_May 23, 1873._
MY DEAR FRIENDS,--Another year has passed over us. Nearly though not
quite all of us who were here at this time last year have gone their
several ways, to their several posts; some at St. Thomas’, some to
Edinburgh, some to Highgate. Nearly all are, I am thankful to say, well,
and I hope we may say happy. Some are gone altogether.
May this year have set us all one step farther, one year on our way to
becoming “perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect,” as it ought to
have done.
Some differences have been made in the School by our good Matron, who
toils for us early and late--to bring us on the way, we hope, towards
becoming “perfect.”
These differences--I leave it to you to say, improvements--are as you
see: our new Medical Instructor having vigorously taken us in hand and
giving us his invaluable teaching (1) in Medical and Surgical Nursing,
(2) in the elements of Anatomy. I need not say: Let us profit.
Next, in order to give more time and leisure to less tired bodies, the
Special Probationers have two afternoons in the week off duty for the
course of reading which our able Medical Instructor has laid down. And
the Nurse-Probationers have all one morning and one afternoon in the
week to improve themselves, in which our kind Home Sister assists them
by classes. And, again, I need not say how important it is to take the
utmost advantage of this. Do not let the world move on and leave us in
the wrong. Now that, by the law of the land, every child between five
and thirteen must be at school, it will be a poor tale, indeed, in their
after life for Nurses who cannot read, write, spell, and cypher well and
correctly, and read aloud easily, and take notes of the temperature of
cases, and the like. Only this last week, I was told by one of our own
Matrons of an excellent Nurse of her own to whom she would have given a
good place, only that she could neither read nor write well enough for
it.
And may I tell you, not for envy, but for a generous rivalry, that you
will have to work hard if you wish St. Thomas’ Training School to hold
its own with other Schools rising up.
* * * * *
Let us be on our guard against the danger, not exactly of thinking too
well of ourselves (for no one consciously does this), but of isolating
ourselves, of falling into party spirit--always remembering that, if we
can do any good to others, we must draw others to us by the influence of
our characters, and not by any profession of what we are--least of all,
by a profession of Religion.
And this, by the way, applies peculiarly to what we are with our
patients. Least of all should a _woman_ try to exercise religious
influence with her patients, as it were, by a ministry, a chaplaincy. We
are not chaplains. It is what she _is_ in _herself_, and what comes out
of herself, out of what she _is_--that exercise a moral or religious
influence over her patients. No set form of words is of any use. And
patients are so quick to see whether a Nurse is consistent always in
herself--whether she _is_ what she _says_ to them. And if she is not, it
is no use. _If she is_, of how much use, unawares to herself, may the
simplest word of soothing, of comfort, or even of reproof--especially in
the quiet night--be to the roughest patient, who is there from drink, or
to the still innocent child, or to the anxious toil-worn mother or
husband! But if she wishes to do this, she must keep up a sort of divine
calm and high sense of duty in her own mind. Christ was alone, from time
to time, in the wilderness or on mountains. If _He_ needed this, how
much more must we?
Quiet in our own rooms (and a room of your own is specially provided for
each one here); a few minutes of calm thought to offer up the day to
God: how indispensable it is, in this ever increasing hurry of life!
When we live “so fast,” do we not require a breathing time, a moment or
two daily, to think where we are going? At this time, especially, when
we are laying the foundation of our after life, in reality the most
important time of all.
* * * * *
And I am not at all saying that our patients have everything to learn
from _us_. On the contrary, we can, many a time, learn from them, in
patience, in true religious feeling and hope. One of our Sisters told me
that she had often learnt more from her patients than from any one else.
And I am sure I can say the same for myself. The poorest, the meanest,
the humblest patient may enter into the kingdom of Heaven before the
cleverest of us, or the most conceited. For, in another world, many,
many of the conditions of this world must be changed. Do we think of
this?
* * * * *
We have been, almost all of us, taught to pray in the days of our
childhood. Is there not something sad and strange in our throwing this
aside when most required by us, on the threshold of our active lives?
Life is a shallow thing, and more especially _Hospital_ life, without
any depth of religion. For it is a matter of simple experience that the
best things, the things which seem as if they most would make us feel,
become the most hardening if not rightly used.
And may I say a thing from my own experience? No training is of any use,
unless one can learn (1) to feel, and (2) to think out things for
oneself. And if we have not true religious feeling and purpose, Hospital
life--the highest of all things _with_ these--_without_ them becomes a
mere routine and bustle, and a very hardening routine and bustle.
One of our past Probationers said: “Our work must be the first thing,
but God must be in it.” “And He is not in it,” she added. But let us
hope that this is not so. I am sure it was not so with _her_. Let us try
to make it not so with any of us.
There are three things which one must have to prevent this degeneration
in oneself. And let each one of us, from time to time, tell, not any one
else, but herself, whether she has these less or more than when she
began her training here.
One is the real, deep, religious feeling and strong, personal, motherly
interest for each one of our patients. And you can see this motherly
interest in girls of twenty-one--we have had Sisters of not more than
that age who had it--and _not_ see it in women of forty.
The second is a strong practical (intellectual, if you will) interest in
the _case_, how it is going on. This is what makes the true Nurse.
Otherwise the patients might as well be pieces of furniture, and we the
housemaids, unless we see how interesting a thing Nursing is. This is
what makes us urge you to begin to observe the very first case you see.
The third is the pleasures of administration, which, though a fine word,
means only learning to manage a Ward well: to keep it fresh, clean,
tidy; to keep up its good order, punctuality; to report your cases with
absolute accuracy to the Surgeon or Physician, and first to report them
to the Sister; and to do all that is contained in the one word,
Ward-management: to keep wine-lists, diet-lists, washing-lists--that is
Sister’s work--and to do all the things no less important which
constitute Nurse’s work.
But it would take a whole book for me to count up these; and I am going
back to the first thing that we were saying: without deep religious
purpose how shallow a thing is Hospital life, which is, or ought to be,
the most inspiring! For, as years go on, we shall have others to train;
and find that the springs of religion are dried up within ourselves. The
patients we shall always have with us while we are Nurses. And we shall
find that we have no religious gift or influence with them, no word in
season, whether for those who are to live, or for those who are to die,
no, not even when they are in their last hours, and perhaps no one by
but _us_ to speak a word to point them to the Eternal Father and
Saviour; not even for a poor little dying child who cries: “Nursey, tell
me, oh, why is it so dark?” Then we may feel painfully about them what
we do not at present feel about ourselves. We may wish, both for our
patients and Probationers, that they had the restraints of the “fear” of
the most Holy God, to enable them to resist the temptation. We may
regret that our own Probationers seem so worldly and external. And we
may perceive too late that the deficiency in their characters began in
our own.
For, to all good women, _life_ is a prayer; and though we pray in our
own rooms, in the Wards and at Church, the end must not be confounded
with the means. We are the more bound to watch strictly over ourselves;
we have not less but more need of a high standard of duty and of life in
our Nursing; we must teach ourselves humility and modesty by becoming
more aware of our own weakness and narrowness, and liability to mistake
as Nurses and as Christians. Mere worldly success to any nobler, higher
mind is not worth having. Do you think Agnes Jones, or some who are now
living amongst us, cared much about worldly success? They cared about
efficiency, thoroughness. But that is a different thing.
We must condemn many of our own tempers when we calmly review them. We
must lament over training opportunities which we have lost, must desire
to become better women, better Nurses. That we all of us must feel. And
then, and not till then, will _life_ and _work_ among the sick become a
prayer.
For prayer is communion or co-operation with God: the expression of a
_life_ among his poor and sick and erring ones. But when we speak with
God, our power of addressing Him, of holding communion with Him, and
listening to His still small voice, depends upon our will being one and
the same with His. _Is_ He our God, as He was Christ’s? To Christ He was
all, to us He seems sometimes nothing. Can we retire to rest after our
busy, anxious day in the Wards, with the feeling: “Lord, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit,” and those of such and such anxious cases;
remembering, too, that in the darkness, “Thou God seest me,” and seest
them too? Can we rise in the morning, almost with a feeling of joy that
we are spared another day to do Him service with His sick?--
Awake, my soul, and with the sun,
Thy daily stage of duty run.
Does the thought ever occur to us in the course of the day, that we will
correct that particular fault of mind, or heart, or temper, whether
slowness, or bustle, or want of accuracy or method, or harsh judgments,
or want of loyalty to those under whom or among whom we are placed, or
sharp talking, or tale-bearing or gossiping--oh, how common, and how old
a fault, as old as Solomon! “He that repeateth a matter, separateth
friends;” and how can people trust us unless they know that we are not
tale-bearers, who will misrepresent or improperly repeat what is said to
us? Shall we correct this, or any other fault, not with a view to our
success in life, or to our own credit, but in order that we may be able
to serve our Master better in the service of the sick? Or do we ever
seek to carry on the battle against light behaviour, against
self-indulgence, against evil tempers (the “world,” the “flesh,” and the
“devil”), and the temptations that beset us; conscious that in ourselves
we are weak, but that there is a strength greater than our own, “which
is perfected in weakness”? Do we think of God as the Eternal, into whose
hands our patients, whom we see dying in the Wards, must resign their
souls--into whose hands we must resign our own when we depart hence, and
ought to resign our own as entirely every morning and night of our lives
here; with whom do live the spirits of the just made perfect, with whom
do really live, _ought_ really as much to live, our spirits here, and
who, in the hour of death, in the hour of life, both for our patients
and ourselves, must be our trust and hope? We would not always be
thinking of death, for “we must live before we die,” and life, perhaps,
is as difficult as death. Yet the thought of a time when we shall have
passed out of the sight and memory of men may also help us to live; may
assist us in shaking off the load of tempers, jealousies, prejudices,
bitternesses, interests which weigh us down; may teach us to rise out of
this busy, bustling Hospital world, into the clearer light of God’s
Kingdom, of which, indeed, this Home is or might be a part, and
certainly and especially this Hospital.
This is the spirit of prayer, the spirit of conversation or communion
with God, which leads us in all our Nursing silently to think of Him,
and refer it to Him. When we hear in the voice of conscience _His_ voice
speaking to us; when we are aware that He is the witness of everything
we do, and say, and think, and also the source of every good thing in
us; and when we feel in our hearts the struggle against some evil
temper, then God is fighting _with_ us against envy and jealousy,
against selfishness and self-indulgence, against lightness, and
frivolity, and vanity, for “our better self against our worse self.”
And thus, too, the friendships which have begun at this School may last
through life, and be a help and strength to us. For may we not regard
the opportunity given for acquiring friends as one of the uses of this
place? and Christian friendship, in uniting us to a friend, as uniting
us at the same time to Christ and God? Christ called His disciples
friends, adding the reason, “because He had told them all that He had
heard of the Father,” just as women tell their whole mind to their
friends.
But we all know that there are dangers and disappointments in
friendships, especially in women’s friendships, as well as joys and
sorrows. A woman may have an honourable desire to know those who are her
superiors in education, in the School, or in Nursing. Or she may allow
herself to drop into the society of those beneath her, perhaps because
she is more at home with them, and is proud or shy with her superiors.
We do not want to be judges of our fellow-women (for who made thee to
differ from another?), but neither can we leave entirely to chance one
of the greatest interests of human life.
True friendship is simple, womanly, unreserved: not weak, or silly, or
fond, or noisy, or romping, or extravagant, nor yet jealous and selfish,
and exacting more than woman’s nature can fairly give, for there are
other ties which bind women to one another besides friendship; nor,
again, intrusive into the secrets of another woman, or curious about
her circumstances; rejoicing in the presence of a friend, and not
forgetting her in her absence.
Two Probationers or Nurses going together have not only a twofold, but a
fourfold strength, if they learn knowledge or good from one another; if
they form the characters of one another; if they support one another in
fulfilling the duties and bearing the troubles of a Nursing life, if
their friendship thus becomes fellow-service to God in their daily work.
They may sometimes rejoice together over the portion of their training
which has been accomplished, and take counsel about what remains to be
done. They will desire to keep one another up to the mark; not to allow
idleness or eccentricity to spoil their time of training.
But some of our youthful friendships are too violent to last: they have
in them something of weakness or sentimentalism; the feeling passes
away, and we become ashamed of them. Or at some critical time a friend
has failed to stand by us, and then it is useless to talk of “auld lang
syne.” Only still let us remember that there are duties which we owe to
the “extinct” friend (who perhaps on some fanciful ground has parted
company from us), that we should never speak against her, or make use
of our knowledge about her. For the memory of a friendship is like the
memory of a dead friend, not lightly to be spoken of.
And then there is the “Christian or ideal friendship.” What others
regard as the service of the sick she may recognise as also the service
of God; what others do out of compassion for their maimed
fellow-creatures she may do also for the love of Christ. Feeling that
God has made her what she is, she may seek to carry on her work in the
Hospital as a fellow-worker with God. Remembering that Christ died for
her, she may be ready to lay down her life for her patients.
“They walked together in the house of God as friends”--that is, they
served God together in doing good to His sick. For if ever a place may
be called the “house of God,” it is a Hospital, if it be what it should
be. And in old times it _was_ called the “house” or the “hotel” of God.
The greatest and oldest Central Hospital of Paris, where is the
Mother-house of the principal Order of Nursing Sisters, is to this day
called the Hôtel Dieu, the “House of God.”
There may be some amongst us who, like St. Paul, are capable
of feeling a natural interest in the spiritual welfare of our
fellow-probationers--or, if you like the expression better, in the
improvement of their characters--that they may become more such as God
intended them to be in this Hospital and Home. For “Christian friendship
is not merely the friendship of equals, but of unequals”--the love of
the weak and of those who can make no return, like the love of God
towards the unthankful and the evil. It is not a friendship of one or
two but of many. It proceeds upon a different rule: “Love your enemies.”
It is founded upon that charity “which is not easily offended, which
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things.” Such a friendship we may be hardly able to reconcile either
with our own character or with common prudence. Yet this is the
“Christian ideal in the Gospel.” And here and there may be found some
one who has been inspired to carry out the ideal in practice.
“To live in isolation is to be weak and unhappy--perhaps to be idle and
selfish.” There is something not quite right in a woman who shuts up her
heart from other women.
This may seem to be telling you what you already know, and bidding you
do what you are already doing. Well, then, shall we put the matter
another way? Make such friendships as you will look back upon with
pleasure in later life, and be loyal and true to your friends, not going
from one to another.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
And do not expect more of them than friends can give, or weary them with
demands for sympathy; and do not let the womanliness of friendship be
impaired by any silliness or sentimentalism; or allow hearty and genial
good-will to degenerate into vulgarity and noise.
And as was once truly said, friendship perhaps appears best, as it did
in St. Paul, in his manner of rebuking those who had erred,
“transferring their faults in a figure to Apollos and to himself.” “No
one knew how to speak the truth in love like him.”
It has been said of Romans xii.: “What rule of manners can be better
than this chapter?” “She that giveth, let her do it with simplicity”;
that is, let us do our acts of Nursing and kindness as if we did not
make much of them, as unto the Lord and not to men. “Like-minded one
towards another”; that is, we should have the same thoughts and feelings
with others. “Rejoicing with them that rejoice, and weeping with them
that weep”; going out of ourselves and entering into the thoughts of
others.
And have we St. Paul’s extraordinary regard for the feelings of others?
He was never too busy to think of these. “If meat make my brother to
offend, I will eat no more meat while the world standeth,” he says,
though he well knew such scruples were really superstitions. If the
spirit of these words could find a way to our women’s hearts, we might
be able to say, “See how these Christians (Nurses) love one another!”
Then the courtesy we owe, one woman to another: “for the happiness and
the good” of our work and our School is not simply “made up of great
duties and virtues, nor the evil of the opposite.” But both seem to
consist also in a number of small particulars, which, small as they are,
have a great effect on the tone and character of our School, introducing
light or darkness into the “Home,” sweetness or bitterness into our
intercourse with one another.
And, as to our Wards: Christ, we may be sure, did not lose authority, or
dignity and refinement, “even in the company of publicans and harlots,”
just as we may observe in the Wards, that there are a few of us whose
very refinement makes them do the coarsest and roughest things there
with simplicity. A Sister of ours once remarked this of one of her
Probationers (who was not a lady in the common sense of the word, but
she was the truest gentlewoman in Christ’s sense), that she was too
refined (most people would have said, to do the indelicate work of the
Wards, but _she_ said) to see indelicacy in doing the nastiest thing;
and so did it all well, without thinking of herself, or that men’s eyes
were upon her. That is real dignity--the dignity which Christ had--on
which no man can intrude, yet combined with the greatest gentleness and
simplicity of life.