THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 9, 2 March 1899, Page 20

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR.

Tv the course of a revuw of a book on the Little SUtm-s of the Poor, the Dublin ll< i n " -uminarw s the history of the Order .— The L ttle Si-ters of the Por r is an institution which, founded less th-m '>*> years ago by a young curate with no resources save his stipend of tic a year. a^M-ted by two poor seamstresses and a pea.-ant woman ha- covered the whole earth with its br niches and taken its place with the mo~t beneficent creations of Catholic faith. It has now 2 ".( i hoiw-. ot which 2'.t are in the United Kingdom, and gives food and shdttr to ov< r :}.'S,muu of the aged and indigent poor of both sexes. The name oi the humble servant woman who was its first alm'-'-atherer is so closely interwoven with its early history that its Sister^throughout Brit.inny are still known as • Joanne .Jugans/ and a street in Sr. Servan is called after the lowliest of its inhabitant-. Here in a vretJied attic the Abbe Le I'dilleur placed his two young novices with Jeanne as their mitron.and hither, in October IS4O they brought the two old women who were the first pensioner* of the Little Sifters of the Poor. During the time the two "-iris still pursued their calling as seamstresses, while Jeanne, by wnous form- of service, earn' d wag. s which also went into the common fund. W ith every extension of the undertaking fr-'sh help was forthcoming lor it, and thus it progressed from a gam-t to a b-tscnient and th< n to a bou-e built for it by the chanty ot the public Now the Little Hster. with her basket on h« r cart, is a familiar figure in eve-> l..r»e city, and theAhb' Lo Paill.ur has lived to see the gre-it idea with whu h heaven indued him realised to an extent thai: prophetic vision alone could base fors.cn.