VOL. IV.

That which I ever since my infancy

Have longed to be, but all in vain, art thou—
A Poet crowned; and to thy father's name
Hast linked the glory of a greater fame.
Shyly, yet eagerly, I scanned thy face,

As though I there in tell-tale looks might trace
A clue to thy sweet power. I heard thee speak-
'Twas not, as I had deemed 'twould be, of Song
And Song's great sons; 'twas of the poor and weak,
The sufferers from poverty and wrong:
And I was shamed; the Poet's mystic art
Was veiled beneath his charity of heart.

WILFRID MENNELL.

T

ST. JOSEPH'S INFIRMARY AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF MARY.*

IT

T is now my pleasing task to address two distinct and beautiful Associations: one, of "St. John the Evangelist," the other, of the "Little Children of Mary." The former is comparatively old and tried; the latter is absolutely new, and, unlike its elder companion, has as yet brought forth no fruit. Naturally, then, I am induced on the one hand to look back upon the past, not for the purpose of glorying in it, on your part or my own, but with a view of thanking God for it, and stimulating you thereby to greater love and greater zeal; and, on the other hand, I am led to look out upon the future, and sketch it with a hopeful hand.

Following this order, I turn first my thoughts and words to you who bear the beautiful name of "Associates of St. John the Evangelist." It is just two years since God called you together to be as angels of charity, of kindness, and of light, to the poor little suffering children in this Hospital, to cultivate that special virtue which is the guardian and the queen of all the others. Well, since that time God's hand has been upon your work; you have learned the sweet luxury of doing good; you have been made happy in devoting to His service every fair gift and fleeting grace of nature and of youth. You have twined with everyday thoughts thoughts grander and holier, because unselfish and supernatural. You have learned to live not for yourselves alone, but in that higher fellowship, in which the sorrows and the joys—but most of all, the sorrows-of others are made our own. You have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, comforted the sick, visited the little prisoners of affliction, and laid up for yourselves the promise of the sweetest word that ever fell, or ever shall fall, on human ear: "Come, ye blessed of my Father."

In looking over our books, I find that you have paid to the Infirmary during these few years 1674 visits, which have been of immense value to the working of the house, but whose value before God is simply incalculable.

Now let me remind you that, before you started into being, there was no such association as yours in the city of Dublin; none, I mean, that brought together young ladies to provide for that class very dear to God-most dear to Him, indeed, because they combine in themselves the threefold attractions of His special love in that they are poor, and sick, and young, all at once. There were other associations, of course, working most charitably for God; but their object and their means were, if not widely different, at least specifically distinct

Some such words as these were spoken at a recent gathering of the youthful friends of St. Joseph's Infirmary for Sick Children, 9, Upper Buckingham-street, Dublin, by the Rev. J. Naughton, S.J., the Spiritual Director of the Work.

from yours. There was no hospital purely for children. There were none who sought the child for the child's sake. The father and the mother were looked out for with pious care, and the poor, sick, forgotten little one was taken note of by the generous "Society of St. Vincent de Paul" or the "Ladies' Association of Charity," but only as a kind of appendage to the family, and an additional reason for pressing earnestly the claims of poor and suffering parents. The more (in a sense) the better, to the noble and generous visitor, because it strengthened the case before council meetings, and made their appeal irresistible, the highest gratification these good souls seek. But there was no one who went to the child for the child's own self, and who heeded no one, minded no one, cared for no one half so much, as for the little sick one in the dingy corner, forgotten and forlorn. In lanes and alleys and streets and by-ways, there they were, God's best beloved, wards of sorrow, that came in so young for the inheritance of ills to which flesh is heir; nobody's care, nobody's children, but theirs who could do nothing for them; though little might cure the poor wee things, though a gentle word and a sweet smile would go a long way with them; though most of the illness, little as they knew it, came of hunger, or the lack of a keen, intelligent eye to look at them, or one week's light and sunshine out of their dingy home.

Such was the state of things, Associates of St. John, before God called you together. It seemed to me the other day, when reading some verses of that sweet poetess, Adelaide Anne Procter, as if she were describing things as they stood at that time in many a place:

"Once in that great town below us, in a poor and narrow street,
Dwelt a little sickly orphan. Gentle aid or pity sweet

Never in life's rugged pathway guided his poor, tottering feet.

All the striving, anxious forethought, that should only come with age,
Weighed upon his baby-spirit, showed him soon life's sternest page,
Grim want was his nurse, and sorrow was his only heritage.

All too weak for childish pastimes, drearily the hours sped,
On his hands, so small and trembling, leaning his poor aching head,
Or through dark and painful hours lying sleepless on his bed.

Scarce a gleam of azure heaven gleamed above the narrow street,
And the sultry air of summer (that you call so warm and sweet)
Fevered the poor orphan dwelling in the crowded alley's heat."

Such as this ardent lover of poor children says in another of her
poems)-

"Such the plaint that late and early, did we listen, we might hear
Close behind us, but the thunder of the city dulls our ear.

Every heart, as God's bright angel, can bid one such sorrow cease-
God has glory when His children bring His poor ones joy and peace."

Well, it is no glory of ours, but a great grace vouchsafed to us, that we did listen, and that the voice of God within us was louder than

the thunder of the city without. You have bidden not one such sorrow, but many a one, to be no more. Not you so much as God's charity in you visited these forlorn little ones, and in each visit He had glory, for they had comfort:

"For a radiant angel hovered smiling o'er the little bed,

White his garments, from his shoulders snowy, dove-like pinions spread,
And a star-like light was shining in a glory round his head."

In these 1674 visits, you have made this house a home of joy to them, and by your loving kindness turned their little couches beneath them in the comfort that you gave, and bending over their little nests taught them the loving care that their Father has for them above all. You have had the beautiful charge brought against you that you made too much of God's little ones. But how you could do that, I know not, though you have altered all the surroundings of their sorrow and changed their sad lot for a brighter one.

Ladies, it is a great good, a great cause for thankfulness, that so many with nothing in themselves to remind them of the miseries of poverty, and who live a life of plenty, of which selfishness and uncharitableness are born, should not be unconscious of the wants of others, or unconcerned for the afflictions of the poor, and that a fellow feeling inspired from on high should make them kind to those with whom it is God's supreme will and love that they should scarce have one want in common. How little do we know, till He reveals it to us, what an awful mass of wretched, dire distress is often close by us, and, so to speak, at our very doors. Only on Friday last, I was called to a poor young girl, in a lane within a stone's throw from St. Francis Xavier's; and, much misery as I have seen, what a revelation that room, that sight, was to me-such a room! such a bed, for a human being to lie upon! such a poor, meek sufferer, struggling with hard breathing, in the thick smoke and unhealthy fog coming and going through the broken windows! Such wretchedness to look up at from one's sick bed! such air to breathe, not in a short visit, but day and night, so uncomplaining! I had nothing to give her; but I knew where I could have it for only half asking; and I ventured to suggest what I could get her. I shall not easily forget her answer and her look. "Father, I want for nothing, indeed. Nothing agrees with me. I care for nothing. I have everything I want, there on the table behind you." I looked around the garret, and could see she had, poor creature, just the thing she wanted. "To-morrow, I will go to the hospital, if I am not better." That was a great relief to I left, oppressed by the thought, how near such want may be to us all, but feeling it was impossible, after such a sight, not to love God more, and the poor more, and one's self less.

me.

Well, mind you, the moral of this. We have not done all we ought to. We must be more charitable, more kind, more compassionate, for the future. If we had done all, we were still unprofitable. No vain boasting, for that would spoil everything; it would make God withdraw a little from us, and then what should we do, but faint and

fail in the middle of our work? But I should perhaps have left this moral reflection for the end, as I have not done with telling you all your good.

Associates of St. John the Evangelist, you have not only learned kindness to others, but you have learned the grand lesson of not wasting life. We have but one existence here below. It were a pity to make it vain. "We live but in our lives," as the prophet tells us. It would be a misery to let them pass misspent and useless. The most fleeting things of all are the gifts, the graces, the accomplishments of youth. It were a poor lot to let them fleet by, unavailed of for the highest purposes of our being. Why should this world have the whole of life, which has, in all reason, but too much of it? And yet, little as you know of the world, you know this much, surely, how many there are who live a life of day-dreaming, of somnambulism, of castle-building, of reverie, and of trance; doing nothing, unless feeding dazy thought and filling their souls with fancies that are but the phantom coinage of the brain be doing something. They are following a Will-o'-the-wisp. Visionaries and dreamers! Their days and their nights run away from them, and they have nothing for it all, Their lamps are extinguished for lack of oil; and, like the foolish virgins in the gospel, they can neither buy nor borrow when the bridegroom comes. Idleness and inactivity mark their lives. Sleeping or half awake, or too wide awake to this world, they spend their days in pettinesses, happy as they may be in the castle of indolence, killing time, frittering or fooling-though it is a hard word to usefrittering or fooling away their one precious existence, sleeping like a dormouse when they ought to be up and striving; and then in the end their hopes frustrated-playing a losing game, letting all slip through their fingers-"shooting at a pigeon and killing a crow." They have spent their lives hunting a shadow and catching it at last. If you did not imagine that I had poetry on the brain, I would like to quote a piece for you, so beautiful and true that, whether you imagine it or not, I must quote it :

"All yesterday I was spinning, sitting alone in the sun,

And the dream that I spun was so lengthy, it lasted till day was done.

I heeded not cloud, or shadow, that flitted over the hill,

Or the humming bees, or the swallows, or the trickling of the rill.
I took the threads of my spinning all of the blue summer air,
And a flickering ray of sunlight was woven in here and there.
The shadows grew longer and longer, the evening wind passed by;
And the purple splendour of sunset was flooding the western sky,
But I could not leave my spinning, for so fair my dream had grown,
I heeded not, hour by hour, how the silent day had flown.

At last the gray shadows fell round me, and the night came dark and chill,
And I rose, and ran down the valley, and left it all on the hill.

I went up to the hill this morning to the place where my spinning lay—
There was nothing but glistening dew-drops remained of my work to-day.

Ah! would that but glistening dew-drops remained of the work dreamers do.

But what have you learned? To be busy and active like the early Christians, to work with your own hands that you might have some