Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul / With a Memoir of His Life

by Francis A. Baker

Memoir.

Francis A. Baker was born in Baltimore, March 30, 1820. The name given him in baptism was Francis Asbury, after the Methodist bishop of that name; but when he became a Catholic he changed it to Francis Aloysius, in honor of St. Francis de Sales and St. Aloysius, to both of whom he had a special devotion, and both of whom he resembled in many striking points of character.

He was of mixed German and English descent, and combined the characteristics of both races in his temperament of mind and body. He had also some of the Irish and older American blood in his veins. His paternal grandfather, William Baker, emigrated from Germany at an early age to Baltimore, where he married a young lady of Irish origin, and became a wealthy merchant. His maternal grandfather, the Rev. John Dickens, was an Englishman, a Methodist preacher, who resided chiefly in Philadelphia. His grandmother was a native of Georgia. During the great yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Mr. Dickens remained at his post, and his wife fell a victim to the disease, with her eldest daughter. His father was Dr. Samuel Baker, of Baltimore, and his mother, Miss Sarah Dickens. Dr. Baker was an eminent physician and medical lecturer, holding the honorable positions of Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Maryland, and President of the Baltimore Medico-Chirurgical Society. There was a striking similarity in the character of Dr. Baker and his son Francis. The writer of an obituary notice of the father, in the Baltimore Athenæum, tells us that his early preceptors admired "the balance of the faculties of his mind," and that "his classmates were attached to him for his integrity and affectionate manners." In another passage, the same writer would seem to be describing Francis Baker, to those who knew him alone, and have never seen the original of the sketch. "The style of conversation with which Dr. Baker interested his friends, his patients, or the stranger, was marked with an unaffected simplicity. Even when he was most fluent and communicative, no one could suspect him of an ambition to shine. He spoke to give utterance to pleasing and useful thoughts on science, religion, and general topics, as if his chief enjoyment was to diffuse the charms of his own tranquillity. In social intercourse, his dignity was the natural attitude of his virtue. On the part of the trifling it required but little discernment to perceive the tacit warning that vulgar familiarity would find nothing congenial in him. He never engrossed conversation, and seemed always desirous of obtaining information by eliciting it from others. Whether he listened or spoke, his countenance, receiving impressions readily from his mind, was an expressive index of the tone of his various emotions and thoughts. The conduct of Dr. Baker as a physician, a Christian, and a citizen, was a mirror, reflecting the beautiful image of goodness in so distinct a form as to leave none to hesitate about the sincerity and purity of his feelings. It therefore constantly reminded many of 'the wisdom that is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.' The friendly sympathy and anxiety which he evinced in the presence of human suffering attached all classes of his patients to him, and he was very happy in his benevolent tact at winning the affection of children, even in their sickness." Dr. Baker was a member of the Methodist Church, and an intimate friend of the celebrated and eloquent preacher Summerfield. He was not one, however, of the enthusiastic sort, but sober, quiet, and reserved. He never went through any period of religious excitement himself, or endeavored to practise on the susceptibilities of his children. He said of himself, as one of his intimate friends testifies, "that he did not know the period when he became religious, so gradually was his life regulated by the spiritual truths which enlightened his mind from childhood." He had no hostile feelings toward the Catholic Church, and was a great admirer and warm friend of the Sisters of Charity, many of whom I have heard frequently speak of him in terms of the most affectionate respect. His benevolence toward the poor was unbounded, and he was in fact endeared to all classes of the community, without exception, in Baltimore. Francis Baker had a very great respect for his father, and was very fond of talking of him to me, during the first period of our acquaintance, when his early recollections were fresh and recent in his mind. Of his mother he had but a faint remembrance, having been deprived of her at the age of seven years. It is easy to judge of her character, however, from that of her children, and of her sister, who was a mother to her orphans from the time of her death until her own life was ended among them. Mrs. Baker's brother, the Hon. Asbury Dickens, is well known as having been for nearly half a century the Secretary of the Senate of the United States, which position he held until his death, which occurred at an advanced age a few years since.

Dr. Baker had four sons and two daughters. Only one of them, Dr. William George Baker, ever married, and he died without children: so that Dr. Samuel Baker left not a single grandchild after him to perpetuate his name or family—and of his children, one daughter only survives. Three of his sons were physicians of great promise, which they did not live to fulfil. Francis was his third son, and the one who most resembled him in character. Of his boyhood I know little, except that his companions at school who grew up to manhood, and preserved their acquaintance with him, were extremely attached to him. One of them passed an evening and night in our house, as the guest of F. Baker, but a few months before his death, with great pleasure to both. I have also heard some of the good Sisters of Charity speak of having known the little Frank Baker as a boy, and mention the fact that he was very fond of visiting them. I am sure that his childhood was an extremely happy one until the period of his father's death. This event took place in October, 1835, when Francis was in his sixteenth year, and in the fiftieth year of Dr. Baker's life. It was very sudden and unexpected, and threw a shadow of grief and sadness over the future of his children, which was deepened by the subsequent untimely decease of the two eldest sons, Samuel and William.

Francis was entered at Princeton College soon after his father's death, and graduated there with the class of 1839. I am not aware that his college life had any remarkable incidents. He was not ambitious of distinguishing himself, or inclined to apply himself to very severe study. I believe, however, that his standing was respectable, and his conduct regular and exemplary. He was not decidedly religious in his early youth. Methodism had no attraction for him, and the Calvinistic preaching at Princeton was repugnant to his reason and feelings. Whatever religious impressions he had in childhood were chiefly those produced by the Catholic Church, whose services he was fond of attending; but these were not deep or lasting. The early death of his father, and the consequent responsibility and care thrown upon him as the male head of the family, first caused him to reflect deeply, and to seek for some decided religious rule of his own life and conduct, and finally led him to join the Protestant Episcopal communion, and to resolve to prepare himself for the ministry. All the members of his family joined the same communion, and were baptized with him, in St. Paul's Church, by the rector of the parish, Dr. Wyatt. This event took place in 1841, or '42. Soon afterward, Mr. Baker formed an acquaintance with a young man, a candidate for orders and an inmate of the family of Dr. Whittingham, the Bishop of Maryland, which was destined to ripen into a most endearing and life-long friendship, and to have a most important influence on his subsequent history. This gentleman was Dwight Edwards Lyman, a son of the Rev. Dr. Lyman a respectable Presbyterian minister, of the same age with Francis Baker, and an ardent disciple of the school of John Henry Newman. At the time of his baptism, Mr. Baker was only acquainted with church principles as they were taught by Dr. Wyatt, who was an old-fashioned High Churchman. The intercourse which he had with Mr. Lyman was the principal occasion of introducing him to an acquaintance with the Oxford movement, into which he very soon entered with his whole mind and heart. In 1842, Mr. Lyman was sent to St. James's College, near Hagerstown, where he remained several years, receiving orders in the interval. During this time, Mr. Baker kept up a frequent and most confidential correspondence with him, which is full of liveliness and humor in its earlier stages, but becomes more grave and serious as both advanced nearer to the time of their ordination. It continued during the entire period of their ministry in the Episcopal Church, and during the whole subsequent life of Mr. Baker, closing with a very playful letter written by the latter, a few days before his last illness. In one of these letters, he acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Lyman as the principal instrument of making him acquainted with Catholic principles, in these warm and affectionate words: "I do not know whether you are aware of the advantage I derived from you in the earlier part of our acquaintance, by reason of your greater familiarity with the Catholic system as exhibited in the Anglican Church. The influence you exerted was of a kind of which I can hardly suppose you to have been conscious; yet I am sure you will be gratified to think it was effectual, as I believe, to fix me more firmly in the system for which I had long entertained so profound a reverence and affection. These are benefits which I cannot forget, and which (if there were not other reasons of which I need not speak) must always keep a place for you in the heart of your unworthy friend."

The nature of the later correspondence between these two friends, and their mutual influence on each other, will appear later in this narrative. There are friendships which are formed in heaven, and in looking back upon that which grew up between these two young men of congenial spirit, and in which I was also a sharer in a subordinate degree, I cannot but admire the benignant ways of Divine Providence, by which those strands which afterward bound our existence together so closely were first interwoven. I had myself met Mr. Lyman, some years before this, and felt the charm of his glowing and enthusiastic advocacy of principles which were just beginning to germinate in my own mind. Soon after Lyman's removal to Hagerstown, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Baker, a circumstance which the latter mentions in his next letter to his friend in these words, which I trust I may be pardoned for quoting ——

"The Bishop's family have a young man staying with them (Mr. H.), a convert to the Church, and one, I believe, of great promise. He was a Congregationalist minister, and Rev. Mr. B. read me a letter from him, dated about a month ago, before his coming into the Church, the tone of which was far more Catholic than that of many (alas!) of those who have been partakers of the holy treasures to be found only in her bosom. Mr. B. tells me that Church principles are silently spreading in the North, among the sects. In this place, I believe that a spirit has been raised which one would hardly imagine on looking at the surface of things, though that is troubled enough."

This letter was dated April 22, 1843.

I had just arrived in Baltimore, at the invitation of Dr. Whittingham, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and been received as a candidate for orders in his diocese. Mr. Baker, who was also a candidate for orders, lived just opposite the Bishops's residence, in Courtlandt street, and was pursuing his theological studies in private. I lived in the Bishop's house, and I think I met Mr. Baker there on the first evening of my arrival. We were nearly of the same age, and soon found that our tastes and opinions were very congenial to each other. Of course, I returned his visit very soon, and I became at once very intimate with his family. It was a charming place and a delightful circle. Francis, as the eldest brother, was the head of the house. His aunt, Miss Dickens, fulfilled the office of a mother to her orphaned nephews and nieces with winning grace and gentleness. A younger brother, Alfred, then about eighteen years of age, was at home, pursuing his medical studies. Two sisters completed the number of the family, all bound together in the most devoted and tender love, all alike in that charm of character which is combined from it fervent and genial spirit of religion, amiability of temper, and a high-toned culture of mind and manners, chastened and subdued by trial and sorrow. I must not pass by entirely without mention another inmate of the family, whose good-humored, joyous countenance was always the first to greet me at the door—little Caroline, the last of the family servants, who was manumitted as soon as she arrived at a proper age, always devotedly attached to her young master, and afterward one of the most eager and delighted spectators at his ordination as a Catholic priest.