85 



SECTION V. 



1836 TO 1846. 



SOON after Mr. De Morgan's return to the college a great 1836. 

 affliction befell the family in the sudden death of his sister 

 Mrs. Hensley in her confinement. Her brother had left his 

 home in Gower Street, satisfied that she was doing well, and 

 on his return in the afternoon inquired as he entered the 

 house how she was going on. The servant replied that 

 Mrs. Hensley was dead. It had been quite unexpected, 

 and was a terrible blow to her mother, her husband, and 

 brothers. Mrs. Hensley left three daughters and the 

 infant son whose birth immediately preceded her own 

 death. It was many months before her brother Augustus 

 recovered from the shock he received in hearing so sud- 

 denly of the event. In writing to my mother of the affliction 

 of his own, he added, 'As for me, I am stunned, and 

 hardly know what I write. 5 And it was far longer before 

 the grief caused by this, his first experience of the death 

 of one whom he loved most affectionately, abated. 



The religious doubts and difficulties created in his 

 mind by the doctrinal teaching of his early years were not 

 the only troubles arising from the same cause. It was 

 natural that a mother, so anxious and true-hearted as his, 

 should not see without pain anything like what she thought 

 carelessness in religious matters, and that her anxiety 

 to produce a belief like her own should be intensified 

 by her recent sorrow. His sister had shared her anxiety. 

 They looked upon him, of whose intellectual powers they 

 were proud, and who had been enabled to give such loving 



