Catholic Church there is an order of women called the
Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who have renounced the world to devote
themselves, their talents and property, entirely to the work of
seeking out and saving the fallen of their own sex; and the wonders
worked by their self-denying love on the hearts and lives of even the
most depraved are credible only to those who know that the Good
Shepherd himself ever lives and works with such spirits engaged in
such a work. A similar order of women exists in New York, under the
direction of the Episcopal Church, in connection with St. Luke's
Hospital; and another in England, who tend the "House of Mercy" of
Clewer.

Such benevolent associations offer objects of interest to that class
which most needs something to fill the void made by bereavement. The
wounds of grief are less apt to find a cure in that rank of life where
the sufferer has wealth and leisure. The _poor_ widow, whoso husband
was her all, _must_ break the paralysis of grief. The hard necessities
of life are her physicians; they send her out to unwelcome, yet
friendly toil, which, hard as it seems, has yet its healing power. But
the sufferer surrounded by the appliances of wealth and luxury may
long indulge the baleful apathy, and remain in the damp shadows of the
valley of death till strength and health are irrecoverably lost. How
Christ-like is the thought of a woman, graceful, elegant, cultivated,
refined, whose voice has been trained to melody, whose fingers can
make sweet harmony with every touch, whose pencil and whose needle can
awake the beautiful creations of art, devoting all these powers to the
work of charming back to the sheepfold those wandering and bewildered
lambs whom the Good Shepherd still calls his own! Jenny Lind once,
when she sang at a concert for destitute children, exclaimed in her
enthusiasm, "Is it not beautiful that I can sing so?" And so may not
every woman feel, when her graces and accomplishments draw the
wanderer, and charm away evil demons, and soothe the sore and sickened
spirit, and make the Christian fold more attractive than the dizzy
gardens of false pleasure?

In such associations, and others of kindred nature, how many of the
stricken and bereaved women of our country might find at once a home
and an object in life! Motherless hearts might be made glad in a
better and higher motherhood; and the stock of earthly life that
seemed cut off at the root, and dead past recovery, may