thomas Burns entered the University of Edinburgh as a student; in due course ho passed into tho divinity hall, and during the summer recess each year acted as tutor. in various families, and had as pupils the nephews of Sir George AVarrender and tb.e_.sons of Admiral Stewart. He was licensed as a preacher by tho Presbytery of Haddington in 1823, and in 1825 was presented by Sir Hew Dalrymple, ini whose family he had acted as tutor, to the parish of llallantrae in South Ayrshire, where he laboured for five years. In IS3O he removed to the parish of Monkton, the "richest living in the county." and in the same year married Miss Clementina Grant, the niece of the former minister of Monkton, and the daughter of a Church of ■England minister. : For thirteen years he "laboured in Monkton with signal success, and it was through his oxer-' tions that a large, and handsome church wa9 erected.

lii 1843 a crisis came. Mr. Burns took a decided stand on the side of the spiritual iiidpoendence of the Church in the- battle that was raging in the Church and in the country. He was on the fiide of Thomas Chalmers in protesting against the tyranny of the State: and when 1843 came round and the Disruption took place, Thomas Burns wps one of the heroic band of four hundred who abandoned churches and manses and stipends. He was one of the procession that marched to Tanfield Hall, and ho thus took a personal part in sotting up the Free Church of Scotland. During the next few years he passed through hardships'that were part of his training for his future life-work as a pioneer colonist. Ho changed his large nwiso for a small cottage, his four hundred pounds a year of stipend for a bare living wage, his magnificent church building' for the stackyard of a farmbouse, where the. congregation that followed the minister worshipped in the open air. Ho laboured in the Free

I Church with the same fidelity and suci cess ns he had done hefore the Disa ruption, hut his thoughts were led out 1 to the extension of the Empire through | colonisation. The desiro to be a pionI em- colonist became a passion with 4 him. This desire on the part of some | soon took definite shape in a project % to found a "New Edinburgh" at the | ends of the earth, and this scheme I found the warmest favour in the heart I and mind of Thomas Burns. 1 The New Edinburgh .Scheme. 1 The "New Edinburgh" scheme" that | captured Thomas Burns was nurtured | not in a House of Parliament hut in I a Church court, and it ended neither I in dream uor disaster, hut in the ox--1 tension of Empire and Church. The H children of the world are not always § wiser than the children of light. Tiie I stir and excitement of the Disruption I of 1843 had hardly quieted down when J an Association of Free Churchmen I formed a scheme for colonising the I southern ports of New Zealand and m founding a "New Edinburgh" there. | In 1845 Dr. Candlish submitted a reI port to the Free Church General AsI seroblv, which said: "The General As--1 sembly is aware that a project for the $§ colonisation of the interesting islands 1 of New Zealand has been hefore the H public for several years, and has alM ready been partially carried into ef- § feet. In particular, a Scotch colony -i to New Zealand was projected two i§ years ago under the name of New EdinI burgh." The report, which met with f, the°approval of the Assembly, went on £j to express "warm and cordial_ appro--1 bation of the principles on which this 1 settlement is proposed to be conducted, Ml as making due provision for the religip ous and educational wants of the colif onists; and their anxious desire in i these respects to co-operate with the |§ association, and to countenance and s| aid their efforts to the utmost of their 1 power.". This scheme matured somei what slowlv, for its promoters wore dell termined that it would not end like the » former "New Edinburgh" project; but jfl at last it was matured, and late in m 184.7 the two ships .Tohn Wycliffo. and 18 Philip Laing, with threo hundred and

m j forty-four emigrants on board, sailed | H : from British shores for southern Now I m Zealand, with tho ' view of founding ffl there a Presbyterian Church and ex- || tending the Empire' In tho early §| dnvs of tho scheme, Thomas Hums was % asked, and. .willingly agreed, to belli come the minister in. tho proposed |f "Now Edinburgh" colony. . But while M the scheme was being slowly matured ffl I lie left Ayrshire and did some Church m extension'work in various places, and' j® then accepted a call to a charge in m Poitohello. m The Now Pilgrim Fathers. Sm lie left witli the large majority 01 |s the now colonists' iii the Philip Laing, H and there was much in the sailing of f, j this ship from Greenock, on November |P j 27, 1817, that resembled tho sailing of m | tho Mayflower for Now England in II .1.020. A farewell service was conduetfj ml liy Dr. Patrick Macfarlaue; and as P; the service wont on, Andrew Cameron, || assistant editor of Hugh Miller's m paper, the "Witness," was busy tak- || ing notes for publication in the journal M ho represented. This Andrew Cameron HI afterwards became a minister and a fltj pioneer religious journalist, and startW ed "The Christian Treasury" and "Tim ip| Family Treasury," and later went by p.& special invitation to Melbourne, Vie-' [$$ toria, to fill a leading pulpit there; and m his journalistic energy did not fail him |H in his new field, for he founded "The fflk Southern Cross," which to-day is the H| leading journal uf its kind in the KB southern hemisphere. R§ It took Thomas Burns and his felH low-colonists four months to reach. PH their destination in the Southern Sea, Ws ' and when they landed they stt thern-

solves to turn tbe wilderness into a fruitful-field. For six years Mr. Burns had a territory as large as Scotland to oversee; and as settlement was always increasing, his work was trying and arduous. But helpers cams one after another, and Church and community grew with a healthy rapidity, Between 1848, the year of his landing in Now Zealand, and 1871, the year of his death, ho saw tho land transfturned. He saw it settled with a law-abiding and prosperous people. His enthusiasm for education was as great as for tho extension of his Church, and ho spared no effort to help on the work.of establishing ;i primary school in every district, a secondary school in every large township, and a university in Duncdm; and to aid the setting up of this latter institution, he took a leading part m getting authority from the Provincial Council of Otngo to use a Church endowment for founding Presbyterian schools in paving the salaries of professors in this national university. Today the Otago provincial district is one of the most prosperous in New Zealand. Dimediu is tho hest-bmlt town in New Zealand, and the woollen mills and other industries in Otagn aro the most successful in the land. The Presbyterian Church which Dr. Burns founded (his alma mater, Edinburgh University, gave him his degree) is outstandingly the dominant Church in Olago; its freewill offerings last year amounted to over fifty thousand rounds, and throueh its sustentation fund it paid last year a minimum stipend of two 'hundred and eighteen pounds, with a manse, to each of its ministers—the largest minimum stipend in tho southern hemispncro. The Life of Dr. Burns lias never been written; but it.ought to he written, for as a man, a patriot, an educationist, an cmpire-huilder, and a Christian minister he has made posterity largely his debtor. The poet and tiie pioneer, the uncle and the nephew, whoet monuments are ro close, together in the central breathing-space of fair Dunj'di/, were wiles apart m many ways; but in their fundamental message they had a area* deal in common. Tiie moral side of Robert Burns is seen at its host in the. "Cotter s Saturday night," and in the message of such'a poem undo and nephew are at one.—"Chambers's Journal.