with the others the abjection and merit of their work, it did not appear right to shut a door which GOD appeared to desire to open to them. It was resolved to make a trial, and one saw then, as one sees to-day, young girls nourished in delicacy, and wearing elegant apparel, embrace a state of life in which nature seemed to have much to suffer, and wear a coarse and common dress with more joy and ease than many of their sex wear their worldly attire. "Whatever was their birth, St. Vincent had an uncommon esteem for these Daughters of Charity; the very name they had at first, of servants of the poor, touched the heart of this father of the afflicted. The protection which GoD affords all those who serve Him, reassured him amid all the dangers to which their virtue was exposed. He soon sent his daughters into the armies, to take care of the sick and wounded; then to Poland, across Germany, and into infected or heretic countries; he had not the fears for them he would have had for any others. He even felt almost sure that Heaven would work a miracle rather than abandon them."

Once indeed this appeared to be the case. One of these virtuous girls had gone with a basin of broth to a sick person in Paris; hardly had she entered the house than the whole building fell; there were thirty persons buried in the ruins; only a little child escaped with a bruise; but the Sister of Charity was found standing on a spot of the floor which did not give way, holding in her hand the basin of broth

which, astonishing to say, she had not let fall. The people saw her, and hailed the sight as a miracle.

Now I shall describe the institution of the Ladies of Charity, as at present existing, and in very active life too in France. I copy the statement of their work and nature from what we might call their prospectus. "In a great many parishes exists an association of Ladies of Charity, presided over by Monsieur le Curé. These ladies divide the poor among them, visit them, and distribute conjointly with the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul (if there is a community there) the alms collected in the Church, or remitted to M. le Curé, and fulfil to these poor the duties and protection of charity. They meet periodically at the house of M. le Curé. All demands for relief ought to be addressed to M. le Curé of the parish. Every year there is made in each Church a collection for the poor of the parish, the product of which is distributed by the Ladies of Charity."

This is our district visiting society. In churches in France you will often see an elegantly and gaily dressed lady, with most delicate white kid gloves, stand at the door or in the aisle, with a box or plate or bag, and make a curtsey, or address a word and a smile in return for the money that is dropped therein. You may also, on another occasion, see a figure in grey cloth, with a white sort of bonnet-cap kneeling on a chair turned to front the aisle, and not the altar, with a small box on the flat back of

her chair; she is reading her prayers, but as you pass she gives the box a shake-that is all.

The first is a Lady of Charity; the last is a Sister of Charity. We have taken the one but not the other.

The seventeenth century was the birth time of almost countless works of charity. It is remarkable how much the active principle became infused into the life of religion in the century that followed that of the Reformation. It would seem as if the contemplative orders belonged to the prior, the active to the after period. It was so, in fact, and the reason is obvious. But, without discussing this, I would beg of you to remark a feature of this active piety, that may be of some interest to ourselves. It is that almost all the women of charity whose names have been rendered memorable from that time to this, were those actually connected with the closest and dearest ties of human life. They are almost all those of widows having children whom they never ceased to watch over, and to consider their first object: we read of the tender anxieties of mothers, of the love of sisters for a brother; never, that I know of, do we read of any of these women who rank among the heroines of charity of the 17th century, believing that it was their duty to separate themselves from those connecting links of love which God had formed for them. Thus we see Madame de Miramion so full of anxiety and tenderness for her daughter, watching over her in sickness and health while engaged in works so extensive and admirable; bring

ing her up among the sisters, and as a little Sister of Charity, and, when the girl had attained a proper age, disposing of her in a suitable marriage.

Nor is this an exception: it is often recorded in the lives of those devout women that they showed this love and interest in their family connections. The same, indeed, has been seen in our own times, in the beautiful history of Mrs. Seton, the mother superior of the first American Sisters of Charity, in whose case express provision was made in the rule of the house to allow her to have the charge of her own five children, and to keep her three girls with her. The story is altogether so interesting, one only feels vexation to think she did not, or could not do the great work in the Church in which she was born which she effected in another.

Her own sweet daughters, one of whom she was about to marry, were, while aspiring to be Sisters of Charity on earth, taken to the world where charity never faileth; but she spoke to her school children as she would speak to them. "Your mother, my darlings, does not come to teach you to be good Nuns or Sisters of Charity; but rather I would wish to fit you for the world in which you are destined to live; to teach you how to be good mistresses and mothers of families. Yet, if the dear Master selects one among you to be closer to Him, happy are you; He will teach you Himself."

Adieu for the present.

LETTER II.

THE portrait of an active, perhaps the least degree in the world bustling, but warm-hearted and excellent Sister of Charity with which I now present you, is not, you see, one of Vincent de Paul's. I believe she is pretty nearly of the same standing, and from a similarity of name and dress there might have been some little rivalry at her creation. You see her clad in an old fashioned jacket and petticoat of coarse dark blue cloth, both in make and material very nearly resembling the dress worn still by the hard working Frenchwomen one sees at some of their native ports. There is a large apron of the same, and a white handkerchief covers the shoulders, precisely as our own people used to wear theirs before it became necessary for them to follow the fashions of their superiors.

In addition to this simple and well adapted costume, she has a cap, or something that is both bonnet and cap, very like that of her sister of St. Vincent's, but still more like our English sun bonnets, of plain white linen, with the flaps, if I may so call them, falling a little lower at the sides. It is a dress designed for utility; it is loose, and easy, but