unbaptized children must come unto me,' the devil of superstition said;
'for of such is the kingdom of hell.'

What pathos is in this line of Burns! There is in its slow spondaic
movement an eternity of tears. Could satire or sermon have shown more
forcibly the revolting inhumanity of a doctrine upheld as divine? Yet
were there devout men, in other things gentle and loving and charitable,
who preached this as the law of a loving God. With one stroke of genius
they were brought face to face with the logical sequence of their
barbarous teaching, and that without a word of coarseness or a touch of
caricature.

Only once again did Burns return to this attack on bigotry and
superstition, and that was when he was induced to fight for Dr. Macgill
in _The Kirk's Alarm_. But he had done his part in the series of satires
of this year to expose the loathsomeness of hypocrisy and to purge holy
places and the most solemn ceremonies of what was blasphemous and
grossly profane. That in this Burns was fulfilling a part of his mission
as a poet, we can hardly doubt; and that his work wrought for
righteousness, the purer religious life that followed amply proves. The
true poet is also a prophet; and Robert Burns was a prophet when he
spoke forth boldly and fearlessly the truth that was in him, and dared
to say that sensuality was foul even in an elder of the kirk, and that
profanities were abhorred of God even though sanctioned and sanctified
under the sacred name of religion.

CHAPTER IV

THE KILMARNOCK EDITION

_The Holy Tulzie_ had been written probably in April 1785, and the
greatest of the satires, _The Holy Fair_, is dated August of the same
year. It may, however, have been only drafted, and partly written, when
the recent celebration of the sacrament at Mauchline was fresh in the
poet's mind. At the very latest, it must have been taken up, completed,
and perfected, in the early months of 1786. That is a period of some ten
months between the first and the last of this series of satires; and
during that time he had composed _Holy Willie's Prayer_, _The Address to
the Deil_, _The Ordination_, and _The Address to the Unco Guid_. But
this represents a very small part of the poetry written by Burns during
this busy period. From the spring of 1785 on to the autumn of 1786 was a
time of great productiveness in his life, a productiveness unparalleled
in the life of any other poet. If, according to Gilbert, the seven years
of