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gifted man could scatter gems around him like the brilliants emitted by the creations of Eastern fable, he was himself "poor, and wretched, and miserable"-the sport of passion-a thing driven of the wind and tossed. And why? Was there no anchorage for such a soul? -nothing to teach that troubled mind, that, as all things are guided by Him who is love, all things are overruled for good to them that love him? Had he never learned, or was there no one at hand to whisper, that it is possible for man, instead of indulging such violent outbreaks against the ways of God, to say, "I have learned, in all circumstances in which I am, to be therewith content?" Was there no power in the words, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven?" Alas for man, when poetry, or genius, or sentimentalism, however exquisite, is the only guide of his soul in trouble! In this gifted man's life we read, with the clearness of a revelation, of the impotence of genius, or any natural gift, to restrain the passions, or promote the real happiness of man. Power, whether intellectual or imaginative, only enables man to go more signally astray, when it is not under the control of a pure conscience and sanctified reason.

But, amid all his gloom and despondency, had Burns no internal guide to enlighten and to cheer him? Had he got no hold of the truth which conducts the soul, amid a thousand perils and trials, to serenity and repose? He had a godly father, and his early training was in the best school of religion. Had that no effect on his conduct and history? Beyond all controversy, it had; but it was chiefly to deepen his wretchedness, and give a keener poignancy to his sorrow. He was one of those who could admire the drapery of religion, while he neglected itself. Like Sir Walter Scott, and many more, he was shrewd and quick to detect the hypocritical pretence to godliness; but he had no discernment of the intrinsic power of truth-and hence he was tortured to agony amid trials, even till he sometimes wished for death. Had he been utterly ignorant

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A RELIGION OF POETRY.

of religion, conscience might have been more easily appeased; but, knowing it as he did to a certain extent, yet setting it often utterly at defiance, he just heaped woes upon himself by his own right hand. The fearful gift of genius, like the fatal gift of beauty, may thus help on man's misery, unless it be controlled by the wisdom which comes from above, and even Dr Currie was obliged at last to write of the man whom he loved and admired-"His temper now became more irritable and gloomy. He fled from himself into society, often of the lowest kind. And in such company, that part of the convivial scene in which wine increases sensibility and excites benevolence, was hurried over to reach the succeeding part, over which uncontrolled passion generally presided. He who suffers the pollution of inebriation, how shall he escape other pollution?" He adds, "Let us refrain from the mention of errors over which delicacy and humanity draw the veil."

Yet Burns had a God whom he often professed to revere. He wrote new versions of some of the psalms -he is the author of some poetical prayers as well as of poems which one can scarcely read without tears; and from these we may ascertain what was the religion of Burns. And at the very most it was the religion of emotion, or the imagination. The holiness of God formed no element in it; and because that was left out, it was a kind of pantheistic figment which was worshipped, and not the true Jehovah. The wondrous Alpclouds which are sometimes seen at sunset, fringed with gold by his light, are brilliant, no doubt, and gorgeous, but they are not the sun himself; and, in like manner, the ideal creations of men's minds, poetically attractive as they may be, are not the living and true God, though they are often substituted for him; and there is profoundest wisdom in the saying "that those imaginations about the Godhead which make up a religion of poetry, are not enough for a religion of peace."* And it is curious to observe how Burns had worn away

Chalmers.

the

THE ROMANCE OF RELIGION.

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idea of God till it became evanescent and uninfluential. By his own confession, "the daring path Spinoza trod" was trod for a season by him; and his views of the Great ONE were such as could not restrain a single passion nor stand against a single temptation. In one of his dedications, he prays to the "great Fountain of honour, the Monarch of the Universe," and that was his substitute for the great personal I AM. In a prayer on the prospect of death, he says

"If I have wandered in those paths
Of life I ought to shun,

As something loudly in my breast
Remonstrates I have done,

Thou knowest that thou hast form'd me

With passions wild and strong,

And list ning to their witching voice

Has often led me wrong."

In other words, the Creator of all-the very Being whom the author of that prayer in the next stanza calls "All Good"-was the origin of Burns's transgressions, for he was the creator of Burns's "passions wild and strong." It is thus that the Eternal is accused by his creatures— it is thus that blame is shifted from the criminal to the Judge. The romance of religion-its "big ha' Bible" -its patriarchal priest-the simple melody of the songs of Zion,-all these Burns could admire, because there is poetry in them; but He whom the believer knows was not his resting-place. O, let it be said in pity!-Need we wonder though he who did so had to write, “Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hell-hounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me!" Let the following stanza be calmly considered, and then say what is the verdict which truth brings in:

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We have another view of the religion of Burns presented in the following extract:-"Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the 'Task'

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THE IMPOTENCY OF NATURE.

a glorious poem? The religion of the Task,' bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and of nature_the_religion that exalts, that ennobles man." Now, had we no record of Burns's life, we might here conclude that, though anti-Calvinistic, he was devout in his piety and pure in his life, like Cowper whom he eulogised; but how completely must all right moral perception have been dulled, when such admiration could be lavished upon a poet who was at so many points the very antithesis of Burns! And again we say, how naturally does such a state of mind lead man to exclaim in the end, as Burns once did, "Canst thou minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading the next surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to a frame tremblingly alive to the tortures of suspense, stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries with thy inquiries after me?"

the

Such, then, is an exhibition of the native impotency of mere sentiment. The poetry of religion-its drapery -its music-its grand ceremonials, or its primitive simplicity-its gorgeous edifices-its ancestral associations, may all be admired; but none of these can charm man into holiness, or so change his heart as to guide to righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The first biographer, and most charitable friend of Burns, was obliged to record, that up till a period distant only a few months from his death, he could proceed from a sickroom to "dine at a tavern, return home about three o'clock in a very cold morning, benumbed and intoxicated," and by that process he hastened or developed the disease which laid him in the grave. His conduct, indeed, has drawn forth the high censures of men* who were neither prudes nor Puritans. The mere poetry of

* See Edinburgh Review for January 1809; or Lord Jeffrey's Contributions,

vol. ii.

ALMIGHTY GRACE.

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religion was substituted for the truth, and the result was moral confusion, and many an evil work.

To the case of Burns we might add the vapid sentimentalism of Rousseau, as exhibiting how easy it is to indulge in that, and in grossest libertinism together; or we might dwell on the case of another poet, Keates, who to the poetic sentiment added the religious in no ordinary degree, yet his own poetry could tell how well he understood the misery of earth, and how utterly unsoothed was

"The weariness, the fever and the fret

Here-where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few sad, last grey hairs;
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin and dies!
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despair."

But we need not proceed. From the glimpse which we have taken, it is all too manifest that wisdom and strength from on high are needed alike to make man right and keep him so. What can genius do but mislead? What can the affections do but blind, and often distemper man? What can science accomplish against his wayward heart and headlong passions? What can all the gifts which God has heaped on man achieve, without Heaven's own panacea for our spiritual disease -free, sovereign, and almighty grace? All is vainand the lives of thousands of the gifted prove it-till the wisdom which is first pure become the guide of the will, and the presiding power in the soul. The mere fact that the holiness of God is overlooked by unrenewed man, dooms him to hopeless degeneracy, and endless deterioration.

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