“ At an early age, he manifested that love of goodness which made every form of vice utterly distasteful to him; and in after years, when he heard of the struggles of those who, with more violent passions or less careful parental training, sought to lead the Christian life, his own pure and peaceful experience seemed to him wanting in perfection, because he had so seldom been called to contend with temptation. ”

“ But though this act, and the accompanying vote, which declared that it was "done in honor of Charles Michel de l'Épée, _a man who deserved well of his country_," were creditable to the National Assembly, and the people whom it represented, yet we cannot but remember the troublous times that followed,--times in which no public service, no private goodness, neither the veneration due to age, the delicacy of womanhood, nor the winsome helplessness of infancy, was any protection against the insensate vengeance of a maddened people ”

“ Yet there was wanting the man of earnest philanthropic spirit and practical tact, who should glean from all these whatever of good there was in their theories, and apply it efficiently in the education of those who through all the generations since the flood had been dwellers in the silent land, cut off from intercourse with their fellow-men, and consigned alike by the philosopher's dictum and the theologian's decree to the idiot's life and the idiot's destiny. ”

“ With one incident more we must close this "record of a good man's life." Some years after the opening of his school for deaf-mutes, a deaf and dumb boy, who had been found wandering in the streets of Paris, was brought to him. With that habitual piety which was characteristic of him, De l'Épée received the boy as a gift from Heaven, and accordingly named him Theodore. ”

“ I only wish to do something for the benefit of the deaf-mutes of all coming ages."
We have already adverted to the great principle which lay at the foundation of his system of instruction. The corollary deduced from this, that the idea was substantive, and had an existence separate from and independent of all words, written or spoken, was a startling proposition in those days, however harmless we may now regard it. But, convinced of its truth, De l'Épée set to himself the problem of discovering how this _idea_ could be presented to the mind of the mute without words ”

“ It was this principle, derided by the many, dimly perceived by the few, which led to the development of _the sign-language_, the means which God had appointed to unlock the darkened understanding of the deaf-mute, but which man, in his self-sufficiency and blindness, had over-looked. ”

“ In 1843, the citizens of Versailles, his birth-place, erected a bronze statue in his honor; and the highest dignitaries of the state, amid the acclamations of assembled thousands, eulogized his memory. In 1855, the centennial anniversary of the establishment of his school for deaf-mutes was celebrated at Paris, and was attended by delegations from most of the Deaf and Dumb Institutions of Europe. ”

“ Ambassador," was the reply of the noble old man, "I never receive money; but have the goodness to say to her Majesty, that, if my labors have seemed to her worthy of any consideration, I ask, as an especial favor, that she will send to me from her dominions some ignorant deaf and dumb child, that I may instruct him."
When Joseph II., of Austria, visited Paris, he sought out De l'Épée, and offered him the revenues of one of his estates. To this liberal proposition the Abbé replied: "Sire, I am now an old man. ”

“ As manhood approached, and he was required to fix upon a profession, his heart instinctively turned toward a clerical life, not, as was the case with so many of the young priests of that day, for its honors, its power, or its emoluments, but because, in that profession, he might the better fulfil the earnest desire of his heart to do good to his fellow-men. ”

“ He soon made a very favorable impression upon the court, and led a pleasant life in the society of the literary men of the age. During his residence in France, he taught some five or six mutes of high rank to speak and to make considerable attainments in science,--charging for this service most princely fees, and at the same time binding his pupils to perfect secrecy in regard to his methods, which it was his intention to bequeathe to his family. ”