ladies to similar personal visitation, and may they find similar encouragement:

FROM THE LADY SUPERINTENDENT OF ONE OF OUR NURSES.

"My dear Mrs. R——,

"You said you would like to get some account of our Nursing district extending from the Haymarket to Covent Garden, and taking in a corner of Seven Dials. We have this week nine bad cases, and a few others convalescent.

"Poor M, the man in consumption, has passed away, and is, I trust, safe with his Saviour. Less than a month ago this man told the Scripture-reader he would kick him downstairs if he came again, and swore at his wife for taking in a tract. The Scripture-reader told us he was drunk on his bed. On Nurse's first visit, however, he told her she might come and see him, but not to be throwing religion at him.' He was not actually uncivil. Indeed, no one is to Nurse. On my first visit, I talked with him about himself, his ailments and troubles, took him some nourishment, asked would he like the loan of a book, and might I read a poem to him? Miss F. Havergal's"Have you not a word for Jesus?"

"He said it was well put together.'

"I told him I felt quite a coward, I would like so much to say 'a word' to him, but then I was afraid of vexing him, or perhaps exciting him.

"But, ma'am,' he said, 'you are so good to me. Why do you come to me? Who told you about me?'

"Ah, nearly 1,900 years ago, this same Lord Jesus came down from Heaven to save men's souls. He went among the poor, the sinning, and the suffering ones, healing, pitying, saving them, and when He went back to Heaven He told all who loved Him to do the same for His sake. That's why I come.'

"On the next occasion I saw him I asked, 'Might we have a prayer together?' He agreed. How that prayer was answered! He burst out crying, said, 'he was miserable,' I had broken his heart, caught my hand, and asked me to sit down by him and

not speak. We sat for quite ten minutes in silent prayer, when

I said,

"You'll come to Jesus; He who loves you, will save and forgive you, He sent me to tell you about Him?'

"I'll try. I'll try. Come soon again.'

"I saw him many times after this, read and prayed always with him, yet it was hard to get him to confess himself a sinner. He would hope God would have mercy on him, as he had not done much harm to any one but himself.

"The last day I saw him I had heard Mr. Moody at Camberwell, when I had an earnest prayer put up for him. The next day I read to him Luke xv., and said, 'You are this prodigal, it was Jesus that sought you, won't you come home and say, "Father I have sinned, &c." I knelt down by him. He repeated it out loud three times, then cried bitterly, 'That was me and my mother. I was out always drinking, gambling, and skittleplaying. She was crying at home, waiting up at night for me.' "Well, I am sure she would forgive you if you have really repented.'

666 'Bless you, I had only to say it, and her arms were round my neck, and she'd be a kissin' of me. She was one of your sort, a praying sort.'

666

Now, then,' said I, won't you see it, that this is your case with your Father now? He loves you with such love, is waiting for you, forgives you everything, and then there will be joy on your account through all Heaven to-day.'

"He said, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.' When I wished him good-bye he thanked me so gratefully, poor fellow, for coming like this to look after him, and shortly after that penitent son went home. The Scripturereader saw him a very little before the last struggle came, read and prayed with him. It was a wonderful manifestation of the Spirit's power, making all things new, that changing curses into hymn singing, mocking and ribaldry into prayer and such thankfulness; he told Nurse he loved her as a sister. The poor fellow's conversion has impressed his eldest son very much. We had prayer with him and his poor mother by the father's coffin side.

THE DARK PLACES OF LOW LONDON ARE FULL OF CRUELTY.

"From thence I went to another house in the same locality near Newport Market. Such misery, degradation, and sin, is surely found in but few parts of London; such women, their bruised faces telling their miserable stories, dreadful-looking men and drugged babies; I told one woman she was killing hers, a piteous-looking little thing, with eyes quite glazed, but a man looked up with such a scowl, I dared no more.

66

"From thence we went to see a poor old woman, who has been for months suffering from dropsy. She lives in a court off H Street. We have been nursing her since January; I think she can hardly hold out much longer. The inmates here are more than commonly bad people, and, indeed, all except our poor patient, who told me the man in the next room beat his wife so she could not sleep from the moans and cries from the room. A woman and the landlord himself, had a fight while Nurse was there yesterday. She tore his face so dreadfully that he called a policeman, who took her off. Yet, in this fearful den, God has snatched one brand from the burning, who is waiting His time to be delivered from it all. We fear to move her, she is in such a state. Nurse changes her every day, cleans and tidies her room for her, and reads to her.

"From here to another lodging house to see a poor creature expecting her baby; found her hiding in a neighbour's attic from a brutal husband, who swore she should never have a living child.

can.

"The landlord promised us he will see after her as far as he The husband has sold everything she possessed for drink. Nurse went off for help from the Women's Protection Society, but could get none because she was a married woman.

"I have sent for her brother, for she is really not safe with this man, who goes about saying he'll have her life. I wish there was a Married Woman's Protection Society. Nurse saw the husband a day or two ago, and spoke to him, asked him how and why he could treat the poor young woman so cruelly. "What made she marry me and bring me into poverty?' 'There would have been no poverty but for drink,' replied Nurse, who was a brave woman to say so much, for all the lodgers in the

same house go out of the way when he comes in. I think him possessed with an evil spirit. I attended a young sister of this man dying of consumption; the poor thing had led a sad life, but is reformed, and I think truly penitent. Sad scenes these to go through daily and weekly. Nothing but the firm conviction and trust that God knows it all, sees it all, and will in his own good time make an end of it, could carry us through work like this in these 'dark places full of cruelty.' I have given but a few instances out of many. "H. F. A."

A FEW MISTAKES AND A REPLY TO THEM.

JUST before going to press we have received the report of a sub-committee of reference and enquiry of a Society which wishes to be called NATIONAL, "for providing trained Nurses for the sick poor."

Its Honorary Secretaries, Joseph Guyton, Esq., and Miss Florence Lees, some months ago made specific practical enquiries into our mode of working, and have done us the honour of including in their report our organization of District Nursing as the most extensive hitherto employed in London, and as an experiment now tried for the space of seven years "with success." They have given specimens of all our working papers in their appendix, and considerable quotations from a recent report entitled "NURSES FOR THE NEEDY." They have also marked in their valuable map forty-five localities in which we work with a red star (their number is now fifty-two), for all which particulars of unsought advertisement we owe them thanks, especially as from the first they were informed that we could not affiliate our staff of District Nurses to any other organization, as they were already a branch of the Bible-women's Society, and intimately connected with that Institution alone.

London affords space for all varied efforts, and we wish well to all organizations for good Nurses, but there are a few respects in which this new party have not comprehended or rightly represented us, and, although we have every desire to remain in the shade, and are quite conscious that none of our work is perfect, we feel bound to take note of some of their details for

the sake of our own subscribers. In the appreciation of this proposed new agency, which has yet to find out its own practical difficulties, the Bible-women Nurses are said to be

"Insufficiently trained; they are taught to regard their nursing duties as subordinate to spiritual objects, and their efforts are chiefly directed, of course, to those who have had either a religious education, or religious impressions later in life, and whose homes consequently present a different aspect to those of too many labouring people; for among the poor cleanliness is indeed next to godliness, and the two are not often separated. Therefore, the work of the Bible-women falls, as a rule, in favoured spots and under special conditions, and there is no doubt, moreover, that its most agreeable and satisfactory side was shown to Miss Lees, while in other cases she saw things quite in the rough,' and in their everyday condition. It is not necessary, therefore, to suppose that the Bible nurses are really superior in efficiency to others, because it is among the former that we find the examples we are about to cite of nursing as it should be. They nurse no contagious diseases, and, consequently, their work confines itself in great measure to monthly nursing, chronic and surgical cases, a limited and by no means most difficult class of nursing.*

To this we reply that we have hitherto only been permitted to find in Guy's HOSPITAL our one training school; the training there given has certainly not been "perfunctory," and the doctors in attendance on the poor perpetually acknowledge the efficiency of our Nurses. We cultivate, and intend to do so, more and more communication with the doctors of our districts, and our Nurses are now often sent to patients by their request. The training they have had appears to be quite sufficient for the carrying out the doctor's directions in all ordinary cases, and for all the nursing that can be accomplished in the poor people's own homes. They have been trained to Miss Nightingale's requirements. It is also quite a mistake to suppose that our efforts are chiefly directed to the religious or cleanly poor; the whole aim of our Mission has always been, as our first good worker said, "underneath all that," and we are daily the means of reclaiming whole families from habits of dirt and drink. Neither were the most satisfactory of our women at all selected for the inspection of Miss Lees, whose candid hints for our improvement we privately solicited. We

*This somewhat depreciating sentence is happily neutralized by a page (32) quoted in the same report, where it is shown that cancer, tumours, dropsy, abscesses, ulcers, with paralytic cases, and rheumatic fevers, and accidents are all comprehended in our daily lists.