Such was the spirit and such the conduct which determined mediaeval Europe to entrust the religious orders with vast landed possessions, and with these the whole care of the poor, of the sick, and of the wayfarer, duties which they discharged with greater satisfaction to the people than any secular aristocracy of privilege known in the records of history.
"For the uncertain dispositions of the rich, for their occasional and often capricious charity, was substituted the certain, the steady, the impartial hand of a constantly resident and unmarried administrator of bodily as well as spiritual comfort to the poor, the unfortunate, and the stranger."
Now, still the question presses, whether, instead of confiding our sick to hired nurses, we shall not invite the willing sisterhood to extend their organization among us, and sustain them in this devotion. It is well ascertained that none can make a thousand dollars go so far as they can in the service of their sick.
It is notorious in America, that public works undertaken by the government are generally ill done and very wastefully. Hence, common sense excludes the government from enterprises of internal improvement, and confides them either to individuals or companies, without hesitating thus to create privileged orders and to favor a moneyed aristocracy.
To have a great work well done, passions as well as interests must be engaged in it; personal character, pride, and ambition, as well as skill and capital; and where many persons must co-operate, there is no guarantee of harmony in action and of successful result so sure as that corporate zeal which religion employs with so much power, and which religion alone can bring to bear. This is indeed a holy fire, enkindled and kept alive upon objects of charity, that purges away dross.
If the Catholic Church has in all ages conducted her enterprises with the greatest success, it is because she has known how to enlist the greatest number of motives, the strongest and the best. On the other hand, it will be readily confessed that the great public hospitals under secular control do not even bring into play the common levers of interest which secure results in the management of railroads, of hotels or banking-houses, nor those of ambition, which animate the army and navy. Charity, as a secular business, is always poorly paid, rendered grudgingly, distastefully, and so as to excite aversion. Many will rather die than have recourse to it. It always carries with it a certain stigma of inferiority and contempt. No personal character or corporate zeal is identified with it, still less can there exist that unison of feeling and of effort which places the seal of the divine humanity on such institutions as those of the sisters. We transcribe from one of the most remarkable works of modern travel, _The Pillars of Hercules_, by David Urquhart, his impression of the last remaining hospitals of the religious order in Spain. Let us note that Mr. Urquhart is an Englishman and a Protestant: