We have taken occasion, in recent numbers of The Catholic World, to present to our readers several of the works of charity which appeal most strongly to Christian sympathy and ask for Christian aid. In our articles on "The Sanitary and Moral Condition of the City of New York"—as but one, however, out of the many cities of our land with like evils and like needs—we directed attention to some lamentable features of the situation of the poor in our midst, and especially of the many thousands of poor and vagrant children growing up in neglect and consequent ignorance and vice. The kindred matter of the condition and proper treatment of the inmates of our jails, prisons, and penitentiaries was touched upon in our last, under the head of "Prison Discipline;" and, again, that of the poor and unfortunate subjects of mental ailments in the article on "Gheel, a Colony of the Insane." In the present number, we invite attention to another branch of the subject, suggested by the inquiry at the head of this article, "Who shall take care of our sick?"
By the sick, we mean all who by infirmity of body or mind are incapable of taking care of themselves; for the range of our inquiry embraces the helplessness of infancy, of decrepitude, insanity, and idiocy, and extends even to prisoners and criminals.
By our sick, we mean the sick poor, the duty of providing for whom devolves on collective society.
But as what is everybody's business is nobody's business, and as society, however imperfectly organized, has many distinct organs and recognized functions corresponding; it remains to be determined through what special ministry the suffering members of humanity shall be succored and the erring reclaimed.
If the rich, and those whose social combinations have been successful, are succored in their need by their families, their friends, their servants; who constitute the families, the friends, the servants, of the poor and isolated? This is a question which pagan societies have evaded, or insolently answered, Vae victis! Religion alone, and only in so far as Christ's spirit has penetrated mankind, has given, through its orders of charity, a fair and candid answer—an answer in deeds as well as words. For many centuries in Christendom, this answer appeared satisfactory in its spirit and intent. Not even the insane were left out of the Christian fold—witness the Colony of Gheel—and it only remained to extend, and multiply, and perfect the works of charity, in proportion as science and art added to the resources of society.
But the Protestant "Reformation" came, sweeping away the work of pious ages, confounding uses with abuses, and upset the whole administration of charity by the servants of Christ, along with public and religious hospitality: in changing the privileged orders, it confided to secular hands the doling out of such pittance to the destitute as the fear of insurrection compelled, and still compels, from the reluctant economy of self interest.
A revival of Christianity in Protestant countries now opens the public mind to the horrors and crimes against humanity perpetrated, in the name of charity, in their "work-houses," "alms-houses," hospitals, and asylums; it leads to the recall and renewal of religious orders devoted to the care of the sick and other classes needing charity. This has not been merely a brilliant corruscation, like the rescue which Florence Nightingale carried to the British troops in the Crimea. Miss Nightingale had previously been trained for years in the religious order of the Kaiserwerth, a normal school of nurses, and the movement, inaugurated by her, continues in England as the "Institution of St. John." A number of religious works, of high merit and extensive usefulness, are described among the Charities of Europe, by De Liefde. [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Published by Strahan: New York and London.]
In New York, we have the Hospital of St. Luke, ministered to by pious Episcopal ladies, who, like the Soeurs Grises of mediaeval Europe, take no vows, and may marry, yet for the time being perform the same functions as our Sisters of Charity or of Mercy.