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VIII.
MOTHER SETON.
Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder and first Superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, was one of the most remarkable women in the history of the Catholic Church in America. She was reared in the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church and did not embrace the Catholic faith until after the death of her husband.
This distinguished woman, who was born in the city of New York on the 28th of August, 1774, was a younger daughter of Dr. Richard Bayley, an eminent physician of the metropolis. Her mother died when she was but three years of age, but her father watched over her with all the loving care of a good parent. As Miss Bayley advanced in years, nature and education combined in developing those admirable traits of character that were to make her so lovable and merciful in later life. All of her friends and relatives were members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but the physician’s daughter was more fervent in her religious duties than any of those with whom she was associated. From her earliest years she wore a small crucifix on her person, and was frequently heard to express regret and astonishment that the custom was not more general among the members of her church.
At the age of twenty Miss Bayley was married to William Seton, a prosperous and most estimable merchant, of New York city. It was a happy marriage, and husband and wife lived in mutual love and esteem. In 1800 Mr. Seton became embarrassed through a reaction in business, caused mainly by the consequences of the Revolutionary war. In this crisis Mrs. Seton was a help-mate in every sense of the word. She not only cheered her husband by her encouraging counsel, but rendered him practical aid in arranging his business affairs.
In the course of her married life Mrs. Seton became the mother of five children, Anna Maria, William, Richard, Catherine Josephine and Rebecca. She was a model mother, restraining, guiding and educating her offspring with a mingling of tact, tenderness and edifying example. She did not confine her goodness to her children, but was ever ready to assist the poor and suffering. One of her biographers says she was so zealous in this respect “that she and a relative who accompanied her were commonly called Protestant Sisters of Charity.”
The death of Mrs. Seton’s father in 1801 was a source of great sorrow to this devoted woman. Years had only served to cement the affectionate relations between father and daughter. During the last three or four years of his life Dr. Bayley was Health Officer at the Port of New York. He was naturally of a philanthropic disposition, and his official duties called him to a field that presented an unbounded field for Christian charity. It was while in the discharge of his duty among the immigrants that Dr. Bayley contracted the illness which carried him to his grave within a week’s time.
Mrs. Seton had scarcely recovered from the shock of her father’s death when her husband’s health, which had never been robust, began to decline rapidly. A sea voyage and a sojourn in Italy were recommended. Mrs. Seton could not permit her husband to travel alone in his weak and exhausted state, and she accompanied him, along with her oldest child, a girl of eight. The other children were committed to the care of relatives in New York city. The child caught the whooping cough on the way over, and the anxious mother was constantly occupied in nursing the husband and daughter. Before landing the unfortunate trio were detained for many days at the lazaretto station in the harbor of Leghorn. After they landed the good wife was untiring in her attentions to her husband, but, in spite of her love and solicitude, he died on the 27th of December “among strangers and in a foreign land.”
On the following 8th of April, with her tears still fresh upon the grave of her devoted husband, Mrs. Seton sailed for home. Prior to this voyage and during the fifty-six days that it occupied, Mrs. Seton began to take a deep interest in the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church. She eagerly devoured all of the literature upon the subject that opportunity offered, and also learned much by frequent conversations with friends. Deep meditation finally strengthened her in the desire to become a Catholic. Her only fear was that a change in her religious faith might bring about a coldness and a severance of the friendship that existed between herself and her friends and relatives—particularly her pastor—Rev. J. H. Hobart, a man of singular talent and goodness, who afterwards became the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York.
Writing of the possibility of such an estrangement in her diary at this time, Mrs. Seton says with evident feeling: “If your dear friendship and esteem must be the price of my fidelity to what I believe to be the truth, I cannot doubt the mercy of God, who, by depriving me of one of my remaining dearest ties on earth, will certainly draw me nearer to Him.” She was not mistaken. When she returned home the coldness of many of her Protestant friends was a great trial to her warm and still bleeding heart. The storm of opposition added to her grief.