Though here they scrape, and squeeze, and growl, Their worthless nievefu' of a soul May in some future carcass howl, The forest's fright; Or in some day-detestin' owl May shun the light. Then may Lapraik and Burns arise, To reach their native kindred skies, Still closer knit in friendship's ties, Each passing year! haughty shirt handful The west of Scotland was at this time, theologically, in a very different state from what it was a century before, when it gave so many martyrs to the sternest principles of Presbyterianism. There was, indeed, all over Scotland a reaction in the eighteenth century from the fervour of the seventeenth. The most moderate principles ruled in the church-courts. Many individual clergymen exercised their functions in a style for which lukewarm would be too complaisant a word. In Ayrshire, where Calvinism had formerly been in the highest vogue, there was a more than usual declension from its standard of orthodoxy. It was generally believed, and there now can be little doubt of the fact, that an Arminianism, verging towards the dogmas of Socinus, had taken possession of many pulpits. The work of John Taylor of Norwich, entitled the Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, had been extensively read in Ayrshire among the clergy as well as laity, and given rise to a pretty definite form of rationalism, which was recognised by the cant term of the New Light. As usual, minds of an active and restless character, especially when accompanied by philanthropic dispositions, had embraced this New Light, while the mass of the vulgar, and a section of the clergy, remained steadfast under the faith as it had been among their fathers. These were called the Whigs,' as representing the ancient religious party of that name, or were spoken of as adherents of the Auld Light. It affords a striking idea of the length which the new doctrines had gone, that a busy-brained old tradesman in Kilmarnock, by name John Goldie, or Goudie, published a book freely discussing the authority of the Scriptures, first in 1780, and in a new edition in 1785, without incurring an inconvenient degree of public odium. We have seen it stated by Dr Currie that William Burness had composed a little manual of religious belief for the use of his children, in which the benevolence of his heart seems to have led him to soften the rigid Calvinism of the Scottish Church into something approaching to Arminianism.' He was, in short, tinctured with the New Light, though modesty and prudence induced him to say very little on the subject. The poet, besides deriving a tendency that way from his father, had conversed with men of still more decided views at Irvine. While probably retaining, or thinking he retained, a hold of the main doctrines of Christianity, his vigorous and benevolent mind, and, as he has 1 See Appendix, No. 7. himself confessed, a desire of shining in conversation-parties'— possibly, besides all this, an enjoyment in saying things calculated to startle common minds-led him into a by no means subdued demonstration of New-Light principles. In the rustic groups which gather at church-doors before the commencement of service, or in the interval between forenoon and afternoon services, he would argue pertinaciously and loudly on such points, sometimes to the admiration, but as often to the distress or horror, of his hearers. It would be difficult to say how much of his heterodoxy was unreal, how much only temporary-a passing gust of opinion-but certainly he appeared to some at this time as entirely Socinian.1 He seems to have believed that the religious mind of the country was undergoing a revolution which must result in the abandonment of Calvinism. Such is the spirit of a short epistle in rhyme to Goudie on the publication of the second edition of his Essays:- EPISTLE TO JOHN GOUDIE OF KILMARNOCK, ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAYS. Oh, Goudie! terror of the Whigs, Girnin', looks back, Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues Poor gapin', glowrin' Superstition, Fie! bring Black Jock, her state-physician, Alas! there's ground o' great suspicion She'll ne'er get better. Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, See, how she fetches at the thrapple, And gasps for breath. grinning 1 He himself, in a letter to Mr Candlish, March 1787, speaks of his having, 'in the pride of despising old women's stories, ventured in "the daring path Spinoza trod;"' but, he adds, ' experience of the weakness, not the strength, of human powers, made me glad to grasp at revealed religion.' That is, give in her name at church, to be prayed for. Enthusiasm's past redemption, Gane in a galloping consumption, Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption, Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption "Tis you and Taylor are the chief And twa red peats wad send relief, cleverness empty The person here called Black Jock was the Rev. John Russell, one of the ministers of the town where Goudie resided. He was a huge, dark-complexioned, stern-looking man, of tremendous energy in the pulpit, of harsh and unloving nature, and a powerful defender of the strongholds of Calvinism, There was much room for his zeal in Kilmarnock, for so long ago as 1764, a NewLight clergyman named Lindsay had been introduced there, and had of course given a certain amount of currency to what Burns called common-sense (that is, rationalistic) views. There was another zealous partisan of the Auld Light-a Mr Alexander Moodie-in the adjacent parish of Riccarton, and it was of course most desirable for two such champions in such circumstances to remain united. It so happened, however, that a dryness arose between them. The country story is, that as they were riding home one evening from Ayr, Moodie, in a sportive frame of mind, amused himself by tickling the rear of his neighbour's horse. The animal performed certain antics along the road, much to the amusement of the passing wayfarers, but greatly to the discomfiture of its rider, who, afterwards learning the trick, could not forgive Moodie for it. Afterwards, a question of parochial boundaries arose between them-it came before the presbytery for determination. There, in the open court,' says Mr Lockhart, to which the announcement of the discussion had drawn a multitude of the country-people, and Burns among the rest, the reverend divines, hitherto sworn friends and associates, lost all command of temper, and abused each other coram populo, with a fiery virulence of personal invective such as has long been banished from all popular assemblies, wherein the laws of courtesy are enforced by those of a certain unwritten code.' This was too much temptation for the profane wit of Burns. He lost no time in putting the affair into the following allegorical shape: THE TWA HERDS; OR, THE HOLY TULZIE.' Frae Calvin's well, aye clear, they drank- The thummart, wil'-cat, brock, and tod, pole-cat-badger-fox Baith out and in, And weel he liked to shed their bluid, And sell their skin. 1 Brawl. |