his mental and spiritual faculties began to develop, they were in harmony with his physical qualities. His early years were spent at his parents' home, but when he became old enough to take up the more serious educational work of youth, he was sent to the Seminary of Malines where he remained until his twenty-first year.
In school, the young De Smet was a distinguished pupil, and in particular exhibited those solid qualities of tact and common sense which did him such great service in after years. He was also noted for his great physical strength and skill in youthful sports. So prominent was his superiority in these respects that his school-fellows gave him the nick-name of Samson.
These qualities of body and mind were associated with a fervent and sentimental nature, and the course of events at this time was such as naturally to turn his mind to a religious career. The Church was strong in Flanders and young. De Smet's youth was spent in a religious atmosphere. The fiery ordeal of the French Revolution was past and the natural reaction led men to look with renewed favor upon the ancient church which had stood unscathed the tempests of that fierce time. It was also about the time when De Smet entered the seminary that the Jesuit Society was restored. Whatever the particular influences, it is apparent that while yet at the seminary, De Smet had made up his mind to follow a religious life, and probably to enter the Society of Jesus. He had also formed a purpose of becoming a missionary and would naturally turn to the religious order whose principal purpose was that kind of work.
De Smet was near the close of his seminary career when an event occurred that solved all doubts and settled the young student definitely in his future career. Father Charles Nerinckx, a native of Brabant, whom the events of the French Revolution had driven across the sea, and who had then become a zealous missionary, appeared in Belgium at this time in quest of funds and recruits. His