Gathered to the Lord’s Name
Hymns #39, 189, 261, 287, Appendix 16, 47, 48, 78.
Hannah Kilham Burlingham was born March 17, 1842, being the eldest daughter of Henry Burlingham of Evesham, Worcestershire, England. He was a member of the Society of Friends and so she was thus brought up in the piety and godliness of a Quaker home. It seems too that when she was but twelve, three of the family circle died including her eldest brother.
Her poetic ability came out while she was quite young and it is said she won a prize for an excellent poem describing the school excursion. It was said that when she became of age she associated herself with those believers who were gathered to the Lord’s Name alone apart from sectarianism. This is the Scriptural ground for the present dispensation as a testimony to the truth that “there is one body” according to Ephesians chapter 4.
She translated many hymns from the German, as for example #16 in the Appendix. This hymn was written by Samuel Christian Gottlieb Küster, who died in 1838, Miss Burlingham translating it June 13, 1865. It begins, “O Jesus! Friend unfailing.” Her translations were considered as excellent from the German, as also evidenced by #325, “We wait for Thee, O Son of God.”
It was said of her: “I never met any one who loved her Bible as she did. Though she was interested in current topics, they were wholly subservient to her one great interest. Her love for her Lord and Savior was deep and real, and one felt that with her, everything else must take a ‘back place’.”
While she was but a short way on her sixtieth year she became suddenly ill with a meningitis, and in three days was gone, so that on May 15, 1901 she entered into that rest of which she speaks in verse 3 of #189:
“Eternal is our rest,
O Christ of God, in Thee!
Now of Thy peace, Thy joy possessed,
We wait Thy face to see.
Now to the Father’s heart received,
We know in Whom we have believed.”