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CHAPTER XXV....continued
A Baptist preacher was rather unexpectedly rebuked in the midst of his congregation by one of its members who had experience of the Sisters in the hospital. Addressing his audience, he thought to enliven his discourse with the customary spice--vigorous abuse of the Catholic Church, and a lively description of the badness of nuns and priests; in fact, taking the 'Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk' as his text and inspiration. But just as the preacher, warming with his own eloquence, was heightening his picture with colours borrowed from a rather prurient imagination, these strange words were thundered forth by a sturdy Western farmer, who sprang to his legs in an impulse of uncontrollable indignation,--'Sir, that's a damned lie!' The consternation of the audience was great, the excitement intense. The preacher solemnly reminded his erring brother that that was 'the house of God.' 'Well, sir,' replied the farmer, 'as it is the house of God, it is a lie without the damned.' Then looking round boldly at the meeting, which contained many to whom he was well known, he thus continued: 'I thought and believed the same as you thought and believed, because I was told so, as you were; but I have lived to learn the difference --to know that what we were told, Sunday after Sunday, is not true. I was in the prison at M'Dowall's College; I was there for six months; and I saw the Sisters waiting on the prisoners, and nursing the sick--unpaid and disinterested. I saw them giving up their whole time to doing good, and doing it without fee or reward. I saw the priests, too, constant in their attendance--yes, shaming other ministers by the manner in which they did their duty. That six months cured me of my folly; and I tell you, who know me to be a man of truth, that the Catholic Church is not the thing it is represented to be, and that Sisters and Priests are not what our minister says they are; and that I'll stand to.'
The sympathies of the audience went with the earnestness of the speaker, whose manner carried conviction to their minds; and so strongly did the tide of feeling flow against the preacher, that he dexterously returned to what, in Parliamentary phrase, may be described as 'the previous question.'
Not very long before I visited a place in Tennessee, a 'delegation' from a district in which there was not a single Catholic waited on an Irish priest of my acquaintance; their object being to consult with him as to the feasibility of building a Catholic church in the place. 'A Catholic church!' exclaimed the priest; 'what can you want of a Catholic church, and not a Catholic in the place?" The answer was remarkable: 'We here are all ex-soldiers, and have been in the war; and when we returned, the preachers, --Methodists, Presbyterians, and others--asked us to join their churches, as before. We said nothing at the time, but held a meeting, and sent this reply: "Before the war, you told us that Catholics were capable of committing every crime; that priests and nuns were all bad alike. We went to the war; we were in hospitals, and we met members of our own society there; but the only persons who did anything for us, or cared anything about us, were these same Catholics, the Priests and Sisters that you so represented to us. We were in the prisons of the North, and it was the same. Now what you told us about Catholics was not true. We can't have any further confidence in you, and we will have nothing more to do with you. If we be anything, we will be Catholics." That was our reply; and we now come to consult a Catholic priest, to see how best we may carry out our intentions, and become Catholics.'
The above I give, not because it is the most remarkable of such applications, which are very numerous, and are constantly made in many dioceses throughout the States. The majority of another such 'delegation' told the Bishop on whom they waited that they had been strong Know Nothings before the war; and one of them declared that he had assisted to 'tar and feather' a priest, and that in so doing he thought he was doing service to God!' We don't know what the doctrines of your Church are; these we desire to learn; but though we don't know its doctrines, we have seen its conduct during the war, and that conduct we admired.'
That the Sisters--those truest exponents of Catholic charity--win the respect of Protestants at other times than during war, and in the ordinary discharge of their duty, we have a proof in the following incident:--
The Archbishop of San Francisco and other Catholic Bishops were on their way to the Council of Baltimore; and as the Bishops and the clergy by whom they were accompanied desired to have the use of an apartment or cabin, in which Mass could be daily offered up, the Archbishop made a request to that effect to the Captain of the vessel, who thus replied: 'Archbishop, there are twenty preachers on board who asked me to allow them to preach, and I have refused them, because they would create nothing but confusion. But, Archbishop, though I am an Episcopalian, I am much obliged to you. The yellow fever broke out in my crew, and my ministers deserted me; but you sent the Sisters, and they came and nursed my men all through their sickness. I never can forget it; and whatever I can do for a Catholic Bishop or for the Sisters, I will do most gladly. You shall have the room, Archbishop.'
And as these words are written, the same terrible scourge is thinning the ranks of the Sisters in New Orleans, many of whom have fallen martyrs to their zeal and duty.
A Southern General said to me, 'The war has worn away many a prejudice against Catholics, such was the exemplary conduct of the priests in the camp and the hospital, and the Christian attitude of the Church during the whole of the struggle. Many kind and generous acts were done by the priests to persecuted ladies, who now tell with gratitude of their services. Wherever an asylum was required, they found it for them. I wish all ministers had been like the priests, and we might never have had this war, or it would not have been so bitter as it was.'
I elsewhere mentioned the munificent gift made by two Protestant gentlemen to a Sister in Cincinnati; and as that munificent gift--of a splendid hospital--is but one, though a striking proof of the influence which the work of the Sisters has had on the enlightened Protestant mind of America, something may be said of the object of that donation. There is nothing remarkable in the personal appearance of Sister Anthony--nothing of the stately or the majestic--nothing that harmonises with the romantic or the poetical. Sister Anthony is sallow in complexion, worn in feature, but with a bright intelligent look, and an air of genuine goodness. Though thoroughly unaffected in manner, and without the faintest trace of show, every word she utters betrays an animating spirit of piety, an ever-present consciousness of her mission--which is, to do good. One feels better in her presence, lifted up, as it were, into a purer and brighter atmosphere. In accent and manner she is strongly American; and had I not been assured by herself that she was born in Ireland--somewhere, I believe, between Limerick and Tipperary--I should have taken her for a 'full-blooded American,' that is, if Sister Anthony could be taken for a 'full-blooded' anything.
For a considerable time Sister Anthony held a subordinate position, to which she thoroughly adapted herself; but it was impossible she could continue to conceal her great natural ability and talents for organisation and management. Her first important work was the establishment of the Hospital of St. John, which became so famous and so popular under her management, that the most distinguished physicians of Cincinnati sent their patients to her care. In this hospital Sister Anthony made herself perfect in the science of nursing the sick. When the war broke out, she, with twelve Sisters, took charge of the Field Hospital of the Armies of the Cumberland and the Tennessee, and nursed the wounded and the sick in the South and South-West during its continuance. Such was the estimate formed of the services of these and other Sisters of the same institution, as well as of the Catholic Chaplains, that the Generals in command frequently wrote to Archbishop Purcell, asking for 'more Priests and more Sisters, they were so full of devotion to their duty.' Nearly all of those Sisters were, like Sister Anthony, Irish. Her influence was immense. Even the surliest official or stiffest martinet could not resist Sister Anthony. There was a contagion in her goodness. Some years before, when in a subordinate capacity in the Orphan Asylum under the care of her Order, Sister Anthony was in the market, bargaining for chickens to make broth for some sick children, when the salesman, perhaps wearied of her importunity, said--'If you were a pretty woman, I'd talk to you longer; but you are so darnd ugly, you may go your ways, and take the chickens at your own price.'
Sister Anthony, who never gave a thought to her personal appearance, good-humouredly accepted the compliment which ensured her a profitable bargain for her poor little chicks in the asylum. But the wounded soldier on the hospital pallet was not of the fowl-merchant's opinion; the sick man saw everything good and beautiful in the countenance of the nurse who smoothed his pillow with hand light as a feather's weight, and, with voice attuned to the tenderest compassion, won him to hope and resignation. At the mere whisper of the name of Sister Anthony, the eye of the invalid brightened, and a pale flush stole over his wasted cheek; and when it was mentioned in the presence of strong men, it was received with a hearty blessing or a vigorous cheer. Protestant and Catholic alike reverenced Sister Anthony. There was no eulogium too exaggerated for her praise, or for their gratitude. She was styled 'the Ministering Angel of the Army of the Tennessee,' and Protestants hailed her as 'an angel of goodness.' And at a grand reunion, in November 1866, of the generals and officers of the army in whose hospitals Sister Anthony had served, her name was greeted with enthusiastic applause by gallant and grateful men.
The United States Marine Hospital, constructed at a cost of a quarter of a million of dollars, was sold for 70,000 dollars, at which price it was purchased by two Protestant gentlemen, and by them 'donated' to Sister Anthony, and is known by the beautiful and felicitous title 'the Hospital of the Good Samaritan.' This fine institution is now at the service of the sick and suffering of Cincinnati. These generous Protestant gentlemen were known to Sister Anthony, and she to them. Some time before, it was her intention to build, and in the course of a few months she obtained 30,000 dollars to aid her in her task. But, changing her mind, from not wishing to undertake so great a work as she at first contemplated, she determined to refund every dollar of the money. When she came to those two gentlemen, she tendered to them their liberal subscription; but they refused to accept it, saying: 'No; we gave it to God. We cannot take it back.'
Sister Anthony is not insensible to the influence she exercises, as the following brief dialogue will show:--
Sister Anthony (to a friend). I guess I want this hospital painted. I guess Mr. ------ (mentioning the name of a worthy citizen) will paint it.
Friend. Why, Sister! he is not a painter; he is a grocer.
Sister Anthony. I know that, child; but he is a rich man, and he will have to paint it.
And it was just as Sister Anthony said. He had to paint it, and he felt honoured by the distinction conferred upon him.
One day Sister Anthony was transacting some business in the city with the prosperous owner of a large store. When the business was concluded, the owner said: 'Sister, where is your conveyance--your horse and buggy--to take you up the hill?' 'I have no horse,' replied Sister Anthony. 'Then I will get you a horse and buggy,' said the store-keeper. 'The conveyance I have had for the last fifty years is still very good, but the horses want shoeing,' answered Sister Anthony, pointing to her shoes, which were in the very last stage in which that article of dress could possibly exist. A box of the best shoes was at once supplied to Sister Anthony's well-employed 'horses.'
I present Sister Anthony only as a type, not of her own noble Order, but of all kindred Orders; for, throughout the United States, there are hundreds of Sister Anthonys, who, like her, have been styled 'ministering angels,' and 'angels of goodness;' at the mention of whose honoured names blessings rise from the hearts to the lips of grateful men, and mothers in distant homes pray at night for those who nursed their wounded sons in the hospital, or ministered to them in the prison.
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