Strangely enough, nothing in young Gallitzin gave earnest of such a vocation. His almost feminine nature had marked him for a timid, shrinking child; but what was still worse, and a source of deep anxiety to his mother, to this was added a lack of decision, which seemed so deeply rooted in him that not even the iron will of the princess could, during the course of many years, draw out any perceptible results. We have a letter of the princess of the date of 1790, two years before the departure of Demetrius for America, in which she reiterates on this ground her former complainings, her exhortations, and her admonitions. It is proper, however, to advert that the incipient {147} method of training pursued by the princess herself was not free from defect; for, daring the nonage of her son, she herself wavered and hesitated between various systems of philosophy--a course which necessarily must have drawn her into many an error. There was, therefore, a defectiveness in the main foundation of the training of young Gallitzin, who was reared in a sort of religious indifferentism. But a complete revulsion took place when, after leaving Münster, the princess was led to rest her convictions, not on this or the other system of philosophy, but on the rock of Christian faith--when, from her relations with such men as Furstenberg and Overberg, she herself had gained a greater degree of firmness and steadfastness. This reacted on the education of the son, in the greater decision and authority exerted by the mother; and it was not without fit intention that Demetrius, in the sacrament of confirmation, received the surname of Angustin.