Burns has been one of the world awakeners. His voice rang out of the
stillness, like the clear sweet notes of a bugle horn, and his songs
were sung with a nerve and strength of nature that stirred to its depths
the popular heart.
Describing Robert Burns' conversational gifts, Mr. Carlyle wrote: "They
were the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts, from the
gracefullest allusions of courtesy to the highest fire of passionate
speech, loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic
emphasis, clear piercing insight, all were in him."
He awoke the poor and the despised to the dignity of man as man,
irrespective of the accidents of poverty or wealth.
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the man for a' that."
Thus helping to deliver men from the debasing worship of sordid gold,
and of such rank as kings can confer on even the most worthless.
"The man of independent mind
He looks and laughs at a' that."
He opened the eyes of the Scottish people, at home and abroad, to the
glory of their nation's history, and glowing with the hope of a day--
"When man to man the world o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that."
He also opened men's eyes to the hatefulness of all shams and
hypocrisies; of meanness, selfishness and pride; of all narrowness and
greed and cruelty thus--
"Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn."
And again: He opened men's eyes to the cruelty and injustice of harsh
judgment, seen oftenest perhaps in people judging, or misjudging others,
who have yielded to temptations, or sunk under debasing influences, to
which they themselves have never been exposed. Where has Christian
charity and kindly consideration for others been more nobly taught than
in these lines:
"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias.
Then, at the balance, let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."
He opened many eyes when he wrote the following:
"O, wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And even Devotion!"
164
We all, according as our business prospers or fails, are elated or cast
down.
165
I'll give money to any well deserving friend, but in the matter of
business, I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
--_Shakespeare._
166
Sentiment is not now recognized in business affairs.
167
To business that we love, we rise betime,
And go to it with delight.
--_Shakespeare._
168
_Keep to Your Calling_--Bishop Grostest, of Lincoln, told his brother,
who asked him to make him a great man: "Brother," said he, "if your
plough is broken, I'll pay the mending of it; or if an ox is dead, I'll
pay for another; but a ploughman I found you, and a ploughman I'll leave
you."
169