Page:Life of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard.pdf/21

Rh whatever he felt, and his remarks often touched sharply on religion. Although he loved to start doubts on this subject, when in the company of the grave and the pious, he was not irreligious. He said on one occasion, that "an irreligious poet was a monster;" and he felt what he expressed. He was not however faultless, for in his writings, there sometimes appear allusions to scripture, which tend to weaken our reverence for sacred things. Yet who can deny that he has uttered sentiments respecting religion, so eloquent and sublime, that no one who had not himself experienced their power, could possibly have penned them? He loved to instruct his children in their duty to God and man, and though he sometimes spoke in such a way as caused him to be regarded as a free-thinker or a deist, he latterly lamented his doubts of the truths of Scripture, and, let us hope, he found them to be his consolation at last. Burns was gifted by nature with high mental powers, and it is evident in many of his writings, that be believed himself defrauded of the station destined for him in society. To this sentiment we are indebted for the noble lyric, "A man's a man for a' that." Burns, as a poet, stands in the first rank. Though born in humble circumstances, and nurtured in poverty, he possessed such powers of understanding, as fitted him for