"I do not know; such a thing never happened to my knowledge. We are content with the one that is given to us; but if anything unusual occurs, there is our Director of the Mother House who comes to see us every three months."

This gave me an idea of something very unlike our extraordinary self-will, which, whatever side it takes, is so strongly manifested in exercising the right of choosing religious teachers. It is the principle of dissent, and is found too generally pervading our Church from one extremity to the other; but it cannot form an element of a religious or a charitable community: persons joining such must renounce that right; and it is clear that if what is commonly understood by "direction" were practised by every Clergyman into whose work or parish they were called, the Sisters of Charity in one parish would not be as the Sisters of Charity in another; both would have emanated recently from one stock, both be liable any day to return to it, or to move elsewhere, yet both would be liable to become quite different persons from what they had been, and both would be in danger of withdrawing from that obedience which is their real direction.

A community that would avoid religious discord or discussion,-those foes to spiritual life and charitable work,-must have one spiritual guide, and each member must forego the protestant right of choosing one for herself.

And now I am going to conclude. You asked me

to get you some books about charitable works, and I could not find any, so I have given you a few scraps, as the children say, out of my own head.

The Sister of Charity in the abstract, is to me a charming creation; combining the tenderness, devotedness, and all the lovelier attributes of woman, with the heroic qualities which generally lie dormant in her nature, but which, when aroused, tend to enhance the loveliness of the others, and draw them out in more beautiful colouring. To see her on the battle-field, or in the infant school, by the sick man's bed, or snatching the cast-away infant of China from its cruel fate,-braving danger, or showing only pity and love,—she is, in her real character, all that our ideal of woman can be. She is not a Frenchwoman only: we know now that she can be an Englishwoman also.

Farewell. Whatever else you do, if you try to make, or to keep Sisters of Charity in England, bear in mind the words of their founder. "Be united," he said, "and GOD will bless you; but be united in the Charity of JESUS CHRIST."

JOSEPH MASTERS AND CO., PRINTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, LONDON.