One day a poor girl, deaf, dumb, blind, paralytic, and epileptic, was brought to Bethesda. "It required some courage," says the narrator, Mr. De Liefde, "to fix one's eyes on that miserable creature, with her dried-up, contracted limbs, her repulsive face, the features of which were constantly contorted in the most hideous manner. Well, an idiot took charge of that child, guarded and nursed it, and stood by its death-bed to administer to it the last solace of love! And such was the indefatigable care and even intelligent thoughtfulness with which she tended her poor helpless charge that Mr. Bost said, 'When I lie on my death-bed, I shall count it a blessing to be nursed in this way.' I do not wonder at such hearts being able to understand what is the meaning of the simple sentence, 'God loveth you,' long before the intellect is able to catch the difference between two and three; nor can I be surprised at what Mrs. Castel told me, that the same children who do not know whether a shoe ought to be on the foot or on the head, or who, if not prevented, would, like beasts, walk on all fours and lick the dirt, may yet sometimes be heard ejaculating, 'Mon Dieu! prends pitié de moi. J'en at bien besoin.'
"Long before they could catch the idea of shifting a piece of wood from the right hand to the left, they gave evidence of being pleased by an act of kindness, and of being grateful for a benefit bestowed on them.
"In the year 1854, a girl who was a perfect idiot stood, one day, in Mr. Bost's lobby. The aspect of the hideous-looking little creature was so sickening that Mr. Bost could not permit her to be taken into the establishment, but still less could he send her away. If ever there was a subject for compassionate, saving love, it was here. The power of prayer and the perseverance of charity could now be put to the test. Mr. Bost resolved to keep the girl in his own house. The doctors declared it perfect folly. During three months, all his efforts to strike a spark of intellect out of this flint proved a total failure. But one evening, at worship, while the hymn was being sung, he heard an articulate and harmonious tone proceed from the brutishly shaped mouth. The child evidently tried to put its voice in accord with the sounds which it was hearing. Mr. Bost is a musician, and at once applied his talent to the benefit of his unhappy pupil. Under the softening and cheering influence of harmony, it was affecting to see how, first with painful struggles, and then, with growing ease, the mind of the child emerged from the dark deep in which it had been confined. By little and little, the idiot succeeded in uttering articulate sounds, then in uniting them into syllables, and finally into words. At the same time, her health improved visibly, her nervous system became less irritable, her face assumed more and more a rational expression. She began to show joy and surprise when receiving something that was agreeable to her. Then tokens of gratitude and of affection followed. In short, after a lapse of two years, the idiot had disappeared to make room for a child which appeared to be behind but a few years only, when compared with other children of her own age. At present, that same child, formerly beneath the level of the brute, speaks well, sews, and knits, and might be the teacher of children less sunken in idiocy than herself when she first set foot on Mr. Bost's threshold."
Such was the spirit and such the conduct which determined mediaeval Europe to entrust the religious orders with vast landed possessions, and with these the whole care of the poor, of the sick, and of the wayfarer, duties which they discharged with greater satisfaction to the people than any secular aristocracy of privilege known in the records of history.
"For the uncertain dispositions of the rich, for their occasional and often capricious charity, was substituted the certain, the steady, the impartial hand of a constantly resident and unmarried administrator of bodily as well as spiritual comfort to the poor, the unfortunate, and the stranger."
Now, still the question presses, whether, instead of confiding our sick to hired nurses, we shall not invite the willing sisterhood to extend their organization among us, and sustain them in this devotion. It is well ascertained that none can make a thousand dollars go so far as they can in the service of their sick.
It is notorious in America, that public works undertaken by the government are generally ill done and very wastefully. Hence, common sense excludes the government from enterprises of internal improvement, and confides them either to individuals or companies, without hesitating thus to create privileged orders and to favor a moneyed aristocracy.
To have a great work well done, passions as well as interests must be engaged in it; personal character, pride, and ambition, as well as skill and capital; and where many persons must co-operate, there is no guarantee of harmony in action and of successful result so sure as that corporate zeal which religion employs with so much power, and which religion alone can bring to bear. This is indeed a holy fire, enkindled and kept alive upon objects of charity, that purges away dross.
If the Catholic Church has in all ages conducted her enterprises with the greatest success, it is because she has known how to enlist the greatest number of motives, the strongest and the best. On the other hand, it will be readily confessed that the great public hospitals under secular control do not even bring into play the common levers of interest which secure results in the management of railroads, of hotels or banking-houses, nor those of ambition, which animate the army and navy. Charity, as a secular business, is always poorly paid, rendered grudgingly, distastefully, and so as to excite aversion. Many will rather die than have recourse to it. It always carries with it a certain stigma of inferiority and contempt. No personal character or corporate zeal is identified with it, still less can there exist that unison of feeling and of effort which places the seal of the divine humanity on such institutions as those of the sisters. We transcribe from one of the most remarkable works of modern travel, The Pillars of Hercules, by David Urquhart, his impression of the last remaining hospitals of the religious order in Spain. Let us note that Mr. Urquhart is an Englishman and a Protestant: