The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-03-06

II
W. still a puzzle to English
political economists, to
Salvationists, and to London's
Bobby" is a quaint little building
known as "St. Savior's Priory." Nestl-
ing in the very heart of the scum and
seethe, the gloom and CRIME of White
chapel, where the long, unlovely
streets are haunted day and night by
the sad and hopeless faces of mig hty
Londons poor, where the fare of the
gin. palace lamps streaks the dark
ness with yellow tongues of flame,
where the day is the night of hope
lessness to the INDECENT and the
criminal, and the night record of
red HORROR in the midst of all these
megrims and miseries, rings seven
times day a cheerful little bell,-
of St. Saviors Priory. Its bright
voice tells again and again to East
London that here is center and
home where misery may be anchor
ated and megrims and despair healed
under the sunlight of better smile
than London's.
You ring at little low gateway
framed in stone. The door looks
about as big as your hand, and you
must duck your head under it's arch
as you enter. Can you believe the
evidence of your eyes? Here, in the
gray East End of London! Here, in
the commercial nineteenth after
Christi Here, in the fashionable,
church going community Yes, here,
beyond the gloom of the stone gate
way, fragrant garden bursts upon
your sight, "a living greensward, as if
nourished by mountain springs and
a brooks gurgle. Here bit of old,
medieval life in the quaint figures of
little nuns, passing and repassing on
the walks; here, the fashions that
pass not away in the white, starched
bonnets and the quantity unique
dress, antique as Ararat; but, be-
meath these cumbersome, laundered
bonnets, faces as bright as Ararat's
old arc. You look and look again.
The green quadrangle is surround
ed by the priory's buildings. To the
north the chapel; TO the west the
Sisters dormitories; to the south the
various rooms for the mothers meet
ings, entertainments for the poor,
rests Of an hour, where the toll worn
may recuperate strength for the fur
ther smite and strain of life in Lon.
don.
Let me tell you about the work of
these Sisters. They are branch of
the East Grinstead Sussex Sister
hood, founded many years ago by
Rev. John Mason Neale, commun-
ity in the Anglican Church whose
special work was designed to be the
nursing of the sick poor in their
homes But, as the community grew
its work broadened out into teaching,
mission-work, large, ecclesiastical
needle-work department, hospital
work in London and all over Great
Britain. 1t has now branch houses
connected with the mother house in
East Grinstead) in every part of Eng
land. And one of these branch houses
is the quaint little St. Savior's Priory
in East End London.
The work these Sisters undertake
is among the most abject poor One
may say that the whole of the Priory
is fashioned for their uplifting. The
Sisters day begins at 6:30A. NJ. The
early hours of the morning until nine
o'clock are spent in prayer 10 the
chapel. 1t is a quaint sight to ST.
the sacIi-tan Sister veil herself. as
she stands in the tangled, golden
sunbeams striking across the porch
way of the chapel, grassy the cords in
her hands, and pull the tower bell to
announce the morning hour of payer.
Is it a bit out of the fifteenth century?
and is this Spanish cloister built
into the jewelled geometry of the
Moor's Alcazarl No, indeed From
this little gateway flows the heartiest
outdoor work for humanhood and
hearthood that great, sad London
knows. The artist and the thinker
delight in the chapel, with the scat
tered sunbeams of its iris windows;
in its altar, to which the dove-like
souls of these Sisters fly when they