ESSAY

ON THE LIFE OF THE

RIGHT REV. THEODORE DEHON.

CHAPTER I.

His Childhood, Youth, and early Manhood.

THE father of Theodore Dehon was a French emigrant, who settled at Boston some years before the American revolution. He was remarkable for those ardent feelings of loyalty, which in this country are scarcely understood, for he is said to have been so deeply affected by the murder of the "amiable Louis," as to have lost his senses. He was a protestant, and decided in his attachment to the Episcopal denomination. It is known that the usurpation of one of its churches in Boston, was viewed by him with merited indignation. He died in the year 1796, leaving six daughters, and four sons. Theodore, the eighth child, and third son, was born on the 8th December, 1776. His mother, on whom now devolved the sole care of the family, was a lady of many and rare virtues. "She was married before she had completed her sixteenth year; and, through life, was celebrated for great personal beauty, and uncommon

*We use the words of a correspondent.

sweetness of disposition; for her mild and gentle deportment; for her inflexible firmness, and decision; for strength of mind, and correct judgment; for her amiable and engaging manners; and her uniform attachment to the principles of religion. In her observation of the Lord's day, she was strict and exemplary. Attached to the doctrines, discipline, and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church, she was seldom absent from the sanctuary on the festivals and fasts of the Church; and never of a Sunday, without the most urgent necessity. Formed for excellence in every department of life, she was particularly calculated to excel in the relation of a mother. She possessed the happy faculty of securing the obedience, the respect, and the affection, of her children; never provoking them to wrath, but gently bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.' She early impressed upon their minds a great reverence and veneration for the Christian sabbath; and taught them the necessity, and beneficial tendency of public worship. She was aware of the importance of catechetical instructions, which she often engaged in; and required her children to read, and prize the bible, as the word of God, and the rule of life. The nature and destructive consequences of vice, she strongly and forcibly pointed out to them; while she represented, in its true light, the present and future happiness of the just and good. It appears to have been her chief desire to render her children good, wise, and amiable; useful in the life that now is, and partakers of endless felicity in that which is to come." The character of a child depends much upon that of the mother, and it is believed that the subject of this memoir profited greatly by that example which was first and most constantly presented to his infancy. He often expressed his admiration of her virtues, particularly her meekness and devotion, and it was under the influence of a strong moral approbation, no less than of a filial affection, which was probably never exceeded, that he said to a friend, "Oh I wish you had

known her." She was often in his thoughts, and at such times he has, when he supposed no one near, been heard to exclaim, "Spirit of my mother, where art thou?" He felt particularly grateful for her attention to his religious education, and attributed to it some of the deepest and best impressions on his heart. She brought up her children according to the system of her Church. They were dedicated to God in baptism, in the temple, as soon as possible. In the depth of winter, when only a few days old, her little Theodore was sent to the house of God, to be "lent unto the Lord," to seek his blessing, and the intercessions of his people. She regularly conducted her children to public worship, and to public catechising, and instructed them herself at home statedly on Sunday evenings, correctly judging that that portion of holy time could not be more profitably spent than in such domestic duties. To the family scene, on these occasions, when she would read the holy volume with those accents so sweet to the ear of filial love; when she would assist the little ones in reciting the catechism, and those pious hymns which speak to the heart, and would lift up for them, and herself, the voice of supplication, and adoration, to their father in heaven, he would advert, as among the most pleasant recollections of his life; and the benefits of this method no doubt strengthened him in those sentiments on the importance of religious education, which he so ably enforced in his sermons on that subject, and in the opinion that the churches should not be opened for public worship on Sunday night, because that time could be more profitably spent by heads of families, in the religious instruction of their children, and servants; and as to single persons, he considered that meditation and prayer, either in private, or with their respective households, would not be less useful than public worship, after having already devoted the morning and afternoon to this duty. It is an error to suppose that the duties of the sanctuary are the only duties which belong to the Lord's day. The Christian is bound

to divide "holy time" suitably between the worship of the temple, and that of the closet, and the family; between hearing, and reading; the study of religion, and, if he be master of a family, the teaching it to those over whom he presides: and he should take care that no one of these duties be so performed, as to occasion the omission, or imperfect performance of another which is equally Lis duty. At the proper age, our young friend received from Bishop Seabury the holy rite of confirmation; an ordinance of whose favourable influence on the rising generation, he always entertained the highest opinion.

Mrs. Dehon was richly repaid for her endeavours and prayers, by the moral and religious proficiency of her son; and she had the happiness to live to see him a minister of the gospel, the bias to which had, no doubt, been nurtured, if it had not been created, by her early, pious solicitude. In the year 1804, he was separated, by death, from this beloved parent. His feelings, on that occasion, were thus expressed in the following extract from a letter to a friend: "Newport, November 20, 1804.

"An indescribable lassitude, since the death of my excellent mother, has almost unfitted me for every thing, even for correspondence with my friends. She was tenderly beloved by me. Every pleasure of my life was connected with her existence. I fell under the blow which took her from me. It was sudden, unexpected. With her the family seemed to die. Instead of soothing, we were only able to swell each other's grief. Though many months have now elapsed since the event, they have carried with them no day which has not renewed the remembrance of my loss. It is not, that I do not acquiesce in the will of God. If I might choose the events of life, I would choose no other than those he has appointed me. His way is perfect. But, oh my friend, how much easier is it to think than to act-to perceive than to performour duty. Time, the friend only of the uneasy, has however diminished the pains of recollection. I remember with chastised grief.”

To this event he briefly alludes in his Easter sermon, on Ps. cxviii. 24. "Have you a mother, whose absence from you you mourn, but, concerning whom, it is the solace of your grief to believe that, she is among the spirits of the Just, before the throne of the Eternal? How great should be your gratitude to the Redeemer," &c. In his delightful sermon, on Job vii. 16. "I would not live always," he dwells on the same thought, and the Christian will especially admire the transition to the Saviour at the conclusion of the extract which follows: "Our kindred, also, are dead. Our fathers, it may be, and our dear mothers, and the friends whom we have loved as our own souls. In a world which they have left forever, who would always remain? To the state to which they have passed, who does not sometimes solace himself with the expectation of one day going? Death gathers us to our fathers. Death restores to us the friends of whom he had deprived us Death brings the child to the long absent parent. He brings the parent to her often lamented child. Pleasant to nature is the thought of mingling our ashes with the ashes of our ancestors, and sharing with our kindred the repose of the grave. But ravishing to the eye of faith is the prospect of rejoining their spirits in better worlds, and winging with them the flights of immortality. Jesus too, our blessed Redeemer, he hath passed through the gate of death. And shall we not choose to drink of the cup of which he hath drank. The vale which he hath consecrated by his own presence, shall we be averse to enter? There is a noble satisfaction in sharing the fate of the worthy. There is a comfort, a joy, in being conformed in our fortunes to those whom we venerate or love. How much then, in the contemplation of dissolution, must it bend the Christian's mind to his doom, to recollect that his Lord submitted to die."

* This Sermon is in vol. ii. No. LXXIII.