example of those charitable societies which arise in connection with
the Catholic faith, and in obedience to its principles, and which
require that entire renunciation of the world which to a Protestant
mind appears so objectionable. We have little doubt, nevertheless,
that a certain amount of benevolence is a necessary, though it may not
be a directly acknowledged pre-requisite for the profession; for it is
admitted that some novices find that they have not the _vocation_, and
abandon the attempt; while others, by the grace of God, are enabled to
go on. We cannot regard this idea of 'vocation' as something entirely
apart from the inherent feelings.

So far as we could understand, the Sisters regard more expressly the
value of the act of obedience to the injunction of Christ, than the
feeling from which, we would say, the injunction sprang--an error, as
we most humbly think, though one of a kind which we do not feel called
upon to discuss in the presence of results so much in accordance with
our own best feelings. We would only say, that there is something
disappointing in finding how much the whole procedure is beheld by
these self-devoting women, as reflecting on their own destinies. It
appears that their patients often grumble both at the food and the
attendance which they receive. The Sisters say, they like to meet an
ungrateful old woman, as it tries their humility and forbearance: it
makes the greater merit towards an end in which they themselves are
concerned. Now, we would put all this aside, and think only of the
divinely recommended sentiment of the text, as calculated in some
degree to make our life on earth an approach to that of its author. It
is really hypercritical, however, even to intimate these dissenting
remarks, especially when our main end is, after all, merely to bring
the public into knowledge of an extraordinary phenomenon in human
conduct, going on in an age which seems generally of so opposite a