He owed little to his native place. There was not so much of Christ known in that parish then as there is now; for in after days he writes, "My soul's desire is, that the place to which I owe my first birth--in which, I fear, Christ was scarcely named, as touching any reality of the power of godliness--may blossom as the rose" (Letter cccxxxiv.). We have no account of his revisiting these scenes of his early life, though he thus wrote to his friend, Mr. Scott, minister of the adjoining parish of Oxnam. Like Donald Cargill, born in Perthshire yet never known to preach there even once, Rutherford had his labours in other parts of the land, distant from his native place. In this arrangement we see the Master's sovereignty. The sphere is evidently one of God's choosing for the man, instead of being the result of the man's gratifying his natural predilections. It accords, too, with the example of the Master, who never returned to Bethlehem, where He was born, to do any of His works. Jedburgh is a town three or four miles distant from Nisbet, and thither Samuel went for his education; either walking to it, and returning home at evening,--as a school-boy would scarcely grudge to do,--or residing in the town for a season. The school at that time met in a part of the ancient Abbey, called, from this circumstance, the Latiners' Alley. In the year 1617 we find him farther from home,--removed to Edinburgh, which, forty years before, had become the seat of a College, though not as yet a University. There he obtained, in 1621, the degree of Master of Arts. A single specimen (not elegant, however) of his Latin verse remains in the lines he prefixed to an edition of Row's "Hebrew Grammar," published at Glasgow, 1644-- Verba Sionææ gentis, submersa tenebris Cimmeriis, mendax Kimchius ore crepat. Quæ vos Rabbini sinuosa ænigmata vultis, Nunc facilem linguam dicite quæso sacram. Falleris, Hippocrates; male parcæ stamina vitæ Curta vocas, artem vociferare μακραν; Sit cita mors, rapido sit et hora fugacior Euro, Bellerophontæis vita volato rotis: Rouæi Hebracis sit mors male grata Camoenis. Haec relege, ast artem dixeris esse brevem. Soon after, he was appointed Regent, or Professor, of Humanity, though there were three other competitors; for his talents had attracted the notice of many. But, on occasion of a rumour that charged him with some irregularity--whether with or without foundation, it is now difficult to ascertain--he demitted his office in 1625, and led a private life, attending prelections on theology, and devoting himself to that study.