Page:Life of Robert Burns.pdf/21

 21 death. Of this approaching event he was per- fectly sensible, and many of his letters at this time breathe the tenderest strains of resignation and piety. One of these is as follows :- “Are you deep in the language of consolation ? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of com- fort. A heart at case would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to my- self, I was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gos- pel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigi- bility-Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The one is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, "stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magna- nimity. The other is made up of those feelings and sentiments, which, however the sceptic may deny, or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those serises of the mind, if I may be allowed the expression, which connect us with, and link us to those awful obscure realities -on all powerful and equally beneficent God- and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field :—the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can never cure. "I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty few, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most as an uncertain obscurity, which man- kind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do.