THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR

New Zealand Tablet, 6 February 1913, Page 51

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR

A TRIBUrE BY DICKENS Almsgiving (wrote Charles Dickens, who was no friend of the Catholic Church, in Household Words over sixty years ago) takes the place of our workhouse system in the economy of a large part of Europe. The giving of alms to the helpless is, "moreover, in Catholic countries, a religious ofhce. The voluntary surrender of gifts,, each according to his ability as a means of grace, is more prominently insisted on than among Protestants, consequently systematic taxation for the poor is not resorted to. Nor is there so great a necessity for it as in this country, for few nations have so many paupers to provide for as we English, who are accustomed to regard them as a natural element in our society. And thus it happens that when, about ten years ago, there was in France no asylum but the hospital for the aged and ailing poor, the want of institutions for the infirm but healthy was not so severe as to attract the public eye. But there was at that time a poor servant woman, a native of the village of La Croix, in Brittany— Jugan was her name — who was moved by her gentleness of heart, and the fervor of her religion, to pity a certain infirm and destitute neighbor, to take her to her side as a companion, and to devote herself to her support. Other infirm people earned by their helplessness a claim upon her attention. She went about begging when she could not work, that she might preserve life as long as Nature would grant it to her infirm charges. Her example spread a desire for the performance of similar good offices. Two pious women, her neighbors, united with Jeanne in her pious office. These women cherished, as they were able, aged and infirm paupers, nursed them in a little house and begged for them in the vicinity. The three women, who had so devoted themselves, attracted notice, and were presently received into the Order of Sisters of Charity, in which they took for themselves the name of Little Sisters of the Poor (Petites Soeurs des Pauvres). The First House of the Little Sisters of the Poor was opened at Saint-Servan in Brittany. A healthy flower scattered seed around. We saw that forcibly illustrated in the progress from an origin equally humble of the llauhe Haus near Hamburg; we see it now again in the efforts of the Little Sisters which flourished and fructified with prompt usefulness. On the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Saint-Servan, ten similar houses had been founded in ten different French towns. The Petites Soeurs live with their charges in the most frugal way upon the scraps and waste meat which they can collect from the surrounding houses. The voluntary contributions. by which they support their institutions are truly the crumbs falling from the rich man's table. The nurse fares no better than the objects of her care. She lives upon equal terms with Lazarus, and acts towards him in the spirit of a younger sister. The establishment at Dman, over which Jeanne Jugan herself presided being under repair, and not quite fit for the reception of visitors, we will go over to the Sisters' house at Paris, which is conducted on exactly the same plan. We are ushered into a small parlor scantily furnished, with some Scripture prints on the walls. A Sister enters to us with a bright look of cheerfulness, such as faces wear when hearts beneath them feel that they are beating to some purpose in the world. She accedes gladly to our desire, and at once leads us into another room of larger size in which twenty or thirty • old women are at this moment finishing their dinner. It being Friday, rice stands on the table in place of meat. The Sister moves and speaks with the gentleness of a mother among creatures who are in, or near the state of second childhood. You see an old dame fumbling eagerly over her snuff-box lid. The poor creatures are not denied luxuries, for whatever they can earn by their spinning is their own money, and they buy

with it any indulgence they please, among which nothing is so -prized or eagerly coveted'as a pinch of snuff.. In the dormitories on the first floor some lie bedridden. Gentler still, if possible,, is now the Sister's voice. The rooms throughout the house are airy, with large windows, and those inhabited by the Sisters are distinguished from the rest by no mark of indulgence or superiority. We descend now into the old men's department, and enter a warm room with a stove in the centre. One old fellow has his feet upon a little foot-warmer, , and thinly pipes out that he is very comfortable now, for he is always warm. The chills of age and the chills of the cold pavement remain together in his memory; but he is very comfortable —very comfortable now. Another decrepit man with white hair and bowed —who may have been proud in his youth of a rich voice for love songs-talks of music to the Sister, and on being asked to sing blazes out with joyous gestures and strikes up a song of Beranger's in a cracked, shaky voice, which sometimeslike a river given to flow undergroundis lost entirely, and then bubbles up again quite thick with mud. We go into a little oratory, where all pray together nightly before they retire to rest. Thence we descend, into a garden for the men, and pass thence by a door into the women's court.' The chapel bell invites us to witness the assembly of the Sisters for the repetition of their Psalms and Litanies. From the chapel we return into the court and enter a large room where the women are all busy with their spinning-wheels. One old soul immediately totters to the Sister (not the same Sister with whom we set out) and insists on welcoming her daughter with a kiss. We are informed that it is a delusion of her old age to recognise in this Sister really her own child, who is certainly far away, and may possibly be dead. The Sister embraces her affectionately and does not disturb the pleasant thought. And now we go to the kitchen. Preparation for coffee is in progress. The dregs of coffee that have been collected from the houses of the affluent in the neighborhood are stewed for a long time with great care. The Sisters say they produce a very tolerable result, and at any rate every inmate is thus enabled to have a cup of coffee every morning to which love is able, to administer the finest Mocha flavor. A Sister enters from her rounds out of doors with two cans full of broken victuals. She is a healthy and, I think, a handsome woman. Her daily work is to go out with the cans directly after she has had her morning coffee and collect food for the ninety old people that are in the house. As fast as she fills her cans she brings them to the kitchen and goes out again, continuing in this work daily till four o'clock. You do not like this begging ? What are the advertisements on behalf of our own hospitals? What are the collections? What are the dinners, the speeches, the charity sermons? A few weak women, strong in heart, without advertisement or dinner or charity sermons, without urgent appeals to a sympathising public, who have no occasion to. exercise o charity by enticing it to balls and to theatrical benefits, patiently collect' waste food from house to house, and feed the poor with it humbly and tenderly. " The cans are now to be emptied, the contents being divided into four compartments, according to their naturebroken meat, vegetables, slices of puddings, fish, etc. Each is afterwards submitted to the best cookery that can be contrived. The choicest things are set aside. 'These,' said a Sister, 'will be for our poor dear sick.' The number of Sisters altogether in this house engaged in attendance on the ninety infirm paupers is fourteen. They divide the duties of the house among themselves— serve in the kitchen, two in the laundry, one begs, one devotes herself to constant personal attendance on the wants of the old men, and so on with the others, each having her special department. The whole sentiment of the household is that of a very large and amiable family. To feel that they console the last days of the infirm and aged poor is all i-1- - Little Sisters get for their hard work. *■ tne juiboits oisiuis get jial tiieil' hard work.