PROTESTANT "SISTERHOODS."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 8, 14 June 1889, Page 15

PROTESTANT " SISTERHOODS."

The experiment made by the Protestant Episcopal sect to establi»h " Sist. rboodß " in imitition of the Female Religious Or ers in the Catholic Church, is everywhere meeting with disaster. The new idea flourished among certiia females of that peculiar persuasion as long as it was new, novel and interesting, but the moment Love's dart made a dent in the fair maiden's heart, that instant she fell from grace, left the mock cloister, cast aside the borrowed costume, and gave her hand and heart to some Henry Jenkins Jones.

The latest disruption of these make-believe Sisterhoods occurred in St. Louis, and the Western Watchman of that city thus describes the causes which led to the final fiasco :

"The pipers last Wednesday contained the announcement that the Episcopal Sisters of the Good Shapherd had given up St. Luke's Hospital and would henceforward devote themselves exclusively to the woik of teaching. The one all-sufficient reason impelling them to this step was the physical impostibilty of six sistern doing twenty sisters' work. They came here a dozen, and now their number it reduced to six. Thwy had not in the fifteen yeara of their residence in St. Louis received a single recruit. What better evidence could one receive that the soil of Episcopilianism will not grow monastic institutions 1 As well expect snakes to propagate in Ireland. There is no life in Protestant monasticism. It has noi authority for its existence, or the power to perform the functions of erganic life. Celibacy is one of the conditions of monasticism ; and as long as the bishops and ministers of the Anglican Church continue to wed, "Sisters" will continue to be simple old maids. A virgin church, with a virgin priesthood and a code of morality that places virginity above matrimony and declares it is the glory of humanity, can maintain sisterhoods and brotherhoods and communities ; for under the dispensation of her laws and in the atmosphere of her divine economy celibates feel themi-el.es at home. In Pmteatantißm nunasticism is simply a queer fish out of water." — San Francisco Monitor.