TWO YEARS' WORK

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18148, 11 August 1924, Page 4

TWO YEARS' WORK

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND HOSPITAL.

Jfreacitiug in the Cathedral last 5 jjig-iit Canon "Wilford referred to the ' present position ol' the schcmo i'or build- : - ijig! a Church of England Hospital iu j Christehureh. There could bo s-ccn t>- j day, the preacher said, in the Court ; house of St. Bartholomew's Hospital iu - London, a picture painted l\v Hogarth Tn 1736. It represented i'our sub- .' iccts: The Good Samaritan emphasising the call ai the Master to tend the ' .vick. the Poo' ov UethcsJa laying sirens ; upon the will of the patient to bo in ado ; : whole; Eahorc, the Founder of the Hos- : pital, calling upoa others to emulate j ' his example; and a monk ineetiisjT a', sick man on a stretcher, showing that tho work of the Church must extend j' Iu sic!: bodies as well as to sick soul*. | Habere's work was the more full of I interest, because of the life he had j previous!;" led. Ho had bcei) a wit or i inhiutrel in the court of Henry 1.. j and seeking to make amends f?r the ' iil-spent life of his early days. had : gained a grant of land at Smuhiiekl j described in the Chronicles as •'Smooth- | held near London." and there founded j the Hospital of St. Bartholomew',-;, and i began a work which, under varying ( fortunes, has continued ever since."The! artist had painted two scenes in Ka- ! here's life now so faded that they could j only be seen on a bright morning. In j one' Eahorc was seen asleep, evidently j dreaming of the hospital he wished to j found: in the other he was seen with his dream realised, laying the foundation stone. ''And,'' continued the preacher, "his dream has been more than realised. For unquestionably many a hospital owes its start to the example he set. And the maintenance of the hospitals for the poor m Lon- j don has largely come from the inspira- j tion of those early days." Since the Hospital Sunday Fund had been started at Home ir.'1873. the collections in places oi" wr,rshi;: ir, London—the seen? of ftaherc's work—had totalled only just short of £2.C00.U00. •'Flic last subject of Hogarth's picture had, too. its lessons for the present day. The monk with bis crucifix svmbolised religion; the sick man typified medicine. The two sciences were inextricably welded together by the God from Whom both came. Iu early Christian hospitals the priest was'thc house-surgeon. The monk was ; the doctor of the Middle Ages. In ! Franco up to the end of the fifteenth [ century the University of Paris would ! not allow physicians to marry—most of them were priest-doctors. A statute of Henry VIII. forbade any person in London, or seven, miles thereof, to practise as a physician or surgeon without, examination or licence hy the Hishou of London or Dean of St. Paul's, assisted bT the Faculty. To this da\ the Archbishop oi : Oanterbu-y held the power of granting M.D. diploma.3. "Jhe true welfare of any community depends." the preacher said, "on too close co-operation of priest and physician, and in Cliris tchureh we aro very happy in this respect." Hogarth's picture had a lesson for the present time. Ifc was exactly two years ago that evening that the question of building St. George's pttal lia<3 Keen spoken of in the Catnodral pulpit. Many Kaheres had been Slaving their dreams, and thai- evening m 19:>2 their hup-s had' become articulate. But now the time had come to go on to the other scene. The Raheres must lay their foundationstone. And just as_ the original Rahere had 20no for his grant of land to those that had the power to. give it, so to-dav his successors were appealing to Godly-minded people to give the remainine sum necessary for the building of St G-eorjrc's Hospital. And yet St. George's was 'not trying to he another St. Bartholomew's. There were certain things it wanted: there was the religious foundation; there was tho chapel and the chaplain at the very centre of its work; j there was the devotion and the love and the self-sacrificing_ zeal that for j 800 years has made it a byword o' Christendom—all this was being aimed at, but Christehurch had its own Pub- I lie Hospital, and there w&s 110 idea of coming into competition with it. "There | i? a work the North Canterbury Hospital Board cannot do," the preacher said. , "They cannot put- private wards on to the present Public Hospital, and because they cannot do it there is a. large. class of people they cannot reach." There was a public, demand for a large urivate hospital in Chris.tr church, and the old Church of the English people was trying to meet it. Nor was it to bo a hospital just for tho rich. It was truo they were being catered for. The Church knew neither rich nor poor. But the profit made from tiie ordinary fees would gr. ©very penny of it to help tho poorer patients. At the present day for many a family in Christehurch, sickness spelt calamity. If happiness meant freedom from money troubles, thero must be a wav of securing lighter nursing fees for" certain of the community. I Moreover there would always be cases [ which would make a free ward a necessity in a Church hospital, .ft was the I intention of the promoters to build a I hospital which, when once it was up free of debt, would be self-supporting, and at the same time able to keep from many the financial difficulties which sometimes follow a man from an illness—either his own or one of his. family—to tho The Need of Nurses. But thero was something more important than the actual ouiiding. That money would put up. But what money couldn't buy was lives devoted to Gcd. Tho English nursing sisterhoods could not, at tin? present time, spare any of their sisters for work in New Zealand. But offers of work from fully - trained nurses in New Zealand were making it unnecessary to send outside. "All along we have wanted New Zealand nurses, smd Ibis very neck they liavo been settling the problem for us. It is early davs to sneak, but thero is groat' promise that wc, staivii lay the loundation-stone of our hospital and our nursing sisterhood en the same day." The preacher thc-n appealed for other volunteers amongst New Zealand nurses. Tho scheme, he said, was to attach them to an existing community in Christchurch, so that they might then become acquainted with "the religious life and be helpca to form a rule of ii-ie appropriate to nursing sisters. Thc-y would be u self-contained community attached only by ties of affection to the Mother House, and beiore long it was hoped that scmeone would, by will or otherwise, provide the money to build them a rest house and a retiring place for their old age 011 five acres of land which had already been given for the purpose.