“You will be glad to know, Reverend Father, that, in my opinion, Clarence is not altogether unworthy of such splendid companions. At Clermont School in New York, where he attended for three years, he maintained a reputation for cleanness of speech and delicacy of conduct, which, among the faculty, made him a marked boy. He was the center of a group—some seven or eight in number—who had professed and followed out lofty and lovely ideals. God, I know not why, has been singularly good to my boy, and kept him from dangers to morals only too common in these pagan days.
“The duty of thanking you, of showing you my gratitude, will be with me, I trust, a life task. I can never forget how when my little boy—a veritable Dan Cupid up to date—arrived you took him in hand.
“His entrance into the Church pleases me more, the more I think of it. When his mother gave up hope of ever seeing Clarence again, it seemed for a time as though she would lose her mind. She insisted that Clarence had been taken from her untimely because she had not lived up to the Catholic Faith, in which, as a child, she was baptized. It was in vain that I pointed out to her that she had not been brought up a Catholic, that she was raised a Protestant; that she had been in no way responsible. She would not be consoled. Finally, with my full approbation, she promised God that should Clarence be returned to us, she would once more embrace the Faith of her fathers. She intends to go to confession and receive Holy Communion before we bid an unwilling adieu to Campion. She has already called at St. Mary’s Academy and engaged a splendid nun there to give her a course of instructions.
“In a short time—by Christmas at the latest—I am going to join the Church that received Ben and Dorcas with the same arms of welcome as it receives the princes and potentates of the earth. This, my fixed determination, is sudden; but for all that, it is none the less firm. It came to me last night, as I watched the radiant Dora and the reverent John holding my boy, whose face was aflame with zeal and faith as you, Father, poured the water of baptism upon his head.
“And now, Father, I’ve been thinking much of what you did for my boy. There must be other cases like his—cases of boys being thrown upon you—not coming in the guise of Cupid, it is true—but coming to you asking for education, board and books; but without money. In memory, then, of your kindness to my little boy, I enclose you a check for five thousand dollars as a fund for a perpetual scholarship to carry year after year through Campion College some boy whom God has given brains and ambition, but denied money. And if God continues to bless me in my enterprises, this will not be the end, by any means, of my help in that same line.
“And now, one more matter of business. Clarence is bent on going to Campion College. He loves the grounds, the buildings, the boys, and, so far as he knows them, the faculty. His mother and I are almost as anxious that he should attend your school as he is. We intend to stay here for a week or ten days to get better acquainted with our dear little boy—dearer a thousandfold that, having been lost, he is found. We, therefore, beg of you, Father, as a special favor, to register the boy at once; but to allow us his company till we leave. His board and tuition expenses are to begin, of course, from the opening day of school—two weeks back. Before leaving, I will make you a check to cover his expenses for the entire year.
“This is the longest letter I have written since the time I was engaged to her who is now my wife. It is long because I have been endeavoring, with poor success, to express my gratitude. But the task is beyond me. Beyond me, too, is it to express the present happiness of my wife, of Clarence, of Dora and of
“Yours with a heart full of gratitude,
“Charles Esmond.”