Page:Address to the Mary Adelaide Nurses.djvu/12

 sweet inflnence alone can bring to the sad hearts around her the peace and joy which "pass all understanding?"

We know that in the case of many amongst you the opportunities of attending religious services, more particularly the Holy Communion, are few, and this is a loss and privation which we are disposed to say that we hope you feel keenly; but there is an old Latin saying, "Laborare est orare"—work is prayer—which may suggest to you the best consolation and the best remedy. While you are working for the poor and the sick, at the cost may be of your own wishes and inclinations, giving up for their sake what you would like to do yourselves, you are offering up a sacrifice which He to whom it is offered in this spirit will, you may humbly hope, accept; and I think you need not doubt that if you never willingly turn away from such means of grace as are placed within your reach, your spiritual life will not be allowed to starve for want of such additional nourishment as might be supplied by fuller opportunities.

My friends, there is much more that might be said in relation to the various points which I have only touched upon; but we did not wish to occupy much of your time by this little address, and perhaps you will think them over yourselves and thus supply what has been necessarily omitted. I will end by saying this: we hope that year by year more of you will be able to assemble at our annual gathering, and a larger number become entitled, by steady, persevering, and conscientious work, to the honourable distinction of the Princess's medal; so that in years to come the name of the Mary Adelaide Nurses may take its place unquestioned on the noble roll of those whose lives have been given to the service of the sick and suffering, whose labours have, in their measure, diminished the sum total of human misery, and of whom may some day be spoken those Divine words of commendation—the highest that any of us can aspire to—"She hath done what she could."