Herman Bavinck was born in December, 1854, in Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Holland, the son of Rev Jan Bavinck, a leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834. After theological study in Kampen, and at the University of Leiden, he graduated in 1880, and served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. In 1882 he was appointed a Professor of theology at Kampen, and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the chair of Systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper. Bavinck served in this capacity until his death in 1921.