e was the
nearest and best substitute.

The present number of Sisters, charged with the entire care of this
great hospital, except the duty of cooks and the mere manual and
mechanic labor necessarily done by men, is not above twenty-five. The
Sister Servant told us that the proper complement was forty. The last
summer, eleven of these devoted women died of yellow fever. Every
summer, when yellow fever or cholera prevails, some of them die. They
know it. Yet the vacancies are filled up; and their serene and ever
happy countenances give the stranger no indication that they have bound
themselves to the bedside of contagious and loathsome diseases every
year, and to scenes of sickness and death every day.

As we walked through the passage-ways, we came upon the little private
chapel of the Sisters. Here was a scene I can never forget. It was an
hour assigned for prayer. All who could leave the sick wards--not more
than twelve or fourteen--were kneeling in that perfectly still,
secluded, darkened room, in a double row, all facing to the altar, on
which burned one taper, showing the presence of the Sacrament, and all
in silent prayer. That double row of silent, kneeling women, unconscious
of the presence of any one, in their snow-white, close caps and long
capes, and coarse, clean, blue gowns--heroines, if the world ever had
heroines, their angels beholding the face of their Father in heaven, as
they knelt on earth!

It was affecting and yet almost amusing--it would have been amusing
anywhere else--that these simple creatures, not knowing the ways of the
world, and desirous to have soft music fill their room, as they knelt at
silent prayer, and not having (for their duties preclude it) any skill
in the practice of music, had a large music-box wound and placed on a
stand, in the rear, giving out its liquid tones, just loud enough to
pervade the air, without forcing attention. The effect was beautiful;
and yet the tunes were not all, nor chiefly, religious. They were such
as any music-box would give. But what do these poor creatures know of
what the world marches to, or dances to, or makes love by? To them it
was all music, and pure and holy!

Minute after minute we stood, waiting for, but not desiring, an end of
these delightful sounds, and a dissolving of this spell of silent
adoration. One of the Sisters began prayers aloud, a series of short
prayers and adorations and thanksgivings, to each of which, at its
close, the