left a washing on the green, another a cow bellowing at the crib without
food or anybody to mind her, and after several stages they are fixed at
present in the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Their tenets are a strange
jumble of enthusiastic jargon; among others, she pretends to give them
the Holy Ghost by breathing on them, which she does with postures and
practices that are scandalously indecent; they have likewise disposed of
all their effects, and hold a community of goods, and live nearly an
idle life, carrying on a great farce of pretended devotion in barns and
woods, where they lodge and lie all together, and hold likewise a
community of women, as it is another of their tenets that they can
commit no moral sin. I am personally acquainted with most of them, and I
can assure you the above mentioned are facts.

This, my dear Sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of leaving
the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion.

Whenever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the whimsical
notions of a perturbated brain are taken for the immediate influences of
the Deity, and the wildest fanaticism, and the most inconsistent
absurdities, will meet with abetters and converts. Nay, I have often
thought, that the more out-of-the-way and ridiculous the fancies are, if
once they are sanctified under the sacred name of religion, the unhappy
mistaken votaries are the more firmly glued to them.

I expect to hear from you soon, and I beg you will remember me to all
friends, and believe me to be, my dear Sir, your affectionate cousin,

ROBERT BURNESS.

P.S.--Direct to me at Mossgiel, parish of Mauchline, near Kilmarnock.