y must suffer cold or hunger in the
Empire."

--_Dr. H. D. Northrop._

161

No one knows the weight of another's burden.

--_German._

162

The more we help others to bear their burdens, the lighter our own will
be.

163

WHAT WE OWE TO ROBERT BURNS.

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 no