Cumming, JOHN

Cumming, JOHN, divine and author, was born in Fintray parish, Aberdeenshire, 10th November 1807. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1827, and in 1832 was ordained to the Scotch Church, Crown Court, Covent Garden, London, where he preached with great popularity and success till 1879. Edinburgh University gave him the degree of D.D. in 1844. He was active in philanthropic projects, and as a controversialist and lecturer both against the party that formed the Scotch Free Church and in the 'anti-Popery' cause; but his celebrity was chiefly due to his writings on the interpretation of prophecy. His audacity in this perilous enterprise drew upon him much ridicule. In 1868 he asked the pope if he might attend the Ecumenical Council, but his application was declined through Archbishop Manning. After some years of ill-health, Cumming died 5th July 1881. His works number over a hundred various publications. Among them are Apocalyptic Sketches (three series, 1848–50), Prophetic Studies (1850), Signs of the Times (1854), The Millennial Rest (1862), Ritualism the Highway to Rome (1867), The Sounding of the Last Trumpet (1867), and The Seventh Vial (1870).