University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SISTERS OF ST. BARNABAS.

WHO was St. Barnabas? We are told in the book
of the Acts of the Apostles that he was a man
whose name signified a “son of consolation.” It must
at once occur that such a saint is very much needed in
this weary world of ours, and most worthy to be the
patron of an “order.”

To comfort human sorrow, to heal and help the
desolate and afflicted, irrespective either of their moral
worth or of any personal reward, is certainly a noble and
praiseworthy object.

Nor can any reasonable objection be made to the
custom of good women combining for this purpose into
a class or order, to be known by the name of such a
primitive saint, and wearing a peculiar livery to mark their
service, and having rites and ceremonials such as to
them seem helpful for this end. Surely the work is hard
enough, and weary enough, to entitle the doers thereof to
do it in their own way, as they feel they best can, and
to have any sort of innocent helps in the way of signs
and symbols that may seem to them desirable.

Yet the Sisters of St. Barnabas had been exposed to
a sort of modern form of persecution from certain vigorous-minded
Protestants, as tending to Romanism. A
clamor had been raised about them for wearing large
crosses, for bowing before altars, and, in short, for a
hundred little points of Ritualism; and it was held that
a proper zeal for Protestantism required their ejection

from a children's refuge, where, with much patience and
Christian mildness, they were taking care of sick babies
and teaching neglected street children. Mrs. Maria
Wouvermans, with a committee of ladies equally zealous
for the order of the church and excited about the
dangers of Popery, had visited the refuge and pursued
the inquisition even to the private sleeping apartments of
the Sisters, unearthing every symptom of principle or
practice that savored of approach to the customs of the
Scarlet Woman; and, as the result of relenntless inquisition
and much vigorous catechising, she and her associates
made such reports as induced the Committee of
Supervision to withdraw the charity from the Sisters of
St. Barnabas, and place it in other hands. The Sisters,
thus ejected, had sought work in other quarters of the
great field of human suffering and sorrow. A portion of
them had been enabled by the charity of friends to rent
a house to be devoted to the purposes of nursing destitute
sick children, with dormitories also where homeless
women could find temporary shelter.

The house was not a bit more conventual or mediæ
val than the most common-place of New York houses.
It is true, one of the parlors had been converted into a
chapel, dressed out and arranged according to the
preferences of these good women. It had an altar, with
a gilded cross flanked by candles, which there is no
denying were sometimes lighted in the day-time. The
altar was duly dressed with white, red, green, violet or
black, according as the traditional fasts or feasts of the
Church came round. There is no doubt that this simple
chapel, with its flowers, and candles, and cross, and its
little ceremonial, was an immense comfort and help to
these good women in the work that they were doing.
But the most rigid Protestant, who might be stumbled by
this little attempt at a chapel, would have been melted

into accord when he went into the long bright room full
of little cribs and cradles, where child invalids of different
ages and in different stages of convalescence were
made happy amid flowers, and toys, and playthings, by
the ministration of the good women who wore the white
caps and the large crosses. It might occur to a thoughtful
mind, that devotion to a work so sweetly unselfish
might well entitle them to wear any kind of dress and
pursue any kind of method, unchallenged by criticism.

In a neat white bed of one of the small dormitories
in the upper part of this house, was lying in a delirious
fever the young woman whom Bolton had carried there
on the night of our story. The long black hair had
become loosened by the restless tossing of her head
from side to side; her brow was bent in a heavy frown,
made more intense by the blackness of her eyebrows;
her large, dark eyes were wandering wildly to and fro
over every object in the room, and occasionally fixing
themselves with a strange look of inquiry on the Sister
who, in white cap and black robe, sat by her bedside,
changing the wet cloths on her burning head, and moistening
her parched lips from time to time with a spoonful
of water.

“I can't think who you are,” she muttered, as the
Sister with a gentle movement put a fresh, cool cloth on
her forehead.

“Never mind, poor child,” said the sweet voice in
reply; “try to be quiet.”

“Quiet! me be quiet!—that's pretty well! Me!” and
she burst into weak, hysteric laughter.

“Hush, hush!” said the Sister, making soothing motions
with her hands.

“The wandering eyes closed a few moments in a
feverish drowse. In a moment more, she started with a
wild look.

“Mother! mother! where are you? I can't find you.
I've looked and looked till I'm so tired, and I can't find
you. Mother, come to me,—I'm sick!”—and the girl
rose and threw out her arms wildly.

The Sister passed her arm round her tenderly and
spoke with a gentle authority, making her lie down again.

Then, in a sweet low voice, she began singing a hymn:

As she sung, the dark sad eyes fixed themselves upon
her with a vague, troubled questioning. The Sister
went on:

It was just day-dawn, and the patient had waked
from a temporary stupor produced by a narcotic which
had been given a few hours before to compose her.

The purple-and-rose color of dawn was just touching
faintly everything in the room. Another Sister entered
softly, to take the place of the one who had watched for
the last four hours.

“How is she?” she said.

“Quite out of her head, poor thing. Her fever is
very high.”

“We must have the doctor,” said the other. “She
looks like a very sick girl.”

“That she certainly is. She slept, under the opiate,
but kept starting, and frowning, and muttering in her
sleep; and this morning she waked quite wild.”

“She must have got dreadfully chilled, walking so
late in the street—so poorly clad, too!”

With this brief conversation, the second sister assumed
her place by the bedside, and the first went to get
some rest in her own room.

As day grew brighter, the singing of the matins in
the chapel came floating up in snatches; and the sick
girl listened to it with the same dazed and confused air
of inquiry with which she looked on all around.

“Who is singing,” she said to herself. “It's pretty,
and good. But how came I here? I was so cold, so
cold—out there!—and now it's so hot. Oh, my head!
my head!”

A few hours later, Mr. St. John called at the Refuge
to inquire after the new inmate.

Mr. St. John was one of the patrons of the Sisters.
He had contributed liberally to the expenses of the
present establishment, and stood at all times ready to
assist with influence and advice.

The Refuge was, in fact, by the use of its dormitories,
a sort of receiving station for homeless and desolate
people, where they might find temporary shelter, where
their wants might be inquired into, and help found for
them according to their need.

After the interview with Bolton had made him acquainted
with the state of the case, Mr. St. John went
immediately to the Refuge. He was received in the parlor
by a sweet-faced, motherly woman, with her white
cap and black robe, and with a large black cross depending
from her girdle. There was about her an air of innocent
sanctity and seclusion from the out-door bustle of
modern life that was refreshing.

She readily gave him an account of the new inmate,
whose sad condition had excited the sympathy of all
the Sisters.

She had come to them, she said, in a state of most
woeful agitation and distress, having walked the streets

on a freezing night till a late hour, in very insufficient
clothing. Immediately on being received, she began to
have violent chills, followed by burning fever, and had
been all night tossing restlessly and talking wildly.

This morning, they had sent for the doctor, who pronounced
her in a brain fever, and in a condition of
great danger. She was still out of her mind, and could
give no rational account of herself.

“It is piteous to hear her call upon her mother,” said
the Sister. “Poor child! perhaps her mother is distressing
herself about her.”

Mr. St. John promised to secure the assistance and
sympathy of some benevolent women to aid the Sisters
in their charge, and took his leave, promising to call
daily.