A MODERN VINCENT DE PAUL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 12

A MODERN VINCENT DE PAUL.

It is seldom allotted to men who inaugurate great works of charity to enjoy life sufficiently long to see them extended over nearly every portion of the globe, but when such length of days is vouchsafed to them by Heaven, they must feel that their deeds have been crowned by the blessing of God. Such is the case in at least one notable example — that of Abbe La Pailleur, of Brittany, tho founder of the wonderful Order, the Little Sisters of the Poor. This good Priest inaugurated this noble Order of Charity in 1840, commencing with young women of humble origin, but chosen children of Divine Providence. For two years these devoted Sisters passed their novitiate in a garret which Abbe La Pailleur rented for their use, both going out daily to beg not only what they used themselves, but also sufficient to keep a number of aged and iufirra poor that they had undertaken to support. One of these Sisters has gone to her reward, the other — Marie Augustine de la Compassion — still lives and is the Superior-General of the Order, which has spread so miraculously that in thirty-five years it has erected one hundred and forty-live houses in .Europe and America. Two thousand four hundred Sisters and three hundred novices are employed in the great work of churity, and upwards of eighteen thousand aged poor, of both soxes, arc at present enjoying the free hospitality or their happy institutions. Since the foundation of this Order it is proved from statistics that fully forty thousand aged and infirins have been succored by the Little Sisters. Of this number more than one-half died in their Institutions, and were afforded Christian burial at their hands. " How wonderful are the worksoLGod ! " must be the most pro- | minent thought in the mind of every Catholic who ponders o:\ the vast amount of good accomplished by this great Order of Charity in the ! short space of thirty-five years. Yet this is only one of the numerous Orders of Charity which have their existence within the sanctuary of ' the Catholic Church. i The puny efforts of Protestantism pale into insignificance when | compared with even this one Order of Charity, whose sole reliance for the support of their aged and infirm poor is implicit reliance on the mercy of God, one of the rules of the Order being that no funds must ever be permitted to accumulate, hence if much be given, it redounda to the benefit of the poor, and if their appeals for charity produce but scant results, the Little Sisters deny themselves the very necessaries of life in order to feed, clothe, and nurse their patients, as their vows bind them to partake only of what is left from their patients' table as their own scanty subsistence. Do we not visibly behold the Divine origin of Catholic faith in such self abnegation and such heavenly charity ? No earthly consideration could co mould the human mind as to make it accept such a life of self-denial and sacrifice unless it was maintained by the invisible grace of God. — The ' Southern Cross.'