THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY
Your sectarians of every species, small and great, Catholic or
Protestant, of high church or low, ... these are the true fog
children.--RUSKIN.
Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse
disputings.--ST. PAUL.
Every generation has its own "religious difficulty," by which phrase is
meant, not the difficulty which the individual soul or the collective
soul of a nation may find in its religious beliefs themselves, but a
difficulty which intrudes itself into allied or alien matters from the
sphere of religious disputation. In the present day, the religious
difficulty with which we are most familiar concerns questions of
education. In the days of Miss Nightingale's mission to the East there
was a religious difficulty in questions of nursing.
* * * * *
It was not enough that such a mission as hers was conceived in the very
spirit of the Founder of Christianity: "I was sick, and ye visited me."
The question was eagerly and angrily canvassed under which of the rival
Christian banners the visitation of the sick soldiers should be, and was
being, carried on. The country had at the time hardly recovered its
mental equilibrium after the shock administered to it by the Tractarian
movement, and echoes of the "No Popery" cry of 1850 were still resonant
in many quarters. The religious difficulty appeared at the very start of
Miss Nightingale's Crimean work, and dogged her footsteps to the end of
it. I have dealt already with the difficulties which her experiment
encountered from social ideas, military prejudices, official routine;
but I am not sure that of all her difficulties the religious one was not
the most wearing and worrying, as it was also assuredly the most
unnecessary and the least excusable. It enveloped a noble undertaking in
a fog of envy, strife, and futile railing.
Mr. Sidney Herbert, who was supposed to be of the High Church
persuasion, had scented the difficulty from the first, as we have heard,
and Miss Nightingale was keenly alive to it. They had desired to make
the first party of nurses representative of all the leading sects; but
owing to the abstention of a Protestant institution, the Roman Catholics
and the High Church party were in a considerable majority among the
thirty-eight nurses. This fact gave the alarm, and a sectarian
hue-and-cry was immediately raised. It began, as I am sorry to have to
say, in the _Daily News_; it was taken up, as goes without saying, in
the so-called "religious press." On October 28, 1854, when Miss
Nightingale was on her way to Scutari, an attack upon her was given
great prominence in the first-named paper. It was signed
"Anti-Puseyite," and it included the text of Mr. Herbert's letter which
had somehow or other been obtained.[161] "Miss Nightingale recruited her
staff of nurses from Miss Sellon's house [a High Church one] and from a
Romanist establishment." This awful fact explained "the party spirit
which actuated the choice of Miss Nightingale for this important and
responsible office, and which set aside Lady Maria Forester"--a lady, it
seems, of Evangelical principles. It was not yet too late to remedy the
offence "if the feeling of the nation be at once aroused and expressed."
"A Reader of the Bible" and other correspondents followed, and the
controversy raged furiously. Mrs. Sidney Herbert's intervention, with an
assurance that Miss Nightingale was somewhat Low Church, did not stop
it. S. G. O. referred to it in his book. "I have heard and read," he
wrote, "with indignation the remarks hazarded upon her religious
character. Her works ought to answer for her faith. If there is blame in
looking for a Roman Catholic priest to attend a dying Romanist, let me
share it with her--I did it again and again."[162] An admirable avowal,
but not calculated, I fear, to allay the anger of "No Popery" fanatics.
The publication of Queen Victoria's letter of December 6 (p. 215),
showing the confidence which Her Majesty placed in Miss Nightingale, did
something to stem the tide, but for many months the feud flowed on in
the press.
[161] See above, p. 154 _n._
[162] _Scutari and its Hospitals_, p. 26.
II
Miss Nightingale's comment, when echoes of the storm reached her on the
Bosphorus, was characteristic. "They tell me," she wrote to Mr. Herbert
(Jan. 28, 1855), "that there is a religious war about poor me in the
_Times_, and that Mrs. Herbert has generously defended me. I do not know
what I have done to be so dragged before the Public. But I am so glad
that my God is not the God of the High Church or of the Low, that He is
not a Romanist or an Anglican--or a Unitarian. I don't believe He is
even a Russian, though His events go strangely against us. (_N.B._--A
Greek once said to me at Salamis, 'I do believe God Almighty is an
Englishman.')" Excellent, too, was the answer given by an Irish
clergyman when asked to what sect Miss Nightingale belonged. "She
belongs to a sect which, unfortunately, is a very rare one--the sect of
the Good Samaritan." Miss Nightingale was by descent a Unitarian, by
practice a communicant of the Church of England; but she was addicted
neither to High Church nor to Low. Her God was the God of Moral Law, a
God of infinite pity and benevolence, but also One who worked out His
purpose by the free will of human instruments. Her service of God was
the service of Man, and her service of Man mingled efficiency with
tenderness. She applied only one kind of test to a nurse: Was she a good
woman, and did she know her business? To be a good woman, a religious
woman, a noble woman was not in itself sufficient. "Excellent, gentle,
self-devoted women," Miss Nightingale said in a note upon some of her
staff, "fit more for Heaven than for a Hospital, they flit about like
angels without hands among the patients, and soothe their souls, while
they leave their bodies dirty and neglected. They never complain, they
are eager for self-mortification. But I came not to mortify the nurses,
but to nurse the wounded." Therefore if a nurse was a good woman and
knew her business, it was nothing that she was Romanist, Anglican, High
Church, Low Church, or Unitarian. If she was not a good nurse, the fact
that she belonged, or did not belong, to this or that persuasion was no
recommendation. Miss Nightingale was, it is true, desirous from the
first to include Roman Catholics in her staff, and she did so, in spite
of many difficulties, to the end. But her reasons therein were
practical, not sectarian. In the first place, many of the soldiers were
Roman Catholics; and, secondly, her apprenticeship in nursing had shown
her the excellent qualities, as nurses, of many Catholic Sisters. But
here efficiency was the test, and a Protestant Deaconess from
Kaiserswerth was all one to her with a Sister from "a Romanist
establishment." And one practical advantage of vowed Sisters was that
she did not lose them from marriage. One morning six nurses came in to
Miss Nightingale, declaring that they one and all wished to be married.
They were followed by six soldiers--sergeants and corporals--declaring
their desire to claim the nurses as brides. This matrimonial deluge
carried off six of her best nurses.[163]
[163] _Blackwood_, p. 232.
III
Such, then, was Miss Nightingale's position; and one can understand the
amused contempt with which she heard of the picture drawn of her in
certain quarters as a conspirator in a Tractarian or Romanist plot. But
she was a practical person, and, though herself broad-minded, took stock
of a narrower world as she found it. She was intensely desirous of
making her experiment of woman nurses a success, and she felt acutely
the danger of wrecking it by even the suspicion of sectarian prejudice.
This fact supplies a further explanation of the alarm with which she
received the coming of the second party of nurses under Miss
Stanley.[164] It included a batch of fifteen nuns. "The proportion of R.
Catholics," she wrote to Mr. Herbert, "which is already making an
outcry, you have increased to 25 in 84. Mr. Menzies [the Principal
Medical Officer] has declared that he will have two only at the General
Hospital, and I cannot place them here [in the Barrack Hospital] in a
greater proportion than I have done, without exciting the suspicion of
the Medical Men and others." The difficulty was ultimately adjusted, but
only at the cost of infinite trouble and worry to Miss Nightingale. Her
letters to Mr. Herbert are full of references to the subject, some of
them very amusing, and perhaps it was her lively sense of humour that
helped to carry her through this religious difficulty. "Such a tempest,"
she wrote (Dec. 25, 1854), "has been brewed in this little pint pot as
you could have no idea of. But I, like the Ass, have put on the Lion's
skin, and when once I have done that (poor me, who never affronted any
one before), I can bray so loud that I shall be heard, I am afraid, as
far as England. However, this is no place for lions; and as for asses,
we have enough." One proposition made to her was that, as the doctors
did not want many more woman nurses, "ten of the Protestants should be
appropriated as clerical females by the chaplains, and ten of the nuns
by the priests, _not as nurses_, but as female ecclesiastics. With this
of course I have nothing to do. It being directly at variance with my
instructions, I cannot of course appropriate the Government money to
such a purpose." Miss Nightingale's own proposition was to allocate the
party in various proportions to various hospitals; but the Superior of
the new set of nuns objected that "it would be uncanonical" for any of
her party to be separated from her. Then Miss Nightingale proposed
sending some of the nuns, either of the first or of the second batch,
back to England; but Father Cuffe said that to send them away would be
"like the driving of the Blessed Virgin through the desert by Herod." "I
believe it may be proved as a logical proposition," wrote Miss
Nightingale in the midst of her religious difficulty, "that it is
impossible for me to ride through all this; my caique is upset, but I am
sticking on the bottom still." Three days later she still despaired.
"The fifteen New Nuns are leading me the devil of a life, trying to get
in _vi et armis_, and will upset the coach; there is little doubt of
that." However, she held her ground. She had started with a Protestant
howl at her; she was now prepared to face "a Roman Catholic storm."
Happily the Reverend Mother of the first party of nuns was on her side,
and strove to compose the canonical difficulty. To another Reverend
Mother, who was less peaceably minded, Miss Nightingale often referred
in her letters as "the Reverend Brickbat." In any case, Miss Nightingale
was resolved, as she wrote, "not to let our little Society become a
hot-bed of Roman Catholic Intriguettes." Ultimately it was arranged that
five of the second party of nuns should go to the General Hospital, and
ten to the newly opened hospital at Koulali. Miss Nightingale suspected
some of the second party of a desire to proselytize; and presently she
had to inform Mr. Herbert (Feb. 15, 1855) of "a charge of converting and
rebaptizing before death, reported to me by the Senior Chaplain, by him
to the Commandant, by him to the Commander-in-Chief." She promptly
exchanged the suspected nun.
The ingenuity of theological rancour was infinite. Having caught wind of
the fact that there was some difference of view among the Roman Catholic
Sisters, an Evangelical writer sought to fan the flame by denouncing the
absurdity of "Catholic Nuns transferring their allegiance from the Pope
of Rome to a Protestant Lady." One of the Sisters, on hearing of this
diatribe, playfully addressed Miss Nightingale as "Your Holiness," who
in turn dubbed the Sister "her Cardinal."[165] I hereby give notice, in
case Crimean letters from Miss Nightingale should chance to be printed
(such as I have seen) in which she says, "I do so want my Cardinal,"
that the expression signifies no dark and secret adhesion to any Prince
of the Roman Church, but only a desire for the services of a
particularly efficient nursing Sister. If a nurse was efficient, Miss
Nightingale was on the friendliest terms with her, equally whether the
nurse were Catholic or Protestant. Miss Nightingale herself was accused
successively, and with equal absurdity in each case, of being prejudiced
for, or against, Catholics and Protestants, and of being inimical to
religious ministrations altogether.[166] The Protestant charges of
proselytizing by Catholic nurses were of course met by counter-charges
of attempts by Protestant nurses to convert Roman Catholic patients;
and finally a chaplain solemnly appealed to the War Department in London
to remove one of Miss Nightingale's staff on the ground that the nurse
had been heard to avow herself a Socinian. Miss Nightingale protested
successfully against any such disciplinary measure, urging that the
lady, whether Socinian or not, was an excellent nurse. Much of all this
perverse disputing was born of sheer ignorance and intolerance. One of
Miss Stanley's ladies was accused by a certain chaplain of "circulating
improper books in the wards." Particulars were asked, and it was found
that the offending book was Keble's _Christian Year_.[167]
[164] See above, p. 192.
[165] _Grant_, p. 165.
[166] See the _Autobiography of a Balaclava Nurse_ (a Welshwoman), vol.
ii. p. 146.
[167] _Life and Letters of Dean Stanley_, vol. i. p. 492. There is a
curious echo of "the Religious Difficulty" in Purcell's _Life of
Manning_ (vol. ii. p. 53, 1st ed.), where a letter of Feb. 13,
1856, will be found from Manning to Cardinal Wiseman, discussing
whether Roman Catholic chaplains should or should not encourage
collections for the Nightingale Fund. The solution suggested was
"to let the collection be _passively_ made without any
ecclesiastical recognition of it."
No sooner was any one phase of the religious difficulty adjusted than
another appeared. There were Anglicans and Roman Catholics among the
Nightingale nurses, and there were others selected from English
hospitals, who, so far as their religious views were concerned, might be
anything or nothing. But why, it was asked, were there no Presbyterians?
Representations were made to the War Office. "I object," wrote Miss
Nightingale (Feb. 19, 1855), "to the principle of sending out any one,
_qua_ sectarian, not _qua_ nurse. But this having already been done in
the case of the R.C.'s, etc., I do not see how the Presbyterians can be
refused. And therefore let six trained nurses be sent out, if you think
fit, of whom let two-thirds be Presbyterians. But I must bar these fat
drunken old dames. Above 14 stone we will not have; the provision of
bedsteads is not strong enough. Three were nearly swamped in a caique,
whom Mr. Bracebridge was conducting to the ship, and, had he not walked
with the fear of the police before his eyes, he might easily have
swamped them whole." The stout old dames were not Presbyterians; but,
sad to relate, two of the Presbyterian party did turn out to be
over-fond of drink, and Miss Nightingale had to return them to England.
I regret to say that there were similar cases, not amongst the
Presbyterians.
The charges and counter-charges of proselytism were referred by the
chaplains to the Secretary of State. Lord Panmure, in reply (April 27,
1855), had "to say in the first place, that he has perused the
correspondence with great regret, and that he deeply laments to find
that religious differences have arisen to such an extent as to mar the
united energies and labours of those who are devoting themselves with
such disinterestedness and heroic courage and success to the relief of
the sick and wounded." The Minister then proceeded to promulgate
instructions designed to prevent any proselytism by the nurses and
Sisters. Unfortunately, his dispatch was so worded as to make things,
from Miss Nightingale's point of view, no better, but rather worse. "The
instructions," she wrote to Lady Canning (Sept. 9, 1855), "have been so
completely misunderstood that they have been my principal difficulty.
The R.C.'s who before were quite amenable have chosen to construe the
rule that they 'are not to enter upon the discussion of religious
subjects with any patients other than those of their own faith,' to mean
therefore with _all_ of their own faith, and the second party of nuns
who came out now wander over the whole Hospital out of nursing hours,
not confining themselves to their own wards, nor even to patients, but
'instructing' (it is their own word) groups of Orderlies and
Convalescents in the corridors, doing the work each of ten chaplains,
and bringing ridicule upon the whole thing, while they quote the words
of the War Office." Lady Canning, who was at this time acting as Miss
Nightingale's agent for the enlistment of nurses, had proposed to embody
Lord Panmure's instructions in the printed Rules and Regulations. Miss
Nightingale begged her to do no such thing. I doubt not that Miss
Nightingale's own verbal instructions were less ambiguous. She was one
who never failed to say exactly what she meant.
IV
A great obstacle with which Miss Nightingale's work in the East had to
contend throughout was the scarcity at the time of properly trained
nurses. She had long ago formed a resolve to remedy this defect; the
seriousness of it was still further enforced upon her mind by painful
experience in the Crimean War; and her resolve was the more
strengthened. The religious difficulty--demanding that nurses
should be selected, to some extent, not _qua_ nurses, but _qua_
sectarians--accentuated the obstacle of inadequate training, which,
however, would in any case have existed. The case is excellently put, in
terms which doubtless reflect Miss Nightingale's own views, in a letter
from Lady Verney to Mrs. Gaskell (May 17, 1855):--
Until women have gone through a _real_ training, it is vain to hope
that four or five weeks in a Hospital can fit them for one of the
most difficult works that any one can be called on to undertake. I
cannot tell you the details, you can guess many of them; but when I
hear estimable people talking as if you could turn 40 women of all
ranks, degrees of virtue, and intelligence, into a Military
Hospital, with drunken orderlies, unmarried Chaplains, young
Surgeons, &c., &c., and expect that they are not more likely to be
unwise or tempted astray than the R.C. Sisters of Charity, who are
bound by well-considered vows, love of their kind and the fear of
Hell fire, then we feel that the "estimable people" have very
little knowledge of human nature. F.'s form of Sisterhood is
infinitely higher, I believe, than the R.C. and _will be carried
out_, I doubt no more than in her own existence, but as it must
exist without the checks and safeguards of the other and inferior
form, so it requires higher elements in the actors and a more
severe training and examination. Instead of which the loosest
possible choice takes place by people most excellent but not in the
least qualified to choose; goodwill and a "love of nursing" is
enough for the Lady class.
It is the fact, though it is not popularly known, that Miss Nightingale
was at this time strongly opposed to "lady" nurses. She objected to
them, not because they were ladies, but because they were unlikely to be
well trained. Pious and benevolent ladies were more given, she said, to
"spiritual flirtations with the patients," than apt at the proper
business of surgical nursing. It was the trained hospital nurses that
she preferred. There were among the 125 women who passed through her
hands in the East more efficient and less, and in so large a flock there
were some black sheep. But amongst the band, in all classes and of all
denominations, there were devoted and competent women, whose services
deserve to be held in grateful remembrance beside those of their
Lady-in-Chief. And as I have had to record Miss Nightingale's criticism
upon some of the Roman Catholics among her flock, it should be added
that of others she wrote to Mr. Herbert: "They are the truest Christians
I ever met with--invaluable in their work--devoted, heart and head, to
serve God and mankind--not to intrigue for their Church." To the
Reverend Superior, who came out from Bermondsey with the first party of
nuns, Miss Nightingale was particularly attached. "She writes," said
Cardinal Wiseman, "that great part of her success is due to Rev. Mother
of Bermondsey, without whom it would have been a failure."[168]
[168] Wilfred Ward's _Life of Wiseman_, vol. ii. p. 191. And see
Miss Nightingale's own words given below, p. 299.
The aspect of Miss Nightingale's work, touched upon in this chapter,
adds another to the accumulation of difficulties with which she had to
deal. It was the one which troubled her most. "In this sink of misery,
in this tussle of life or death," she felt the bitter futility of
personal grievances and religious differences. It is worry, more than
work, that kills; and the religious difficulty was perhaps the last
straw which caused the Lady-in-Chief to break down, as we shall hear in
the next chapter, under her heavy load of responsibility and care.