'Through Many Trials' David Brown - III.

David Brown was born 17th August 1803 in a house on Broad Street, Aberdeen, close to Marischal College, where he would later be a student. The house was close to his father's shop, and the bookseller's son was soon to develop his lifelong love of books. He was a small, feeble infant who was not expected to live long (he actually lived to be ninety-three!!!), and as the son of a wealthy town councillor, he had every advantage the Granite City could give in addition to an industrious father and a pious and no less industrious mother. While his preaching gifts and spiritual power never matched those of Charles, David's gifts lay in the direction of learning and scholarship - he was to become a seminary professor, and even before that, he was called to fight great battles for Christ in his life, as he would indeed in the college itself - despite being in an evangelical and Reformed denomination!

His first school was Dr. Welsh's Academy, and at the age of ten he entered the town grammar school. The school was so named because it taught Latin grammar - and Latin was the only subject it taught. He finished top of his class, and retained an interest in the affairs of the school throughout his long life. He attended prize-givings, and it must have been quite something for the boys to recieve their prizes from a man who had been ast the school eighty years before! An active lad, David Brown took a leading part in games as well as school-work.
In 1817 he entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, to begin his university education. He was a good scholar, but not a remarkable one, and he took his degree of M.A. in 1821. History has preserved no memorials of his university career. Living in his parents' house, David Brown had great advantages over those students who had to board in the city, not least the continuing Christian influence of his mother, and a sound local church where he was known. Christian students MUST seek out good local churches.

We have no details of David Brown's conversion. All we know is that he was converted by 1821, because he entered the Aberdeen Divinity Hall after his graduation. While it is true that some entered for worldly motives, it is clear that David Brown could not and did not. His mother's influence had led him to Christ and he truly desired to preach Christ crucified.
God willing, next time we shall deal with David Brown's experience as a theological student at Aberdeen in the 1820s. We shall see that sometimes a theological college can be as damaging as a secular university, if not more so.