St. Vincent de Paul Society

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 12, 22 March 1906, Page 1

St. Vincent de Paul Society

Few lay associations have, within the measure of their day and means, done more to soften the asperities of both the bodily and the spiritual life than that of St. Vincent de Paul. They aie, perhaps, in our time the nearest approach to the noble Florentine lay fraternity — the Brothers of ,Mercy (Fratelli della Misericordia) — that, after long centuries of arduous work, are still one of God's special blessings to the ancient city on the Arno. In New Zealand, one of the most commendable of .the many useful activities of the St. Vincent de Paul Society is its work among the ' men who go down to the sea in ships.' This good work was inaugurated by the Christchurch Conference. And there is work galore for it to do in every port in New Zealand that is visited by ocean-going vessels. The marvellous energies of St. Vincent de Paul did not overlook the sailorman. His great heart had a tender niche within it for Jack Tar as well as for the galley-slave, and the wounded soldier, and the sick in the hospitals, and the homeless children, and the pest-stricken multitudes, and the starving poor who in their despair (as at Laon) gnawed the flesh off their emaciated arms. His mission was to every form of bodily and spiritual desolation and woe. A goodly slice of his mantle has fallen upon the shoulders of the pious lay association that so deservedly

bears the/ name c f one of the greatest apostles bf charity of modern times. A blessing upon its work !