Congregations of women devoted to the worship of God, prayer, and poverty were coeval with, if not anterior to, those of men; for we find that S. Anthony, in the latter part of the IIId century, placed his sister in a “house of virgins,” of which she afterwards became abbess; and that on Christmas day, 352, in S. Peter's Church in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the habit and veil on Marcellina, enjoining on her a life of mortification and prayer. A little later, mention is made of SS. Marcella, Lea, and Paula as distinguished Roman women who forsook the world, and spent their remaining life in prayer and good works; the latter especially, who, with her daughter, built a hospital at Bethlehem, erected a monastery for S. Jerome and his monks, and founded in Palestine three convents for female recluses, of which she took personal charge. S. Basil found many such convents in existence, and established several more within his jurisdiction, one of which was presided over by his sister Macrina, at Pontus. S. Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, up to 407, writes that in Egypt the congregations of women were as numerous as the monasteries; and S. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (396-430), built a convent of nuns, of which his sister was superior, giving it, in 423, a written rule, still followed by the religious who bear his name. Four years after, S. Benedict founded his monastery at Monte Casino, the rules of which, having been approved by Gregory the Great, in 595, have been very generally adopted by many religious bodies of men and women in Europe and America.

One of the greatest glories of the Catholic Church is that she, and she alone, freed woman from the grossest slavery, and placed her in her proper sphere of usefulness and influence. By the sacrament of marriage, woman was made the honored equal of man; by her commandments and precepts, the church guarded her liberty and her purity, exalted her authority in the family, and recognized in her, even in death, the loving protectress of her offspring. But the church did more than all this. She gave to woman a part in her divine mission, a share in the most glorious task ever allotted to humanity—the propagation of the law of the Most High; and the dispensation of his mercies and benevolence. We are not surprised, then, to learn that in past ages, “when faith was young,” the most gifted and high-born of their sex in every Christian land, daughters of nobles and princes, abandoning all the fascinations of the world, even those of royalty itself, were to be found eager to take part in the great work of religion, and consecrate their lives to prayer, penance, and charity, for the sake of the poor and helpless.

To us especially the presence of so many pious and educated women is of incalculable advantage. The Catholic body in the United States has to combat a much more insidious and dangerous foe than was ever arrayed against the church, even in her darkest days of persecution. Then Christianity had only to shatter the idol of imperial Rome, already tottering to its base; now we have to fight against what may be termed civilized paganism, energetic, unscrupulous, and worldly-wise, which aims at mere sensuous enjoyments, cultivates the intellect at the expense of the soul, and even attempts to use the very evidences of God's works as a justification for their contempt of his law, and as argument against his existence itself. At the worst, the rude pagan of Northern and Western Europe had a belief in a superior Being, and an acknowledged, innate dependence on his will; but the fashionable sceptic of to-day, the learned doubter of our schools and academies, believes in nothing but himself, and obeys his own whims as his highest rule of morality. It is a melancholy fact, but none the less true, that, according to official authority, nearly one-half of the people of this country, male and female, practically believe in no form of religion whatever. Disgusted at the perpetual wranglings and disagreements of the sects in the name of Christianity; trained into mere cultivated animals by a system of public tuition which ignores God, or recognizes his existence only to ridicule and travesty his word; and freed from all the restraints which the church so wisely throws around her children from their earliest infancy, is it wonderful that the majority of the youth of this nation should grow up in the actual deification of their own prejudices and passions? With so many instances daily and hourly presented to our eyes, are we to be surprised that persons thus reared should be so active in creating a public opinion among us which is not Catholic, nor even Protestant, but simply and absolutely heathenish, without the refinement of the ancient Greeks to soften its grossness, or the pride of the Roman to save it from cupidity and dishonor?

Even though the educational establishments of the nuns and Sisters are in their infancy, there are few parents who need deprive their children of the advantages to be gained only in them. A quarter of a century ago, we could only boast of sixty-six such institutions, while now we have nearly four hundred academies alone. What excuse, therefore, is there for a piously-inclined mother or a discriminating father to imperil the happiness and faith of her or his children by sending them to secular schools where the training they receive is worse than artificial? In the convents they can be taught every accomplishment that befits a young lady, no matter how high her station in life, without being made the shallow creature, the mere puppet of fashion, which we find so often “turned out” by the modern secular school-mistresses of our time; without heart, feeling, and, we might almost say, with no fixed perception of right and wrong.

Then we have two hundred and forty select schools, or an average of four for each diocese, attended by boarders or those living with their relations. These differ from the academies only in degree, being intended for the benefit of children whose position in life does not demand the same elaborate mental culture, or whose school-days are necessarily short. Still, they receive the same attention, and are subjected to precisely similar moral influences, as the others. But the poor—those whose parents are unable to pay for their education—are they to have none of the advantages so freely accorded their wealthy neighbors? Must they be thrust into the tainted atmosphere of our public schools, and left to shift for themselves? Not so. The poor have ever been the primary objects of the good Sisters' solicitude; and though they count their academies by hundreds, the number of their free schools, parish, orphan, and industrial, may be reckoned by thousands, and the pupils by myriads.

Who can estimate the immense amount of good which is accomplished in this manner? Who can measure the beneficent effects to the country produced by these institutions of learning, which annually send to their homes so many thousands of children to gladden the hearts of fond parents, not so much by their varied acquirements, as by their gentleness of disposition and unaffected piety? If we cannot gauge the merits of the Sisters by what we see before us, how much less capable are we of estimating the reward which their long years of devotion will receive from Him who said of little children, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

As to the efficiency of the nuns and Sisters as teachers of the young people of their own sex, there is scarcely a second opinion, even among non-Catholics. Many Protestants and unbelievers, while professing little or no religion themselves, but who would not see their fair daughters follow their example, are careful to place them under the charge of the daughters of the church, well knowing that, while their minds will be amply stored with useful and elegant knowledge, their impressionable hearts will be guarded against the follies and sins of the world. If all the communities in the country—in number about forty-five—were to devote their entire labor alone to this great work of education, what a benediction would they deserve from untold millions!

But they do not stop here. They go much further, and, with some few exceptions, their charity takes a far wider range. There are the poor waifs, left deserted on the highways, to be rescued from impending death and nursed into consciousness; the orphan, who has been deprived of its natural guardians, to be cared for; the unfortunate pariah of her sex, to be consoled and encouraged to resume the path of virtue; the jails, where lie the agents of passion and crime, to be visited; the aged and infirm to be taken by the hand, and led down the slope of life with tender solicitude. Again, the deaf, the blind, the insane, the wounded, the sick, and even the incurable, are, according to their several needs, objects of unremitting attention. No evil is so deep-seated, no affliction so bitter, no disease, whether of the mind or of the body, so loathsome, that the holy women of the church, with God's assistance, cannot assuage or cure.

What a load of human misery is thus presented to the eye and committed to the relief of the indefatigable followers of Christ! Who can imagine that has not experienced it the daily round of toil, of watching, and solicitude which constantly awaits the footsteps of the gentle Sister, as she goes among her helpless clients in the foundling asylum, listens to the tale of woe and crime from the still youthful lips of the repentant Magdalene, or comforts the outcast of his kind at the very foot of the scaffold. Watch how lovingly she hushes the deserted babe or the scarcely less pitiable orphan to sleep; how kindly she takes the hand so long stained by contact with the vicious and the guilty into her own soft palm, and breathes words of comfort and encouragement into ears long used only to curses and vile speech; how deftly she smoothes the pillow of the sick, and smiles on the second childishness of her protégés, the aged and infirm poor. At her approach, the suffering child forgets its pains and stretches forth its little arms for her aid; the hospital loses half its ennui and gloom, and even the condemned cell is illumined by a ray of sunlight when she enters it. In fact, wherever there is poverty, sickness, or suffering of any kind, there is the place for the devoted Sister, and there, in truth, she becomes “a ministering angel.”

The distribution of these asylums and hospitals is another interesting feature in their capacity for general usefulness. In dioceses having an estimated Catholic population of over one hundred thousand, they may be thus classified: In Buffalo there is one to every 8,000 Catholics; in Cleveland, St. Louis, and Louisville, one to 13,000; in San Francisco, one to 15,000; Albany, one to 18,000; in Pittsburg, Cincinnati, New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, one to 23,000; Newark, Alton, and St. Paul, one to 25,000; Boston, one to 30,000; Milwaukee, one to 40,000; Chicago, one to 45,000; Galveston and Providence, one to 60,000; Hartford, one to 80,000; and in Springfield, one to every 150,000. Of the less populous dioceses, Oregon has 1, Burlington 1, Columbus 2, Covington 3, Erie 1, Fort Wayne 3, Grass Valley 3, Mobile 3, Monterey and Los Angeles 5, Nashville 2, Natchez 2, Natchitoches 3, Nesqually 4, Portland 2, Richmond 3, Rochester 5, Santa Fé 2, Savannah 3, Vincennes 4, Wheeling 2, Wilmington 1, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, Charleston 2. Green Bay, Harrisburg, La Crosse, Little Rock, Ogdensburg, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, and North Carolina, all small dioceses or sparsely-settled vicariates, have none.

The care of these charitable institutions is not confined to any particular community, but, according to locality or peculiar circumstances, falls to the lot of different congregations. Thus of the asylums, 5 per cent. are under the charge of the Sisters of Notre Dame; 14 per cent. under the Sisters of Mercy; 34 per cent. under the Sisters of Charity; 8-½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; 6 per cent. under the Little Sisters of the Poor; 2-½ per cent. each under the Sisters of Providence, Holy Cross, Sacred Heart, S. Teresa, and S. Dominic; 5-½ per cent. under the Sisters of S. Francis; 10 per cent. under the Sisters of S. Joseph; 1-½ per cent. under the Sisters of the Holy Name, S. Benedict, and the School Sisters of Notre Dame, besides a few others belonging to different communities. Of hospitals, the Sisters of Mercy have 18 per cent., the Sisters of Charity 37, Providence 2, Holy Cross 1, S. Francis 7, Little Sisters of the Poor 2, S. Dominic 5, S. Joseph 11, Sœur Hospitalières 2, Nazareth 5, and of all others 20 per cent.

Of the teaching orders and communities in the United States who devote themselves solely to the higher branches of education and, when possible, to the gratuitous instruction of poor children, we have the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the Ursulines, the Visitation, the Immaculate Conception, Presentation, and the Sisters of the Precious Blood, Loretto, S. Clare, Our Lady of Angels, S. Ann, S. Mary, Sacred Heart of Mary, Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, Humility of Mary, S. Agnes, Incarnate Word, Holy Child, and Daughters of the Cross. The Carmelites, Servite Nuns, and Sisters of S. Anthony are contemplative communities, though, in some special instances, the poor are taught and assisted in their convents.

A short account of the origin and growth in this country of some of the most prominent orders and communities may be found acceptable to those who take an interest in the successive developments in the church of works of education and charity.

Next in point of time was the Carmelite Nunnery, erected in 1790, near Port Tobacco, Maryland, through the exertions of the Rev. Charles Neale. That zealous clergyman, having visited Europe in that year, returned with four nuns, of whom three are said to have been Americans and one English. On account of the difficulties surrounding their locality, the community was afterwards transferred to Baltimore, in 1831, and permitted to open a school, which, however, was soon after discontinued. There are now in all eight houses of this order in America, of which two—the mother-house and one in St. Louis—are of the reform of S. Teresa; the others, following the less strict rule, add the care of outside schools, asylums, and hospitals to their other duties. The Carmelite order of monks was founded in the early part of the XIIIth century under the rule of S. Basil, which was exceedingly strict as regards mortification, prayer, and fasting. The order of nuns was not created for two centuries after, when John Lorett, twenty-sixth general, founded a female institute under the rule of his order, and established several convents in France. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V. approved the foundation; and in 1457 Françoise d'Amboise, the widowed Duchess of Brittany, built the house at Vannes, in her own possessions, taking the veil and habit at the same time. A hundred years later, S. Teresa of Castile, finding that many innovations and relaxations had crept in, undertook the work of reform, and her efforts were eventually approved by Pope Pius IV. in 1562. Thus there became two branches of the order—the Mitigated Carmelites, whose rule is not so austere as those of the Discalceated, who follow the reform of S. Teresa. The latter are obliged to observe perpetual silence, abstain from the use of flesh-meat, sleep on straw, and wear habits of coarse serge and sandals instead of shoes. Their habit is a brown gown, scapular, and hood, and in choir a white cloak and black veil.

At first the community was called the Sisters of S. Joseph; but in 1810, it was agreed to assimilate it to the Congregation of Charity in Europe, and, through the influence of the Rev. F. Flaget, it was hoped that some Sisters might be induced to come from France to take charge of the little community. Owing to the disturbed state of the times, F. Flaget failed to procure the desired aid; but he brought with him the rule of the Sisters, which, having been adopted by the community, was approved by Archbishop Neale, January 17, 1812.

Next in order of usefulness, though not in age, come the Sisters of Mercy. This congregation is of Irish origin, having been founded in Dublin, as late as 1827, by Catharine McAuley, a native of that county. Miss McAuley was born September 17, 1787, of Catholic parents; but they dying when she was quite young, her guardianship was assumed by a Protestant family, who brought her up in their own faith—if faith it may be called; but the girl early developed a remarkable inclination towards Catholicity, and, when of proper age, reunited herself to the church of her fathers. At thirty-four she found herself the possessor of a large fortune bequeathed to her by her adopted father, who had become a Catholic on his death-bed; and this, with all her subsequent life, she resolved to dedicate to the service of the Almighty. She therefore built at her own expense, in the most fashionable part of the city, a magnificent convent, and, associating with herself several other ladies, commenced the work of instruction and the visitation of the sick poor in their homes and in the public hospitals. The Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, gave her all the assistance in his power, and, after consulting with the Holy See, approved the new foundation. In 1841, Pope Gregory XVI. confirmed the congregation, which is now so strong in the United Kingdom that it numbers 133 convents, besides numerous charitable institutions. Unlike the Sisters of Charity, this congregation has no superior-general, each convent being independent and self-governing.

Though introduced into this country by the late Bishop O'Connor, of Pittsburg, about thirty years ago, the Sisters of Mercy have spread rapidly over the United States. They have already nearly 50 asylums and hospitals, 80 academies and select schools, an immense number of free schools, convents almost as numerous as those of the Sisters of Charity, and considerably over 1,300 members. They are to be found in New York, the New England dioceses, Albany, Philadelphia, Louisville, Pittsburg, most of the old dioceses, and many of the newer ones.

Thus we have seen how our glorious land is twice blessed by the presence of those pure-minded, zealous, and meek followers of their Saviour. We are blessed in their prayers and in their active charity. No one is so rich as to be independent of their good offices; no one so poor, afflicted, or degraded that they cannot succor and console. The vilest dens of infamy in our crowded cities are made almost sacred by their tread; the far-away prairies and forests resound with their chants and songs of praise; while the daintily-nurtured daughter of the aristocracy is taught, in some convent of the Sacred Heart, or of the Ursulines, to shine in and adorn her social sphere without forgetting that she is a Christian; the poor little negro children of the everglades of Florida, or the savage Indian babes of the Pacific slope, are kneeling at the feet of some Sister of S. Joseph or of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, lisping their first prayer. Without exaggeration, it may be said that there is no ignorance so dense that they will not succeed in expelling; none of the many ills to which flesh is heir that they cannot assuage; and that they, and they alone, of all their sex, “can minister to a mind diseased, and pluck from the heart a deep-rooted sorrow.”