Great Rev i va l s and Evangel i sts By JOHN H. HUNTER V. WILLIAM C. BURNS Copyright, 1915, by John H. Hunter
in his own homeland, and in Ireland, and in Canada; sent out to China as the pio neer missionary o f the English Presbyter ian church where he served loyally and fruitfully for twenty-one years; called to higher service by his Master on the fourth o f April, 1868,'such in brief outline, is the life that we are now going to try and get acquainted with. May the Lord be pleased to use the recital to stir up all our hearts, and to lead us. to more -earnest devotion to His blessed will. TOLD BY HIS' BROTHER It was into a devout Christian home this boy was born, an ideal Scotch manse. Let one o f the brothers describe it: “ It was to us a sacred and .blessed spot in every sense, full o f quiet pleasures,, heal thy activities,.and gentle charities—a manse home, and a manse home o f the best t y p e - in which cheerful piety, quiet thoughtful ness, and a modest and reverend dignity o f speech and carriage, formed together the purest element in which the young life could develop itself and receive its' first impressions o f truth and duty.” Listen to this same son (Rev. Islay Burns, D. D., professor o f Theology in the Free Church College, Glasgow) as he paints his father and mother for u s: “ Our father, gentle, reverend, gracious, full o f kind thoughts, devout affections, and fresh, genial sympathies—serious without morose ness, cheerful and even sometimes gay, without lightness—zealous, diligent, con scientious, without a touch o f impetuous haste, and carrying about with him withal an atmosphere o f calm repose, and staid, measured dignity, which in these bustling days is. becoming increasingly rare. He was the very model o f a type o f the Chris-
^ f ^ p y p H E N Robert Murray Mc- Cheyne had to relinquish HI his ministry in his beloved St- Peter’s, Dundee, for a season, the man whom he asked to shepherd his flock while he was absent was William Chalmers Burns. When J. Hudson Taylor, founder o f the China Inland Mission—by far the largest (Christian Mission in China today—first went out, he providentially fell in with a man who had then been in China nine years, and who had had a vision o f the needs o f inland China. The two became fast friends, for the younger man also was becoming burdened for China’s unreached millions, and was in difficulty with the authorities because he had rented a house and begun work outside a treaty port. To the older and more experienced man the younger owed much that he wrought into the fabric o f the great mission which he founded, and which has made it, under God’s blessing, the mighty evangelizing agency which it is today. Hudson -Tay- lor’-s dear friend was William -Chalmers Burns. Such a man is worth knowing. William Chalmers Burns was the third son o f the Rev. William Hamilton Burns, D. D., Presbyterian minister at Dun in Angus, and afterwards at Kilsyth in Stir lingshire, Scotland. He was born at Dun, on the first day o f April, 1815, a little more than one hundred years ago.. Converted early in life, prepared by thorough study in school, college and theological hall, ordained to the ministry by the presbytery —having been foreordained to it by the great Head o f the Church, baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire—as he had been baptized previously 'with water, used' to the awakening and conversion o f thousands
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