ards the close of the year, and his poem, _A Poet's Welcome_. They
must at least be all read together, if we are to have any clear
conception of the nature of Burns. It is not enough to select his
_Epistle to Rankine_, and speak of its unbecoming levity. This was the
time when Burns was first subjected to ecclesiastical discipline; and
some of his biographers have tried to trace the origin of that wonderful
series of satires, written shortly afterwards, to the vengeful feelings
engendered in the poet by this degradation. But Burns's attack on the
effete and corrupt ceremonials of the Church was not a burst of personal
rancour and bitterness. The attack came of something far deeper and
nobler, and was bound to be delivered sooner or later. His own personal
experience, and the experience of his worthy landlord, Gavin Hamilton,
may have given the occasion, but the cause of the attack was in the
Church itself, and in Burns's inborn loathing of humbug, hypocrisy, and
cant.

Well was it the satires were written by so powerful a satirist, that the
Church purged itself of the evil thing and cleansed its ways. This,
however, is an episode of such importance in the life of Burns, and in
the religious history of Scotland, as to require to be taken up
carefully and considered by itself.

CHAPTER III

THE SERIES OF SATIRES

Before we can clearly see and understand Burns's attitude to the Church,
we must have studied the nature of the man himself, and we must know
something also of his religious training. It will not be enough to
select his series of satires, and, from a study of them alone, try to
make out the character of the man. His previous life must be known; the
natural bent of his mind apprehended, and once that is grasped, these
satires will appeal to the heart and understanding of the reader with a
sense of naturalness and expectedness. They are as inevitable as his
love lyrics, and are read with the conviction that his merciless
exposure of profanity masquerading in the habiliments of religion, was
part of the life-work and mission of this great poet. He had been born,
it is recognised, not only to sing the loves and joys and sorrows of his
fellow men and women, but to purge their lives of grossness, and their
religion of the filth of hypocrisy and cant. Let it be admitted, that he
himself went 'a kennin wrang.' What argument is there? We do not deny
the divine mission of Samson because of Delilah. Surely that