ST. MARY'S ORPHANAGE, NELSON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 22, 18 March 1892, Page 31

ST. MARY'S ORPHANAGE, NELSON.

O» February 11 the Mayor of Nelson, accompanied by Mra Trask, paid a visit to the St. Mary's Bors 1 Orphanage at Stoke, where the visitors were received by the Brother Superior and the Very Rev Father Mahoney, S.M. The following address, enclosed in a handsome frame, was presented to hia Worship on behalf of the boys by one of their nambtr named O'Bripn. ' " To His Worship, Francis Trask, Mayor of Nelson. 11 May it please your Worship, we, the children of St Mary's i Orphanage, rej ,ice to Bee you and your honourabla friends in our midst to-day, the close of the Jubilee festivities, and the beginning of a new era in the history or Nelson. We have long been wishing for an opportunity of expressing the sentiments of esteem, love and gratitnde which we entertain for you. For, identified as you are with all works of charity in Nelson, you bave generously encouraged the foundation and the development of this lostitution. We have often and amply experienced the effect! of your liberal compassion for the homeless and neglected children whose happy lot is to be placed in this charitable home. Your name i 9 a household word enshrined in the affections of the people. Your benefactions cheer np many a tad home and raise up many a dejected heart. No works can adequately express their feelings of sincere, grateful admiration for the self-sac-rificing devotedness, untiring energy and anxious care with which yon and your noble censort epend yourselves, and are being spent for the we'fare of all classes of your Municipality ; but your predilections are for the forlorn, the orphaned and the poor. If the advance of the capital of our Province during the first half century of its existence has been great, if the waste places have bloomed if the Industrie! bave flourished, if the educational and charitable institutions have prospered, if all now rejoice in progress and stability it is greatly owing to your beneficial influence over the people who in appreciation of your noble unremitting efforts for their comfort and pro»perity, bave unanimously elected and re-elected you Mayor of Nelson. We are happy to be allowed to tender you our hearty congratulations. The dignity which has been so deservedly conferred upon you is, we trust, but the prelude to still greater honours that will enhance the destiny of Nelson, which ' will defy the storm of centuries," as New Zealand takes her place among the nations of the earth. We remain your Worship's grateful and affectionate orphans Stoke, February 11th, 1892. His Worship made an appreciative reply. The visitors were afterwards entertained at tea. They expressed themselves highly pleased with what they had seen of the institution.