She invested a fortune in De Lesseps’ Panama Canal scheme after her husband died, and later she opened a toilet shop in Paris, and, by catering to royalty, amassed another fortune. During the Franco-Prussian War, she became a nurse and was decorated with a gold medal.
Her son met with an accident in New York, and his mother came to the United States to be with him when he died. She later married Peter Veuve, a Swiss. The latter made unwise investments, and twelve years ago, practically penniless, the couple came to South Bend.
How a Popular Preacher’s Mind Worked.
How does a great preacher’s mind work? Insight into this mystery is gained from the letters of the Reverend Frederick Robertson, a popular preacher at Brighton, England.
He died before he was forty, of brain disease brought on by overwork, broken down by the nervous strain of preaching.
Robertson wasted his strength very often in small controversies, such as Sunday observance, and the unfortunate fact that he had no sense of humor often led him to take seriously and regret childishly, and answer bitterly, criticisms which were not worth thinking about and critics wholly unworthy of his steel.
Robertson himself knew that certain serious defects of character are almost inseparable from the preacher’s office.
“I wish I did not hate preaching so much,” he wrote one day; “the degradation of being a Brighton preacher is at times almost intolerable,” and, again he regrets that he has weakened his nervous system by “stump oratory.”
Preaching always excited him, and a sermon would leave him for days too much agitated to work. He doubted often if he ought not to give it up—for the sake of his spirit—though he would not attend to his doctor’s advice and give it up for the sake of his body.
Blameless as was his life, and fruitful as were his exhortations, he could not escape the minor dangers which the pulpit shares with the stage. He grew sensitive and self-centered, he came to need the stimulus of a crowd moved to emotion.