Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1890-03-07

was detained 10y a calm, Chalchas, the
soothsayer, told him that he must keep
his promise. When Iphigenia was brought
to the altar she disappeared, having been
carried off by the goddess to Tauris
where size became "a priestess.
Such is the legend that has been for
centuries pcrpetuated in song and story
on canvas and ia marble, till the whole
world is familiar with the name Iphi-
genia. Yet how much more is there in
the case of Sister Rose Gertrude to stir
the emotions. The Trojan girl was sent
to the altar by her father in obedience to
a vow. The English girl goes of her
own free will to spend what time may
be granted between her arrival at la
wall and her death from the disease
which. unless she is carried off earlier
by other means, is sure to follow-among
stricken beings kept in pen to prevent
their conlaminating the rest of the
world.
The woman who thus offers herself is
the dau ghter Of an English clergyman
in tha Episcopal church. Some seven
yeas ag3, when she was about twenty.
she entered the Roman communion
Very snoh &ftcr she listened to a sermon
in which tie speaker gave an account of
the Icp,r colony at KaIawao and Father
Damlens lSburs there. An inspiration
came to her that she should devote her
self to this same work. She wished to
go at once, but her friends begged her to
at least wait ill she should be older and
should know something of the terrible
disease She aCcedcd to their wishes for
n postpOnemont, but did not abandon
her purpose. Five years passed. and
then she began her preparations. Going
to Paris, she was trained under the ceIe-
brated Pasteur and in the hospitals there,
in order that she might gain a scientific
knowledge of leprosy With this train
ing she may at once care for the lepers
and study the disease which afllicts them.
The body in which dwells this heroism
is very small, weighing scarcely hun
dred pounds The face is oval, the eyes
BLUSH gray, the hair dark The sister
is as modest and retiring as she is heroic
Her father and mother and two sisters
are living in England and her brother is
farmer in Manitoba. She was educated
at the Ladies' college, in Bath, England,
and brought up by her father in the
Church of England, but, when she be-
came a woman, began to doubt if she
was in the right fold, and after six
months study joined the Roman church
She has always loved to care for the sick
and began to be nurse at the Pryor
Park mission, in London, following up
her training in Il London hospital
AT Kalawao Sister Rose will have
charge of the leprosy hospital containing
sixty lepers. Before leaving England she
was presented with complete set of in
strumeut5 for the study and cultivation
of the leper bacilli as is done at Paris in
Pasteur's institute. She will study mi
crobes with view to discovering how
they develop under different degrees of
temperature, and as she attains results
will forward them to the Leprosy so
ciety in London.
The case Of this little nun is one of
those singular instances where the great
est heroism is contained in the smallest
and fraicst human compass. And how
important the work she may be destined
to achieve!