In regard to religious matters, he gave his young friend sage advice:
The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev’n the rigid feature.
The soul’s attitude to the Creator is a determining factor in deciding its happiness and growth. Reverence should not mean solemnity and awe. Reverence based on dread blights the soul and dwarfs it. True reverence reaches its highest when its source is joy; then it becomes productive of character—constructively transforming character. The formalism of ‘preaching cant’ robs religion of its natural attractiveness, especially to younger people; the ‘rigid feature’ turns those who would enjoy religion from association with those who claim to be Christians, and yet, especially when they speak about religion, look like melancholy and miserable criminals whose final appeal for pardon has been refused. Burns’s philosophy would lift the shadows of frightfulness from religion and let its joyousness be revealed.
An Atheist’s laugh’s a poor exchange
For Deity offended.
A correspondence fixed wi’ heaven
Is sure a noble anchor.
To Burns, the relationship of the soul to God was of first importance. He cared little for man’s formalisms, but personal connection with a loving Father he regarded as the supreme source of happiness. Only a reverent and philosophic mind would think of prayer as ‘a correspondence with heaven.’
Burns holds a high rank as a profound philosopher of human life, of human growth, and of human consciousness of the Divine, as the vital centre of human power.
Burns was a philosopher in his recognition that productive work is essential to human happiness and progress.
In ‘The Twa Dogs’ he makes Cæsar say:
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a’ their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak enow themselves to vex them;
An’ ay the less they hae to sturt them, trouble
In like proportion less will hurt them.
······
But gentleman, and ladies warst,
Wi’ ev’n-down want o’ wark are curst.
Burns had real sympathy for the idle rich. He saw that idleness leads to many evils, and that probably the worst evils, those that produce most unhappiness, are those that result from neglecting to use, or misusing, powers that, if wisely used, would produce comfort and happiness for ourselves as well as for others. He believed that every man and woman would be happier if engaged in some productive occupation, and that those who do not use their hands to produce for themselves and their fellows are ‘curst wi’ want o’ wark.’