lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me." Having expressed to Mrs. Dunlop his strong conviction of the immortality of the soul, he writes as follows, "I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favorite quotations, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the Book of Job, "Against the day of battle and of war."-- spoken of religion: "'Tis _this_ my friend that streaks our morning bright, 'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night. When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few; When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, Disarms affliction, or repels her dart; Within the breast bids purest raptures rise. Bids smiling Conscience spread her cloudless skies." One of the most beautiful letters ever written by Burns has reference to this subject, and was addressed to the same lady, on New Year's day.--"This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes; and would to God that I came under the Apostle James's description!--'the prayer of the righteous man availeth much.' In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion for breaking in on that habitual routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. "This day, the first Sunday of May, a breezy, blue skyed noon, sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of Autumn,--these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holy day. * * * * I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables. 'On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always _keep holy_, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.'