The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-05-31
Tho Female Religious Of America.
A MOST INTERESTING ESSAY.
from the Catholic world for juno J

IRON the Catholic World Tor y une
In this busy world of labor, where man
kind seems exclusively bent on the aequi
siton of wealth, fame, or power, on fash
ION, folly, and empty pleasures, how seldom
we pause to consider seriously tue Gever
sity and multiplicity of the elements o
humanity by which we are surrounded
How few, In their headlong career afte
vain desires, ask themselves if this worlt
were made for them alone if the end ani
object of life, the frat gift of mercifu
Creator, 10 merely selfish enjoyment, o.
whether the social compact, as we'll as The
laws OF God, do not require of us to assist
in every way possible our less fortunate OF
more afflicted fellow creatures.
| 1t requires little reflection or effort to
distinguish the favorites of fortune-those
whose lot having been casts in pleasant
places, shine in the public regard like
beings of a superior order. Worldly cue
| cess is ever prominent, and its devotees
are always ready to court it's notice aud
extol it's inertia. To be fashionable is to
after to WELD power is to be piacated.
Not SO with the humble, the poor, the ig-
norant, and the Obscure the victims of
physical affection or of moral degradation.
They are usually summed, often despised,
and, as far as possible, contemptuously
ignored. They constitute the outcasts Of
society" and, when they come betwixt
the wind and it's nobility, are merely OBJ
jects of contempt. barren pity, or down
right loathing. Yet these very unfortu-
mates comprise, even in our own favored
land, very large and, in an indirect sense,
potent constituent of our population.
Always with US, no matter how much we
them, they appeal to US for help 10 the
name of all we hold sacred and their sup
plications, no matter how mutely made, if
UNDECIDED, are certain to be followed, even
in this life, by blight on our souls as
we'll as q curse to our bodies. The heart
of man becomes hardened, the fine pre-
ception of fraternal love and charity with
which he is naturally blessed withers and
shrivels up, and he becomes q mere en-
bodiment of self, an arid isolation, ia pro-
portion as he steels himself against the
cries and sufferings of his kind. The very
ignorance he will not help to remove, tho
want and squalor he refuses to alleviate,
rise up in Judgment against him. and, de-
vefoping into crimes against life and pro
perty, haunt his footsteps, and but too
often mark him for their prey.
As in all things else, if we want an ex-
emplar for our conduct in relation to our
fellow beings, we must look to the church.
Following the teachings of her divine
Founder, from the earliest ages she has
recognized the existence of the vast am
CUNT of misery, poverty, vice, and ignor-
cation, ancient and modern, and has used
every effort to mitigate it. While vet the
| successors of st. Peter were struggling
with the effete though polished paganistn
| OF the dismembered Roman Empire, and
the greater part of Europe was enshronded
In the darkness of barbarian, societies OF
holy men and pious women were establish.
ed and sustained by the popes and the
fathers of the church, to mitigate in some
degree, by their pray ers and goods works
the evils which beset society in its earliest
transition state. The principal evils to be
com bated at that time were the ferocity OF
heathenism outside the confined limits of
Christendom, and, within, the mental OBJ
security of the barbaric catechumens and
neophytes. Physical destitution, 10 our
Specification of the term, was but little
known beyond the limits of few great
clties for mems wants were few and
easily supplied before the increase of
population and the unequal distribution of
property became general in the Old World.
Therefore we end that the monks and
nuns of the WITH century, and for many
hundreds of years afterwards, devoted
themselves mainly to preaching and teach
ing, to the multiplication of copies of the
conversion of mankind. Thus the order
founded by st. Basil, Archbishop of Casa
rea, in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, A. ID: 1862.
and that of st. Benedict, Abbot of Norcia.
in Italy, in 500, and the numerous cenobi,
tic communities which spraDg from them.
all more or less strictly observing the
rules laid down by those great lights Of
the church, considered prayer, humility,
and obedience the essential principles Of
their foundation.
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 st. Anthony, in the
latter part of the lid century, placed his
sister in a"house of virgins" of which abe
afterwards became abbess and that on
Christmas day, $50. in st. Peters Church
in Rome, Pope Liberius conferred the
habit and veil on MarcellinH, eDjoining on
h ner ne Of notification and prayer: A
celia, Lea, and Paula as disting uished
Roman women who forsook the world, and
spent their remaining life in prayer and
good works; the latter especially, who,
with her daughter built hospital at Beth.
lehem, erected o monastery for st. Jerome
and his monks, and founded in Palestipe
three converts for female refuses, of which
she took personal charge. st. Basil found
many such conVenta in ax'skanoo -