I looked at Burns; his kindly face lighted up with intelligence and spirit beauty; every feature aglow with goodness, and every member of his body filled with energy, with suppressed power, with concentrated activity, now in abeyance, but ready to spring forth for the well-being of another,—he who had risen above all earthly passions through his great love for and faith in humanity; and I thought how characteristic of the man is this abode of peace and rest,—the home, the shrine of his faith and love,—plain, simple, yet full of cheer and interest,—no glitter nor show,—like his own kindly heart, unpretentious, full of kindness, overflowing with interest in God, Nature, and man! Without, all is beauty and fragrance; yet the natural productions of life, refined by care and cultivation, typical of the rich, the beautiful expressions of his poet soul,—refined through love, cultured through sympathy, manifested in sweetest heart songs, exemplified in those peaceful homes I had seen, whose inmates rise up and call him blessed! Characteristic of the soul is this, who would cull a flower to give a poor heart cheer, yet who will pluck none for his own use, to deprive them of natural life,—who, when he had inadvertently uprooted the tiny, wayside flower with his plowshare, immortalized the humble daisy with— “Thou bonny crimson-tipped flower, Thou’st met me in an evil hour, For I mun crush amang the stower Thy slender stem; To spare thee now ’twere past my power, Thou bonny gem.” Still the same good man, gentle alike to “mon and beastie,” tender to wayside flower and weed. Another apartment in the home of the people’s bard is fitted up as a study or library. Here are collected volumes by the true poets and philosophers of all ages. Some are prototypes of what are or what have been on earth; others are the outward productions of minds, grand and glorious in their brilliancy of thought, radiant with exquisite imagery, glowing with descriptive genius, or sweet and pathetic appeals to the tenderest emotions of the soul, through their simple, home-like, heartfelt tales of life and love, and which have never been heard by mortals. But you must not for a moment suppose Robert Burns to be dependent upon books for intellectual enjoyment, or for the attainment of knowledge. The soul is limitless in its resources, boundless in its capacity for expansion, and that spirit who earnestly desires to gain knowledge, finds a power developing within the mind which enables him or her to comprehend the fields of learning continually opening before the vision; while facilities and opportunities are afforded by which an honest seeker may grasp the truth as it appears before him.