MODERN NURSING. y 77 



The Order of the Sisters of Mercy was founded in 1G17 by Vin- 

 cent de Paul, a preacher. In a sermon he placed before his congre- 

 gation the case of a poor and sick family, urging their co-operation 

 and sympathy. Enthusiasm and much zeal were roused, and a noble 

 and gifted woman, Louise de Marillac, the wife of Legras, the secre- 

 tary of Mary of Medicis, enlisted herself at once in the service of that 

 family and of many equally indigent. She and her friends worked 

 both in private residences and in hospitals, and were soon recognized 

 as an order. As early as 1G36 a house was founded for the care and 

 education of children and women, a foundling hospital was established, 

 and a home for the alienated in 1645. Her order owned, after a single 

 century, 290 stations, and had 1,500 members, who entered between 

 the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, bound themselves for life to the 

 order and the Church, and worked in hospitals and private residences, 

 in the interest of both women and men, in rescuing fallen girls and 

 educating the young. In Rome, mainly in this century, they assisted 

 those taken with infectious and acute diseases who could not be ad- 

 mitted to the public hospitals, and everywhere they attended the 

 chronic cases of sickness of all denominations. Their foothold in Ger- 

 many dates from this century only. Their greatest adversity was the 

 all-purifying thunder-storm, the French Revolution. Many emigrated 

 to England, but during the Napoleonic wars their services were so 

 much appreciated as to procure for Sister Martha the cross of the 

 Legion of Honor. 



All of the orders mentioned were composed of Catholics. Not 

 one of them but was intimately associated with the Church. In this 

 connection it ought not to be forgotten that all the culture and knowl- 

 edge of the mediaeval period was confined within the limits of the 

 Church. Within its fold the whole progress of mankind, slow though 

 it was, toward humanistic evolution, was developed. Thus the efforts 

 of the Catholic Church in favor of the poor and sick must be duly 

 appreciated, the more so, as the so-called " Reformation " party exhibits 

 nothing but blank leaves in the history of ethical and humane develop- 

 ment. The revolutionary movement prepared by powerful minds for 

 centuries, and finally carried out by Luther, did not result in any good 

 to the sick and poor for a long time. Indeed, the success of the Refor- 

 mation was in part due to the greed of German princes, who gained a 

 rich harvest by appropriating monasteries, hospitals, and all other 

 possessions of the Catholic Church. Thus the Lutheran Church, or 

 churches, were left so poor that if they had the will they had not the 

 power to make any pecuniary sacrifices in the interest of the poor and 

 sick. But even that will they had not, coidd not have. For the first 

 axiom in Luther's doctrine was this, that not vwrk performed, but faith 

 only, made the Christian. That doctrine was a long stride backward ; 

 it fired the imagination of some bigots, chilled the hearts of most men, 

 sustained the egotist, and created dissensions. Never was there a 



