Born: Chapin, Illinois, May 7, 1871.
Died: 1960.

Lord Kames in his "Elements of Criticism" suggests, as our ideas come in trains, that it is not often a popular speaker makes a good statesman. He thinks brilliant oratorical powers are not associated with a logical mind. This is not true in the case of Mr. Burnham. He is a statesman as well as a popular preacher. He has shown conspicuous ability in his management of the American Christian Missionary Society.

Frederick William Burnham was born in Chapin, Illinois, in 1871, the son of New England parents. His father, a physician, died when Frederick was eleven years old. After finishing the public school young Burnham became a telegraph operator to earn the necessary money to take him to college. After a year at Illinois College, Jacksonville, he entered Eureka College from which he graduated in 1895. Later he took some postgraduate work in the University of Chicago.

Immediately after graduation from Eureka he became pastor of the church at Carbondale, Illinois, where he had the rare comradeship and counsel of H. W. Everest. The splendid church at Charleston, Illinois, with its new building challenged his strength and there he spent five years of happy useful ministry. In 1901 he was called to Decatur, Illinois, where he spent six more years, built up a strong congregation and erected a new church. Scarcely had that task been completed when the First church of the Capitol City, Springfield, Illinois, called him to a similar task.

Of this ministry Finis Idleman says:

"Here he maintained a superb ministry in the midst of exacting duties, issuing in that psalm of praise, the most beautiful church building among the Disciples of Christ. It would have seemed enough to content one's conscience to have wrought so well and to work unworried by the call of need elsewhere. But not so could the soul of Frederick Burnham be at peace. The Wilshire Boulevard church of Los Angeles, California, looked over the Brotherhood for a man to command that opportune field and to build up a great congregation in that strategic center. It turned its eyes to Springfield, Illinois, and made its earnest appeal to the heart which has been dominated always by the call of the larger need. Contrary to the expectations and the wishes of many who knew about the excellent accomplishment in Springfield, Mr. Burnham responded with a soldier's readiness and undertook the task in the city by the western sea. His work there had scarcely begun. But the need of a capable leader in our Home Missionary activities never knocked at a more responsive heart nor did it knock in vain. The dominant motive of service moved him to turn aside from the crowning passion of a pastor's life, that of preaching, and to take up the duties the Brotherhood would have him bear."

Mr. Burnham was elected president of the American Christian Missionary Society at the convention in Atlanta, Georgia, but the changes necessary in the constitution of the Society to make him executive head of the Society and chairman of its Board of Trustees were not finally adopted until the convention in Los Angeles in 1915. He is now serving our Brotherhood in that capacity.

Mr. Burnham's personality is much in his favor as a public speaker. He impresses one with the idea of a superb manhood. Nor will one feel mistaken when listening to him. His mental characteristics correspond with his personal appearance. His mind is well stored with wisely selected reading, and he soon convinces his hearers that they are listening to a great preacher, as well as an indefatigable worker.

In his present position as president of the American Christian Missionary Society, he has a great opportunity to use those qualities of mind and heart which come to few men so freely as they have come to the subject of this sketch.