Mrs. Seton's birth; early youth and marriage-Her habits of self. restraint and devotion-Absence of prejudice and bigotry--Her Mr. Seton's ill-health-They go to Italy-Arrival at Leghorn- Hardships-Mr. Seton dies-Her exemplary resignation-Ten- dencies towards the Catholic faith-She embarks for America- Mrs. Seton returns to America-Her uncertainties about religion— She is beset by Protestants of various sects-Is received into the Mrs. Seton opens a boarding-house in New York-Her sister-in- law is received into the Church-Consequent persecution both of Mrs. Seton and of Miss Cecilia Seton-Generous assistance rendered by the Filicchis-Mrs. Seton goes to Baltimore to open a boarding-school-She is joined by another lady, and a religious institute is founded-Conversion of another sister-in-law, and The community adopt the rules of St. Vincent of Paul's Daugh ters of Charity-Mrs. Seton becomes the Mother-Superior-Her Edifying death of another of Mrs. Seton's children-Her own last 153 MRS. ELIZA A. SETON. CHAPTER I. HE subject of this narrative was the daughter of Dr. Richard Bayley, an eminent physician in the city of New York; and was born on the 28th of August, 1774, nearly two years before the declaration of American independence. Her mother was the daughter of an Episcopalian clergyman, but died before the subject of our story had completed her third year. Too young to appreciate the loss she had sustained, Miss Bayley gave to her surviving parent all the love generally shared between father and mother; and the attachment thus formed continued undiminished during Dr. Bayley's life. He was a most tender and careful father, and was fully rewarded for all his watchfulness and affection by the fond anxiety of his little daughter to fulfil his slightest wish. Never was she known to disobey him; and his approbation was her highest incentive to perseverance in her studies. Even after her marriage, she writes to him, saying, "Your spirit surrounds your child, who checks each word you would prevent, and pursues every action you would approve." And in her younger days so lively was her filial love, that she would hurry through her daily lessons at school, in order to be at liberty to watch for her father on his way down the street; when, if possible, she would rush out to meet and embrace him, and return to the school-room before her absence had been observed. The talents of our heroine vere of a high order; and 154 MRS. ELIZA A. SETON. from natural inclination, as well as a desire to please her father, she devoted herself assiduously to the culti vation of them. But at that time, and more especially during the period of the American revolution, opportunities for education were scarce in the New World; and it was almost entirely under the teaching and direction of her father that her studies were pursued. He was a man of great ability, and took as much pains to train and regulate the minds committed to his superintendence as to store them with useful knowledge. Due self-restraint, he wisely taught his children, was necessary to their happiness; and some of these lessons were not lost upon his daughter. At the age of eighteen, with a lively temperament and all the charms of fashionable society about her, she showed that she laboured to reduce to practice this wholesome doctrine of selfgovernment; and that from the highest motives. Writing down the result of a self-examination, to which she constantly subjected herself, she says, "I trust the day will come when I may show a more regular and Christian disposition. Perhaps it may; it may not. Those passions must be governed. I have a most unaccountable wish to see E- this morning; but I will not go a step out of my way. If fortune should so direct, I think I should be very grateful; if not, I will try and think that 'tis best." Again, writing to a friend, she says, “Although I make it a rule never to answer letters whilst under the influence of the first impressions I receive from them, &c.” With these habits of self-restraint, so unusual in persons of her age and creed, there was united also, even from her earliest youth, a strong tendency to devo. tion. She used to delight in reading the Scriptures, and writing copious notes and comments upon them. She scrutinised her daily conduct with rigid penetration; and kept constantly before her mind a high standard of excellence, to attain which every worldly consideration was to give way. Although baptised and confirmed in the Protestant Episcopalian Church, and strictly observant of its forms and doctrines, her mind was singularly free from prejudice or bigotry; nay, there seems to have existed from an early period an unconscious leaning towards that faith which she finally embraced. She was in the habit of wearing a small crucifix, and wondering that this sacred symbol was not more generally kept in view; and whenever she read of convents, she would earnestly express a wish that amongst ProLestants also the conventual life were possible. When Miss Bayley had reached her twentieth year, the became the wife of Mr. William Seton, a highly espectable merchant of her native city, part of whose early life had been spent in a mercantile house in Leghorn; a circumstance upon which, as the sequel of our narrative will show, was mysteriously dependent her conversion to the Catholic faith, and all its consequent blessings to countless souls. Endeared to a large circle of admiring friends by her lively disposition and numerous virtues, and married to an estimable and prosperous man, every worldly happiness seemed now to be opened around her; but instead of forgetting in these gifts their transitory nature, she kept strictly before her mind that every dispensation of life came from God; and was thus not unprepared for those trials and adversities which it was His will should be her portion Within the first year of her marriage, writing to her husband, who was necessarily absent from her and exposed to some danger of the yellow fever, she calms her natural anxiety by the reflection that "patience and submission are the only ways to gain the blessings of Heaven." And to another person she writes, "We are not always to have what we like best in this world, thank Heaven! for if we had, how soon we should forget the other, the place of endless peace; where they who were united by virtue and affection here will surely enjoy that union so often interrupted while on their Journey home." Nor are these remarks mere matters of course; from Mrs. Seton they meant all they said. Naturally amiable though she was, it was in constant |