Having an upbringing in the Ferintosh manse enabled George to participate in the large communion gathering that amassed there each summer. It was unusual for young people to profess faith publicly at that time in the Highlands, but George’s father did not prevent members of his family from doing so and apparently they would be the only young people at the Lord’s Table in Ferintosh. While the author correctly points out that the lack of young communicants was a defect found in Highland Protestantism at that time, he also observes that ‘nowhere have the majesty and glory of God, the completeness of Christ’s substitutionary work, and the dignity and grandeur of life in the Spirit, been more powerfully set forth than in the Highlands.’ It is not known when George first believed he had an interest in Christ, but it was probably during his years as a schoolboy in Inverness.
George attended the local Free Church school for four years (5 to 9), then went to the Academy in Inverness for five years. He entered Edinburgh University in 1878 when he was fourteen and there his favourite subject was mathematics. Yet his intellectual abilities struggled at times with what he was taught and he lost belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. When he completed his degree in 1883, he won prizes in most of his classes. Yet he knew what to do with his degree, as revealed in his diary entry of April 20: ‘The degree sought for has been obtained with not one slip. Oh, how thankful I should be to God for His great goodness! The degree sits lightly upon me. I hope I have already laid it at the Master’s feet; it will do little good if not given to Him.’
George had resolved to be a minister. Instead of going immediately to one of the Free Church’s Theological Colleges, he went home for a year. This year was spent tutoring the sons of a nearby laird, furthering his own reading, and preaching at various churches and other meetings in the area. His father was approaching sixty and not well in health, so no doubt was glad of his son’s help. It soon became obvious that George’s preaching was attractive and a weekly Bible class he started soon had over 100 young people. Yet at least two unusual features are seen here: one was connected to the church practice of that time which did not allow a prospective student to preach until he had been licensed by a presbytery at the end of his theological training (George had not even started his); the other was that an individual with doubts about the verbal inspiration of the Bible was given access to several pulpits in the area (of course, he may have kept these doubts to himself).
In 1884, George went to New College in Edinburgh and was there until 1888. His mathematical bent helped him in his Hebrew studies and such was his ability in that language that he functioned as assistant lecturer in Hebrew during his final year. Given his interest in Hebrew, perhaps it is not surprising that he was an enthusiastic appreciator of A. B. Davidson (the professor of Old Testament), and regarded him as a seeker for the truth contained in God’s revelation in the Old Testament (despite Davidson’s acceptance of higher critical theories). Davidson, according to George, had strengthened his belief in the inspiration of the Bible ten-fold, although it was not belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible which he had been taught in his youth. Nevertheless he left New College ‘deeply versed in the Bible. He had read the Old Testament through in Hebrew. The Greek New Testament he knew intimately, and great portions of the English Bible he could literally repeat by heart.’ His biographer observes of such attainment, that ‘For a minister there is no learning equal in value to this.’
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