eye of those who listen to me, scenes of the same kind, where female ministry has been called upon to do like offices of mercy; to wash the wounds and smooth the couch, and "lay the pillows aright," of the maimed, the war-broken, the plague-stricken soldier. But we must for a while turn back to the past. It is in the seventh century that we find the communities of charitable women first mentioned under a particular appellation. We read in history that when Landry, Bishop of Paris, about the year 650, founded an hospital, since known as the Hôtel Dieu, as a general refuge for disease and misery, he placed it under the direction of the Hospitalières, or nursing-sisters of the time,-women whose services are understood to have been voluntary, and undertaken from motives of piety. Innocent IV., who would not allow of any outlaying religious societies, collected and united those hospitalsisters under the rule of the Augustine Order, making them amenable to the government and discipline of the Church.

The novitiate or training of a Sœur Hospitalière was of twelve years' duration, after which she was allowed to make her profession. At that time, and even earlier, we find many hospitals expressly founded for the reception of the sick pilgrims and wounded soldiers returning from the East, and

bringing with them strange and hitherto unknown forms of disease and suffering. Some of the largest hospitals in France and the Netherlands originated in this purpose, and were all served by the Hospitalières; and to this day the Hôtel Dieu, with its one thousand beds, and the hospital of St. Louis, with its seven hundred beds, and that of La Pitié, with its six hundred beds, are served by the same sisterhood under whose care they were originally placed centuries ago.

For about five hundred years the institution of the Dames or Sœur Hospitalières remained the only one of its kind. During this period it had greatly increased its numbers, and extended all through Western Christendom.

The thirteenth century saw the rise of another community of compassionate women. These were the Sœurs Grises, or Grey Sisters, so called at first from the original color of their dress. Their origin was this the Franciscans (and other regular orders) admitted into their community a third or secular class, who did not seclude themselves in cloisters, who took no vows of celibacy, but were simply bound to submit to certain rules and regulations, and united together in works of charity, devoting themselves to visiting the sick in the hospitals or at their own homes, and doing good wherever and whenever called upon.

Women of all classes were enrolled in this sisterhood,-queens, princesses, ladies of rank, wives of burghers, as well as poor widows and maidens. The higher class and the married women occasionally served; the widows and unmarried devoted themselves almost entirely to the duties of nursing the sick in the hospitals.

Gradually it became a vocation apart, and a novitiate or training of from one to three years was required to fit them for their profession.

When at Florence, in 1857, I found the noble hospital of S. Maria-Nuova, the Hôtel Dieu of Florence, served by this Franciscan sisterhood, to whom it really belonged, though all responsibility with regard to the management had long been taken from them and placed in the hands of government officials. In former times there were at least thirty-three hospitals, each of the guilds or companies having its own, supported by its own members and managed by religious sisterhoods and confraternities. All these small hospitals became gradually merged in the large one; this rendered the whole establishment more convenient as a medical school, and as an assemblage of professorships, but the patients probably suffered from being crowded under one roof. At the time I visited it there were nearly 3,000 sick.

The Béguines, so well known in Flanders, seem to have existed as hospital-sisters in the seventh century, and to have been settled in communities at Liege and elsewhere in 1173. They wear a particular dress (the black gown and white hood), but take no vows, and may leave the community at any time-a thing which rarely happens.

No one who has travelled in Flanders, visited Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, or indeed any of the Netherlandish towns, will forget the singular appearance of these, sometimes young and handsome, but always staid, respectable-looking women, walking about protected by the universal reverence of the people, and busied in their compassionate vocation.

In their few moments of leisure, the Béguines are allowed to make lace and cultivate flowers, and they act under a strict self-constituted government, maintained by strict traditional forms. All the hospitals in Flanders are served by these Béguines. They have, besides, attached to their own houses, hospitals of their own, with a medical staff of physicians and surgeons, under whose directions, in all cases of difficulty, the sisters administer relief; and of the humility, skill, and tenderness with which they do administer it, I have heard but one opin

ion;* nor did I ever meet with any one who had travelled in those countries who did not wish that some system of the kind could be transferred to England.

In Germany, the Sisters of Charity are styled "Sisters of St. Elizabeth," in honor of Elizabeth of Hungary. At Vienna, a few years ago, I had the opportunity, through the kindness of a distinguished physician, of visiting one of the houses of these Elizabethan Sisters. There was an hospital attached to it of fifty beds, which had received about 450 patients during the year. Nothing could exceed the propriety, order, and cleanliness of the whole establishment. On the ground-floor was an extensive "Pharmaci," a sort of apothecaries' hall; part of this was divided off by a long table or counter, and surrounded by shelves filled with drugs, much like an apothecary's shop; behind the counter two Sisters, with their sleeves tucked up, were busy weighing and compounding medicines, with

* A recent traveller mentions their hospital of St. John at Bruges as one of the best conducted he had ever met with. "Its attendants, in their religious costume and with their nuns' head-dresses, moving about with a quiet tenderness and solicitude, worthy their name as 'Sisters of Charity'; and the lofty wards, with the white linen of the beds, present in every particular an example of the most accurate neatness and cleanliness."