478 



SISTERHOODS 



All are in connection with the mother-house, Rue 

 de Bac, Paris, anil are under the superioress, who is 

 elected every three years, and who resides there. 

 After five years' probation the sisters take vows, 

 renewable every year. Their habit is gray-blue 

 rloth, with large white collar, and white cornette 

 for the head. 



After Si Vincent de Paul's sisters, the ' Petites 

 So-ui s des Pauvres'rank next in numliers ami in 

 variety of active labours. They were founded in 

 1840 at St Servan, in Brittany, by the Abbe le 

 Pailleur, then but twenty -live, ami a young girl, 

 Marie .lainet, a poor needle- woman. She was soon 

 joined by another poor girl, Virginie Tredaniel, 

 scarcely sixteen, and shortly after by an old servant, 

 Jeanne Jugan, whose name Ls now Known through- 

 nut the length and breadth of France, and who at 

 forty eight had saved 600 francs (24). The in- 

 stitute was formed for the special object of the care 

 of the aged, destitute, ana sick poor. The work 

 was liegun by receiving a blind old woman of eighty 

 in an attic, belonging to a poor woman, Fanchon 

 Aubert, who at sixty years of age gave all she had 

 to the work and lived with the sisters, though not 

 formally joining the institute then supported, as 

 it still is in great measure, by scraps of food and 

 other alms which the sisters begged day by dav 

 from house to house. At the present day, in all 

 their houses, collee-grounds form in the namls of 

 the Little Sisters the basis of a (leverage which is 

 estec .1 a delicacy by their old people. 



Jeanne Jugan received from the French Academy 

 the 'prize for virtue,' Le. a grant of 3000 francs 

 (120) awarded every year to the person who is 

 judged to have surpassed all others in works of 

 charity. The recipient is said to be ' crowned by 

 the French Academy. ' This sum was applied to 

 building their first house at St Servan, the Abbe le 

 I'aillenr selling his gold watch and other effects to 

 help them ; and the work l>egun thus humbly half 

 a century before had by 1892, when the venerable 

 founder and Marie .lainet (then mother-general) 

 were still living, become one of the most imposing 

 and important charitable institutes of our time, 

 possessing 270 houses, with 4400 sisters. The 

 mother-house, established at La Tour in 1856, eon- 

 tains 600 novices from all parts of the world ; and 

 from this single centre are directed the work of 

 their thousands of sisters and the affairs of their 

 houses all over France, besides those in Ger- 

 many, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the British 

 Isles, Sicily, America, Africa, India, Ceylon, and 

 Australia. The institute was definitively approved 

 by Leo XIII. in 1886 the object, 'the care of 

 aged people of both sexes, irrespective of creed.' 



The 'Sseurs de Bon Secours" (of Troyes) were 

 also founded in 1840, by Abbe Miller, canon of the 

 cathedral at Troyes, for the purpose of nursing 

 the sick in their own homes. There are now 115 

 houses of this 'congregation' in Kiirope, seven in 

 Africa, and one in Hew York. In time of war the 

 Bisters nurse the soldiers on the battlefield and in 

 the ambulances. There is another order of 'Bon 

 Secours' Sisters (of Notre Dame), founded in 1824 

 by Archbishop Qu61en. 



A heroic sisterhood was formed in 1868 by 

 Cardinal Lavigerie, called 'of the African Mission,' 

 for the care of 300 Arab orphans after the great 

 Algerian famine. They have been pioneers of 

 rivili-uition as well as Christianity, ploughing and 

 planting vineyards with their own hands, and in 

 1892 had eleven different houses scattered through- 

 out northern Africa among the Kabyle Moun- 

 tains, on the edge of the desert, and along the 

 coast of Algeria. One of their chief works is the 

 reception ami education of negro children rescued 

 from slave-dealers. In July 1891 three of these 

 sisters were brought, at the request of the king of 



Dahomey, to visit him ; they were received with 

 great pomp, and sent away with large presents, 

 amongst which were three girls between ten and 

 fifteen. Many other smaller societies of sister- 

 hoods devoted to the care of the poor exist abroad ; 

 but, after France, Ireland has by far taken the 

 lend, both in the rapid growth of such societies 

 and in the number of women she has given to the 

 work. Indeed, considering the smallness of her 

 population, 4,700,000, she has probably far sur- 

 passed every nation in Europe in this charitable 

 work. 



During the prevalence of the penal laws in Ire- 

 land it was impossible for a woman in the dress of 

 a sister to be seen in the streeUs. But on their. 

 repeal in 1782 and 1793 the tire of charitable 

 enthusiasm in Irishwomen broke out and spread 

 the more rapidly for its long repression. The 

 'Irish Sisters of Charity ' were founded in Dublin 

 in 1815 by Marv Aikenhead, daughter of a gentle- 

 man of good Scottish family who had settled in 

 Cork. The society is on the same lines a- that of 

 St Vincent de Paul, but entirely distinct from it. 

 They have now nearly 500 sisters, with twenty - 

 three houses in Ireland, and one in England, be- 

 sides four houses in Australia not depending on 

 the mother-house. They are occupied in almost 

 every kind of charitable work --orphanages, hos- 

 iiilais, penitentiaries, schools, convalescent homes. 

 blind asylums, and certified industrial schools for 

 girls under government, of which 41:21 girls were 

 inmates in 1890. A hospice for the dying at 

 Harold's Cross near Dublin, with '200 l>eds, open to 

 all denominations and perfectly free, must lie 

 visited in order to gain any notion of the beauty 

 and comfort with which the dying are surrounded, 

 and the perfection of every arrangement. 



The ot her great sisterhood in Ireland is that of 

 the Sisters of Mercy, founded in 1831 in Dublin by 

 Catharine M'Anley. The object of this institute 

 is 'all works of mercy, corporal and spiritual, 

 especially education.' There are now at least 500 

 houses of these sisters in existence in all parts of 

 the world. In their jubilee year, 1881, 168 houses 

 had been founded in Ireland alone. This is quite 

 the most remarkable development of an order of 

 sisters in the world, considering that the whole 

 population of Ireland is less than that of London. 



Of sisterhoods belonging to the Anglican com- 

 munion the first foundation was made in 1845 by 

 Dr Pusey and Lord John Manners (afterwards 

 Duke of Rutland), who, assisted by a few friends, 

 opened a small house in Albany Street, Regent's 

 Park, to receive a few women desiring to devote 

 themselves to charitable works. Since then the 

 spread of English sisterhoods has been scarcely less 

 rapid than that of their Roman sisters in Ireland. 

 The most powerful impulse to the movement was 

 given by an Irish lady, the Hon. Harriet O'Brien, 

 sister of Lord Inchiquin, who, having married the 

 Rev. C. Monsell, and lieing early left a widow, 

 undertook the charge of an imam community 

 which had opened a House of Mercy for the recep- 

 tion of penitent women at Clewer, near \Vindsoi, 

 under the care of the rector of Clewer, the Rev. 

 T. T. Carter, the venerable warden that was to be 

 of the immense community numlicring hundreds of 

 sisters which has grown up" under his fostering care. 

 The sisters are engaged in all kinds of charitable 

 works missiciiiN in the worst parts of London, 

 schools both for the poor and those of a higher 

 class, and have built splendid convalescent hos- 

 pitals, receiving both men and women, at Clewer, 

 at Folkestone, and at Torquay. They have now 

 five houses for different objects at Clewer, four- 

 teen in London, and fourteen in other parts of 

 England. They have also a branch in America, 

 of which the mother-house is at New York ; and 



