The Irish standard., 1911-04-29

I
her galaxy of heroic and sanity wo-
men, known since then the world
over as the Irish Sisters of Charity.
Whence came the inspiration and
the power that guided the little
band of wonderful women that Mary
Akenhead commanded for Ireland's re-
juyenation, other pens can tell. At
twenty-seven, she became the Mother
| General of the new order established
by Papel decree. Her first work was
the opening Of an orphanage for the
destitute Catholic children of Dublin
Soon the great hospital of St. Vim
cents on Stephens Green was in op.
GRAFTON. 1t became the model Of all
such institutions and is still the glory
OF the Irish metropolis. The Mother
General now opened schools in Gard
ner Street for the free education OF
the poor and into every parish she
sent her Sisters Of Charity to help
the overworked priests to Cathicize
the poor and the lowly. But not yet
| satisfied, this wonderful woman built
as if by miracle at Merton great
benevolent asylum for the blind. Blind
ness was for centuries one of the
curses of Ireland. This was due to the
novels without hearths or chimneys
that the people were forced to live
in when their tyrants had made the
country desolate with fire and sword
So at last Lecky tells us. But in
| the person of Mother Mary Aken-
head an angel of Mercy appears who
undertook to make war on blindness
and to alleviate the SORROWS of those
stricken with SO great an affliction.
The Merton asylum for the Blind is
today the model of all such institu-
tons and stands alone in efficiency
and achievement,
While these great benevolent insti-
tutions were being raised aloft in the
Metropolis of Ireland, the Mother
General forgot not for one moment
the famous City by the Lee where
she was born. A great convent of her
order was built at Cork and more
| benevolent institutions and then an
other famous convent at Waterford
and In the midst of all these labors
she found time to send a colony of her
nuns to Sydney, Australia, where
great hospital conducted by Irish Sis
ters OF Charity still stands IL living
monument to the zeal and fore sight
of this extraordinary woman.
But there seemed no bounds to the
Charity of Mother Mary Akenhead.
She made it part OF the vocation of the
Irish Sisters of Charity to visit the
sick poor in their houses, undeterred
by disease or crime or abject poverty
Those gifted, refined and cultured wo-
men were themselves out visiting, con-
soling, saving, very often coming in
contact with vice in its loathsome
forms. But to soothe, to redeem, and
to save was the mission of Mother
General Akenhead. And no more
touching monument to her zeal and
charity could ever have been built
than the Magdalene Asylum for fallen
women at Donnybrook. Sometimes
I marvel at the ways of plutocrats
seeking regulations for benevolence.
They build libraries and gymnasums,
and universities but they have no
thought for the broken and the ruined
for they know not the true meaning
of Charity. Is it without significance
tnat the Risen Christ first appeared
to Magdalene? What mean the words
! THE blind see, the lame walk. the
poor have the gospel preached to
them?" That was the evidence that
| the Messiah had come, and when
Mother General Akenhead built asy.
lums for the blind, and for fallen wo.
men and raised aloft great hospitals
for the alienation of sickness and dis
ease and distributed aims to the poor
and the lowly in the slums, thinking
men knew the day Of Ireland's resur.
rection and rejuvenation were at hand
One other class had to be thought of
and cared for by the Sisters of Char.
| ity or else Mother Akenhead would
not have deemed her mission finished.
In all great cities are numbers of the
poor stricken with incurable disease.
Helpless, hopeless, pitiful, morsels of
humanity who try the patience and
exhaust the resources of their rela-
tives. For all such, Mother Akenhead
built the great asylum at Harold's
Cross, and to show how the incurables