John Gresham Machen - Early Life

Early Life

Machen was born in Baltimore to Arthur Webster Machen and Mary Jones Gresham. Arthur, a Baltimore lawyer, was 45 and Mary was 24 when they married. While Arthur was an Episcopalian, Mary was a Presbyterian, and taught her son The Westminster Shorter Catechism from an early age. The family attended Franklin Street Presbyterian Church.

Machen's upbringing was considered to be privileged. He attended a private college and received a classical education including Latin and Greek. Although no records exist, it was probably The University School for Boys. He was also taught the piano.

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