Is it not to feel that we desire really nothing for ourselves in our Nursing life, present and future, but only this, “Thy will be done,” as we say in our daily prayer? Is it not to trust Him, that His will is really the best for each one of us? How much there is in those two words, His will—the will of Almighty Wisdom and Goodness, which always knows what is best for each one of us Nurses, which always wills what is best, which always can do what it wills for our best.
Is it not to feel that the care and thought of ourselves is lost in the thought of God and the care of our Patients and fellow-Nurses and Ward-Maids? Is it not to feel that we are never so happy as when we are working with Him and for them? And we Nurses can always do this, if we will.
Is not this what Christ meant when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you”? “The kingdom of heaven” consists not in much speaking but in doing, not in a sermon but in a heart. “The kingdom of heaven” can always be in a Nurse’s blessed work, and even in her worries. Is not this what the Apostle meant when he told us to “rejoice in the Lord”? That is, to rejoice, whether Matrons, or Sisters, or Nurses, or Night Nurses, in the service of God (which, with us, means good Nursing of the Sick, good fellowship and high example as relates to our fellow-workers); to rejoice in the right, whoever does it; to rejoice in the truth, whoever has it; to rejoice in every good word and work, whoever it is; to rejoice, in one word, in what God rejoices in.
Let us thank God that some special aids to our spiritual life have been given us lately, for which I know many of us are thankful; and some of us have been able to keep this Whitsuntide as we never did before.
One little word more about our Training School. Training “consists in teaching people to bear responsibilities, and laying the responsibilities on them as they are able to bear them,” as Bishop Patteson said of Education. The year which we spend here is generally the most important, as it may be the happiest, of our lives.
Here we find many different characters. Here we meet on a common stage, before we part company again to our several posts. If there are any rich among us, they are not esteemed for their riches. And the poor woman, the friendless, the lonely woman, receives a generous welcome. Every one who has any activity or sense of duty may qualify herself for a future useful life. Every one may receive situations without any reference, except to individual capacity, and to a kind of capacity which it is within the power of the most humble and unfriended to work out. Every one who has any natural kindness or courtesy in her, and who is not too much wrapped up in herself, may make pleasant friends.
Although we know how many and serious faults we have, ought we not also to be able to find here some virtues which do not equally flourish in the larger world?—such as disinterested devotion to the calling we have chosen, and to which we can here fully give ourselves up without anxiety; warm-hearted interest in each other, for no one of us stands here in any other’s way; freedom from jealousy and meanness; a generous self-denial in nursing our charges, and a generous sympathy with other Nurses; above all, an interest in our work, and an earnestness in taking the means given us to improve ourselves in what is to be so useful to others.
And this is also the surest sign of our improvement in it. This is what St. Paul calls: “Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
Always, however, we must be above our work and our worries, keeping our souls free in that “hidden life” of which it has been spoken.
Above all, let us pray that God will send real workers into this immense “field” of Nursing, made more immense this year by the opening out of London District Nursing at the bedside of the sick poor at home. A woman who takes a sentimental view of Nursing (which she calls “ministering,” as if she were an angel), is of course worse than useless. A woman possessed with the idea that she is making a sacrifice will never do; and a woman who thinks any kind of Nursing work “beneath a Nurse” will simply be in the way. But if the right woman is moved by God to come to us, what a welcome we will give her, and how happy she will soon be in a work, the many blessings of which none can know as we know them, though we know the worries too! (Good Bishop Patteson used to talk to his assistants something in this way; would we were like him!)