New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-09-25

0augnter OF HlfOuly anu i"ohi""'
live to do good here may well be
the desire of young and pious heart when
finds its most exquisite qualification IN the
consciousness of work well done, or in the
gratitude of those who have experienced It's
pity, and, maybe, owe their lives to Its Gins
tan yalor. The women of the Protestant
SisterhOod of this city who went at the call
of conscience to the Warehouses OF Memphis,
were happy in their lives. and knew well
enough the peril which they would be called
upon to confront. Three of them are dead
already, and seven of them have had the
fever. There are others, not members OF this
society, who gave themselves to the same SER
vice. There are other women, Catholics IN
religion, who have gone to the South to
labor a little and to die There are still
Others, not impelled by religious vows, but
under the influence of pure benevolence, who
have followed the same example and met with
the same fate. With no earthly prize to
win. they have marched with trusting
consistency to martyrdOm. Their deeds
will be remembered, for they Will be
part of the history of this Summers ca
lamity but their names, already obscured by
the VOWS which took something from their
personal identity, Will appear upon no earthly
roll of honor, and will be forgotten OF men
almost before the first frosts have arrested
the footsteps of the destroying angel. NO
church can preserve the memory or all VINO
serve it. Alas no martyrology can ever be
complete. There is q sure record OF charitable
deeds hut it is not here.
There are natures to which the surrender
of self upon the altar of duty must always
be inexplicable. There are doubtless women,
and not altogether bad sort OF women
either. to whom it would be an annoyance
To nurse their own sick children, and who
would greet any proposition to care for the
sick children of others with a stare OF aston
ishment. If public calamities must come, we
may get from them the cOnsolatory demon
stration that all women are not like these.
We say sometimes in cynical wrath, that all
truth and goodness have departed out of this
world conscious, perhaps, that they nave no
fixed abiding place in our own bosoms; but
these poor Sisters lying dead in Memphis are
an all-sufficient refutation of our pessimist
generalities. This generous giving ought to
silence, for time at least, the snars OF the mis-
anthropists. 1t is strange that so much dying
should prove to us that the world is worth
living IN.
How far we have right to demand such
sacrifices rs those which have been made IN
Memphis and in other cities, we are not
called upon to determine. Those who thus
braved death in obedience to n sense of re-
lgious duty, did not call upon us for an
opinion of their resolution. The best that we
know of our own nature has been taught us
by the sacrifices of others and ever since the
awful lesson of Calvary, life, the most valua-
BILE possession of the children of earth, as
they are such children, has again and again
been devoted as worthless, except as such de-
votion gave it value. 1t was not for nothing
in the Divine scheme that so many high du-
ties were mysteriously linked with dissolution,
or the danger of it. And If we build monu-
mentsto keep green the memory of the patriot,
and write his name largely and often in our
chronicles surely we may honor these women
who sunk helpless and dying in the holy
cause of charity.