 Yet, though religion continued to serve in this central role, his studies at Stellenbosch, with their decidedly scientific bias, led Smuts towards a more critical examination of his faith.From this time onwards Smuts was, by gradual degrees, to start to move away from the uncompromisingly Calvinist outlook within which he had been raised.If Stellenbosch marked Smuts's intellectual awakening, it also was where he came to mature socially.