A NUN AND THE WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 58, 4 November 1914, Page 6

A NUN AND THE WAR.

At the end of last month the Reverend Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, Superior-General of the Nuns of the Sacred Heart, and a direct descendant of the Royal House of Stuart, passed away at the Convent at the Sacred Heart, Rockhampton, England, at the comparatively early age of 58. When war broke out, Mother Stuart was at the liiother-holise of her ordei in Brussels, and she remained there Until she was cbmamnded to leave the citv on September 5. Of the nuns who filled her 15 Belgian convents, only about 12, who were English, were sent to England by her. The rest, who could have sought safety in their English convents, remained at thiei posts; their houses became hospitals, and they nursed the sick and wounded. Two of them were shot dead while ascertaining that their wounded were in a place of safety. At Blumenthal, and other places in Holland, the convents of the Sacred Heart were also filled with wounded. In England Mother Stuart placed ( her convent at Brighton at the disposal of the authorities. It was accepted as a military hospital, and military nurses, numbering 81, and the religious are now caring for the wounded there. Mother Stuart also authorised her nuns in England to adopt 100 Belgian orphans. At Liege the German headquarters staff seized the convent of the Sacred Heart and established themselves there. The nuns, Hf whom there were 87, were expelled. It is thought that anxiety and grief for her nuns in Belgium were the direct cause of the MotherGehbral’s death. In Brussels she was helping to nhrsfe 400 soldiers who were quartered in her convents there, when she was ordered out. She left, with two companions, leaving in command. her first assistant, aged 87. The Mother-General walked for some hours before a market gardener'offer-- 1 ed to drive the nuns to Ostend in his 1 cart. Of her own sufferings she i said nothing, but when the nuns atj Rockhampton spoke of the horrors of the war, she answered, “The war is God’s harvest time.” She visited Australia and New Zealand early this year, when she was making a tour of her convents, throughout the world. Her charm of manner, united to something which is indescribable, drew all hearts to her, and now each “old child of the Sacred Heart” feels that she has lost a mother and a dear friend.