PERE DIDON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 14, 6 April 1899, Page 31

PERE DIDON.

Pere Didon, the eloquent Dominican, who was in England in the beginning of the year for the purpose of studying the educational system in the universities, is a well-known writer and preacher, Mb chief work being the Life of Christ. It was in 1856, at the age of sixteen, that Henri Didon assumed the white habit of the Dominicians. From the very first he was brought into close connection with Lacordaire, who was then Provincial and had then founded the College of Lorreze. Here he directed the studies of the young novice, between whom and his master a bond of tenderest sympathy existed. Lacordaire saw that young Didon was eminently fitted to succeed him in his special work of preaching. So strongly was he convinced of this that even on his death-bed he made Mb pupil promise that he would devote his whole energies to a preparation for the pulpit. His solemn profession took place in 1862, the year after Lacordaires death. How quickly he progressed in the esteem of his superiors maybe judged from the fact that before he was ordained he was appointed to a chair of philosophy. His studies were completed at the College of Minerva in Rome. On his return to France his oratory creatsd a wonderful sensation, instinctively awakening memories of his great master. Courses of lectures delivered in Paris, Lille and Nancy in succeeding years still further enhanced his reputation. At Nancy in 1871, he pronounced the funeral oration on the martyred Archbishop Darboy, and in 1872 and 1876 he delivered a series of discourses in Marseilles, which were the means of causing hundreds of sailors to return to the practice of their religion. Appointed Prior of the Dominican House, in the Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais, at Paris, he undertook a series of conferences destined to make his name world-famous. In 1880 he began to gather materials for the work, which has made his name famous, and for this purpose he went through a course of Greek, Hebrew, and ecclesiastical history in the Universities of Berlin, Halle, Leipsic, and Tubugen. The Life appeared in 1891, with what phenomenal success it is not necessary to say. Since then he has been chiefly engaged in educational work, mainly in connection with the College of Albert-le-Grand or with the twin Colleges of Lacordaire and St. Dominique, in Paris. One of the strongest traits in Pcre Didon'b character is his ardent love and encouragement of athletics. He was a member of the French committee who assisted in resuscitating the Olympian games at Athena a few years ago. Nothing better shows the course of Pere Didon's career as a theologian and an historian, as an educator, than a list of his published works, among which are. What is a Monk.' Lectures on Patriotism, Iliqhcr Education and the Catholic Universities, Man in Relation to Science and Duth, (I 'odletg Science, Tin Life of Christ, Modern Education, The Military Spirit in a Nation,