Introduction
Born: February 18, 1823, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Died: November 27, 1864, Menton, France.
Buried: Highgate Cemetery, London, England.
Born: February 18, 1823, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Died: November 27, 1864, Menton, France.
Buried: Highgate Cemetery, London, England.
Burns earned his MA degree at the University of Edinburgh, and received his theological training under Thomas Chalmers.
In 1845, he became a Free Church minister in Dunblane, Scotland, but resigned in 1848 due to bad health. He then took charge of the Presbyterian Church at Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.
In 1855, his health improved, and he returned to England and became minister of Hampstead Presbyterian Church in London. After nine years, he again traveled abroad due to ill health.
His hymns appeared in:
Burns also wrote the article Hymn in the 8th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
O’er earth’s tumultuous changes
A Spirit rules, and guides the course of Time;
High vaulted o’er the stars’ aërial ranges
A temple towers, and from that height sublime
A voice oracular hath sounded clear;
Of old the generations heard,
In hymns of hope, or chants of fear,
Heaven’s challenge to the world’s regard
Re-echoed from the Hebrew lyre—
Deep intonations of the priest
Whose lips had felt the purging touch of fire.
That sacred music rings from age to age,
Its ancient virtue hath not ceased:
The prophets are not; but the Holy Page
Is through all time the mystic truth revealing—
The Word is to the World appealing.
James Drummond Burns
The Vision of Prophecy, and Other Poems, 1854
*The entire poem is 20 pages long.