tian charity. Impossible as it is to describe every thing, and to judge which of so great a number of charitable works are superior in virtue to the others, we select, almost at random, the subjects of the following pages.

In order to form a just idea of the immensity of these benefits, we should look upon Christendom as a vast republic, where all that we relate concerning one portion is passing at the same time in another. Thus, when we treat of the hospitals, the missions, the colleges, of France, the reader should also picture to himself the hospitals, the missions, and the colleges, of Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, England, America, Africa, and Asia. should take into his view two hundred millions of men at least, among whom the like virtues are practised, the like sacrifices are made. He should recollect that for eighteen hundred years these virtues have existed and these same acts of charity have been repeated. Now calculate, if your mind is not lost in the effort, the number of individuals cheered and enlightened by Christianity among so many nations and during such a long series of ages.

CHAPTER II.

HOSPITALS.

CHARITY-an exclusively Christian virtue, unknown to the ancients originated in Jesus Christ. It was this virtue that principally distinguished him from the rest of mankind, and was in him the seal of the regeneration of human nature. By charity it was that the apostles, after the example of their divine Master, so rapidly won the hearts of their fellow-men and so irresistibly carried conviction home to their bosoms.

The primitive believers, instructed in this great virtue, formed a general fund for the relief of the poor, the sick, and the traveller. This was the commencement of hospitals. The Church, having become more opulent, founded institutions for the afflicted worthy of herself. From that moment works of beneficence had no bounds. A flood of charity may be said to have burst upon

the wretched, heretofore unheeded by the prosperous of the world. It will perhaps be asked, How, then, did the ancients manage if they had no hospitals? They had two methods which Christians have not, to rid themselves of the poor and the unfortunateinfanticide and slavery.

The Lazarettos, or Hospitals dedicated to St. Lazarus, seem to have been the first houses of refuge in the East. Into these establishments were received such leprous persons as, renounced by their relatives, were languishing in the streets of the cities— the horror of the passers-by. These hospitals were attended by the monks of the order of St. Basil.

We have already alluded to the Trinitarians, or Fathers for the Redemption of Captive Slaves. St. Peter Nolasco in Spain. followed the example of St. John of Matha in France. It is impossible to peruse without emotion the austere rules of these orders. By their original constitution the Trinitarians were restricted to a diet of vegetables and milk. But why did they live so austerely? Because the more these fathers denied themselves the necessaries of life the larger was the sum reserved for the barbarians;-because, if the wrath of Heaven required victims, it was hoped that the Almighty would receive the expiations of these religious in exchange for the sufferings from which they might deliver the prisoners.1

The order of Mercy gave several saints to the world. St. Peter Pascal, Bishop of Jaen, after expending all his revenues in the redemption of captives and the relief of the poor, went among the Turks, by whom he was thrown into prison. The clergy and people of his diocese sent him a sum of money for his ransom. "The saint," says Helyot, "received it very thankfully, but, instead of employing it in obtaining his own liberty, he redeemed a number of women and children, whose weakness made him apprehensive lest they should forsake the Christian. religion; and he thus remained in the hands of the barbarians, who procured him the crown of martyrdom in the year 1300."

In this order there was also formed a congregation of females, who devoted themselves to the relief of indigent strangers of

A third reason may be assigned,-viz.: the greater the self-denial of the Redemptionists the more courage would they have to endure the hardships consequent upon the duties of their vocation. T.

their own sex. One of the foundresses was a lady of distinction at Barcelona, who divided her whole fortune among the indigent. Her family name is lost; and she is now known only by the appellation of Mary of Succor, which the poor have given her.

The order of Religious Penitents in Germany and France rescued from vice unfortunate females who were in danger of perishing from want after leading a life of debauchery. It was a sight truly divine to behold religion, by an excess of charity, rising superior to circumstances, however disgusting, and requir ing even an evidence of vice, lest its institutions should be diverted from their purposes, and innocence, under the garb of repentance, should usurp a retreat that was intended only for guilt. "You know," says Jehan Simon, Bishop of Paris, in the constitutions of this order, "that some who were virgins have come to us, at the suggestion of their mothers and relatives, who were anxious only to get rid of them; we therefore direct that, if any one apply for admission into your congregation, she be examined," &c.

The tenderest names were employed to cover the past errors of these unfortunate females. They were called daughters of the Good Shepherd, or daughters of Magdalen, to denote their repentance and the forgiveness which awaited them. The vows which they pronounced were but simple. Matches were even sought for such as wished to marry, and a small dowry was granted on those occasions. That every thing about them might suggest ideas of purity, they were dressed in white, whence they were likewise called White Daughters. In some cities crowns were placed on their heads, and they were greeted with the words, Veni, sponsa Christi, "Come, spouse of Christ." These contrasts were affecting; and this delicacy was truly worthy of a religion which can relieve without wounding the feelings, and spare the weaknesses of the human heart at the same time that it eradicates its vices.1 At the Hospital of the Holy Ghost at Rome it is forbidden to follow such persons as come to deposit orphans at the door of the universal Father.

1 In the seventeenth century other orders were established having the same object in view, as those of Our Lady of Refuge, and Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd. There are several houses of the latter institute in the United States, which do an immense good. T.

There are many unfortunate persons in society whose situation does not obtrude itself upon your notice, because, descended from respectable but indigent parents, they are obliged to keep up appearances amid the privations of poverty. Scarcely can any situation be more cruel; the heart is wounded on every side; and, to those who possess ever so little elevation of soul, life is a perpetual suffering. What is to become of the unhappy daughters of such persons? Will they go into the families of rich and haughty relatives, and there submit to every kind of contempt? or will they embrace occupations which the prejudices of society and their native delicacy forbid them in spite of all the arguments of sophistry? For this case also religion has provided a remedy. Our Lady of Pity opens her pious and respectable retreats for this class of females. Some years since we durst not have mentioned St. Cyr, for it was then understood that women sprung from noble but decayed families deserved neither asylum nor compassion.

God has various ways of calling his servants. Captain Caraffa was soliciting at Naples a recompense for the military services which he had performed for the crown of Spain. One morning, on his way to the palace, he happened to go into the church belonging to a convent. A young nun was singing; he was affected, even to tears, by the sweetness of her voice and the fervent piety of her accents; he concluded that the service of God must be fraught with delight, since it confers such charms on those who have devoted their days to it. He immediately returned home, threw all his certificates of service into the fire, cut off his hair, embraced the monastic life, and founded the order of Good Works, whose efforts are directed to the relief of all the afflictions incident to mankind. This order at first made but little progress, because in a pestilence which broke out at Naples all the monks, with the exception of two priests and three lay-brothers, died while attending the infected.

Peter de Betancourt, a friar of the order of St. Francis, being at Guatemala, a town of Spanish America, was deeply affected at the state of the slaves who had no place of refuge during illness. Having obtained by way of alms a small building which he had before used as a school for the poor, he there built himself a kind of infirmary, which he thatched with straw, for the accommoda

He soon met with a negro

The

tion of such slaves as had no retreat. woman, a cripple, who had been turned out by her master. pious monk immediately took the slave on his shoulders, and, proud of his burden, carried her to the wretched hut which he called his hospital. He then went about through the whole city, endeavoring to procure some relief for his patient. She did not long survive these charitable attentions; but, while shedding her last tears, she promised her attendant a celestial reward.

Several wealthy people, impressed with the virtues of the friar, furnished him with money; and Betancourt saw the hut which had sheltered the negro woman transformed into a magnificent hospital. This religious died young; the love of humanity had exhausted his constitution. As soon as his death became publicly known, the poor and the slaves thronged to the hospital, that they might for the last time behold their benefactor. They kissed his feet; they cut off pieces of his clothes; they would even have torn his body to obtain some relic of him, had not guards been stationed at his coffin. A stranger would have supposed that it was the corpse of a tyrant, which they were defending from the fury of the populace, and not a poor monk, whom they were preserving from its love.

The order of Friar Betancourt prospered after his death;1 America was filled with hospitals, attended by religious who assumed the name of Bethlehemites. The form of their vow was as follows:-"I, Brother . . . . make a vow of poverty, chastity, and hospitality, and bind myself to attend poor convalescents, even though they be unbelievers and infected with contagious diseases.”2

If religion has fixed her stations on the tops of mountains, she has also descended into the bowels of the earth, beyond the reach of the light of heaven, in quest of the unfortunate. The Bethle hemite friars have hospitals at the very bottom of the mines of Peru and Mexico. Christianity has endeavored to repair in the New World the calamities which men have there occasioned, and which have been so unjustly laid to her charge. From this reproach the English historian, Dr. Robertson,-a Protestant, and

1 In 1667. T.

2 Helyot, tome iii. p. 366.