Burns, William Chalmers, Am

Burns, William Chalmers, A.M.

a missionary to China from the English Presbyterian Church, was born in Scotland in 1815. He was converted at the age of seventeen; studied at the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow; and in 1839 entered upon his ministry at Dundee, where he wielded an influence over the masses unparalleled since the days of Whitefield and Wesley. In 1841 and 1842 he served the Church in Edinburgh; afterwards spent two years travelling and preaching in British North America, and on returning offered himself to the Free Church Mission for India, but they not being able to send him he embarked for China under the auspices of the English Presbyterian Church, in 1847. Soon he became entirely familiar with the Chinese language. Mr. Burns. labored six years in China before he had a single convert to Christianity. But in 1854 a new sera dawned upon his career. Great interest was awakened in the neighborhood of Amoy, and from thence much success attended his labors. In 1859 he removed to Fuh-Chow; four years later to Pekin, and in 1867 to Nieu Chwang, on the confines of Manchooria, where at the close of the year he was seized with fever, which soon terminated his valuable life. Mr. Burns was an unmarried missionary, a man of one object, the salvation of his fellow-men. See Christian Observer, Aug. 1870, p. 601; and Memoir by Rev. Islay Burns (Lond. 1870).