abandoned her post
near the sick.

Every one will rejoice at the existence of such offices as _the Sisters of
Charity_--benign, nay almost divine; and until this moment, we thought
that such had been their real character. Our belief has, however, been
somewhat staggered by an article in the last number of _the London Review_;
in which the services of the _Sisters_ are represented in a much less
amiable light than we have been accustomed to view them. This notice
occurs in a paper on a work by Dr. David Johnston, of Edinburgh, on the
Public Charities of France. The Doctor, whose book abounds with evidence
of considerable research, thus speaks of the _Sisters of Charity_:--

"The inmate of an hospital is alone qualified to speak with justice of the
blessings which such attendance affords. Possessed of superior education,
and from their religious profession placed above many of the worldly
considerations which affect nurses in general, the Sisters of Charity act
at once as temporal and spiritual comforters, watch over the sick bed,
soothe the prisoner in his confinement, and penetrate into the worst
abodes of misery, to comfort the distress, and instruct the ignorant."

Such we also thought had been their portraiture, although we could not so
far speak from personal evidence. But the reviewer gainsays all this, and
even does more. After drawing a comparison, and not altogether a just one,
between the "Sisters of Charity in France," and ladies of fortune who
unostentatiously visit the sick poor in England, he says--

"It is matter of fact, generally observable in the instances of the
_soeurs de charite_, that in the performance of their duties towards the
sick, during the first three or four months, they display all that tender
solicitude and devotedness, which romance ascribes to them as constant and
habitual. After the first feelings have subsided, the _soeurs_ are found
to consult, in all their actions, first, their own interests, in ease and
comfort; next, those of their order, and of the servants on the
establishment personally connected with them; and, last of all, those of
the patients. On an unprejudiced examination it will be found, that a body
so constituted as the _soeurs_, are extremely unfit for the performance of
such functions as are entrusted to them in these establishments. It is
essential to the good performance of the duties of a nurse, that she
should be responsible to the medical officer for their om