THE SISTERS OF MERCY

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1917, Page 17

THE SISTERS OF MERCY

(By Anglican.)

REPLY TO A TRADUCER

That there is abroad in the land one who busies himself in traducing the fair fame of the Sisters of Mercy, by spreading evil reports, as false as they are evil, regarding one of that noble Order who .has gone to her rest, is an amazing thing. But that this traducer should be allowed to so libel the virtuous dead is more amazing still. But for the charity that animates good Catholics this bitter and malignant campaign of a professed teacher of religion (save the mark !) would inevitably stir up strife which would go far to divide the community. One feels, in contemplating the Bev. Howard Elliott's poisoned barbs of speech in this matter, how well would apply to him those lines of Shakespeare's "With doubler tongue Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung." Being an Anglican, not a Catholic, the writer may claim to be at least unbiassed by any promptings of creed in what he has to say regarding the Sisters of Mercy. He will say nothing that is not eternally to their credit; he knows many of them as intimately as the bounds of their religion allow, and he knows nothing that is not eternally to their credit. They are amongst the finest women on God's earth, and when they are assailed it makes the blood of a true man, no matter what his denomination, boil with indignation and resentment. These Sisters of Mercy sink individuality when they join the Order their family names, their family ties, are discarded they subjugate every human desire, every worldly impulse, to duty. And this devotion to duty is, in its utter self-abnegation, Christ-like, divine. Has Mr. Howard Elliott ever seen one of these noble women engaged in tending the sick or comforting the dying ? Has he ever been inside a hospital where the good Sisters work ? If so—but no, he can know nothing of these things, else he would hide

bis head in shame because of the aspersions he is scattering broadcast in ! his so-called lectures, I have seen the Sisters of Mercy tending the sick. I myself and three members of my family owe our lives to their skilled and tender nursing. We knowmy wife, my sons, and I, —that to be a patient in their care is to receive not only every possible attention, but to be an honored guest beneath their roof. They never tire. They will sit by the bedside of the suffering for hour after hour, never thinking of sustenance or rest for themselves, so long as the patient needs them. In some mysterious way their very touch is soothing. It brings sleep to the restless, it charms away pain, it brings peace where mental chaos was. Soft-voiced and gentle, they tend the poor as devotedly as they tend the rich, and in their work they are perpetually sacrificing self. lam of another faith, but I would that I might be sure that, in my last hour, one of these dear Sisters would stand beside me as I pass “out West.”

And these are the women upon whom Mr. Howard Elliott has seen fit to unloose his poison gas ! At his now famous meeting in Auckland, the ex-Baptist minister, as is well-known, read four letters purporting to have been written by correspondents to the Protestant Citizens’ Committee, set up at the time of the municipal elections in April, and stopped in the post. One of these letters in particular I am constrained to mention, for reasons which shall be stated. This precious epistle—one of two which traduced the Sisters of Mercy—was in the form of a query relative to a supposed incident in connection with an Auckland convent. Now the insinuation contained in this letter of inquiry was a brutally offensive one. Mr. Howard Elliott did not say it was truedear me, no ! But he left the scandalous imputation to settle in the minds of his hearers as though it were true. The point is that the imputed fact was no fact at all. I have it on the very best authority that it originated, months before this Elliott raked it out of the muck-heap, in the imagination of a bitter and bigoted woman, who, when it was traced to her, admitted having fabricated the tale because of her hatred for Catholics! Yet this acknowledged lie, this evil and contemptible slur upon the whole community of Sisters of Mercy, has become part and parcel of the propaganda of Elliott. It is a verse in his “Hymn of Hate.” Let the truth be known, let falsehood perish. And if this one letter was framed to cover a lie, what of the others in Elliott’s possession ?

May the mantle of charity fall upon misguided ones. May Howard Elliott know the care and attention of a Sister of Mercy in an hour when sickness or suffering shall be his lot. He speaks of that whereof he has no knowledge. May wisdom be given to him that he may see and judge aright. And one day may he come to realise that, as his whole respect and esteem are due to the women of his own family, so, too, are they due to these Sisters the shoe-strings of not one of whom is he at present fit to stoop and tie.