The White Sisters

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 27, 6 July 1905, Page 29

The White Sisters

The terrible disease knoWn as the sleeping sickness has for some time been the scourge of Equatorial Africa, and thousands upon thousands have fallen victims to this strange and merciless malady. Foremost among those vho have come to the succor of the unfortunate in those torrid 7ones must be mentioned the White Sisters, anfl the following account of their noble work will no doibt be of interest to many : In the Vicariate of Nortmrn Nyama, worked by Car-

dinal La^ igerie's White Fathers, it was computed at the end of last year that the sickness had carried off upward of 70,000 natives. So far it has proved inv&riatoly fatal, for though the microbe — or as some say the fly which causes 'the mischief has been found, no cure has as yet been discovered. To the horrors of the hopeless dLeate there are, moreover, added the horrors consequent on panic, and the selfish .brutality it arouses among the heatnen natives, who, in their dread of contagion, dri\e into the bush every man, woman, and cnild suspected of infection, Uieie to iall victims to starvation or beasts of prey. Needless to say that as soon as the scoJtge appeared in the Vicariate, the missionaries, helped by the Sisters, did what they could to aid the helpless natives, and afforded all possible shelter and assistance. When the tidings reached them, rising like A Beacon of Hope out of the Darkness, that there was one spot in the land where the sick were not treated like dangerous wild beasts, but were cared for like brothers, the sufferers within a certain radius wcire drawn towards Rub.aga, the Christian settlement. Many died on the way from disease and expo-r sure, but the survivors came, and come, dropping in, to be tended by the Sisters in isolated huts, and cared for to the end. It is, however, not merely the bodies of the sufferers whiJi are so tejideily mused. The work done for their souls is far greater, ana is, in a way, unique. It would indeed be hard to count the number of souls which, thanks lo the watchful care of the valiant daughters of Cardinal Lavieeric, ha\e had, and are still having, the gates of heaven thrown open to them. A Word About the White Sisters tfhemsehes, who, under the missionaries, are carrying-on the work oH evangelisation. When, in 1869, Cardinal La', i^erie bethought him of founding an Order of women to co-operate with his missionaries, one of his first objects was to ma':e it an Order of capable, valiant women, fifed to cope with the difficulties and dangers ] nown and un nown, of the Dark Continent. In Algeria, where they began their work, it devolved on them to be the pioneers of civilisation as well as of religion. It was they who cut down the trees and cleared th« ground preparatory to the raising of the Christian set>tlement ; it was they who plantitd the -\rines ana sowed the crop?, and they, eqjiallv, who reaped and garnered the harvests. If this \irile work formed an essential tart of their vocation in Algeria, still more was it called for in the barely explored tracts of Equatorial Africa where at c^ery turn they might have to confront wild Leasts and wilder nien. Time, in British E a st Africa, those gentle, cultivau o d women— to converse with whom is an experience in life— oarry on their work with a bright and fearless sri ii ( , fired now wi'h renewed zeal by the arduous task of caring for tho.se s ; ck of the fatal scourge. Their labots in this respect are heroic. So deadly is the conUgicn among the blacks that the Sisters will not allow the natives to help them except remotely. It is, indeed, d ifTi cult to persuade even the best among ' the Christian eon\erts to go within yards of the hospital. It is, therefore, the nuns who search the jungle for the stricken, they who bear them home, and they, finally, who of en dig ■Mieir graves and bury them. On them alone do- elves the necessary care of the patient through Hie tedious months of sickness, and above all on them de-ole t^e .mxiois waiting- and watching for the inter- ■ als cf inter i^eree on which, humanly speaking, the elernal welfare of the sufferer depends.