A Non-Catholic Tribute to Nuns

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 30

A Non-Catholic Tribute to Nuns

Mr Richard Harding Davis (one of the best known of -American war correspondents and writers) has been travelling in .One of the characteristics in his letters from there is his frank appreciation of the work and sacrifices of the Catholic missionaries in the Dark Continent. In ' Collier's Weekly '» of September 7 Mr Davis makes _a strong appeal on behalf of the Sisters of St. Joseph at Calabar. ' There are few women in Calabar ' (he says). ' There are three or four, who are wives of officials, two nurses employed by the Government, and the Mother Superior and Sisters of the Order of St. Joseph. For the Sisters the officers^the Government people, the traders, the natives, even the rival missionaries, have the most ' tremendous respect and admiration. The sacrifice of the woman who, to be near her husband on the coast, consents to sicken and fade and grow old before her time, and of the nurse who, to preserve the health of others, risks -her own, is very great; but the sacrifice of the Sisters, who have renounced all thought of home and husband, and who have exiled themselves to this steaming swampland, seems the most unselfish. ' In order to support the 150 little black boys and girls who are at school at the mission, the Sisters rob themselves of everything* except the little that will keep them alive. Two, in addition .to their work at the mission, act as nurses in the English hospital, and for that they receive together £120. This forms the sole regular income of -the five women j for each £24 a year. With anything else that is given them in charity, they buy supplies for the little converts. ' They live in a house of sandstone and zinc that holds the heat like a flatiron, they are obliged to wear a uniform that is of material and fashion so unsuited to the tropics that Dr Chichester, in charge of the hospital, has written in protest against it to Rome, and on many days they fast, not because the Church bids them to do, but because they have no food. And with" it all, these five gentlewomen are always eager, cheerful, sweet of temper, and a living blessing to all who meet them. What now troubles them is that they have no room to accommodate the many young heathens who come to them to be taught to wear clothes and to be good little boys and girls. - This is causing the Sisters great distress. Anyone who does not believe in that selfish theory, that charity begins at home, but who would like to help to spread Christianity in Darkest Africa and give happiness to five noble women, who are giving their Mves for others, should send a postal money order. to Marie T. Martin, the Mother Superior of the Catholic Mission of Old Calabar, Southern Nigeria. And if you are going to do it, as they say in the advertising pages, "Do it now !" '