THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 332, 29 August 1879, Page 9

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR.

+v. i 1 /^ m , no Cathohc charity, says the Catholic Universe, i, the hand of God more visibly manifest— directing its foundation an d gmdmgits efforts— than in that which is recognised as the religiou 8 community of the Little Sisters of the Poor. It is a romance of the love of God— the history of their birth and life ; but we cannot here enter upon the circumstances. Suffice it, they live ifor the aged poor ; basket in hand, daily they encounter the mortifications of mendicancy,—begging from door to door for their helpless charge. Founded in 1840 by Father Le Pailleur, in St. Servan, on the seacoast of Brittany, where two young girls, Marie de la Compassion and Marie Therese, some twenty and eighteen years of age, respectively, and an elderly spinster, Marie de la Croix, made their first essay that jear in the simple lodging of Fanchon Aubert, their first charge, an old blind woman of eighty. The Little Sisters of the Poor now number over twenty-five hundred Sisters, with more than one hundred and fifty houses in France, Alsace, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Algeria, England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States, where there are fed and sheltered over twenty thousand of God's poor. Their House of Novices in the Tour St. Joseph, near Becherel, France, at present, contains over five hundred novices, from every part of the world, learning to serve as humblest menials the poor whom God shall send them. 1840 to 1879— the hand of God is surely visible in such a Christian increase. * *J n^ ur city ' we en^ oy the P rayer s and living charity of a house of this Congregation. Ten Sisters and the Mother- Superior ("Good Mother ") have charge of a •• Home for the Aged Poor ;" and every day, winter or summer, rain or shine, some of the good Sisters, basket in hand, are seen on our streets, seeking from all a mite for their poor, and gladly accepting the slightest contribution— even and particularly discarded apparel or remnants of the table, which they gratefully receive, and which their deft, kind hands soon turn to account comfortable clothing, or plain yet wholesome nourishment for the destitute whom they serve. For themselves they ask nothing, these Sisters. They own and can own nothing but the habit they wear, and not even t L t T ul£ food is what is left when their charge has been se^ed If there is enough tor their poor, and yet not enough for themselves, they go to bed hungry. Inis is no extraordinary happening with the Sisters of this Congregation ; and, when it happens, the rule is as we state it,— the poor «rst, themselves last or not at all.