Chapter XXIV: Part II: She Sang (4)

Our friends wanted us to take the villa next to theirs, if only the proprietor, a poor and proud _marchese_, would let it to us. We went over to look at it, but came away in disgust. There was scarcely any furniture, and none that would have satisfied even the most modest requirements. I do not remember seeing any beds, although it is certain the family come there from time to time for a few days. I asked Ida where they slept, and she pointed to some roomy sofas and wide divans, on which had been flung the ashes and the ends of cigars, as the probable resting‐place of the proprietors. We could only shake our heads in horrified astonishment, and think what a lovely place might be made of this quaint old house. It stands partly on the rock and partly on arcades, through which the sea comes rushing when the waves are high, but where, when it is calm, you may sit on silver sands or on the stone steps that lead down from the house and the upper terraced gardens. We had been so fascinated by the appearance of this residence, which looks outside like the fragment of an old feudal castle, and inside is bright with sunshine and the glorious view it commands, that we had requested Padre Cataldo to write and ask the terms before we had gone over it. On our return from doing so, shocked at the dirt and disorder we had witnessed, we were amused to find a magniloquent reply to the effect that the titled owner would “condescend” to let us his dwelling for (and here he named an exorbitant price), solely out of an amiable desire to make himself agreeable; and that he would call the following morning to receive the ten weeks’ rent in advance! We finally decided on the villa next but one to that of our friends—the Villa R—— R——. We did not require more than one floor of the house. The rest was occupied by the family, and had a second entrance. We came into our part straight from the Strada Nuova, down a few steps, and in at a large folding door flanked by a Stone seat and two vases with huge aloes. We had a lovely view of the bay in front, a little garden on a sloping bank on one side, full of oranges and lemons, now in full fruit and flower; a _loggia_—that great desideratum of an Italian house—and a view of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. On our return to our apartments, we were met by the woman who attends upon us, telling us that Ann was in her room with a bad headache. Little did we guess what had befallen her! We went in to see what was the matter, and found her flung upon the bed, with her clothes on, in a profound stupor. In vain we called her and shook her; we could not rouse her. The landlady presently came and told us that an hour previous poor Ann had been brought home by a _gendarme_ in a carriage; that she was unable to walk up‐stairs without assistance, and seemed completely dazed when spoken to. The _gendarme_ said he had noticed a young person sitting on a bench in the Villa Reale, the long, narrow garden which runs for a mile along the Chiaja by the sea‐shore; that she looked extremely ill; and that, noticing she had valuables about her (alluding to her watch and chain), he had asked her address, put her into a carriage, and brought her home. It was a mercy he had done so. The Neapolitan police are not always so honest. But our dismay was increased when at length, having awakened her, she did not know any of us. She kept entreating Mary, who held her in her arms, to take her back to her own Mrs. Gordon, her good Mrs. Gordon. In vain Mary replied, “But I am Mrs. Gordon, Ann. Look at me; don’t you know me?”

“No, no; you look something like her, but you have not her voice. Oh! where is she. Where is Miss Jane, and where is Lulu?”

Fortunately, Lulu, Mary’s dog, was in her room, and the probability was that, though she failed to know us, she would recognize Mary’s Lulu from any other Lulu. I flew to fetch the little animal, and threw it into her arms, to poor Lulu’s great astonishment. It succeeded perfectly. She knew the dog, and thus recovered her memory of the faces around her, and her conviction that she was in her own room. Evidently she had a vague horror that she might have been taken to the wrong house, and that she had awakened among strangers. When she had entirely recovered herself, we found that no trace of what had happened to her remained on her memory from the moment that she entered the Villa Reale; yet she was found more than half way down it! She must have wandered on partially insensible; and it is a blessing that, when the _gendarme_ found her, she had enough consciousness left to give the right address. She had already been out in the morning, and a second walk in the hot sun had been too much for her. It was a sun‐stroke; and strangers are more subject to such accidents than persons who have become habituated to the climate. It was, however, long before Ann really shook off the effects of gratifying her over‐curiosity to visit the beauties of Naples on first arriving.

In a very short time, we were comfortably settled at Villa R—— R——. The Vernons had arranged everything for us with a forethought for which we could not be too grateful. They lent us the services of Monica as cook, assuring us that, if we took a Neapolitan, we should be cheated and tormented out of our lives. Monica was a Piedmontese, and as good and simple‐hearted a girl as any one could wish to find. Her economical scruples were positively amusing. We could hardly induce her to buy the particular articles we desired for our dinner, because, in her estimation, they were at too high a price in the market; and she would beg and entreat of us to wait patiently a little longer until they should have gone down. If it had been her own money she was spending, she would not have been so economical; for, as we found out later, she was always ready to lend to those less well off than herself, and would give away more than she could afford. The name of the young lad whom the Vernons engaged to act as servant was Paolino, a boy of eighteen, with glorious, large brown eyes and bright complexion. It was some time before we taught him manners, as he had never been in a gentleman’s family before. His father was a _vignaiuolo_ of the name of Camerota. He had several sons and daughters, some of them married. He rented the vineyards of the _marchese_ whose dilapidated house we had declined to hire, and each of his children married from their home with a good substantial dower and a large _trousseau_. The eldest girl had not long been a bride when we arrived; and, after making the acquaintance of the other members of the family, we one day called upon her. Their dwelling was built against the tufa rock which skirts the Strada Nuova. She had three rooms, nicely furnished, with marble tops to the chest of drawers and the table, such as we in England should only expect to find in the houses of the rich, but which here are common enough. The bedstead was of walnut, and the sheets like the driven snow for whiteness. Ida, who had known the girl for years, told us that her _trousseau_ contained a dozen of every necessary article of dress and house‐linen, even to a dozen pairs of stays!—enough to last a life‐time. There hung a crucifix at the head of the bed, and a few colored engravings ornamented the walls of the sitting‐room, in which also there stood a tiny altar with a statue of the Mater Dolorosa and a few flowers.

The lower classes here have what we should call strange notions with respect to the sacrament of marriage. It is treated as a deed of darkness. The bride is conveyed late in the evening, or by cock‐crowing, to church, by her mother and a few respectable matrons. No young girl, not even a sister, is allowed to be present, and would endanger her reputation were she to appear on such an occasion. A few days later, the bride once more puts on her wreath, and her veil, and her wedding‐dress. All the family and friends of both sexes are gathered together, and the women and men, in separate carriages, drive fast and furious along the Chiaja up the Strada Nuova, past Posilippo, by the hour, and finally pause at the Taberna del Capo di Posilippo, or some other house of entertainment, and have a merry feast. We held this said Taberna somewhat in horror. On Sundays—the day on which everybody seems to think his honor and reputation are engaged in galloping up hill and down dale at a break‐neck pace for the whole afternoon—this was the chief place of meeting; and in the lovely starlight evenings, the returning guests would come back with a sadly rollicking air, hat on one side, a long cigar in the mouth, and a leg hanging over the side of the frail vehicle, while the spirited little Sardinian horse, all blood and sinew, would fly along, with jingling bells and bright brass harness, as if his hoofs hardly struck the earth. The drivers of these _cittadine_, as the little hired open carriages are called, take great pride in their harness. The horse‐collar more resembles a yoke; and where it meets over the horse’s neck, there is often a little brass image of the angel guardian—a very necessary angel, indeed, considering the pace they go, and whose guardianship must be severely put to the test by the mad risks of the half‐inebriated coachmen. It is very rare to see a Neapolitan really drunk. The wine they take produces a light, joyous, but brief intoxication, which makes dare‐devils of them for the time, but soon loses its effects, and is rarely stupefying. It is the divine _inflatus_ of the Bacchus of old, and not the coarse, heavy incapacity of the snoring Silenus. Nevertheless, though I have spoken so indulgently of the Taberna del Capo di Posilippo, it formed a not unfrequent subject of grave rebuke and expostulation in the discourses of our good Padre Cataldo to his little group of listeners in the chapel in the rock belonging to Villa Casinelli. And probably he knew more of its evil influences than we did. I remember, one Sunday afternoon, being particularly struck by a carriage full of merry‐makers, drawn by the most miserably thin gray mare my eyes had ever beheld. She was nothing but a bag of bones, and must have reached the utmost age that horse ever attains. I was horrified to see so old and pitiable an object driven so hard and fast, and could only console myself by thinking the gallop I then witnessed must surely be the last. But it was not so; far from it. Day after day, but on Sundays especially, my Rosinante might be seen flinging her wild hoofs into space, amid a cloud of dust, and generally in competition with a beautiful, wicked‐looking black horse, sleek and well cared for, in dazzling harness, with red ribbons in his mane—a perfect little devil, as he took the bit between his teeth, and seemed to enjoy the eagerness of his driver, albeit the lash fell often on his sleek and steaming flanks. I delighted in that little black horse. But to the last Sunday of our abode at Posilippo poor Rosinante held her ground. And I can see her now, awful to behold, neither fatter nor thinner—that she could hardly be—than the first day, devouring the ground beneath her, and flinging out her skeleton leg straight from the shoulder, so that I could hardly see she touched the ground.

The chief amusement on Sunday afternoons of our own humbler friends and neighbors, the _vignaiuoli_,(91) was a game of bowls by the side of the road, and in front of the wide‐gaping wooden doors of the strange dwellings cut in the rock where the inhabitants of Posilippo reside. Many of these are restaurants and taverns on a small and humble scale; and Padre Cataldo had been making vigorous efforts, not to discourage the game of bowls, but to induce the men to play in an open space near the Villa Casinelli, and consequently at some distance from the taverns. Like all Italians, and chief amongst them all, the Neapolitans are great gamblers. The tavern‐keepers encourage this, because it promotes their trade; and the games being carried on in front of their caverns (for such they really are) leads to incessant “treating.” In this way, what between entertaining his friends and losing his money at play, it often happens that the ill‐ advised _vignaiuolo_ returns to his home with his pockets empty; and the next day the wife would come in tears to tell her sorrows to the good father. Even our Paolino was never contented without an hour or two at bowls on Sunday afternoon. And we did not like to refuse him, for we were obliged to take him somewhat on his own terms; and these involved a very small sense of servitude, and a very large one that he had put us under something of an obligation by coming to us at all. Had he been a year or two older, his parents would not have allowed him to enter service, thinking it a degradation. But as he was very young, and rather restless and wanting change, it was decided that he might be allowed to work off a little of the exuberance of boyhood in our service. Even this could not have been allowed had we not been friends of the Vernons; but as they are adored by all the _vignaiuoli_ and the inhabitants of Posilippo generally, their request could not be overlooked. Accordingly, Paolino, blushing and grinning, was admitted to form one of our household. His father told us exactly what his son’s labor was worth to himself, and that we were to hand over to him. It was all to go to the making‐up of Paolino’s marriage‐ portion. We were then to pay the lad a little over for himself, as pocket money. And this was to be done with discretion; not to prove a temptation to lavish expenditure. This is the way in which the marriage‐portions of both boys and girls are made up. They work for their own parents, and the latter put by the wages for them. When old enough, they are at liberty to undertake other and more profitable work. And from time to time there comes a windfall—a little work to be done in addition; or a specially good harvest, when the parents add something of the surplus to the portion of the girl or boy then marriageable. There was a deep, dark‐eyed maiden, of the ripe age of fifteen, with wayward black locks and a furtive glance in her liquid eyes like a startled fawn, about whose conduct there was a slight demur. Venturella (for such was her name, and it struck me at the time as of evil omen) was at heart as innocent as a child of five. But there was something in her shy yet daring nature which caused a certain uneasiness as to the fate of the timid, impulsive girl in this evil world. Venturella was fond of leaning over the low parapet which divided her father’s vineyard from the highroad; and when the brief Italian twilight had sunk in the shades of night, and the brilliant stars, that seem so near in those southern lands, had spangled the dense blue heavens with their myriad fires, Venturella would pretend she did not hear her mother’s voice calling her to come home. With arms crossed, she would lean on the wall, just breast high, and her star‐like eyes would seek their sister‐ stars above with a vague, dream‐like wonder. What the stars—and perhaps even more the moon—said to Venturella we shall never know; but one of them must have carried a message to a certain youthful Franceschino, whose hyacinthine locks clustered low over a brow of ivory, beneath which lay two eyes like the evening sky Venturella was so fond of; and whose teeth gleamed in the soft light like the white sea‐foam. Nobody knew; and as the birds had all long ago gone to bed, none of them were there to whisper tales.

Franceschino was the son of a _vignaiuolo_ who lived on the Vomero, the heights above Posilippo; and the little stolen interviews took place as he came back from the city, whither he had been sent on his father’s business. From time to time the mother wondered what made her son so late in coming home; and one night she thought she would find out for herself whether the dry bush hanging out before the wide doors of one of those cavernous taverns had tempted Franceschino to try the red wine within, and perhaps take a hand at cards with some other loiterers. Alas! for Venturella when the indignant matron found out the charm which had led to the boy’s delay. She was not likely to hold her tongue about it. Nor was his father, who beat and cuffed him well; for boys of nineteen at Posilippo will meekly bear a cuffing from a parent, when they would not tolerate a finger’s weight from any one else. Then came the rage of Venturella’s mother; and spite of Padre Cataldo’s having elicited the fact that no greater wrong had been done than a few silly promises and one shy kiss, all Posilippo was loud in crying, Fie for shame! on the fawn‐eyed Venturella. At length those older than herself and wiser than her mother took the matter in hand. Could nothing be done? Stern fortune answered, Nothing. Venturella’s marriage‐portion was far from being made up. She was an idle hussy, and only worked when she could not help it. The rest of the time she paddled with naked feet in the silver sands, tempting the tiny waves to kiss them, or gathered scarlet poppies from among the green corn and twisted them in her raven hair. Worse than all, Franceschino was equally behindhand with his fortune; and nineteen was too young for a lad to marry, though fifteen was none too soon for a Neapolitan maiden.

There was, however, something in the silent _sauvagerie_ of the strange girl which made it evident to her betters that she could not be thwarted with safety. There was something deeper than words in the sudden flash of those wild eyes when they looked up fiercely, and then fell beneath the long, fringed lids, and lay in shadow like pools in some dense forest. Venturella shrank, half angry, half ashamed, at every breath of blame; while her eyes grew larger and deeper, and the round, full cheeks became pallid and sunken.

“What is to be done with that wayward girl?” was the ever‐recurring question among the Vernons, who seemed to take upon their own charitable shoulders every burden that weighed upon their numerous friends, the Posilippians. At length a suggestion was made that Venturella should be sent to school far away from present associations, where she would have numerous girls of her own age to divert her, and where she might learn fine needle‐work and embroidery—the only thing, besides paddling in the sea and weaving wreaths of wild flowers, for which she had ever shown any disposition. Meanwhile, a _dot_ was to be thought of for her; not so very much was wanted to make up the necessary sum—about 4,500 francs. And then, when Venturella should be wiser and Franceschino older, who knows but what love’s young dream may turn out true at last?

It did not take us long to get intimate with the names and habits of the rural population around us. They were quite willing to receive us as friends, and seemed to expect a ready sympathy from us in all their concerns. Unlike the peasants of an English village, the best of whom, at least amongst the women, cultivate so little acquaintance with each other, here everybody knew everybody else; and though I do not pretend to say there was less gossiping among them, it always struck me that there was less of that sour ill‐nature which is apt to characterize the English cottager’s comments on her neighbors. No doubt this arises in a greater degree from the nature of the people than from acquired virtue. It is only in northern, damp climes, like the English, that the necessary ills of life are so heightened and intensified by the general sense of moral and physical discomfort which a heavy atmosphere and a gray sky produce. We all know what it is to wake in the morning with a vague sense of apprehension, as if the post were about to bring us a distressing letter which our imagination foresaw. We all know the ceaseless and unreasoning feeling of being out of spirits which also tempts us to be out of temper. We are acquainted with the blue‐devils, and we are generally taciturn and inclined to gloom. The Italian knows nothing of this. The very great and constantly‐pervading influence these feelings have over our daily life is absolutely beyond the limits of his experience, unless, of course, he is suffering from a deep sorrow or a real physical malady. To the age of eighty, he wakes in the morning with the same sensation of joyous energy or placid pleasure which we were beginning to lose before we were eight. He is passionate; but he is not irritable. He has paroxysms of despair, but he knows no constant gloom. Our impatience, our tendency to being “put out,” are enigmas to him. The small hindrances of every day and every hour are less a great deal to him than the swarms of his pestering southern flies are to us. _Pazienza_ (patience) is for ever on his lips; and it is no vain word, for patient he is to a degree which is exasperating to behold. When he is waiting, he is not gnawing an invisible bit, as we are doing, and grinding his teeth to powder. He is simply enjoying the being alive; and it does not much matter to him whether he chews the delicious cud of existence waiting at your door or sitting in his own home. You may make him furiously angry; and as likely as not he will stab you in the back and in the dark. But you cannot make him cross, or fretful, or peevish, or low‐spirited. Depend upon it, if he is ever any one of these things, it is high time to call in the doctor, who probably will declare his case already hopeless. On the other hand, if anything—and it may often be a trifle—thoroughly rouses a Neapolitan, it is fearful. It becomes a _rabbia_ (a rage), as they themselves express it; and then they are blind and deaf to reason and expostulation, and run amuck of all that comes in their way. It is possible that the extraordinary violence which seizes them is, in a measure, purely physical, and that that also in a measure diminishes their responsibility. Evidently, they think so themselves. _Era una rabbia_(92) is considered almost an excuse for the worst crimes, so long as these were committed in the heat of passion. And probably, in the long run, this has seriously affected the moral sense; so that good and reasoning people fail to be as much horrified at some murder committed in a brawl as we should be. They look upon an event of the kind almost in the light of a mutual misfortune between the murdered and the murderer. It is at least certain that the line of demarcation which separates inward resentment from the outward act of guilt is more easily crossed by these children of the sun, and does not presume the existence of so much previous demoralization as it would do with us. Yet I am far from intending to write an apology for the Neapolitan character. There is a great deal about them which is very graceful and very attractive; and when they are really good and refined, they are most lovable. But this is exceedingly rare. As a people, they are venal, deceitful, mercenary, and treacherous. But with it all, they are exactly like children; good or naughty, as the case may be, but always children.

Frank not being with us, the Vernons had undertaken to procure for us a carriage and a pair of horses, with a well‐conducted coachman, to hire by the month. Indeed, had Frank been there, he could not have done it half as well as they did; for all these transactions require you to be acquainted with the current charges and with the character of the people; and Frank had no experience in either. The Vernons concluded the bargain for us with Pascarillo, the man from whom they always hired a vehicle when they wanted one; and a fine, handsome‐looking fellow he was, with the reputation of being rather a gay Lothario, but, on the whole, an honest man as Neapolitans go. Our carriage was delightfully roomy. It held four with admirable ease, and five at a pinch, together with cloaks and cushions, luncheon and drawing materials, whenever we went on an excursion. In the evening, we could close it. We had two very fleet horses, not at all fine‐ looking, and rather undersized for the carriage, but the best little beasts to go I ever saw. Our coachman was a veritable son of Jehu. He was a miserable object, mean and despicable to look at, diminutive, with bleared eyes, a beardless chin, and the expression of a low coward. But never have I sat behind such a coachman as that. I believe he would have taken us up the wall of a house and down the other side in perfect safety. It did not signify what his horses did, or what evident peril we got into, he always managed quite quietly to bring us right again without any expression of vehemence or alarm. Suddenly, one day, our coachman vanished. An old man appeared in his stead, and a pair of grays, larger than the little brown horses. We made no remark, supposing it was an accident, and that our former equipage would return in time. That day we set out for the Vomero—the height above Posilippo, covered with beautiful villas, and commanding a superb view, or rather many views. The horses jibbed. We were greatly alarmed. They could not be got up the hill, and we had to go home. We sent an indignant message to Pascarillo, and hoped it would never happen again. But it did happen; not once nor twice only. And then Pascarillo was sent for in person to render an account of himself. There he stood, six foot two, with broad chest, a forest of hair, and an august presence. Ida, the universal spokeswoman, with her fluent Italian and her determined energy, left him in no doubt as to her opinion of his conduct. He heard her out silently and calmly, and then replied that the _signorina_ was quite right; he was conscious that his conduct had been inexcusable, and that we had serious cause for displeasure. He had not kept to his bargain, and he was aware of it. It should not happen again; and with a polite bow, he retired. It did not happen again. He had tried to take us in, and he had not succeeded—just a little speculation that had failed, and that was all! As for any rancor at being scolded, or any humiliation at having to make an apology, such sentiments did not trouble the breast of Pascarillo for a second. He probably only said to himself, “Better luck next time.” Our little horses came back, and our impish young coachman with them. We had never again to complain. But the impression made on Mary’s imagination by our coachman’s face was such that she had scruples of conscience about Paolino being allowed to converse with him on the coach‐box. Paolino was, therefore, seriously informed that for a footman to talk to the coachman when the ladies were in the carriage was not good manners. And from that moment silence was maintained; and Paolino’s morals were left untainted, as he sat, radiant in clean white cotton gloves and a new necktie, enjoying the delights of drives and picnics at least as much as the persons on whose account they were undertaken.

The Female Religious Of America.

In this busy world of labor, where mankind seems exclusively bent on the acquisition of wealth, fame, or power, on fashion, folly, and empty pleasures, how seldom we pause to consider seriously the diversity and multiplicity of the elements of humanity by which we are surrounded! How few, in their headlong career after vain desires, ask themselves if this world were made for them alone; if the end and object of life, the first gift of a merciful Creator, is merely selfish enjoyment, or whether the social compact, as well as the laws of God, do not require of us to assist in every way possible our less fortunate or more afflicted fellow‐ creatures.

It requires little reflection or effort to distinguish the favorites of fortune—those whose lot having been cast in pleasant places, shine in the public regard like beings of a superior order. Worldly success is ever prominent, and its devotees are always ready to court its notice and extol its merits. To be fashionable is to be fawned upon; to be influential, sought after; to wield power is to be placated. Not so with the humble, the poor, the ignorant, and the obscure; the victims of physical affliction or of moral degradation. They are usually shunned, often despised, and, as far as possible, contemptuously ignored. They constitute the outcasts of “society,” and, when they come betwixt the wind and its nobility, are merely objects of contempt, barren pity, or downright loathing. Yet these very unfortunates comprise, even in our own favored land, a very large and, in an indirect sense, a potent constituent of our population. Always with us, no matter how much we may attempt to separate ourselves from them, they appeal to us for help in the name of all we hold sacred; and their supplications, no matter how mutely made, if unheeded, are certain to be followed, even in this life, by a blight on our souls as well as a curse to our bodies. The heart of man becomes hardened, the fine perception of fraternal love and charity with which he is naturally blessed withers and shrivels up, and he becomes a mere embodiment of self, an arid isolation, in proportion as he steels himself against the cries and sufferings of his kind. The very ignorance he will not help to remove, the want and squalor he refuses to alleviate, rise up in judgment against him, and, developing into crimes against life and property, haunt his footsteps, and but too often mark him for their prey.

As in all things else, if we want an exemplar for our conduct in relation to our fellow‐beings, we must look to the church. Following the teachings of her divine Founder, from the earliest ages she has recognized the existence of the vast amount of misery, poverty, vice, and ignorance which underlies the surface of civilization, ancient and modern, and has used every effort to mitigate it. While yet the successors of S. Peter were struggling with the effete though polished paganism of the dismembered Roman Empire, and the greater part of Europe was enshrouded in the darkness of barbarism, societies of holy men and pious women were established and sustained by the popes and the fathers of the church, to mitigate in some degree, by their prayers and good works, the evils which beset society in its earliest transition state. The principal evils to be combated at that time were the ferocity of heathenism outside the confined limits of Christendom, and, within, the mental obscurity of the barbaric catechumens and neophytes. Physical destitution, in our signification of the term, was but little known beyond the limits of a few great cities; for men’s wants were few and easily supplied before the increase of population and the unequal distribution of property became general in the Old World. Therefore we find that the monks and nuns of the IVth century, and for many hundreds of years afterwards, devoted themselves mainly to preaching and teaching, to the multiplication of copies of the Holy Scriptures, and to praying for the conversion of mankind. Thus the order founded by S. Basil, Archbishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, A.D. 362, and that of S. Benedict, Abbot of Norcia, in Italy, in 529, and the numerous cenobitic communities which sprang from them, all more or less strictly observing the rules laid down by those great lights of the church, considered prayer, humility, and obedience the essential principles of their foundation.

Congregations of women devoted to the worship of God, prayer, and poverty were coeval with, if not anterior to, those of men; for we find that S. Anthony, in the latter part of the IIId century, placed his sister in a “house of virgins,” of which she afterwards became abbess; and that on Christmas day, 352, in S. Peter’s Church in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the habit and veil on Marcellina, enjoining on her a life of mortification and prayer. A little later, mention is made of SS. Marcella, Lea, and Paula as distinguished Roman women who forsook the world, and spent their remaining life in prayer and good works; the latter especially, who, with her daughter, built a hospital at Bethlehem, erected a monastery for S. Jerome and his monks, and founded in Palestine three convents for female recluses, of which she took personal charge. S. Basil found many such convents in existence, and established several more within his jurisdiction, one of which was presided over by his sister Macrina, at Pontus. S. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, up to 407, writes that in Egypt the congregations of women were as numerous as the monasteries; and S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (396‐430), built a convent of nuns, of which his sister was superior, giving it, in 423, a written rule, still followed by the religious who bear his name. Four years after, S. Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Casino, the rules of which, having been approved by Gregory the Great, in 595, have been very generally adopted by many religious bodies of men and women in Europe and America.

At first these religious institutions were confined to Italy and the East; but as the light of the faith gradually extended over Europe, religious houses were multiplied; and though for a long time each convent was governed by its own inmates, and followed the ancient rules, modified in many instances by peculiar circumstances, it was eventually found judicious to form them into distinct orders or congregations, in which all the establishments of a particular foundation were governed by a general head or superior. The strict requirements of prayer, humility, and obedience were still observed; but to these were added the education of the children of the poor, alms‐giving, and other acts of external devotion. Wherever a church was built, a monastery planted, or a number of people gathered together to worship God, there was generally to be found a convent, wherein the ailing might find relief; the afflicted, consolation; and the ignorant of the female sex, enlightenment. There the young whose parents were scarcely out of the slough of barbarism were taught their catechism and the beautiful prayers and litanies of the church, as well as to weave, spin, and all the other duties of a civilized housewife. While the clergy, secular and regular, went among the adults, preaching, instructing, and baptizing, holy women were near at hand to pray for the success of their efforts, and to show, by their gentle charities and meek demeanor, the loveliness and beneficence of the Christian religion.

One of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church is that she, and she alone, freed woman from the grossest slavery, and placed her in her proper sphere of usefulness and influence. By the sacrament of marriage, woman was made the honored equal of man; by her commandments and precepts, the church guarded her liberty and her purity, exalted her authority in the family, and recognized in her, even in death, the loving protectress of her offspring. But the church did more than all this. She gave to woman a part in her divine mission, a share in the most glorious task ever allotted to humanity—the propagation of the law of the Most High; and the dispensation of his mercies and benevolence. We are not surprised, then, to learn that in past ages, “when faith was young,” the most gifted and high‐born of their sex in every Christian land, daughters of nobles and princes, abandoning all the fascinations of the world, even those of royalty itself, were to be found eager to take part in the great work of religion, and consecrate their lives to prayer, penance, and charity, for the sake of the poor and helpless.

Such humility and implicit faith in the goodness of God could not have been unavailing; and we who now enjoy the blessings of true morality, with the refinements and graces of true civilization, seldom cast a thought back to the days of semi‐barbarism among our forefathers, when the only light that illumined the gloom of the outer world proceeded from the lamp of the sanctuary, and the only asylum open to the affectionate and modest soul of woman was the humble convent, where she could surround herself with the innocent and unstained children of both sexes, and teach them the way of salvation. Beyond those sacred enclosures, in bygone days, were little but passion, grossness, and self‐indulgence; while within reigned peace, delicacy, and that knowledge which is justly called the beginning of wisdom. The world at length commences to acknowledge the incomparable services of the monks and doctors, the penmen and preachers of the so‐ called dark ages; but who shall count up the debt of gratitude we owe to the thousands upon thousands of holy women who, spurning every earthly allurement, abandoning home, friends, and country, have sought, generation after generation, to win an eternal reward by unceasing prayer and continuous acts of benevolence? Europe is still, as in the past, enjoying the benefits of the labors of her pious daughters; India, China, and the furthest confines of the eastern hemisphere are reaping the advantages of the missionary efforts of the good nuns and Sisters; but America seems destined to be in the future the field whereon the full effulgence of God’s goodness is to be made manifest in the persons of his chosen handmaids.

To us especially the presence of so many pious and educated women is of incalculable advantage. The Catholic body in the United States has to combat a much more insidious and dangerous foe than was ever arrayed against the church, even in her darkest days of persecution. Then Christianity had only to shatter the idol of imperial Rome, already tottering to its base; now we have to fight against what may be termed civilized paganism, energetic, unscrupulous, and worldly‐wise, which aims at mere sensuous enjoyments, cultivates the intellect at the expense of the soul, and even attempts to use the very evidences of God’s works as a justification for their contempt of his law, and as argument against his existence itself. At the worst, the rude pagan of Northern and Western Europe had a belief in a superior Being, and an acknowledged, innate dependence on his will; but the fashionable sceptic of to‐day, the learned doubter of our schools and academies, believes in nothing but himself, and obeys his own whims as his highest rule of morality. It is a melancholy fact, but none the less true, that, according to official authority, nearly one‐half of the people of this country, male and female, practically believe in no form of religion whatever. Disgusted at the perpetual wranglings and disagreements of the sects in the name of Christianity; trained into mere cultivated animals by a system of public tuition which ignores God, or recognizes his existence only to ridicule and travesty his word; and freed from all the restraints which the church so wisely throws around her children from their earliest infancy, is it wonderful that the majority of the youth of this nation should grow up in the actual deification of their own prejudices and passions? With so many instances daily and hourly presented to our eyes, are we to be surprised that persons thus reared should be so active in creating a public opinion among us which is not Catholic, nor even Protestant, but simply and absolutely heathenish, without the refinement of the ancient Greeks to soften its grossness, or the pride of the Roman to save it from cupidity and dishonor?

How all‐important is it, then, to parents to be able to find schools wherein their children—those loved ones whom they have been instrumental in bringing into the world, and for whose eternal welfare they are responsible—will be cared for and instructed, taught habits of industry as well as accomplishments, and in which bands of zealous, educated, and religious women are ever ready to plant and nurture the seeds of virtue in their hearts, while shielding their young minds from even the shadow of contamination. Such guardians of the female youth can only be found in the nunneries, convents, and schools of the Catholic Church. There their lives are wholly and exclusively devoted to works of benevolence, of which the religious instruction of the ignorant is by no means the least. The world for them has neither cares nor attractions; they move, live, and have their being in an atmosphere of order, prayer, and tranquillity, their very appearance being in itself a homily of obedience and cheerful reliance on the goodness of their Maker.

Even though the educational establishments of the nuns and Sisters are in their infancy, there are few parents who need deprive their children of the advantages to be gained only in them. A quarter of a century ago, we could only boast of sixty‐six such institutions, while now we have nearly four hundred academies alone. What excuse, therefore, is there for a piously‐inclined mother or a discriminating father to imperil the happiness and faith of her or his children by sending them to secular schools where the training they receive is worse than artificial? In the convents they can be taught every accomplishment that befits a young lady, no matter how high her station in life, without being made the shallow creature, the mere puppet of fashion, which we find so often “turned out” by the modern secular school‐mistresses of our time; without heart, feeling, and, we might almost say, with no fixed perception of right and wrong.

Then we have two hundred and forty select schools, or an average of four for each diocese, attended by boarders or those living with their relations. These differ from the academies only in degree, being intended for the benefit of children whose position in life does not demand the same elaborate mental culture, or whose school‐days are necessarily short. Still, they receive the same attention, and are subjected to precisely similar moral influences, as the others. But the poor—those whose parents are unable to pay for their education—are they to have none of the advantages so freely accorded their wealthy neighbors? Must they be thrust into the tainted atmosphere of our public schools, and left to shift for themselves? Not so. The poor have ever been the primary objects of the good Sisters’ solicitude; and though they count their academies by hundreds, the number of their free schools, parish, orphan, and industrial, may be reckoned by thousands, and the pupils by myriads.

In the Diocese of New York there are forty‐six of these female schools, with over twenty thousand children, whose tuition is gratuitous, besides some three thousand inmates of orphan asylums and other charitable institutions for juveniles. In the Philadelphia diocese there are thirty‐ five Sisters’ free schools, containing nearly ten thousand scholars, in addition to the orphans. In Cincinnati, where the school system has been brought to a state of great efficiency, the proportion of the attendants to the Catholic population is much greater. We have no means of ascertaining the total number of pupils in the entire country; but if we take the three dioceses above mentioned as a criterion, it will be found that in the United States there are nearly three hundred thousand girls daily receiving at the hands of the Sisters of various congregations a free, thorough, and practical Catholic education. The expense alone of this great work of charity, if not performed without compensation, would be, judging from the cost of the public schools of New York, at least eight millions of dollars annually. If we add to the number of girls in the free schools the fifty or sixty thousand pupils in the six hundred and forty academies and select schools, we will find that about three hundred and fifty thousand female children are, in this year of grace 1874, under the more than maternal care of the religious of the Catholic Church.

Who can estimate the immense amount of good which is accomplished in this manner? Who can measure the beneficent effects to the country produced by these institutions of learning, which annually send to their homes so many thousands of children to gladden the hearts of fond parents, not so much by their varied acquirements, as by their gentleness of disposition and unaffected piety? If we cannot gauge the merits of the Sisters by what we see before us, how much less capable are we of estimating the reward which their long years of devotion will receive from Him who said of little children, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

As to the efficiency of the nuns and Sisters as teachers of the young people of their own sex, there is scarcely a second opinion, even among non‐Catholics. Many Protestants and unbelievers, while professing little or no religion themselves, but who would not see their fair daughters follow their example, are careful to place them under the charge of the daughters of the church, well knowing that, while their minds will be amply stored with useful and elegant knowledge, their impressionable hearts will be guarded against the follies and sins of the world. If all the communities in the country—in number about forty‐five—were to devote their entire labor alone to this great work of education, what a benediction would they deserve from untold millions!

But they do not stop here. They go much further, and, with some few exceptions, their charity takes a far wider range. There are the poor waifs, left deserted on the highways, to be rescued from impending death and nursed into consciousness; the orphan, who has been deprived of its natural guardians, to be cared for; the unfortunate pariah of her sex, to be consoled and encouraged to resume the path of virtue; the jails, where lie the agents of passion and crime, to be visited; the aged and infirm to be taken by the hand, and led down the slope of life with tender solicitude. Again, the deaf, the blind, the insane, the wounded, the sick, and even the incurable, are, according to their several needs, objects of unremitting attention. No evil is so deep‐seated, no affliction so bitter, no disease, whether of the mind or of the body, so loathsome, that the holy women of the church, with God’s assistance, cannot assuage or cure.

To teach children is doubtless a responsible and laborious occupation, but nevertheless not without attractions; but to walk day and night the wards of a hospital, and breathe the dire contagion of disease, or, in the reformatory, to have the ear filled with the blasphemies and ribaldries learned in the lowest dens of vice, are surely trials to appall the stoutest heart, and to test to the very utmost the constancy and zeal of delicately‐nurtured women. Yet the capacious bosom of the church has room enough, has rest and shelter, for all classes of unfortunates. In the sixty‐two dioceses and vicariates into which the United States is divided, there are nearly three hundred foundling, orphan, deaf, blind, and insane asylums, reformatories, protectories, industrial institutions, homes for the aged, houses of the Sisters of the Poor, as well as infirmaries and hospitals; the former numbering over two hundred, and the latter about ninety, or, collectively, an average of five charitable institutions for each ecclesiastical division.

What a load of human misery is thus presented to the eye and committed to the relief of the indefatigable followers of Christ! Who can imagine that has not experienced it the daily round of toil, of watching, and solicitude which constantly awaits the footsteps of the gentle Sister, as she goes among her helpless clients in the foundling asylum, listens to the tale of woe and crime from the still youthful lips of the repentant Magdalene, or comforts the outcast of his kind at the very foot of the scaffold. Watch how lovingly she hushes the deserted babe or the scarcely less pitiable orphan to sleep; how kindly she takes the hand so long stained by contact with the vicious and the guilty into her own soft palm, and breathes words of comfort and encouragement into ears long used only to curses and vile speech; how deftly she smoothes the pillow of the sick, and smiles on the second childishness of her _protégés_, the aged and infirm poor. At her approach, the suffering child forgets its pains and stretches forth its little arms for her aid; the hospital loses half its _ennui_ and gloom, and even the condemned cell is illumined by a ray of sunlight when she enters it. In fact, wherever there is poverty, sickness, or suffering of any kind, there is the place for the devoted Sister, and there, in truth, she becomes “a ministering angel.”

The distribution of these asylums and hospitals is another interesting feature in their capacity for general usefulness. In dioceses having an estimated Catholic population of over one hundred thousand, they may be thus classified: In Buffalo there is one to every 8,000 Catholics; in Cleveland, St. Louis, and Louisville, one to 13,000; in San Francisco, one to 15,000; Albany, one to 18,000; in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, one to 23,000; Newark, Alton, and St. Paul, one to 25,000; Boston, one to 30,000; Milwaukee, one to 40,000; Chicago, one to 45,000; Galveston and Providence, one to 60,000; Hartford, one to 80,000; and in Springfield, one to every 150,000. Of the less populous dioceses, Oregon has 1, Burlington 1, Columbus 2, Covington 3, Erie 1, Fort Wayne 3, Grass Valley 3, Mobile 3, Monterey and Los Angeles 5, Nashville 2, Natchez 2, Natchitoches 3, Nesqually 4, Portland 2, Richmond 3, Rochester 5, Santa Fé 2, Savannah 3, Vincennes 4, Wheeling 2, Wilmington 1, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, Charleston 2. Green Bay, Harrisburg, La Crosse, Little Rock, Ogdensburg, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and North Carolina, all small dioceses or sparsely‐settled vicariates, have none.

It is impossible to give anything like an approximate report of the vast number of persons of all ages and sexes who find relief, advice, and protection in these asylums and hospitals; for we are not aware that there is in existence any general or full returns from one‐half of the charitable institutions scattered so broadcast over the country. We can therefore only attempt to form an estimate of the whole by taking the statistics nearest us. For example, in this diocese there are 572 girls and very young boys in the female protectory, 1,297 in seven orphan asylums, 546 penitents in the House of the Good Shepherd; while in one of the four city hospitals, S. Vincent’s, 950 patients were received during last year. In Brooklyn there are 1,041 orphans, 208 penitents, 420 patients in two hospitals, in addition to nearly 3,000 externs who received medical and surgical attendance, and 229 old men and women under the charge of the Little Sisters of the Poor.