The Sisters are all dressed alike; thus, no vain love of dress, no envy, no jealousy. They lose no precious time at the dressing table, and no money is wasted in following the vagaries and follies of every changing season. Their food is the same (exceptions being made for the sick and feeble), simple and substantial, neither rich nor dainty. The result is, as a rule, a measure of health and physical strength unknown in the circles of society.
The rules and regulations to which they voluntarily subject themselves relieve them of all care and encumbrance as to the future. Each member performs her work as faithfully and diligently as possible; and the good “All Father” provides. They join each other in prayer and in the recreation. They assist each other in pain, in sickness and sorrow, and comfort one another in the hour of death.
The work of the members is not the same. Each has a special office or work to perform.
As the different organs of the body co-operate in preserving life, and even the smallest screw in the locomotive is necessary to the accomplishment of its work, so does each member contribute to the spiritual life and well-being of the Community.
From this place is banished all that makes life miserable for millions of people. That is, particularly, the great desire of worldly possession—having, ever having, and never having enough—also, the ever-increasing desire and search for pleasure, pastime and self-satisfaction; but finding only pain, chagrin and remorse; that is, finally, the insatiable desire for freedom from all bonds and fetters which sanctify the soul and keep the body in restraint; and while thus seeking liberty, one finds, as a rule, in himself a most cruel tyrant for master.
The Sisters retire at an appointed hour and arise at the first sound of the bell. They work faithfully and industriously all day long, all year long, all their lives.
Their wages are neither gold nor silver. They are the eternal merits which they know awaits them in a better life. The false and artificial customs of the world are strangers here. This short and sorrowful life is looked upon as a pilgrimage in a land of exile, or as the passage of a train from which the traveler joyfully observes the fleeting objects along the route, well knowing that every disappearing mile-post reduces the distance between him and his dearly beloved home.
The Sisterhood is as a garden of many flowers, where the pure white lily never loses its beauty, where the red rose of love has made place for the pure white blossom of Christian Charity; and the fragrant little violet of humility diffuses incense to the angels who ascend and descend about the Throne of God.
People often condole the Religious closed up within the prison walls of the Convent and forever deprived of the joys and pleasures of the world. Little they know that within these same walls the heart is as free as the flight of the bird, while the soul in solitude is in constant communion with God, whose Divine Presence is felt in the life that surrounds her.
She hears His voice in the gentle sigh of the breeze, in the hum of the bee, in the song of the bird and in the soft murmur of the little brooklet breaking over the mountainside. His wonderful attributes become visible to a certain degree in every object around her. She admires His Divine Providence in the fatherly care which He takes of His creatures. Even the tiniest insect and the smallest blade of grass show forth the love, wisdom and the goodness of God.