Richard Burdsall

Burdsall, Richard, for many years a Wesleyan minister, was born in 1735, and died in 1824. To his Memoirs, published at York, n.d., is appended a hymn beginning, "Now Christ He is risen, the Serpent's head is bruised." The hymn “The voice of free grace cries—'Escape to the mountain,'" begins with stanza ii. of this hymn, but with alterations. In some American hymnals, including Hatfield's Church Hymn Book, 1872, Burdsall's two stanzas are expanded into five, but by whom we cannot say.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)