Burnett Prizes, The, are two theological premi- ums, founded by Mr. Burnett, of Dens, Aberdeenshire. This gentleman (born 1729, died 1784) was a general merchant in Aberdeen, and for many years during his lifetime spent £300 annually on the poor. On his death he bequeathed the fortune he had made to found the above prizes, as well as for the establishment of funds to relieve poor persons and pauper lunatics, and to support a jail-chaplain in Aberdeen. He directed the prize-fund to be accumulated for 40 years at a time, and the prizes (not less than .£1200 and £400) to be awarded to the authors of the two best treatises on the evidence that there is a Being all-powerful, wise, and good, by whom everything exists ; and particu- larly to obviate difficulties regarding the wisdom and goodness of the Deity, and this independent of written revelation and of the revelation of the Lord Jesus, and from the whole to point out the inferences most neces- sary and useful to mankind. The competition is open to the whole world, and the prizes are adjudicated by three persons appointed by the trustees of the testator. together with the ministers of the Established Church of Aberdeen, and the principals and professors of King's and Marischal Colleges, Aberdeen. On the first competition, in 1815, 50 essays were given in ; and the judges awarded the first prize, £1200, to Dr. Wil- liam Lawrence Brown, principal of Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, for an essay entitled The Kris/: nee of a Supreme Creator; and the second prize, £-100, to the Rev. John Bird Sumner, afterward arch- bishop of Canterbury, for an essay entitled Records of Creation. On the second competition, in 1855, £08 essays; were given in ; and the judges, Rev. Baden Powell, Mr. Henry Kogers, and Mr. Isaac Taylor, awarded the first prize, £1800, to the Eev. Robert Anchor Thompson, Lincolnshire, for an essay entitled Christian Theism; and the second prize, £G00, to the Rev. Dr. John Tulloch, principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's, for an essay on Theism. The" above four essays have been published in accordance witli Mr. Burnett's deed. — Chambers, Encyclopaedia; Thompson, Christian Theism (preface).
Burnham, ABRAHAM, D.D., a Congregational minister, was horn at Dumbarton, N. II., Nov. IS, 177."., and graduated at Dartmouth, 1801. He became pastor at Pembroke, X. II., in 1808, and remained in the same charge until I860, when he resigned on ac- count of feeble health. He died Sept. 24, 1852. lie was for sixteen years secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society.— Sprague, Annals, ii, 514.
Burning i the representative of many Hob. words). Burning alive is a punishment of ancient date, which was not originated, though retained by Moses. Thus,
when Judah was informed that his daughter-in-law Tamar was pregnant, he condemned her to be burnt (Gen. xxxviii, 24), although the sentence was not ex- ecuted. Burning was commanded to be inflicted on the daughters of priests who should prove unchaste (Lev. xxi, 9). and upon a man who should marry both the mother and the daughter (Lev. xx, 14). The rab- bins suppose that this burning consisted in pouring melted lead down the throat, a notion which may be considered as merely one of their dreams. Many ages afterward we find the Babylonians or Chaldaeans burn- ing certain offenders alive (Jer. xxix, 22 ; Dan. iii, C), and this mode of punishment was not uncommon in the East, even in the seventeenth century. Sir J. Chardin ssys, "During the dearth in 1688, I ,saw ovens heated on the royal square in Ispahan to terrify the bakers, and deter them from deriving advantage from the general distress." See Punishment.
Burning at the stake has in all ages been the fre- quent fate of Christian martyrs (q. v.). See Auto- da-Fe.
BURNING-BUSH was that in which Jehovah ap- peared to Moses at the foot of Mount Horeb (Exod. iii, 2). Such was the splendor of the Divine Majesty that its effulirence dazzled his sight, and he was unable to behold it, and, in token of humility, submission, and reverence, "Moses hid his face." When the Hebrew lawgiver, just before his death, pronounced his blessing upon the chosen tribes, he called to mind this remark- able event, and supplicated in behalf of the posterity of Joseph " the good-will of Him that dwelt in the bush" (Deut. xxxiii, 1G); words which seem to indicate in this transaction something of an allegorical or mystical import, though there are various opinions as to the par- ticular thing it was destined to shadow forth. " This fire," says Bishop Patrick, "might be intended to show that God would there meet with the Israelites, and give them his law in fire and lightning, and yet not consume them." (See Kichmaver, De rubro ardente, Rot. 1692 ; Schroder, id. Amst. 1*714.) See Bush.
Burns, Francis, D.D., missionary bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Africa, was born in Al- bany, N. Y., December 5, 1809. His parents were so poor that at five years of age he was indentured as a servant. At fifteen he was converted, and soon after entered the Lexington Heights Academy to obtain the education necessary to fit him for the ministry. After serving as an exhorter and local preacher, he was ap- pointed to the Mission in Liberia, Africa, in 1834, and landed in Monrovia October 18th. The first post as\ signed him was as a teacher at Cape Palmas, under Rev. A. D. Williams. In 1838 he joined the Liberia Mission Conference; from 1840 to 1842 was stationed as assistant on the Bassa Circuit ; in 1843, '44, in Mon- rovia; was ordained deacon at Brooklyn, New York, in the morning, and elder at New York in the after- noon, in the Mulberry Street church, on the 36th of June, 184-1, by Bishop E. S. Janes ; returned to Liberia the same year, and at the next session of the Confer- ence was appointed presiding elder of the Cape Palmas District; in 1851, by the direct order of the Board in New York, he was removed to Monrovia to open the Monrovia Academy and act as superintendent of the Mission. On the 14th of October, 1858, he was or- dained at Perry, Wyoming county, New York, by the Pev. Bishops .Janes and Baker, at the session of the Genesee Conference, according to the provision made by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States held in 1856, to the office and work of a missionary bishop. He returned to Li- beria during that year, and for nearly live years Bish- op Burns devoted himself unceasingly in behalf of the Church, until advised by his physician to return to America. The voyage did not benefit him ; and he died in Baltimore, Md., April 19, 1S63. See M miles of Conferences, 1863. p. 237 ; Report of Miss. Soc. of M. E. Church, 1864.