THE AUTHOR OF THE "IMITATION."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 240, 7 December 1877, Page 13

THE AUTHOR OF THE " IMITATION."

Thomas A Kempis was born in the year 1379, at a little village called Kempen, in the Diocese of Cologne, from which he received his latter name, that of his father being John Hammerlein or Hemereken. His parents were in humble circumstances, and when Thomas was thirteen years of age he was sent to Deventer to a recently established religious community, called " The Brothers of Common Life." Here he became an excellent scholar and was a great favourite with the principal, Dr. Florentius Eadewin, upon whose death he joined a branch of the community at Mount St. Agnes, near Zwolle. This happened when he was about twenty years old, and he remained there as a novice for about five more years, and then, in A.D. 1405, he took upon himself the habit and Order of St. Augustine. In 1413 he received Holy Orders, and from that time was sedulously employed in literary occupations of a religious tendency. His great labour consisted in writing out the whole of the Bible in four volumes, in which he was engaged fifteen years. During this period, that is in 1429, he and his brethern were driven from the monastery and wandered about wherever they could find a home for three years. With the exception, however, of this forced expulsion, he continued to live at Mount St. Agnes for nearly seventy years, and it is there, of course, that he is considered to have written the "De Imitatione Christi," or some of the books as early as between 1415 or 1420, shoitly after he had taken to Holy Orders. He lived in strict seclusion, rarely ever leaving the monastery, and died in the year 1471, at the advanced age of 92. Such is a brief outline of the life of Thomas a Kempis ; and although his actual authorship of the " De Imitatione" has been warmly disputed, yet in the midst of all the controversy it has never been questioned that he wrote out a copy of the work in 1441, and was consequently well acquainted with its contents, and seems from his life to have li ved according to its holy counsels, This copy is still in existence, and is very valuable, being attested by Thomas himself with the superscription : Mnittis et completus Anno Domini 1441 per mantis Thomas a Kempis in, Monte S, Agnes, prope Znsoll. — Exchange.