Burns and Brotherhood.
In the third letter Burns wrote Alison Begbie, the first woman he asked to marry him, he said: ‘I grasp every creature in the arms of Universal Benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate.’
This statement of one of the fundamental principles which guided him during his whole life is a profound interpretation of the teachings of Christ in regard to the attitude that each individual should have, must have, in order that brotherhood may be established on the earth. He taught universal benevolence and vital sympathy with—not for—humanity; not merely when sorrows and afflictions bring dark clouds to hearts, but in times of happiness and rejoicing; affectionate sympathy, unostentatious sympathy, co-operative sympathy that stimulates helpfulness and hopefulness; sympathy that produces activity of the divine in the human heart and mind, and leads to brotherhood.
The amazing fact is, not that Burns wrote such fundamental Christian philosophy in a love-letter, but that a youth of twenty-one could think it and express it so perfectly.
To Clarinda he wrote, 1787: ‘Lord! why was I born to see misery which I cannot relieve?’
Again, in 1788, he wrote to her: ‘Give me to feel “another’s woe,” and continue with me that dear-loved friend that feels with mine.’
To Mrs Walter Riddell he wrote, 1793: ‘Of all the qualities we assign to the Author and Director of Nature, by far the most enviable is to be able “to wipe away all tears from all eyes.” O what insignificant, sordid wretches are they, however chance may have loaded them with wealth, who go to their graves, to their magnificent mausoleums, with hardly the consciousness of having made one poor, honest heart happy.’
In ‘A Winter Night,’ the great poem of universal sympathy, he says:
Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss.
He closes the poem with four great lines: