His characters, of which Curdie in
The Princess and the Goblin is the best-known example, must often proceed in their quest without visible, or even rational, assurance about what is demanded of them, an obvious analogy to Christian doctrines about faith.
MacDonald's education--the Old Town Grammar School in Aberdeen, then Kings College at Aberdeen University starting in 1840, and later Highbury Theological College beginning in 1848--was typical for a Scottish youth of his time. He spent a brief period tutoring and working to catalogue a private book collection before marrying a cousin, Louisa Powell, in 1851. He became minister to Trinity Congregational Church in Arundel that same year; it was his first and last pulpit. He was quickly at odds with the vestry. Disturbed by "German" elements in his preaching, by which they meant the influence of German romantic poets and Swedenborgian mysticism, as well as by MacDonald's doctrinal deviations with regard to predestination and salvation, they first reduced his salary, then released him from employment in 1853.
The MacDonalds, already beginning a large family (eventually numbering eleven children, later joined by two adopted children and a foster child) moved to Manchester, where MacDonald taught in the Ladies College, where he was one of the original lecturers in English literature and in physics.
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