by Robert Burns
We should test neither the terrible theologians of his time — those men who attacked Burns and called him irreligious, because he had a clear vision of a higher, holier religion than the one they preached — nor Burns himself by the conditions of our own time. It is unjust both to Burns and to his enemies to do so.
A comparison of the religious principles of the best Christians in the world nearly a century and a half after his time will show, however, that the creed of the present is more — much more — like the creed of Burns than the creed of the dreadful theologians of his time. The creed of the religious leaders a century hence will be still more like the creed of Robert Burns than is the creed of to-day.
The following creed is taken from the letters of Burns, expressed in his own language, except the last article, which is found in longer form in many of his letters, and more nearly in ‘The Hermit,’ in which he says:
Let me, O Lord! from life retire,
Unknown each guilty, worldly fire,
Remorse’s throb, or loose desire;
And when I die
Let me in this belief expire —
To God I fly.
THE CREED OF ROBERT BURNS.
1. Religion should be a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich.
2. There is a great and incomprehensible Being to whom I owe my existence.
3. The Creator perfectly understands the being He has made.
4. There is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue.
5. There must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave.
6. From the sublimity, the excellence, and the purity of His doctrines and precepts, I believe Jesus Christ came from God.
7. Whatever is done to mitigate the woes, or increase the happiness of humanity, is goodness.
8. Whatever injures society or any member of it is iniquity.
9. I believe in the immaterial and immortal nature of man.
10. I believe in eternal life with God.
Carlyle expressed regret that ‘Burns became involved in the religious quarrels of his district.’ This statement proves that Carlyle failed fully to comprehend the religious character of Burns. His chivalrous nature was partly responsible for his entering the battle waged by the ‘Auld Lichts’ against his dear friend the Rev. Dr M’Gill of Ayr and Gavin Hamilton of Mauchline; but his chief reason was his innate determination to free religion from the evils taught and practised in the name of religion in his time. He had the soul of a reformer, and the two leading elements in his soul were Religion and Liberty for the individual. It would have robbed the world of one of the greatest steps in human progress towards the Divine made in the eighteenth century, if Burns had failed to be true to the greatest things in his mind and heart.
Carlyle had clearly not studied the religious elements in either the poems or the letters of Burns, or he could not have written his comparison between Burns and Locke, Milton, and Cervantes, who did in poverty and unusual difficulties grand work. He asks: ‘What, then, had these men which Burns wanted? Two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable for such men. They had a true religious principle of morals, and a single, not a double, aim in their activity. They were not self-seekers and self-worshippers; but seekers and worshippers of something far better than self. Not personal enjoyment was their object; but a high heroic idea of Religion, of Patriotism, of Heavenly Wisdom in one form or the other form ever hovered before them.
It passes understanding to comprehend how Carlyle could regard Burns as a ‘selfish’ man, or a man with ‘a double aim’ — that is, two conflicting and opposing aims that he wasted his power in trying to harmonise.
Burns had three great aims: Purer Religion, a just Democracy, and closer Brotherhood; but these aims are in perfect harmony.
Carlyle ends the contrast between Burns and his model trio — Locke, Milton, and Cervantes — by saying of Burns: ‘He has no religion; in the shallow age, where his days were cast, Religion was not discriminated from the New and Old Light forms of Religion; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds of men.’
‘The heart not of a mere hot-blooded, popular verse-monger, or poetical Restaurateur, but of a true poet and singer, worthy of the old religions heroic, had been given him, and he fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but of scepticism, selfishness, and triviality, when true nobleness was little understood, and its place supplied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and unfruitful principle of Pride.’
In a just comparison between Burns and the three named by Carlyle, Burns will need no apologists. Burns, directly in opposition to the statement of Carlyle, was more vitally religious and less selfish than any of them. When twenty-one years of age he said, in one of his beautiful love-letters to Alison Begbie: ‘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 alone proves that Burns was one of the least selfish men who ever lived.
As an heroic teacher of vital religion Burns was infinitely greater than any other man of his time, and has been much more influential since his time in promoting Christ’s ideals than the men named by Carlyle. He was a fearless hero, and so meets the requirements specified by Carlyle, because, when he recognised the evils connected with religion in his time, when true religion was, to use Carlyle’s words, ‘becoming obsolete,’ he valiantly attacked them, hoping to enable his fellow-men to see the vision of true religion which his father had given him by his life and teaching.
There was absolutely no justification for calling Burns a mere verse-monger. To write such a wild nightmare dream about Scotland’s greatest and most self-less poet was unworthy of one of Scotland’s leading prose-writers.
It seems almost ludicrous to take notice of the assertion that Burns had not a high ideal of patriotism, as compared with the three ideal men of Carlyle — Burns, whose love for Scotland was a sacred feeling, a holy fire that never ceased to burn. This criticism needs no answer now.
CHAPTER V. Burns the Democrat.
No man ever comprehended Christ’s ideals regarding democracy more fully than did Burns. Christ based His teaching of the need of human liberty on His revelation of the value of the individual soul. Burns clearly understood Christ’s ideals regarding individual freedom, and faithfully followed Him.
The message of Coila in ‘The Vision’ to Burns was:
Preserve the dignity of man
With soul erect.
This was the central thought in the work of Burns regarding the freedom of all mankind: freedom from oppression by other men; freedom from the bondage imposed on the peasant and the labouring man by customs organised by so-called ‘higher classes’; freedom from the hardship and sorrow of poverty; freedom for each child to grow under proper conditions of nourishment, of physical development, and of educational training.
His whole nature was stirred to dignified indignation and resentment by class distinctions among men and women who were all created in the image of God, and who, in accordance with the teaching of Christ, should be brothers. He despised class distinctions which were made by man, whether the distinctions were made on the basis of rank or wealth. He was ashamed of the toadies who reverenced a lord merely because he chanced to be born a lord, and pitied those who accepted without protest inferiority to men of wealth. He was so true a democrat that he freely and respectfully recognised the worth of members of the aristocracy or of the wealthy class whose ability and high character made them worthy of respect; but he held in contempt those who assumed superiority simply because of rank or gold.
One of his most brilliant poems is ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That.’ In it he gives comprehensive expression to his opinions, based on the fundamental principle,
The honest man, though e’er sae poor,
Is King o’ men for a’ that.
Is there for honesty poverty,
That
hangs his head an’ a’ that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by;
We dare be poor for a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Our toils obscure, an’ a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that. gold
Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, an’ a’ that;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that: blockhead
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that;
The man of independent mind
He looks and laughs at a’ that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon his might, above
Gude faith he maunna fa’ that. must not try
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities an’ a’ that,
The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth,
Are higher ranks than a’ that.
Labouring man on farm or in factory, this is your charter. Let this be your creed. Sing this great democratic hymn at your gatherings — ay, sing it in your homes with your children, and each time you sing it, it should kindle some new light in your soul that will bring you new vision of the greatest fact in connection with human life and duty, that you are alive to be God’s partner, and that while you remain honest, and unselfishly consider the rights of others, as fully as you consider your own, you are entitled to stand with kings, because you are an honest man.
The discussion between Cæsar the aristocratic dog and Luath the cotter’s dog is a fair representation of class conditions in Scotland in the time of Burns. Cæsar describes the laird’s riches, his idleness, his rackèd rents, and the compulsory services required from the poor tenants; dilates on the wastefulness in connection with the meals even of the servants in the homes of the great; and expresses surprise that poor folks could exist under their trying conditions.
Luath admits that sometimes the strain on the cotter was very severe: digging ditches, building dykes with dirty stones, baring a quarry, ‘an’ sic like,’ as a means of sustaining a lot of ragged children with nothing but his hand labour. He acknowledges that, when ill or out of work, it sometimes seems hopeless; but, after all, though past his comprehension, the poor folks are wonderfully contented, and stately men and clever women are brought up in their homes.
Cæsar then expatiates on the contemptuous way the poor are ‘huffed, and cuffed, and disrespecket.’ He especially sympathises with the poor on account of the way tenants are treated by the laird’s agents on rent-day — compelled to submit to their insolence, while they swear and threaten to seize their property; and concludes that poor folks must be very wretched.
Luath replies that, after all, they are not so wretched as he thinks; that their dearest enjoyments are in their wives and thriving children; that they often forget their private cares and discuss the affairs of kirk and state; that Hallowe’en and Christmas celebrations give them grand opportunities for happiness that make them forget their hardships and sorrows, and that during these festivals the old folks are so cheery and the young ones are so frolicsome that he ‘for joy has barket wi’ them!’ Still, he admits that it is owre true what Cæsar says, and that many decent, honest folk ‘are riven out, baith root and branch, some rascal’s pridefu’ greed to quench.’
Cæsar then describes the reckless way in which the money received from the poor cotters was wasted at operas, plays, mortgaging, gambling, masquerading, or taking trips to Calais, Vienna, Versailles, Madrid, or Italy; and finally to Germany, to some resort where their dissipations may be overcome by drinking muddy German water.
Luath is surprised to learn that the money for which the cotters have toiled so hard should be spent so wastefully; and wishes the gentry would stay at home and take interest in the sports of their own country, as it would be so much better for all: laird, tenant, and cotter. He closes by saying that many of the lairds are not ill-hearted fellows, and asks Cæsar if there is not a great deal of true pleasure in the lives of the rich.
Cæsar replies:
Lord, man, were ye but whyles where I am,
The gentles ye wad ne’er envy them.
Admitting that they need not starve or work hard through winter’s cold or summer’s heat, or suffer in old age from working all day in the wet, he says:
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a’ their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak enow themsels to vex them;
An’ aye the less they hae to sturt them,
In like proportion less will hurt them.
A country fellow at the pleugh,
His acres till’d, he’s right eneugh;
A country girl at her wheel,
Her dizzens dune, she’s unco weel;
But gentlemen, and ladies warst,
Wi’ ev’n-down want o’ wark are curst.
They loiter, lounging, lank and lazy;
Tho’ deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy;
Their days insipid, dull, an’ tasteless;
Their nights unquiet, lang, and restless.
An’ even their sports, their balls and races,
Their galloping through public places,
There’s sic parade, sic pomp an’ art,
The joy can scarcely reach the heart.
The ladies arm-in-arm in clusters,
As great and gracious a’ as sisters;
But hear their absent thoughts o’ ither,
They’re a’ run deils and jads thegither.
Whyles, ower the wee bit cup an’ plaitie,
They sip the scandal-potion pretty;
Or lee-lang nights, wi’ crabbet leuks,
Pore ower the devil’s pictured beuks; cards
Stake on a chance a farmer’s stackyard,
An’ cheat like ony unhanged blackguard.
There’s some exceptions, man an’ woman;
But this is gentry’s life in common.
Burns was a philosopher, and he knew such conditions were wrong, and that they should not be allowed to last. They are better, after more than a century, since Burns became the champion of the poor; but the great problem, ‘Why should ae man better fare, and a’ men brothers?’ is not properly answered yet. The wisest among the aristocracy know this, and admit it, and sincerely hope that the inevitable evolution to juster conditions and relationships may be brought about by constitutional means, and not by revolution.
Professor Dugald Stewart, of Edinburgh University, wrote: ‘I recollect once he told me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained.’
It was not the unhappiness of the peasantry that stirred the democratic heart of Burns. It was ‘man’s inhumanity’ to his fellow-men; the assumption of those belonging to the so-called upper classes that they had a divine right to hold higher positions than the common people, and that the poorer people should be contented in the ‘station to which God had called them,’ that led Burns to write so ably in favour of democracy. He recognised no human right to establish stations to which people were called, and in which they should remain, in spite of their right to fill any positions for which they had proved their fitness. He could not be so irreverent or so unreasonable as to believe God could establish the conditions found all around him, so he claimed the right of every child to full opportunity for its best development, and to rise honourably to any position to which it could attain.
In a letter to Miss Margaret Chalmers, 1788, he wrote: ‘What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the idle trumpery of greatness? When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the s
ame benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation of everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy — in the name of common-sense, are they not equals?’
To Mrs Dunlop he wrote in 1788: ‘There are few circumstances, relating to the unequal distribution of good things of this life, that give me more vexation (I mean in what I see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of the cottage. Last afternoon I had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman’s fireside, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. ‘Tis now about term-day [a regular time twice a year was fixed for hiring servants], and there has been a revolution among those creatures [servants], who, though in appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature as Madame, are from time to time — their nerves, sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of their very thoughts — sold for months and years, not only to the necessities but the caprices of the important few. We talked of the insignificant creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. But light be the turf upon his breast who taught “Reverence thyself!” We looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives, and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little, dirty anthill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride.’
Such experiences added fuel to the divine purpose in his mind to free a large portion of his fellow-countrymen from the bonds that had been bound on their bodies and souls by long years of class presumption and heartless tyranny, which, till Burns attacked them, had grown more unjust and contemptuous as generation succeeded generation.