One of the most interesting sacred poets of the present age, James D.
Burns, was born at Edinburgh on the 18th February 1823. A pupil of
Heriot's Hospital, he became a student in the University of Edinburgh,
where he took the degree of Master of Arts, and completed, with marked
distinction, a course of theology. Receiving license as a probationer of
the Free Church, he was in 1845 ordained to the ministry at Dunblane.
Having resigned his charge from bad health in 1848, he proceeded to
Madeira, where he undertook the pastoral superintendence of a
Presbyterian congregation. He subsequently travelled in Spain and Italy.
In 1854 he published "The Vision of Prophecy, and other Poems," a
collection of his poetical compositions, of which the greater number are
of a scriptural or sacred character. Mr Burns is now minister of a
Presbyterian church at Hampstead, Middlesex.