[3] He received the chief part of his education at the grammar school of Aberdeen, under Dr. James Melvin, a celebrated teacher of Latin, and then studied divinity at Marischal College and University of Aberdeen,[1] and the University of Glasgow.

He was ordained in 1843 to the charge of St. Peter's Free church, Dundee, in succession to Robert Murray M'Cheyne,[1] a man of eminent spirituality and power.

Burns was remarkable for a combination of evangelical fervour with width of culture and sympathy, a strong æsthetic faculty and a highly charitable spirit.

To the diligent and successful discharge of his duties, first as a minister of the gospel and then as a professor, he added considerable literary activity.

[4] His chief writings were A Series of Essays on the Tractarian and other Movements in the Church of England, published in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, History of the Church of Christ, with special reference to the delineation of faith and life, The Pastor of Kilsyth,[5] which is a sketch of the life of his father and a memoir of his brother.