character of Burns. Both
gifts are alike from heaven, and both alike tend heavenward. Therefore we
lament to see genius soiled by earthly stain; therefore we lament to see
virtue, where no genius is, fall before the tempter. But we, in our own
clear natural perceptions, refuse the counsels of those who with the very
breath of their warning would blight the wreath bound round the heads of
the Muses' sons by a people's gratitude--who, in affected zeal for
religion and morality, have so deeply violated the spirit of both, by
vile misrepresentations, gross exaggerations, and merciless denunciations
of the frailties of our common nature in illustrious men--men who, in
spite of their aberrations, more or less deplorable, from the right path,
were not only in their prevailing moods devout worshippers of virtue, but
in the main tenor or their lives exemplary to their brethren. And such a
man was Burns. In boyhood--youth--manhood--where such peasant as he? And
if in trouble and in trial, from which his country may well turn in
self-reproach, he stood not always fast, yet shame and sin it were, and
indelible infamy, were she not _now_ to judge his life as Christianity
commands. Preyed upon, alas! by those anxieties that pierce deepest into
the noblest hearts--anxieties for the sakes--even on account of the very
means of subsistence--of his own household and his own hearth--yet was he
in his declining, shall we call them disastrous years, on the whole
faithful to the divine spirit with which it had pleased Heaven to endow
him--on the whole obedient to its best inspirations; while he rejoiced to
illumine the paths of poverty with light which indeed was light on
heaven, and from an inexhaustible fancy, teeming to the genial warmth of
the heart in midst of chill and gloom, continued to the very last to
strew along the weary ways of this world flowers so beautiful in their
freshness, that to eyes too familiar with tears they looked as if dropped
from heaven.

These are sentiments with which I rejoice to hear the sympathy of this
great assemblage thus unequivocally expressed--for my words but awaken
thoughts lodged deep in all considerate hearts. For which of us is there
in whom, known or unknown, alas! there is not much that needs to be
forgiven? Which of us that is not more akin to Burns in his fleshly
frailties then in his diviner spirit? That conviction regards not merely
solemn and public celebrations of reverential memory--such as