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.
[1] 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’).
After preaching at Brighton and Saint Helier, he settled on 22 May 1855 with the newly formed presbyterian congregation in Well Walk, Hampstead.
He married, in the autumn of 1859, Margaret, daughter of Major-general John Macdonald, of the Bengal service, and widow of Lieutenant A. Procter, of the same.
Notable works include ‘The Vision of Prophecy, and other Poems,’ (1854), ‘The Heavenly Jerusalem, or Glimpses within the Gates,’ (1856), and ‘The Climax, or on Condemnation and no Separation, a sermon, with an Illustration by another Hand,’ (1865).
Burns was a man of catholic spirit; he admitted, as a member of his church, one who frankly said he ‘was not a strict presbyterian,’ and who professed simply to be a Christian.