INFORMATION
James Drummond Burns (18 February 1823 – 27 November 1864) was a Scottish presbyterian minister and poet.
Burns was born in Edinburgh on 18 February 1823, and was educated through the charitable foundation of Heriot’s Hospital. He and two other boys got through the prescribed curriculum two years before the usual time of leaving; whereupon the governor sent them to the rector’s class at the high school, something never done before. He developed an interest in religion at New Greyfriars church, under Daniel Wilkie.
In November 1837 he entered the arts classes at the University of Edinburgh, and he owed much to the influence of the moral philosophy lectures of John Wilson (‘Christopher North’). In November 1841 he proceeded to the divinity classes under Chalmers and David Welsh, and followed them in 1843 to the new divinity hall established by the Free Church of Scotland.