his powers to spread immorality, he becomes most terribly responsible. It is evident that the main tendency of the published writings of Burns is unfavorable to religion and morals. But he wrote much that was so bad that it could not be published. I had an interview with a clergyman in Scotland, a native of Ayr, and related to Burns. He was naturally disposed to say what he could consistently in his favor. But he confessed that the evil fruits of the poet's example and writings are prominently visible at the present time in that section of Scotland. Burns wrote a book bearing a certain title, which was printed and circulated privately and continues to be to this day in Scotland. This minister told me that he looked into it when a boy, and the contents were indescribably shocking and disgusting. Milton wrote: "He who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life heroic poem." Burns once wrote: "My passions, when once lighter up, raged like so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then coming over my verses, like a spell soothed all into quiet." We certainly need not be surprised at the tone of the character of his written effusions. Burns had no great aim in life. He was devoted to the gratifications of sense. He wrote: "The great misfortune of my life was to want no aim." This he bitterly regretted when his better thoughts came up before him. In his "Ode to Despondency," he forcibly expresses his feelings: "Happy, ye sons of busy life, Who equal to the bustling strife, E'en when the wished end's deny'd, Meet every sad returning night, And joyless morn the same." Rev. Dr. Stopford A. Brooke, in his "Theology of the British Poets," thus writes: "He ran the course so many run. Having no restraint of self, he sank into satiety, and the misery of satiety seeks a new excitement, or new phases of the old, till excitement becomes the only food of life. But there is a limit to excitements. The time comes when either no more exists or we have exhausted all our powers of enjoyment. Then come the tyranny and the punishment. We again seek the old excitement, driven by its lash, but when we drain the cup which once was pleasure it is pain. The ‘crime of sense is avenged by sense that wears with time.' It is that very torture which the medieval poets invented for the avaricious-molten gold poured down their throats; our enjoyments have become red-hot and burn our life away; nor, worst of all, can we get rid of them-we must drink them though we abhor them." I give another passage from the same author: "Conviviality was glorified; drunkenness was exalted into an excellence; illicit love was made poetical, and in the delight of the reaction from the over-strictness of Calvinism, which the poems of Burns encouraged, the whole tone of morality in Scotland was lowered, and in nothing more than in the frightful impulse given to a hospitality which insisted on the canonization of drunkenness, and made the pleasure of the table the true impulse of art and song." The late President McCosh, of Princeton, published his conviction in the same direction, which I add: "I am convinced that the conduct and poetry of Burns helped greatly to foster the national vices. I speak what I know, as my boyish days were spent in the land of Burns, and I met with old men who knew Burns and the state of society in which he lived." He did much to expose certain repulsive features of the religion that prevailed, but "must be largely modified by the evil he did in the way he exposed it. It is a bad thing to expel one evil opinion by an evil practice, and though it sounds like a paradox, it is not so uncommon." Certain caricatures he wrote on religion, such as "Holy Willie's Prayer," had some basis of truth, but he showed no disposition to counteract hypocrisy, by trying to lead a genuine Christian life. The late Robert L. Stevenson, himself a Scotchman and literary genius, thus truly writes of Burns: "The battle of his life was lost, in forlorn efforts to do well, in desperate submissions to evil, the lost years flew by. His temper is dark and explosive, launching epigrams, quarrelling with his friends, jealous of young puppy officers. He tries to be a good father, he boasts himself a libertine. Sick, sad, and jaded, he can refuse no occasion of temporary pleasure, no opportunity to shine; and he who had once refused the invitations of lords is now whistled to the inn by any curious stranger. He had chosen to be Don Juan, he had grasped at temporary pleasures, and substantial happiness and solid industry had passed him by." Burns spent the last years of his life in Dumfrie as an exciseman. He had married Jane Armour, whose relations with her before and after marriage I pass over. He was in the habit of spending his evenings to a late hour at the tavern, mingling as the central figure among his drunken associates. One evening at a late hour, for some reason, he was ejected from the place into the street, and it being winter, he lay the remainder of the night on the ground, and was carried in the morning in a helpless condition to his house, where he lingered for a short time and died. He was comparatively a young man, having been born in 1759, and died in 1796. I feel indescribably sad in writing of this remarkable genius, and to think of his worse than wasted life, who might have been a blessing and benefactor to his race. What a lesson his career suggests to young men! Postage in the U. S., Canada and Mexico is paid by the Publisher. Foreign Subscribers should remit 50 cents extra. Payment for The Treasury, when sent by mail, should be made in a Post-Office Money Order, Bank Check, or Draft, or an Express Money Order. WHEN NEITHER OF THESE CAN BE PROCURED, send the money in & Registered Letter. Stamps accepted for fractions of a dollar, New Subscriptions can commence at any time. THE TREASURY does not employ agents to solicit renewals of subscriptions. Free, as follows: For a club of three new Subscribers ($2.00 each), we will forward THE TREASURY one year as a premium. Subscribers desiring a change of address should be careful to name the post-office to which they wish it sent; also the one to which it has been sent. Discontinuances.-The publisher must be notified by letter when a subscriber wishes the Magazine stopped. All arrearages must be paid. Canvassers find profitable employment seouring new subscribers. Terms on application. All Letters should be addressed to THE TREASURY MAGAZINE or B. B. TREAT & Co., Publishers, 241 & 243 West 23d St., New York. THE DEEPENING OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. A correspondent of one of the religious weeklies describes a series of religious meetings, which he has recently attended, during a week set apart by a number of churches "for the deepening of the spiritual life." The topics considered in these meetings were as follows: What does it mean to be a Christian? Personal Responsibility for Other Lives; The Great Opportunity; The Answer to the Vision; and The Claims of the Higher Life. These opics are full of pertinent suggestion. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A CHRISTAIN? Many pastors have felt that the Church, as we commonly know it, is a better organization for bringing in members than for keeping and using them after they are in; and this is so, no doubt largely because they come in with insufficient ideas of what it is to take that step. They do not adequately know what it is to be a Christian. Do any of us adequately know? Have not we pastors, as well as our people very insufficient conceptions of this? For ourselves we have no thought that the originators of this question mean to throw men back into a morbid self-inspection, a narrow subjectivity in religion, such as has more than once in the Church's history led men into a cloistered type of religion. The spirit of our age is too strongly for action. To be a Christian now means to live for Christ, in the thickest of the fight, to go for Him to the front in China, or the slums of New York, to die for Him under Boxer rifles and spears, in that company of martyrs who have glorified Chinese heroism; to live and toil for Him in simple homely service, winning selfish hearts to love and broken hearts to consolation and joy. To solve this outward practical question will not fail to develop in one those qualities of character, and that attitude of sincere faith, which we have felt were essential to a Christian. THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY of our life is this opportunity of self-multiplication in the formation of characters that are plastic to our touch. A man not made in earnest may not care much for his influence upon others; but even such a man may be moved when he discovers that his inertness makes other persons inert. A man in earnest will soon find that his earnestness is contagious, and if it is a pure devotion it will soon be a widening power, whose spread has no limit. Our great opportunity is to set out what is absolutely best in us, and by straightforward, honest consistency spread it on every side, till its right and truth are accepted by others, who join us in our best work, and so by infinite multiplication carry on to joyful triumph that which must make the world happier and better. "THE VISION," of these topics is the higher conception which Christian devotion attains of what life is for, so that it not only cherishes higher ideals, but is rejoiced in loftier hopes, and exults in the promised coming of the Lord of love, and life, as if He was come already. It is a vision, but no dream. It is a glimpse of the highest realities. It was a vision when the three saw Jesus transfigured, but it was only a supernatural foresight of what was soon to be the common sight of their advancing lives, only an insight into what was always essentially true and real. And the "answer" to this vision of beautiful and grand things in Paul's answer after Christ had struck him down in the way of sin to lift him up into the way of glorious service, and he said: "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." At such a vision a man's heart rises quick and braver and strong to dare and do all that is needed to translate it into practical life and work. THE CLAIMS OF THE HIGHER LIFE.As those three disciples saw the transfigured Lord, they saw Him in heavenly company, and overheard a conversation which was from the heavenly point of view, and looked at earth only as the theatre for the display of the great drama of divine love. They felt instantly the claim of that higher life. It seemed to them unspeakably good. They wished to linger in it. But they submitted to the higher thought of Jesus that the higher life was not for idle enjoyment even of the purest joys, but must breathe the strong morning air of an earnest activity, even if to the flesh it seemed too strenuous. So they came down from the mountain, with the Master, who yet again was laying aside the glory that was seen, and taking upon Him the glory which men often do not see, but which brings light and comfort where was pain and darkness. This is the real higher life; the touch of the Son of God upon the boy possessed of an evil spirit: the turning of despair into hope; the melting of hardness by love. He who comes down from the Mount of glorious vision into the abodes of sorrow and sin, if he comes down holding the hand of Jesus, comes after all into the higher life, and may rejoice in its divine manliness. |