spoken of religion:
"'Tis this my friend that streaks our morning bright,
'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night.
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few;
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue;
'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart,
Disarms affliction, or repels her dart;
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise.
Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies."
One of the most beautiful letters ever written by Burns has reference to this subject, and was addressed to the same lady, on New Year's day.—"This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes; and would to God that I came under the Apostle James's description!—'the prayer of the righteous man availeth much.' In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion for breaking in on that habitual routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery.
"This day, the first Sunday of May, a breezy, blue skyed noon, sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of Autumn,—these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holy day. * * * * I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables. 'On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.'
"We know nothing, or next to nothing of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never heard the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities—a God that made all things—man's immaterial and immortal nature—and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave."
A fit comment on this and other passages of similar import in his letters is the following affecting poem, entitled "A Prayer in the Prospect of Death." It seems to us to utter the deep throbbings of the poet's spirit:
"Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between;
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms;
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath his sin avenging rod.
Fain would I say, 'forgive my foul offence!'
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way;
Again in folly's path might go astray;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man.
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray;
Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan,
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?
O thou great Governor of all below,
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea;
With that controling power assist ev'n me,
Those headlong furious passions to confine,
For all unfit I feel my powers to be,
To rule their torrent in the allowed line;
O aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine!"
After writing thus far, we read for the first time, "The Genius and Character of Burns," by Professor Wilson, the richest garland yet wreathed around the poet's brow; and we are happy to find the views expressed above fully corroborated by that distinguished writer. It is true that Wilson delineates the character of Burns with enthusiastic admiration; but his views are so discriminating, and withal backed by such an array of facts, that no candid man can deny their correctness. We cannot therefore resist the temptation of making the following extract, in which the finest discrimination is blended with the largest charity. Long may the Literature of Scotland be guarded by such a critic! But one thing must not be forgotten here, namely, that no one, and especially one personally unacquainted with Burns, can pronounce in regard to his actual spiritual state. Whether he was truly 'born of God,' and notwithstanding the errors of his life, died a Christian and went to heaven, is happily not a question which we are called to decide.