Nothing has been recorded respecting the youthful period of Gillespie’s life. The earliest notice of him which appears, is merely sufficient to intimate that his mind must have been carefully cultivated from his boyhood, as it relates to the time of his being sent to the University of St Andrews, to prosecute his studies, in 1629, when he was, of course, in his 16th year. It appears to have been the custom of the Presbytery of Kirkcaldy, as of many others at that time, to support young men of merit at the University, as Presbytery Bursars, by means of the contributions of the parishes within its bounds. In the Session Record of Kirkcaldy the following statement occurs, dated November, 1629:—“The Session are content that Mr George Gillespie shall have as much money of our Session, for his interteynment, as Dysart gives, viz. 20 merks, being our Presbytery Bursar.” In some of the brief biographical notices of him which have been given, we are informed that during the course of his attendance at the University, he gave ample evidence of both genius and industry, by the rapid growth and development of mental power, and the equally rapid acquirement of extensive learning, in both of which respects he surpassed his fellow-students. That this must have been the case, his future eminence, so early achieved, sufficiently proves; but nothing of a very definite nature, relating to that period, has been preserved. When he had completed his academic career, and was ready to enter into the office of the ministry, his progress was obstructed by a difficulty which, for a time, proved insurmountable. Being conscientiously convinced that the prelatic system of church government is of human invention, and not of Divine institution, and having seen the bitter fruits it bore in Scotland, he would not submit to receive ordination from a bishop, and could not, at that juncture, obtain admission into the ministerial office without it. Though thus excluded from the object of his pursuit, he found congenial employment for his pious and active mind in the household of Lord Kenmure, where he resided as domestic chaplain, till the death of that nobleman in September, 1634. Soon afterwards we find him discharging a similar duty in the family of the Earl of Cassilis, and, at the same time, acting as tutor to Lord Kennedy, the Earl’s eldest son. This latter employment furnished him with both leisure and inducement to prosecute his studies, and that, too, in the very direction to which his mind had been already predisposed. But, in order to obtain an intelligible view of the state of matters in Scotland at that period, we must take a brief survey of the events which had been moulding the aspect of both church and kingdom for some time before.