Rev. John Russell – “Black Jock,” p.113.

[Anecdotes of Burns Contents]

PROFESSOR WILSON says of him: “We remember walking one day – unknown to us a fast-day – in the neighbourhood of an ancient fortress (Stirling), and hearing a noise to be likened to nothing imaginable in this earth but the bellowing of a buffalo fallen into a trap upon a tiger, which, as we came within half-a-mile of the castle we discerned to be the voice of a pastor engaged in public prayer. His physiognomy was little less alarming than his voice, and his sermon corresponded with his looks and his lungs – the whole being, indeed, an extraordinary exhibition of divine worship. We can never think it sinful that Burns should have been can never think it sinful that Burns should have been humorous on such a pulpiteer, and if we shudder at some of the verses in which he seems yet alive, it is not at the satirist.”