HISTORIC NUNS.

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

HISTORIC NUNS.

We should like to place a copy of Madame Belloc's Historic Nuns in the hands of every member of the Women's Protestant Union ; but as that is impossible, we (Catholic Jiook Notes) must content ouraelv* s with hoping that her most useful volume will, through the libraries and bookstalls, be read by at lea«t a certain number of these excellent but misguided persons. Many Catholics feel that a kuovvled/e of the actual working of tbe Church in our times is at least as likely to be useful to Protestants as the history of those who, from the nature of the case, are far removed io time and surroundings. As a matter of fact there is room for all records, the onward march of the Divine creation is recognisable in the latest as in the earliest ages of the Church, and the same spiiit which inspired the first Apostles governs the actions of the missioners at home and abroad, known and unknown, who form the Church's army to-day. For Catholics, as well as for Protestants, these sketches of historic, and we may add heroic, nuns form excellent reading. Mary Aikenhead, the foundress of the Irish Sisters of Charity ; Catharine MAuley, who established the Irish Sisters of Mercy ; Philippine Duohesne, who took the nuns of the Sacred Heart to the New World, and Eliza Ann Seton, who became a Catholic because ' she had seen ia Italy the practical working of the Catholic Churoh,' and who established the Sisters of Charity in Maryland, are the nuns selected, and it would be difficult to render their lives other than interesting, although it must be admitted that certain writers have great powers in that direction. Madame Belloc, however, is not only never dull ; she writes vividly and selects the incidents best calculated to impress the reader. Better still, although she is always edifying, she never makes an effort to be so ; she is not continually calling on us to admire this evidence of humility, or that heroic action ; she allows these to speak for themselves, and most eloquently they do so. We have no prejudice against those who are talking and working for the advancemant of the position of women, but we doubt whether the most earnest of them will do as much towards realising their ideals as any one of the four nuns whose lives are here recorded, and still more do we doubt whether their their efforts will ensure as great benefits to the community at large as have resulted from the quiet, prayerful, simple lives of these holy women.