St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-22
WORK OF CHARITY,
TO 1T ARE THE LIVES OF THE
LITTLE SISTERS OF THE
POOR DEVOTED.
FROM SMALL BEGINNING.
ORDER THE OUTGROWTH OF
THE LIFE OF TWO LITTLE
GIRLS At ST. SERVAN.
THE INSTITUTION IN ST. PAUL.
Prosperous and Comfortably
Housed-A beautiful Refuge
fHr the IndiSent.

On the right bank of the River
Rance, where it flews into the En-
glish channel. and opposite the sea-
port st. MalO, is situated the little
town of st. Servan, in Brittany, with
its 10000 inhabitants. 1t was there
IN 1910, and for how many years or
centuries before, the histories of to-
day, having little regard for st. Ser
van, do not state.
Lying upon the borders of the
waste of waters, the position of st.
SerVan has suggested to its people
an all but common aVocation: The
St SerVaniteS are, and have been
time out of mind, for the most part
sailors and fishermen. They go down
to the sea in leaky tubs of boats.
spend the earlier portions of their
lives in heart-breaking and unre-
munerative toll, are waVe-tossed and
tempeSt-tOrn until their energies are
exhausted and they are cast as
WreckaSe upon the beach of pre-
mature old age, helpless objects of
their own prey, leaving widows and
orphans to mourn after them, and
starva
Thus it comes that St. Servan has
more than its fair complement of in
digent old men and women, and
has been so unenviably provided ever
since that indefinite period when the
memory of man runneth not to the
contrary, including, of course, the
year 1910.
In that year the priest of the parish
OF st. SerVan, upon whom devolved
almost entirely the care and relief
Of its poor, there being no public
refuge for them, no asylum where
they might find food and shelter
after a long season of unaided labor
in their behalf almost to the point
Of despair, received unlooked-for
aid from an unexpected quarter. Two
young girls of his parish, mere chill
dren of sixteen and eighteen years
of age, respectively, whose minds
were of religious bent and who
TO express their desire in that re-
gard. From him they learned of
this field of charitable labor, which
20 their young and unObSeryant
eyes had hitherto escaped their not
ice. Their attention once directed to
it, they entered zealousIy upon the
work Of relieving these poor by per-
sonal ministration and by soliciting
aims for them from their more fort
unate neighbors. They went about
59gether on their mission of mercy
and so grew to be familiar objects to
the eyes of the st. Servanites, who,
recognizing their constant compan-
iOnship, called them the little sis
ters," to which designation, and as
descriptive of their employment,
there were soon added the words "of
the poor"
This is the small and unpreten-
tiOus beginning of that charitab BILE
order of Christian women now known
the world over as the Little Sisters
of the Poor" From the little town
~ ~. AlCI elIl lllC ILIlIC 5lolSIS lid z
carried their mission of benevolence
to other lands and climes, having
now some three hundred established
houses, about forty of which are in
the United States. Of the latter,
the first was established in Brook
lyn in 1868, and about twelve years
ago that in this city was installed.
Their work is directed to the care of
the aged poor, and is carried on
upon the same lines of those laid
down by the original founders of
the order, amplified according to re-
sources at command. Their ministra-
tions are devoted TO INDECENT old
men and women, without distinction
of creed, color or nationality. You