in the western parts of the kingdom, make a special provision that they shall have liberty to go to a certain number of fairs, or to an equal number of sacraments; and as they consider a sacrament, or an occasion, (as they call the administration of the Lord's Supper), in a neighboring parish in the same light in which they do a fair, so they behave at it much in the same manner. I defy Italy, in spite of all its superstition, to produce a scene better fitted to raise pity and regret in the religious, humane and understanding heart, or to afford an ampler field for ridicule to the careless and profane, than what they call a field-preaching upon one of these occasions. At the time of the administration of the Lord's Supper upon Thursday, Saturday, and Monday, we have preaching in the fields near the church. At first, you find a great number of men and women lying together upon the grass; here they are sleeping and snoring, some with their faces toward heaven, others with their faces turned downwards, or covered with their bonnets; there you find a knot of young fellows and girls making assignations to go home together in the evening, or to meet in some alehouse; in another place you see a pious circle sitting around an ale-barrel, many of which stand ready upon carts for the refreshment of the saints. The heat of the summer season, the fatigue of travelling, and the greatness of the crowd, naturally dispose them to drink; which inclines some of them to sleep, works upon the enthusiasm of others, and contributes not a little to produce those miraculous conversions that sometimes happen at these occasions; in a word, in this sacred assembly there is an odd mixture of religion, sleep, drinking, courtship, and a confusion of sexes, ages, and characters.

When you get a little nearer to the speaker, so as to be within the reach of the sound, though not of the sense of the words, for that can only reach a small circle, you will find some weeping and others laughing, some pressing to get nearer the tent or tub in which the parson is sweating, bawling, jumping, and beating the desk, others fainting with the stifling heat, or wrestling to extricate themselves from the crowd: one seems very devout and serious, and the next moment is scolding and cursing his neighbor for squeezing or treading on him; in an instant afterwards, his countenance is composed to religious gloom, and he is groaning, sighing, and weeping for his sins in a word, there is such an absurd mixture of the serious and comic, that were we convened for any other purpose than that of worshiping the God and Governor of Nature, the scene would exceed all power of face."

In such poems as his "Ordination," he satirizes the theology of his day, the theology that denounced all such things as good works and taught the extreme doctrine of justification by faith. "My creed," he says, "is pretty nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Dean's grace-an honest weaver in Ayrshire: 'Lord grant that we may lead a guid life, for a gude life makes a good end; at least it helps weel!"

I have spoken of his belief in God. Both in his letters and in his poetry, he sets forth the brighter and more loving side of the divine character.

"Sure thou Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath."

In another poem he exclaims:

"O thou whose very self art love!"

He says upon one occasion:

He

"I have just heard Mr. Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. is a man famous for his benevolence and I revere him; but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord deliver me." And then follows a brief summary of his own views, "That there is an incomprehensibly great Being to whom I owe my exist ence, and that He must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequently the outward development of this creature which he has made, these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently that I am an acountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind as well as the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene, an existence beyond the grave,-I think must be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's reflection. I will go farther, and affirm that from the sublimity, excellence and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though to appearance, he himself was the obscurest and most illiterate of our species, therefore Jesus Christ was from God."

This seems a perfectly plain and intelligible statement,- -a

good confession of faith; but the darker conceptions of God and the mythological investiture of Christ, he rejected.

On the subject of immortality, the following is one of many paragraphs that might be culled from his letters:

"Religion, my dear friend, is the true comfort! A strong persuasion in the future state of existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least four thousand years, have, in some mode or other, firmly believed it. In vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. I have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but when I reflected that I was opposing the most ardent wishes, and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, and in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct."

In regard to the Bible, Burns very forcibly said, "I am a very sincere believer in the Bible, but I am drawn by the conviction of a man, not by the halter of an ass."

Burns was a thorough believer in man. He drew his heroes from the common walks of life. He saw in the meanest and He looked obscurest something that was great and good. beyond the outward condition and saw the inherent qualities of the soul. He pierced to the inner depths with the eye of the poet. He looked with sympathy and interest, and nothing that was human was alien to him.

"Is there for honest poverty

That hangs his head and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by;
We dare be poor and a' that.
For a' that and a' that,-

Our toil's obscure and a' that,

The rank is but a guinea's stamp

And man's the gowd for a' that."

"Then let us pray that come it may,

And come it will for a' that,

That sense and worth o'er all the earth
May bear the gree and a' that."

He believed too in addressing the better side of man.

He

sings,

"The fear of hell's a hangman's whip

To haud the wretch in order,

But where ye feel your honor grip,

Let that be aye your border."

He believed in charity and love, and the songs that he sang have made men forever more tender in disposition and more lenient in judging.

"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."

In a recent number of the Forum, a writer upon Scotland remarks that, except in certain districts of Scotland, the severe observance of Sunday exists no longer. "Not," he says, "that we have in any wise rebounded into the other extreme of looseness and dissipation, but we have become ashamed of the Pharisaic sour-facedness and rigid formalism which has often rendered a Scottish Sunday an ugly memory to native children and a butt of ridicule to the intelligent stranger." He further says that "Doctrinal sermons, all grimly fenced round with the orthodox points of the Synod of Dort, are now never heard unless it be exceptionally in some awful corner of the free church in the north west highlands." He attributes the change in these respects to men like Chalmers and Guthrie and MacLeod; but it seems to me that he might have included among them the name of one who probably did more than all the others to bring about the change, and not only a change in Scotland, but wherever his words have been read and sung; the name of one who has humanized religion; who has made men think better of themselves and better of their Creator,-the name of ROBERT BURNS. Marion D. Shutter.

ARTICLE XXV.

Self-Murder.

A Felo de se in English common law was one who killed himself with malice aforethought. In other words the selfkilling must have been his original and primary intention. He, then, was not a felo de se, i. e., a suicide, who was not of sound mind when he committed the deed. In such case the person could not be held responsible for the result of his act. He who lost his life in an endeavor to save another, although he might realize the risk he ran, was of course, held to be a hero and not a self-murderer. Death in the discharge of duty, like that of a soldier in a forlorn hope, was also excluded. In these cases and among similar ones, the death of self was not the original and primary purpose. It may be said that another large class, more or less directly responsible for their own deaths, is likewise excluded. Many people by their ways of living and doing cause themselves to die a lingering death. Slowly but surely they are undermining their health, and that deliberately, or at least, knowingly. When the final hour comes, and the beautiful structure of life falls in ruins, how many say "What a sad dispensation of Providence!" How much more true to say "What a sad case of self-murder!" But for obvious reasons such cases are not reckoned among suicides.

In the olden day, in England, a felo de se was held to be a criminal. He was punished, or rather his heirs were, with forfeiture of goods and chattels; his body was buried at a crossroads, and a stake driven through his heart. Even now, in all countries, it is the law of the Catholic Church that the body of no suicide shall be buried in consecrated ground. In the United States, however, self-killing has never been held as a crime. No punishment is consequently dealt out to any for the deed or the attempt to commit it.

Statisticians have collected many curious and suggestive facts in this field. Let us observe some of them. In spite of