the higher ridges of Hermon; when exceeding sorrowful, the lonely olive grove.

And his teaching lays the whole of Nature under contribution. He makes Nature a parable of which God in His relations to man is an interpretation. The ways of the sun and wind and rain, of the grass and flowers, of the cornfield, the fig-tree and the vine, were all taken up into the religion that He taught. He bid us seek the Heavenly Father, not only in the words and life in which He manifested God, but in the book of the common things of earth and air. And he who walks with Christ through the world may feel that the love of Nature is religious.

Still more connected with a moral life, and with one which prepares the soul for God, are the same tenderness and love when they are felt for animals. I have already said that no Poet ever more deeply felt the sorrows of created things than Burns, nor stronger anger against their slaughter for sport. The "Wounded Hare" will live in men's memories when hares are no longer shot for sport. To him horses, dogs, birds, the dwellers on the moors and in the grass were friends. When Mailie died

He lost a friend and neebor dear

In Mailie dead.

That is the feeling which marks civilization. The savage must slay for life and life's support; the half-civilized man carries out the practice of the savage without his excuse; and it is the characteristic of that class of ours, which one of our own day has called the barbarian class, to find amusement in slaying. It is of course a remnant

of barbarism, and it is obliged to be kept up by laws which bear hard on the poor, for the sake of the sport of the rich. Before an advancing civilization such laws as the game laws, and such barbarisms as keeping whole tracts of country desert for the sake of game, must perish.

There is no doubt in my mind, that however amusing and however manly such sports may be, they are hardening to the heart; and they set men apart from the nobler thoughts and tenderer feelings of life, not altogether, but up to a certain point. They are cruel, and the indulgence of cruelty, however it may be condoned by society, barbarizes it. And so far as it is cruel and accustoms to cruelty, it separates men from God and from love; and that it is unconscious cruelty and is not felt as such by the conscience, does not make the matter better, but worse. One of the things then that our Christianity has to get rid of, is the destruction of life for the sake of sport; of all sports which bring with them needless suffering of animals and needless irritation of men. The whole thing is a part of that aristocratic element which lingers still among us, but is passing to its fall.

Every Poet then, who like Burns, increases that larger tenderness of the heart which not only loves men, but hates to give pain to the lower animals, is, so far at least, religious in his poetry. And nearly all our later Poets have done this sacred work, and have made it a part of Their device has been the device of Cole

their theology.

ridge.

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

LECTURE XVI.

I HAVE spent two Sunday afternoons in speaking of the poetry of Man and of Nature and of the theology in them, as represented in the work of Burns. Our subject to-day is concerned with some aspects of his life so far as they bear on the personal religion that appears in his poetry, and with his relation as a Poet to a special form of theology.

We have seen how well and manfully, when he was young, he accepted his place as a poor man, and how he honoured Poverty by song. But his poverty did not guard him against the temptations which beset his artist nature. He had but little power of Will when his passions were excited, and whether it was love, or fame, or the pleasures of the table, he was swept away by all alike. The natural result of this course of life, combined with want of Will, was that he never set himself to any ordered music, never adopted or pursued any end with any perseverance. These elements in his character were developed into unfortunate prominence by his visit to Edinburgh. He was taken out of his natural atmosphere, and though he kept his independence, and retained his free nature, his life was spoilt by the change. His frank

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ness and audacious personality made him unwelcome to those who had lionized him at first, and he was gradually dropped. And when he was put aside he did not like it, and he could never breathe easily again the air of humble life. It was a severe trial. A few weeks before he was flying from his country, an exile and in despair, and now he was at the summit of the wave of Society, his name in every mouth. A few weeks later and the whole pageant had dissolved. He was back again in a small country place, discharging the most unpoetical of offices. He took the glory and the fall with equal good temper and manliness, though they both intensified his errors. was not dazzled at Edinburgh into believing that his fortune was made. He knew that he was too bold and rough to win patronage, and he went home to fulfil his duties as an exciseman, the only place that Society could find to employ the genius of Burns. It was like Society; and yet, though we are indignant, it would be unfair to lay all the blame of the Poet's life on the neglect of Society. If Burns had been a little nobler in character, with some self-restraint, some purposefulness in life, he might have been happy and written his poems, as an exciseman. But he could not; passions, appetites, and irregular excitement carried far beyond what he could bear, soon ruined his life. He had gained a taste for fame, and he was continually invaded by persons who led him away from his work. His fashionable life produced results which brought him to an early death. It stimulated the fatal qualities of his nature; it spoilt the unity of his life by fixing one end of its axis among the rich and another among the poor, and it threw him into the worst company-the

company of the lionizers of genius, who seek it to be amused. and then mock at the source of their amusement. It was, no doubt, his own fault that he perished; but it would have been well, if the big people had let him alone, or at least, if they who flattered him had done something better for him than set him to catch smugglers. It is all well summed up in Carlyle's "Lectures on Heroes;" in a delightful passage, which I remember being told by one who heard it, was closed exactly as it is in the bookCarlyle pronouncing with inimitable meaning in his voice the last word "But”—and then rapidly passing behind the curtain of the platform.

"Richter says, in the island of Sumatra there is a kind of Light-chafers-large fireflies-which people stick on spits and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the fire-flies! But —!"

I do not think I ever see fine and fashionable people "taking up" a poor artist, or making a show in their drawing-rooms of a struggling genius-and trying, in their blind, barbarian way, to help him on,-especially when they demand that the artist should submit his individuality to their caprices-without a desire to say to him-For God's sake, bear any poverty rather than yield to this. They do not mean badly, but they have no intelligence to mean better; and their tender mercies will kill your powers. You may not be Samson, but it is bitter to make sport for the Philistines. It degrades the intellect and corrodes the heart.

There were two things, then, in his life which spoiled