5. Industrial School. There are at present one hundred and twenty young women regularly engaged, who were out of employ or could get no constant work. They are paid according to their capabilities. Religious instruction is given them at intervals during work-time. They attend daily morning service at the parish church.

6. Houses of Hope. Lodging-houses for poor families: the number of inmates now from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty. There is a reading-room for the men and a play-room for the children.

7. Lodging-house for the young women of the Industrial School.

8. A daily Ragged School; which has an average attendance of sixty or seventy, and an evening school. 9. House for Destitute Children.

10. Soup-kitchens; where eighty or a hundred persons are daily fed.

Besides these works, there is a hospital at Bristol, and a Nursing Sisters' Home at St. Barnabas, Pimlico, where a few patients are received, and the nurses go out to nurse such poor as need their services.

What is the spirit which has enabled Miss Sellon to carry on her noble work? The answer was given as follows, by a friend well acquainted with the institution:- "It is a spirit founded on a desire, more or less earnest, to realize the commandment and promise of our blessed Lord, in St. John xv. 12-14,- This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.'

"The foundation of every regulation and operation in all such sisterhoods, whether as regards their internal way of daily life, or their external efforts for the good of others, must and does rest on a deliberate effort, each to love her other sister, and all to love the poor and miserable; that is, in the same temper and degree (if possible) as Christ has loved and does love them and us.

"They who strive to deny themselves for the sake of

others in such a faith, are enabled both to feel and to say with St. Paul, 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' and to realize, in all their thoughts, plans, actions, failures, and successes, all those wonderful declarations made by the Apostle in the verses which follow the above words.

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"The practice and maintenance of devotion, in such a spirit and on such a principle as I have shortly described, will vary in some degree with circumstances, but will, for the most part, consist of frequent communions, frequent (however short) prayers, occasional retirements and readings, and proper (not excessive or over minute) self-examination and confession, whenever the need for such is felt of course I do not mean here confession directly to God, which must always be needful. Apply this to Miss Sellon and her sisters, and it will describe their daily lives with tolerable accuracy. They attend the morning and evening services daily; all, or at least the majority, communicating every morning; they keep the hours, as far as their charitable vocations will permit; observe times of silence, reading, listening; and confide to each other, or the mother, or their priestly adviser, whatever needs such revelation. But all these means are subservient to the higher law of charity; and the life of a sick child, or the reclaiming of a sinner from the fascinations of sin, would be considered a just ground for the temporary omission of any one of them.

"To be able, then, to see Christ Himself in the most graded object in the streets, is the test of the faith of a Sister of Mercy; and to have such a faith is to have the principle and spirit of such a system of devotion as will strengthen and support her in the hour of her utmost need."

St. Mary's Home, at Wantage, was opened in February, 1850. A small sisterhood had sometime previously been formed for the purposes of performing works of charity. A house for penitents was added, which was capable of holding three sisters and six penitents. It seemed necessary that such a work should be carried on

by ladies united as a sisterhood, since these poor persons require constant watchfulness. Whenever two or more are engaged in any work, some one in authority should be present, to see that the work is properly done, and to prevent improper conversation, quarrelling, or other misconduct. It is moreover at their work, and in their hours of recreation, that their various tempers are manifested; and then the watchful eye and ready word are needed, to check the evil, or foster the good feeling, as it is drawn forth. All this requires, not only many supervisors, but great tact and peculiar qualifications. It must be carried out by those who can unite firmness with gentleness, who will be faithful to their charge in requiring obedience, while they enforce it in the spirit of love.

A similar work is carried on at Clewer, near Windsor, where the penitents are tended by ladies who have volunteered their services for this labour of love; the whole establishment being conducted on strict Church principles.

"My dear Friend,-You ask me how the House of Mercy is going on. It has now passed through nearly two years and a half of its existence: we have had most anxious alternations of hope and fear; but, thanks be to God, we have been prospered beyond our anticipations; and our difficulties have only led us to feel the more that the work is founded on the Rock.

"We have now a house of our own, which contains upwards of twenty Penitents. There are delightful gardens around it, one thoroughly collegiate, in which you would rejoice; and there are fifteen acres of good meadow-land, all well fenced in and screened by walls and hedgerows, with some fine trees. We have in fact a nice dairy farm, and have already stocked it with three milch-cows, pigs, besides poultry, and some other domestic animals, in which the Penitents take great pleasure. There is thus ample and cheerful recreation ground. The Penitents are exceedingly thankful, and for the most part very cheerful. We consider this a great point, if it can be had consistently with deeper feelings. I believe that if we were to give the freest egress, not one of our inmates would wish to leave us.

"Our House is full. We have two, whom I may call 'raised' Penitents; one serving as head cook, the other as head needlewoman. A serving Sister overlooks the housework: and an old widow from the parish acts as our portress and dairy-woman. Some of the Penitents do the laundry-work; one is the baker; another makes the

butter; others do the house and under kitchen-work; the rest are now employed in needlework, and making bonnets for sale.

"We have three ladies, with their Superior, in constant occupation, teaching, reading aloud, practising music, in turns presiding over the class during work, meal-times, and at recreation. We have not a single person serving us for wages in the whole household, except the man who acts as farm-servant and gardener. We have thus far accomplished our plans of founding a Penitents' Home, where every portion of the work is done out of free service. We appeal continually to this principle of unbought love, giving itself for others for the Lord's sake: this principle has very great weight; it is the moving spring, the impulse, and the pervading tone of the work. The clergy and the medical man have been and are in like manner serving without money and without price.'

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"We have fitted up an old outbuilding as a temporary chapel : there is a quiet solemnity about it which has its influence. I think I have never known it fail to produce some deep impression, to go aside and pray there in private with one tempted or troubled. I cannot tell you with what fulness of thankful joy, after perhaps a late Sunday evening service, I look out upon our pleasant gardens and meadow, the stars shining down between the tall poplars, and think from whence the several members of our congregation have been gathered in, and how changed a scene it is to what most of them have been accustomed.

"We have, on Sunday, the morning prayers separately at an early hour; at 11 A.M. the Litany and Communion service, and a late evening service. On week-days there is an office before breakfast; a very short one at noon (the sixth hour); on Litany days the Litany is then said: a longer service at 3 (the ninth hour), and the last prayer before going silently to bed. We have a special service from time to time for the Sisters, in which we pray that our past sins and unworthiness may not hinder God's love to those committed to our charge; for self-devotion, for love to God and man, for the conversion of sinners, for the perseverance of penitents, for succour to the tempted and troubled, for a blessing on the benefactors of the House, for a blessing on all kindred works of mercy, and those who labour therein.

"Am I wrong in supposing that this work is an eventful one in the Church of England? Some members of the Church of Rome have been here, have made their inquiries, and have told me that such works can never be accomplished by us. I thought how little they knew the heart that throbs within the Church of our fathers, or the foreshadowings we have, of what God purposeth to do by us in the latter days.

"Some of our friends who have bid 'God speed' to our cause, have yet thought that we are serving it by wrong means,-that the principle of a sisterhood is not true to the Church of England,

and that ladies of birth, of purity and refinement, cannot safely mix themselves up with such a work. I only wish all such objectors would come and see; I need not now say more on this point, because I am just writing a letter, at some length, to show our reasons for utterly repudiating both these objections to which I have alluded.

"And now I come to our drawbacks; one you can help us in. We purchased our estate in faith amidst the very heavy expenses which must always attend the commencement of such a work as this, and we were obliged to leave part of the purchase-money on mortgage. This is a burden to us: there is the yearly interest, besides the capital, draining off our means of doing good. We want £1000 to float our ark. My dear friend, can you help us? We are asking for an offertory, or for private alms; some of us have together resolved to use all our efforts to collect this sum by Christmas next, that we may open upon another year of thankful blessed labour, free and unencumbered by this anxiety. Remember, we wish to offer the £1000 at our Communion in the Chapel of the House on Christmasday. My dear friend, will you use your intercession with others for this great cause? The prayers and blessings of the poor outcast, the homeless, the lost, which surely reach the ear of the Lord God of Sabaoth, shall follow you and them.

"The other drawback is one that we must continue to bear with, though it is a sad one. We are obliged to refuse so many cases of urgent distress. Two days ago I had before me seven applications for admission. We want to spread our wings; we must do so, if we are in any real degree to meet the crying necessities of the case. But this is a further design, and we cast it upon the waters; we shall be deeply thankful, if God hereafter should mercifully enlarge our borders, that we may do more for His glory.

"Remember us, I beseech you, in your prayers, and do not forget Christmas-day. Believe me ever

"Your affectionate friend,

"Clewer Rectory, Windsor, Oct. 3, 1851."

"T. T. CARTER.

A fourth sisterhood is working in Osnaburgh-square, St. Pancras, where twenty-five orphans are educated. A home is offered to distressed women of good character; and schools and the poor are visited as far as the number of Sisters will allow of it.

These are the attempts to carry out the system of Sisterhoods in the English Church. In the next Chapter we shall point out what has been done amongst the Protestant churches abroad.