Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1914-02-07
UPLIFTING.
The Work That the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd Are
Doing.
Raise Up and Comfort and Love
the Erring Ones of
Humanity.
Impressions Made On Cores
pendent While Visiting
Their Home.
BLOT OUT The TERRIBLE PAST
BLOT OUT The TERRIBLE PAST

Your correspondent recently had
occasion to visit the House of the
Good Shepherd in New York City,
and had ample opportunity of noting
the work of mercy being done with
out flourish of trumpets by the good
Sisters of the Good Shepherd. The
work of these noble women, many OF
them being of gentle birth, is prac-
tically unknown to the outside
world. The objects of the order of
Good Shepherd nuns are to extend
succour to the needy, to preserve
purity in these entrusted in their
care, and to win back to virtue the
forlorn ones who have unhappily
lapsed from the path of rectitude.
In addition to the ordinary VOWS of
religion; the nuns of this congrega-
ton take a fourth, which is to
labor for the salvation of souls, to
wipe away the tears OF sorrow from
the sin-smirched spirit, and to bind
up the broken and wounded heart.
1t is very edifying and beautiful
to mark the tenderness with which
the Sisters speak of their charges.
They are not "penitents;" there is
never hint of opprobrium flung at
them; they are children, "children"
always, and children regarded with
all the gentleness and affection of
the big, maternal hearts of the
mothers raised up by the church to
minister to the wants of her little
erring ones.
Some of them" says the rev.
erend mother, smiling, ARE old
enough to be our grandmothers, but
they are children none the less, and
1t is beautiful to see how truly
childlike many of them are once
they begin to look up out of their
slough Of despair. We do not call
our home a 'refuge'-the word is
too cold and inhospitable; it is a
home, pure and simple, where we
strive to make the atmosphere as
happy as possible for our charges
and where every encouragement is
given them to forget the past and
to look forward to the future with
brave and confident hearts"
The greatest privacy Is exercised
with. regard to the affairs of the in
mates, and once they have placed
themselves in charge of the nuns the
past, the terrible past, out of which
they have emerged to this haven of
peace and security, to this shelter
warm with human love and divine
compassion. is never spoken of. 1t
is dead thing, so far as the Sisters
are concerned, gone with the yester-
days to which it belonged.
A visit to such an institution as
Mo- IL - -
Shepherd is not soon forgotten. 1t
is impossible to contemplate with
out wonder and the profoundest adj
miration the enormity of the bur-
dens, financial and otherwise, these
heroic women, delicately reared and
highly cultured, are willing, nay
eager, to shoulder for the sake of
their suffering sisters-those frail
sisters, the victims of intemperance
or passion, who find within this
shelter the warmth and tenderness
denied them in the world. Who can
doubt, glancing at the serene faces
beaming forth with cheerful glad
ness, that their wonderful abnega-
ton of self, their putting aside of
all the soft and desirable things
VI illc, lHCii u dhuuii SOhlSihpidliOi
of long drawn-out days spent in an
increasing round of duties, has its
inspiration in a divine foundation
head, and is divinely sustained?
Somehow you can not help thinking
that for these women. purer than
the virginia. lilies adjoining the altar
in their convent chapel, who can
stoop down from the eminence of
their own sanctity to lift up and
comfort and love the erring ones of
humanity. a glorious inheritance is
being laid up in highest heaven.
Than the foregoing no better de-
scription could be written of the
two houses of the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd in Louisville, who
have been doing a noble work here
for many years and have been the
means of saving many thousands of
women. both black and white, from
perdition. These good Sisters care
for the white women in the convent
on Bank street. while the convent
at Eighth and Madison is now de-