The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-04-08
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in company with several other sisters
opened a school at Harrisburg. she made
her final vows in 1880. and then came to
Philadelphia to st. Joseph's Home. with
which her future years were to be so in
tirnately connected.
The beginning of the Civil War was to
mark the most eventful epoch in the
career Of Sister Gonzaga. and to develop
her extraordinary powers Of administra-
ton. The Satterlee Military Hospital was
established at Philadelphia, and as a re-
suit Of several interviews with Secretary
Of War Stanton Sister Gonzaga. with
forty sisters of charity from different
parts of the country. ssumed charge.
1t is difficult to estimate the good work
done during the period they spent in
this place. which has been so aptly
styled the valley Of the shadow of death
After the battle OF Bull Run the wound
ed soldiers were brought TO the hospital
by hundreds. At the time of the three
days battle Of Gettysburg there was a
period of suspense for the people of
Philadelphia. They knew that a battle
was taking place somewhere in the
ne:ghborhood Of the State capital, but
they had no Information regarding the
result. The earliest Intelligence came
with the first consignment of wounded
soldiers to the Sntterlee Hospital. Then
there was much rejoicing over a Union
victory. The sick and the wounded from
the blood-stained battle field were received
in thousands.
Such an emergency as this tested the
capacity of the woman In charge. but
Sister Gozaga came through the ordeal
with flying colors. The surgeon in charge
of the hospital was DR.. Isaac Hayes,
who achieved much fame in the celebrat-
ed Kane Arctic expedition, and who after
wards headed an expedition of his own
The wards of the hospital were very
cona1nodious and comfortable. each one
accommodating at least seventy-fve pa
tients. On the 18th of April, 1877 Sister
Gonzaga celebrated the occasion of her
golden jubilee in the sisterhood. She is
new spending the tranquil evening of a
long life as the Mother Emeritus of St.
Joseph's Asylum.
Letters written at intervals during the
last few years of Louisa M. Alcott's life
to five little girl friends,s edited by Ed
ward w. Box, are printed, for the first
time, in April Ladies Home Journal
The author of Little Women in these
letters chats with delightful freedom
about her work, her cares, her early
struggles and influences, and of her re-
ligious faith. In writing to one of her
little girls who had just lost a sister
one OF the five correspondents of earlier
years-Miss Alcott says with character
istic charm and loving candor:-
- > 1 think you need not worry about
any name for your faith, but simply try
to be and do good, to love virtue in 9TH
ers. and study the lives of those who
are truly worthy of imitation. Women
need a religion of their own, for they
are called upon to lead a quiet, self
sacrificing life with peculiar trials, needs
very simple one is fitted to us whose
hearts are usually more alive than heads,
and whose hands are tied in many ways.
Health of body helps health of soul; cheer
fun views of all things. keep up the cour-
age and brace the nerves Work for the
mind must be had, or daily dv.y becomes
drudgery. and the power to enjoy higher
things is lost. Change of scene is some
times salvation for girls or women, who
outgrow the place they are born in,. and
1t is their duty to go away, even If it
is to harder work, for hungry minds prey
on themselves, and bodies suffer from es-
cape from a too pale or narrow life.
l have felt this and often gone away
from Concord to teach, which / never
liked. because there was no food for my
mind in that small conservative town, es-
pecially since MI. Emerson died. Food,
fire and shelter are not all that women
need, and tine noble ~isconte that SKIS
for more should not be condemned, but
helped if possible. AT twenty-one 1 took
my little earnings $500 and a few clothes
n went to seek my fortune, though
l might nave sat still and been support
were teaching me what l afterward put
into the books. and so | made my fortune
out of seeming misfortune. / speak of
myself because what one has lived one
really knows and SO can speak honestly"
OF course all women are not extreme
faddists, but all women vino are alive
have tendencies to faddism that need to
be watched, says 'Womankind.''
Have enthusiasms in abundance, if you
will: don't repress a natural enthusiasm,
but a fad is not an enthusiasm. 1t burns
~fercer, but it hasn't the large. supply
of fuel back of it that a real enthusiasm
has. Indeed. a real enthusiasm is the
only remedy for faddism. The fad is
taken up usually because the mind and
soul are appealed to by nothing greater.
The way, then, TO disiodge the fad is
to awaken q real enthusiasm for some
thing capable of commanding the respect
and the best thoughts of a thinking per
son.
What can do this so well as MotH4r
Nature? In all the universe what SO
capable of exciting real enthusiasm and
admiration as the universe itself in its
many diverse manifestations to us?
Every woman who looks at h won.
ders Of the heavens on a starry night
may not be fitted for delving in the
deep mysteries of astronomy; every
woman who stoops to pick a pebble from
the brooks brim may not be designed
for the study of the FORMATION of the
earth's crust: every woman who plucks
the simple daisy may not be capable OF
collecting and classifying the worlds