THE POET BURNS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2950, 11 June 1891, Page 4

THE POET BURNS.

Tiie Rev. Dr. Alexander Allison, pastor of the Alexander Presbyterian Church, Nineteenth and Green streets, Philadelphia, in declining to attend the Burns anniversary in that town recently, wrote:— " How gladly I would be with you and enjoy your annual dinner. But I regret that the presence of liquor on the table, as you state in your letter, shucs me out. Nor will you consider me narrow or erossgrained, I am sure, when I have taken the liberty of giving you, somewhat in detail or at length, ray reasons. " In this case it is not so much my antagonism to the liquor in itself, although my feelings in that direction are very strong ; it is mainly because of the injury which liquor did to our national poet that I cannot ' add insult to injury' by recognising its presence in connection with the observance of his natal day. " When I remember that alcohol so completely enslaved the grandest genius of our native land as to expose liitn during that awful night to the damp and chilly air, in which he slept off his debauch, in the snowdrift, and which brought or. his last and fatal illness, how can I consider with patience the presence of his greatest enemy upon an occasion when we meet to honour the poet's memory ? What would tin; American people say if the admirers of our martyred President should convene from time to time, and give a conspicuous place 011 the banquetting table to the revolver by which he was levelled to the dust? How much more loudly would our land protest if the contents of the weapon were to find a lodt ,'tncnt in every guest. There .vou'id soon be an end to such reunions. Xor i.s the difference in the results ;.,o very great. Tn many cases tile same result is reached. *'