‘I have just heard Mr Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. He is a man famous for his benevolence, and I revere him; but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord, deliver me! Religion ... is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible Great Being, to whom I owe my existence; and that He must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment, of this creature which He has made; these are, I think self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and, consequently, that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of justice beyond the grave; must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment’s reflection. I will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of His doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though, _to appearance_, He Himself was the obscurest and most illiterate of our species--therefore Jesus Christ was from God....’ Another time he told the same lady, ‘We can no more live without Religion, than we can live without air; but give me the Religion of Sentiment & Reason.--You know John Hildebroad’s famous epitaph-- “Here lies poor old John Hildebroad, Have mercy on his soul, Lord God, As he would do, were he Lord God, And thou wert poor John Hildebroad.”-- This speaks more to my heart, & has more of the genuine spirit of Religion in it, than is to be found in whole wagon-loads of Divinity.’ This was the same mood in which he had told Clarinda, ‘My creed is pretty nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Deans’s grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire; “Lord, grant that we may lead a gude life! for a gude life maks a gude end; at least it helps weel!”’ Reason and Sentiment, but with the sentiment much more powerful than the reason, these were the dominant forces in Burns’s religious attitude. Nevertheless Burns was more courageous than many of his contemporaries in accepting the logical consequences of belief in universal benevolence. No man knew more clearly the warfare between flesh and spirit, but he was convinced that both were the gifts of God. The lines which so shocked Wordsworth, ‘But yet the light that led astray Was light from Heaven’, are his frankest summary of his experience. Whatever sufferings his passions had brought upon him, the passions in themselves were noble. Asceticism had no appeal for him. He took life as God made it, and saw that it was good.