[Footnote 273: Sisters of Charity, Catholic and Protestant.]
"In its management, I found more than two hundred criminals, separated into three classes. The first class consisted of desperate characters, the refuse of the prisons at Vienna, who are brought under a strong armed guard, bound hand and foot. Their appearance was either stupid, gross, and vacant or frightful from the predominance of evil propensities. The second class, drafted from the first, were called the penitents, and showed, in the expression of their countenances, an extraordinary change from the newly arrived. They were allowed to assist in the house, to cook and to wash, and to work in the garden, which last was a great boon. There were more than fifty of these, and they were, at least, humanized. The third class were the voluntaries who, when their term had expired, preferred remaining in the house and were allowed to do so. Part of the profit of their work was retained for their benefit.
"Twelve women, aided by three chaplains, a surgeon, and a physician, none of whom resided in the establishment, managed the whole. They had dismissed the soldiers and police-officers, finding that they needed no other means of constraint than their dignity, good sense, patience, and tenderness. There was as much of frightful physical disease as there was of moral disease, crime, and misery. Two Sisters acted as chief nurses and apothecaries. The ventilation and cleanliness were perfect. When I expressed my astonishment that so small a number of women could manage such a set of wild and wicked creatures, the answer was, 'If we want assistance, we shall have it; but it is as easy with our system to manage three hundred as one hundred or as fifty. The power is not in ourselves, it is granted from above.' Here men and women were acting together; and in all the regulations, religious and sanitary, there was mutual aid, mutual respect, and interchange of experience; but the Sisters were subordinate only to the chief civil and ecclesiastical authorities; the internal administration rested with them."
The "Little Sisters of the Poor" have inspired the following remarks, which apply to many other orders actively engaged in works of charity:
"Their records demonstrate that religious institutions do, effectually and cheaply, what the clumsy and lifeless machinery of the state does at an enormous cost and peril, with a very questionable preponderance of gain over loss. Charity is a religious work, and these orders are specially qualified, as religious, to lead the charity of the country; they have a special vocation and a supernatural aim; they unite the strongest motives for individual exertion with the highest development of the co-operative system; they are free from the impediments of other parties; what they give establishes no legal or political right, yet it recognizes a moral claim and provides for a human want. In addressing the statesmen of this country, we can prove that one thousand dollars a year, thus wisely spent in well-organized charity, goes twice as far as two thousand dollars a year spent with a blundering alternation of prodigality and cruelty, such as characterizes the management of our secular charities. Organic bodies contain within themselves a principle of endless adaptation. The church, herself an organic body, is the fruitful mother of all such organizations as the moral needs of man require; nor is there any reason to doubt that she can help the modern pauper as readily as the captives, the lepers, and the laborers in mines for whom her mediaeval orders worked. The recent institution of the 'Little Sisters of the Poor' derives a peculiar interest from the mode in which it approaches that special trial of modern society, pauperism, and it may, with the divine blessing, advance from its present humble beginning to enterprises which, alike on the ground of theology and of sound political economy, are beyond the efforts of the most beneficent governments now existing."
The gospels abundantly attest the loving and tender behavior of Christ toward the poor and the afflicted of every class. It is important to note how lively and loyal is the tradition of this conduct in the Christian church, from its earliest periods to our own day. It was a favorite turn in the mediaeval legends of charity that our Lord should reveal himself, even in the body, to those who had, for his love, consoled some poor object of compassion. It is written of St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, that she kept always near her, and herself served, thirteen sick poor, in memory of Christ and the twelve apostles.
"Among the sick was a poor little leper named Helias, whose condition was so deplorable that no one would take charge of him. Elizabeth, seeing him thus abandoned by all, felt herself bound to do more for him than for any other; she took and bathed him herself, anointed him with a healing balm, and then laid him in the bed, even that which she shared with her royal husband. Now it happened that the duke returned to the castle whilst Elizabeth was thus occupied. His mother ran out immediately to meet him, and when he alighted she said, 'Come with me, dear son, and I will show thee a pretty doing of thy Elizabeth.' 'What does this mean?' said the duke. 'Only come,' said she, 'and thou wilt see one she loves much better than thee.' Then, taking him by the hand, she led him to his chamber and to his bed, and said to him, Now look, dear son, thy wife puts lepers in thy bed without my being able to prevent her. She wishes to give thee leprosy, thou seest it thyself.' On hearing these words, the duke could not repress a certain degree of irritation, and he quickly raised the covering of his bed; but, at the same moment, the Most High unsealed the eyes of his soul, and, in place of the leper, he saw the figure of Jesus Christ crucified extended on his bed. At this sight he remained motionless, as did his mother, and began to shed abundant tears without being able at first to utter a word. Then, turning round, he saw his wife, who had gently followed in order to calm his wrath against the leper. 'Elizabeth,' said he, 'my dear, good sister, I pray thee often to give my bed to such guests. I shall always thank thee for this, and be thou not hindered by any one in the exercise of thy virtue.' Then he knelt and prayed thus to God, 'Lord, have mercy upon me a poor sinner. I am not worthy to see all these wonders.'" [Footnote 274]
[Footnote 274: Montalembert, Life of St. Elizabeth.]
For the many illustrations of the wonderful diffusion of benevolence in the early ages of the Christian church, in contrast with the truculent spirit of the contemporaneous paganism, see Rev. Dr. Manahan's Triumph of the Catholic Church, etc.