children, but women; and if they can’t do this for themselves, no one can for them.)

I think it is one of Shakespeare’s heroes who says “I laboured to be wretched.” How true that is! How true it is of some people all their lives; and perhaps there is not one of us who could not say it with truth of herself at one time or other: I laboured to be mean and contemptible and small and ill-tempered, by being revengeful of petty slights.

A woman once said: “What signifies it to me that this one does me an injury or the other speaks ill of me, if I do not deserve it? The injury strikes God before it strikes me, and if He forgives it, why should not I? I hope I love Him better than I do myself.” This may sound fanciful; but is there not truth in it?

What a privilege it is, the work that God has given us Nurses to do, if we will only let Him have His own way with us—a greater privilege to my mind than He has given to any woman (except to those who are teachers), because we can always be useful, always “ministering” to others, real followers of Him who said that He came “not to be ministered unto” but to minister. Cannot we fancy Him saying to us, If any one thinks herself greater among you, let her minister unto others.

This is not to say that we are to be doing other people’s work. Quite the reverse. The very essence of all good organisation is that everybody should do her (or his) own work in such a way as to help and not to hinder every one else’s work.

But this being arranged, that any one should say, I am “put upon” by having to associate with so-and-so; or by not having so-and-so to associate with; or, by not having such a post; or, by having such a post; or, by my Superiors “walking upon me,” or, “dancing” upon me (you may laugh, but such things have actually been said), or etc., etc.,—this is simply making the peace of God impossible, the call of God (for in all work He calls us) of none effect; it is grieving the Spirit of God; it is doing our best to make all free-will associations intolerable.

In “Religious Orders” this is provided against by enforcing blind, unconditional obedience through the fears and promises of a Church.

Does it not seem to you that the greater freedom of secular Nursing Institutions, as it requires (or ought to require) greater individual responsibility, greater self-command in each one, greater nobleness in each, greater self-possession in patience—so, that very need of self-possession, of greater nobleness in each, requires (or ought to require) greater thought in each, more discretion, and higher, not less, obedience? For the obedience of intelligence, not the obedience of slavery, is what we want.

The slave obeys with stupid obedience, with deceitful evasion of service, or with careless eye service. Now, we cannot suppose God to be satisfied or pleased with stupidity and carelessness. The free woman in Christ obeys, or rather seconds all the rules, all the orders given her, with intelligence, with all her heart, and with all her strength, and with all her mind.

“Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

And you who have to be Head Nurses, or Sisters of Wards, well know what I mean, for you have to be Ward Mistresses as well as Nurses; and how can she (the Ward Mistress) command if she has not learnt how to obey? If she cannot enforce upon herself to obey rules with discretion, how can she enforce upon her Ward to obey rules with discretion?

III

And of those who have to be Ward Mistresses, as well as those who are Ward Mistresses already, or in any charge of trust or authority, I will ask, if Sisters and Head Nurses will allow me to ask of them, as I have so often asked of myself—

What is it that made our Lord speak “as one having authority”? What was the key to His “authority”? Is it anything which we, trying to be “like Him,” could have—like Him?

What are the qualities which give us authority, which enable us to exercise some charge or control over others with “authority”? It is not the charge or position itself, for we often see persons in a position of authority, who have no authority at all; and on the other hand we sometimes see persons in the very humblest position who exercise a great influence or authority on all around them.

The very first element for having control over others is, of course, to have control over oneself. If I cannot take charge of myself, I cannot take charge of others. The next, perhaps, is—not to try to “seem” anything, but to be what we would seem.

A person in charge must be felt more than she is heard—not heard more than she is felt. She must fulfil her charge without noisy disputes, by the silent power of a consistent life, in which there is no seeming, and no hiding, but plenty of discretion. She must exercise authority without appearing to exercise it.

A person, but more especially a woman, in charge must have a quieter and more impartial mind than those under her, in order to influence them by the best part of them and not by the worst.

We (Sisters) think that we must often make allowances for them, and sometimes put ourselves in their place. And I will appeal to Sisters to say whether we must not observe more than we speak, instead of speaking more than we observe. We must not give an order, much less a reproof, without being fully acquainted with both sides of the case. Else, having scolded wrongfully, we look rather foolish.

The person in charge every one must see to be just and candid, looking at both sides, not moved by entreaties or, by likes and dislikes, but only by justice; and always reasonable, remembering and not forgetting the wants of those of whom she is in charge.

She must have a keen though generous insight into the characters of those she has to control. They must know that she cares for them even while she is checking them; or rather that she checks them because she cares for them. A woman thus reproved is often made your friend for life; a word dropped in this way by a Sister in charge (I am speaking now solely to Sisters and Head Nurses) may sometimes show a probationer the unspeakable importance of this year of her life, when she must sow the seed of her future nursing in this world, and of her future life through eternity. For although future years are of importance to train the plant and make it come up, yet if there is no seed nothing will come up.

Nay, I appeal again to Sisters’ own experience, whether they have not known patients feel the same of words dropped before them.

We had in one of the Hospitals which we nurse a little girl patient of seven years old, the child of a bad mother, who used to pray on her knees (when she did not know she was heard) her own little prayer that she might not forget, when she went away to what she already knew to be a bad life, the good words she had been taught. (In this great London, the time that children spend in Hospital is sometimes the only time in their lives that they hear good words.) And sometimes we have had patients, widows of journeymen for instance, who had striven to the last to do for their children and place them all out in service or at work, die in our Hospitals, thanking God that they had had this time to collect their thoughts before death, and to die “so comfortably” as they expressed it.

But, if a Ward is not kept in such a spirit that patients can collect their thoughts, whether it is for life or for death, and that children can hear good words, of course these things will not happen.

Ward management is only made possible by kindness and sympathy. And the mere way in which a thing is said or done to patient, or probationer, makes all the difference. In a Ward, too, where there