HUGH MILLER 87 



Like Socrates or Antonine, 



Or some old pagan heathen, 

 The moral man he does define, 



But ne'er a word of faith in, 

 That's right this day.' 



But the spirit of Moderatism was to be fully seen in 

 the debate upon Missions in 1796. It was moved in 

 the General Assembly by Robert Heron, the unfor- 

 tunate friend of Burns, and deeply shocked was old 

 Jupiter Carlyle. It wounded the feelings for the pro- 

 prieties of the old man. For half a century, said he, 

 had he sat as a member, and he was happy to think 

 that never till now had he heard such revolutionary 

 principles avowed on the floor of the house ! Clergy- 

 men of lax life, and whose neglect of parochial duties 

 was notorious, were unanimous in declaring that charity 

 should begin at home. The spectre of Tom Paine rose 

 before them. Never, they maintained, while still there 

 remained at home one man under the influence of attack 

 from the Age of Reason, should such a visionary over- 

 ture be entertained. But there was worse behind this. 

 The missionary societies were united with various 

 corresponding centres ; accordingly, in the days of the 

 Dundas dynasty, when Burns during this very year was 

 reminded that it was his place to act and not to think, 

 when the Alien and Traitorous Correspondence Act of 



1793 and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 



1794 had revived the worst of obsolete and feudal 

 enactments, a wily use of this reign of terror was made 

 to defeat missions by an attack on their supposed 



