OTAUTAU NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 20396, 27 January 1928, Page 5

OTAUTAU NOTES

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. (From Our Correspondent.) The contractors have completed the new church, and to add the finishing touches the committee is calling for tenders for the laying of concrete paths, erection of a concrete fence and provision of two iron gates. It is expected that the official opening will take place some time towards the end of February. LECTURE. Mr A. Macpherson, formerly Government instructor for the South Island, and now of Dailmore Estate, Earnscleugh, Central Otago, who has been visiting friends at Strathvale, gave a very interesting lecture on “Lucerne growing” to various farmers who at short notice gathered at the residence of Mr W. R. Ayson last week. The address was listened to with interest throughout, and at its conclusion Mr Macpherson answered many questions, and was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. The visitors were generously entertained to supper by Mrs Ayson, and a very profitable and enjoyable time was spent by the farmers present. ROBERT BURNS. On Sunday evening last, in the Methodist Church, the Rev. M. Ayrton dealt with the subject of “The Religious Teaching of Robert Burns.” He said that the Scottish poet had been viewed from many angles and chiefly from that of indiscretion and personal failure, but he wished to give credit for any good that could be gleaned from his life and poems. It. might appear very strange to many folk to hear him, on the 169th anniversary, speak about the religious teaching of Robert Burns. His poems were the expression of deepest feeling and aspiration. They represented in simple language the song of the heart. Up to 1786, when the first edition of his poems was issued, poetry in Great Britain had been more impersonal and forced, never proceeding freely and spontaneously from the centre of human affections. An effort had been made in that direction by Cowper and Crabbe, both of them singing about the poor and of their sufferings; but Burns belonged to the poor and experienced their hardships as it related more particularly to Scottish peasant life in the eighteenth century. Burns sang of the mountains, rivers, trees and flowers of his native soil. Human nature in most of its moods was exquisitely dealt with by him in a masterly manner. It. was quite obvious in his poems that there was a disagreement with the harsh views of many of his countrymen in religious opinions. The stern and unyielding aspects of Calvinism, reprobation and election, were hit hard in the “Holy Fair” and “Holy Willie’s Prayer.” There was still much room for improvement, but what a contrast between the eighteenth and the twentieth centuries in the treatment handed out to the young! Burns loved the poor and traced their goodness to the one source —God. It seemed clear that the harsh and intolerant presentation of religion belonging to his century forced Burns to take refuge in Theism. The Scottish peasant’s religious feeling which, no doubt, was that of Burns and his immediate forbears as well, was finely expressed in his “Cottar’s Saturday Night.” The fault of Burns was that he had an ungoverned passion. He had no control over his own will. He was not the master of himself; and Burns never sought to excuse himself. He never played the hypocrite. He often came to himself and said—“l will arise and go to my Father.” The society in Edinburgh which idolised him for a passing hour, helped in ruining him and then cast him away a victim of his own appetite and folly. It may be a hard lesson to learn and more difficult to practise and yet it was the very essence of the Christian religion to be charitable to those who fell along life’s path. If the older generation were to adequately recognise their obligations to the younger what a step forward could be made in a century.