The Lecturer
A TRIBUTE TO BURRS. Many eloquent speeches were made in Scotland on the 25th of January on the occasion of the 135th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns — among them one delivered at the Edinburgh “ Ninety ” Burns Club by the Rev. Geo. Murray, chaplain of the Club, who, in the course of his address —we cull from the Scotsman’s report —-said : Burns’ satires on church matters were so telling, one wishes he were now alive. (Applause.) He might deal a valiant blow at the threatening revival of obscurantist priestcraft. His satires, of course, do not everywhere go down —that’s the way with satire : but they are living still, puissant to clear the air of cant. He was a bombshell for the biogts. One there was in Palestine of old, who was stem upon the prating priests, but tender over lilies and over sparrows. So of Burns, and his battles with the unco guid. He smites them hip and thigh, yet never with excessive slaughter; and then he melts in mercy for the wounded hare, the mountain daisy becomes immortal in his hands, the very heart goes out from him in pity to the “ ourie cattle ” that have to bide the blast. Saul also is among the prophets. Burns and Shelley, I believe, albeit outcasts of the creed-bound kirks, will yet take lofty rank among the teachers of their age —Burns in the lower, Shelley in the higher range. (Applause.) Look back across the centturies, and you can see that the religious search has been like the climbing of a hill. The natural men are on *he one side, the supernatural on the
other. When they reach the top there will be harmony. In that heavenly air they will be one. The supernatural men, of course, are on the southern and the sunny side. But the great world surely wheels upon its axis, and vengeance sits sullen on her car. It rather looks as if the naturals are to have their innings and their honours now. Burns was on the northern slope.,, Clouds and darkness were around him, the winter wind blew shrill about his ears; but he had insight, he had hope, he had the faith Avhich craves a larger blessing for humanity. You say complacently, it was the French Revolution. True, O King! but he Avas fired, he fought, for the grander revolution that shall come. With him it was the deepest passion to see the wrong righted, to see moral worth redeemed from poverty, to see benevolence triumphant —in a word, that regeneration of the body social which is, in sooth, the Kingdom of God. His one highest aspiration we must never tire of hearing in tbe Avellknown lines — Man to man the warld o’er Shall brithers be for a’ that. (Applause.) The real religious Burns is not to be found in extracts from the “ Cottar’s Saturday Right,” or his versions from th® Psalms. These are but his tribute to conventionality. You must go deeper. He was at feud with the formal orthodoxy of his day, but he was true to the orthodoxy of his heart —he responded eagerly to every cry of human need. Nay, he enfolds in his compassion the very birds of the air and the beasts of the field. The spirit almost died out of him for others. He Avas no stranger, at least in feeling and in instinct, to the one eternal principle of sacrifice. He touched sure and straight the secret of the highest life when ther® burst from him those tenderest lines, soft as the light that glistens in the human tear — Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress, A brother to relieve, how exquisite the .bliss. (Applause.) Humanity with him was the touchstone of divinity. You quickly fiud affinity when you trace the real Burns, with that gospel in the the 15th chapter of St. Luke. His was the breast that burned with S3anpathetic pity for the lowly lostness of his brothers. How he bowed beneath the burden of their woes ! These things are the deep note in his song, “ Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” Call him unconsciously Christian if you please—the pattern of the prophet’s mantle is often somewhat strange. Conscious or unconscious, he is Christian all the same. Perhaps the Kirk itself —tell it not in Gath !—stood between him and the light. (Applause ) I come to town and I admire your well-kept grounds. How radiant in your grey metropolis the flaunting flowers your gardens yield. The red geranium in its season blinds me Avith its blaze. But I forget not the pristine stock from which it sprang, its congener about the country parts. You must allow me to admire the wild geranium of the Avoods. That was Burns. He was the wild flower by the way. And ever by the av ay side I behold him. With other poets, Ave dwellers in this northern land have ever and anon to run and read their works. But Burns was Scottish to the core, withal so cosmopolitan and human that the subjects of his poetry recur in daily life with all the pleasing glamour of personal association. Burns for what he was, Burns for what he said and sung, sweeps day by day the heartstrings of our memory.
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Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 2, 14 April 1894, Page 6
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884The Lecturer Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 2, 14 April 1894, Page 6
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