Explanation by Supernatural Support.
I have talked with his father about the immensity of this sacrifice. The father (who is himself a profoundly religious man) feels unable to conceive adequately the strength of a man’s natural will, that can carry out such a sacrifice through life, and accounts for it by the supposition (in his own mind a certainty) that the devotee receives an unfailing supernatural support. It is, at any rate, clear evidence of genuine faith.
Case of a Peasant Girl.
In the feminine world we find many examples of sacrifice at least equivalent to this. Not a week before I write this page the daughter of a neighbouring farmer came to say good-bye to us. She belongs to the best class of French peasants, is a comely, well-grown, healthy girl, and might easily have married. She has chosen rather to join a teaching Order, and an Order that is principally employed in the French colonies. It is an austere and hard life that she has before her, and it is highly improbable that she will ever revisit her old home. This case also is evidently one of genuine conviction.
The Working Orders in the Church of Rome.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples. It is not the splendour of the Papacy or the episcopate that is the true glory of the Church of Rome, but the steady and modest devotion of her working Orders. What is more beautiful than the life of a Sister of Charity or a “Little Sister of the Poor”? Good Catholics call them “My Sister” when speaking to each of them individually, and so do I who am not a Catholic, for are they not sisters of all of us who may be laid one day on a bed of sickness? If we do not need their gentle watching for ourselves, it soothes our suffering brethren.
The “Little Sisters of the Poor.”
And what a dull monotonous existence many of them accept! What tiresome and even repulsive duties they go through without flinching! I know a house kept by some “Little Sisters,” where there are eighty old paupers entirely fed and tended by them. The “Little Sisters” go about begging for remnants of food with a small van, and they never eat anything themselves until they have fed their eighty poor. Two or three of the Sisters do the washing. They are in the washhouse from morning till night to keep the old folks clean. Have I ever done as much?—have you? Till we have sacrificed our own ease and comfort in this way, or in some way equivalent to this, the next best thing we can do is to respect such self-sacrifice in others. One of these “Little Sisters” in the house I know remained humble and unknown like the rest, but when she was gone we learned by accident that she was of princely rank.
Evidence collected by Maxime du Camp.
Maxime du Camp has studied the charitable self-sacrifice of women belonging to the higher classes. The abundant facts that he collected were not a surprise for me, but if any English reader happens to retain the old prejudice that all Frenchwomen are frivolous he ought to read du Camp’s evidence.