Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/13





AZARETH HOUSE, with all the sanctity, shows nothing of the mystery, of the cloister. Reticence there must be, reserve, and silence as to the spiritual experience of these consecrated Sisters, but it is never made apparent. The note of the place is simply—simplicity; divine quality, which not every child possesses, and the lack of which makes middle life in the world chiefly an uncharming passage from the probable simplicity of childhood to the possible simplicity of old age and the certain simplicity of death. That Nuns are simple is one of their ways of making amends for the pranks of the world. And these Nuns are the simplest of the simple—in their dealings with their poor, with the "extern," and even with the press! If the newspaper can indirectly help them to feed their flock, the newspaper may publish their necessities and describe their enterprises; and their personal love of complete seclusion is sacrificed for the sake of charity as sweetly and undemonstratively as every other wish or thought that is touched with self.

Every one who goes to Nazareth House, therefore, is met with a welcome. The pilgrimage thither leads us past the