The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-05
FATHER HEWITT IS DEAD
HE VAS SUP ERIOR OF THE ORDER
 OF PIULISTS.

""s SonNcAL 10 thc hofnun catholic
 Faith-originally Congregationalist Minister--A Founder of the Paulists- Was Grandson of U. S. Senator James
 Hinhouse of This City.
 The Very Rev, Augustine F. Hewit, D. D., superior of the Community of | the Paulist Fathers, died Saturday eve ming at 9;20 o'clock at his apartments l in the monastery in Fifty-ninth street. west of Columbus avenue, New York city, Father HeWit had been seriously | ill for several weeks
 About 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon he began to sink rapidly, and from that time his death was looked for at ! any moment. Fathers Deshon, Elliot, | and Smith were present at his bedside when he expired, The deceased was a grandson of the famous United States Senator James Hillhouse of this city Yesterdays New York Sun says of him: Father Hewit's conversion to | the Roman Catholic faith was directly | attributable to the so-called Oxford movement started in 1S43 by pr. Pusey and Cardinal Manning. He was a man | Of brilliant mental attainments, and as a scholar and controversial writer none | stood higher in the Roman church of | America. He was six feet tall and of commanding figure His features were clean-cut and fine, and his hair was as white as snow. He was born of stanch Presbyterian stock in Fairfield, Conn.,, seVenty-seven years ago, His | father was a Presbyterian preacher, and afterward, when he was the agent of the American Temperance society, he earned the title of .the Luther of | the early temperance reform" Father | Hewit's Christian name was Nathaniel Augustus, and he was graduated from Amherst college in 1S39 Among his 1 classmates were Dr. Storrs of Brook lyn and Bishop Huntington of central | New York.
 | After spending two years in the The 1 ological Institute of Connecticut at East Windsor, he received his preach CTS license in the Congregational church. Soon, however, he renounced his Calvinistic belief and turned his eyes toward the Episcopalian church, In 1S4S he went to Baltimore, and con- tinued his theological studies under Bishop Whittingham, then one of the ading Episcopal prelates of America. The controversy precipitated by Car dinal Manning and Dr. Pusey was con- tested bitterly in Maryland, and Father Hewit and his friend, the Rev. MT. | Baker, who also became a Catholic, were in the van, Father Hewit was or dained deacon of the Episcopal church in the same year. In 1S45 he renounced that church forever, and went to Charleston. s. C., to prepare himself for his reception into the Church of Rome, Bishop Reynolds was his in- structor, and in 1S47 he ordained young Hewitt as priest. The next three years were spent by him in parish work l in and about Charleston. after which he decided to attach himself to a re- | ligious community. With this end in view he Joined the Redemptorist Fla thers in this city, and he was assigned as assistant priest at the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Third street
 | In 1851 he started on a missionary | tour with Father Bernard Hafken- scheid, who had just arrived from Hol- land with Father c. A. Walworth and Father Isaac T. Hecker, both of them l Americans and converts to the Roman l Catholic church. Later Father Baker and Father Deshon, both American converts, joined the missionaries, and for seven years these men labored to- | gether At the end of 1857 the four Am-j eriean priests decided to start a new
 order on a different basis, and Father Hecker was sent to Rome to interview | Pope Plus TX. The result was that
 a degree was issued in March, 1858, ere ating the Institute of Missionary
 Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, with Father Hecker as first superior of the order. Upon the latter's death in 1888 Father Hewit was elected to the office Of the five priests who founded the
 order two are living: Father Deshon,
 the pastor of the Paulist church, and
 Father Walworth, pastor of St. Mary's
 at Albany.
 | Tn 1865 Father Hewit gave up active missionary work and devoted his entire
 time to study and writing, and he be- came one of the chief authorities on church history, theology, and philoso- phy in this country. He was an accom- I plished linguist The golden jubilee of his ordination as Roman Catholic
 priest was celebrated in March of this
 year in the Paulist church with great
 splendor of ceremony This event was
 the occasion of the last public appear
 ance of Father Hewit. The dead priest
 was intimately connected with the
 Catholic university at Washington, and
 for a long time he was one of the lec-
 turers there In 1866 he received the
 degree of Doctor of Divinity from Am
 herst college, and later he was honored
 similarly by the pope The best known
 of his writings are the memoirs of his
 friend, Father Baker, Reasons for
 Submitting to the Catholic Faith, v
 Life of Princess Borghese," Life of
 Dumoulin- Borie," and his edition of the
 complete works of Bishop English, He
 was also a frequent. contributor to the
 Catholic World and the American
 Catholic Quarterly Review"
 OFF FOR THE ROCKIES.