THE BURNS TRADITION

Evening Star, Issue 21319, 25 January 1933, Page 2

THE BURNS TRADITION

[By B. Reid.] The 25th of January has once more enabled all sorts and conditions of Scotsmen to celebrate, in a formal fashion, the memory of Burns. Every other Scottish tradition, save that of “ Babbie,” has shown symptoms in these latter days of waning and growing dim. Wallace and Bruce no longer occupy the place in the Valhalla of boyhood that they held half a century ago. Save ,at Sanquhar, and possibly Cummock, the Covenanters have ceased to be regarded as the embodiments, in outward breathing form, of all the virtues with which human nature can be endowed. Even the Shorter Catechism is rapidly becoming little more than a memory. It has been superseded by less metaphysical and more humanised “ vade mecurns ” for the ordering of our modes of thinking and acting. The “ Babbie ” however, is still as vivid, still as vigorous, as over. 1 All through the summer and autumn, and even in the dark days of winter, and during the keen searching airs of spring, constant streams of pilgrims hie them to the “ auld clay biggin,” to Alloway’s sands of working men and women, to haunted kirk, and to the monument on the banks of Boon. Hundreds and thousands to whom even Scott, to say nothing ot Shakespeare, is a scaled book, are familiar with the name of Burns; the thief figures of his verse, ‘ Tam o’ Slianter,’ ‘Holy Willis,’ ‘‘the sodjer of ‘ Tho Jolly Beggars,’ seem to them persons they have known; his songs have been crooned to them in their cradles, and sung by them in later life what time music was commandeered so that duo expression might be given to lightness of heart and gladness of spirit. And so it is to-day that Robert Burns is the typical Scotsman, that ho is tho Scottish hero, that at home ho is an object of universal regard, that his name forms a bond of union among all Scotsmen who live out of Scotland, whether their abiding place ho among our brethren in far lands, amid tropical seas, or the islands that lie under tho Southern Cross. ,To speak in a derogatory fashion of the personality of Burns, to question the all-embracing quality of his genius, is regarded by a Scotsman in something of the light of a personal insult. Other famous Scots may • be criticised, the country itself may bo lightly spoken of, but Burns must be held sacred. Against him no finger of scorn must be uplifted, no scurrile tongue must be wagged. And therefore this, the annual celebration of liis birth, takes the character of a great national festival. It is the tribute paid by p race to its acknowledged chief; it is the worship offered at the shrine of a departed prophet by his devoted followers.