is no order there can be no “authority”; there must be noise and dispute.

Hospital Sisters are the only women who may be in charge really of men. Is this not enough to show how essential to them are those qualities which alone constitute real authority?

Never to have a quarrel with another; never to say things which rankle in another’s mind; never when we are uncomfortable ourselves to make others uncomfortable—for quarrels come out of such very small matters, a hasty word, a sharp joke, a harsh order: without regard to these things, how can we take charge?

We may say, so-and-so is too weak if she minds that. But, pray, are we not weak in the same way ourselves?

I have been in positions of authority myself and have always tried to remember that to use such an advantage inconsiderately is—cowardly. To be sharp upon them is worse in me than in them to be sharp upon me. No one can trample upon others, and govern them. To win them is half, I might say the whole, secret of “having charge.” If you find your way to their hearts, you may do what you like with them; and that authority is the most complete which is least perceived or asserted.

The world, whether of a Ward or of an Empire, is governed not by many words but by few; though some, especially women, seem to expect to govern by many words—by talk, and nothing else.

There is scarcely anything which interferes so much with charge over others as rash and inconsiderate talking, or as wearing one’s thoughts on one’s cap. There is scarcely anything which interferes so much with their respect for us as any want of simplicity in us. A person who is always thinking of herself—how she looks, what effect she produces upon others, what others will think or say of her—can scarcely ever hope to have charge of them to any purpose.

We ought to be what we want to seem, or those under us will find out very soon that we only seem what we ought to be.

If we think only of the duty we have in hand, we may hope to make the others think of it too. But if we are fidgety or uneasy about trifles, can we hope to impress them with the importance of essential things?

There is so much talk about persons now-a-days. Everybody criticises everybody. Everybody seems liable to be drawn into a current, against somebody, or in favour of every one doing what she likes, pleasing herself, or getting promotion.

If any one gives way to all these distractions, and has no root of calmness in herself, she will not find it in any Hospital or Home.

“All this is as old as the hills,” you will say. Yes, it is as old as Christianity; and is not that the more reason for us to begin to practise it to-day? “To-day, if ye will hear my voice,” says the Father; “To-day ye shall be with me in Paradise,” says the Son; and He does not say this only to the dying; for Heaven may begin here, and “The kingdom of heaven is within,” He tells us.

Most of you here present will be in a few years in charge of others, filling posts of responsibility. All are on the threshold of active life. Then our characters will be put to the test, whether in some position of charge or of subordination, or both. Shall we be found wanting? Unable to control ourselves, therefore unable to control others? With many good qualities, perhaps, but owing to selfishness, conceit, to some want of purpose, some laxness, carelessness, lightness, vanity, some temper, habits of self-indulgence, or want of disinterestedness, unequal to the struggle of life, the business of life, and ill-adapted to the employment of Nursing, which we have chosen for ourselves, and which, almost above all others, requires earnest purpose, and the reverse of all these faults? Thirty years hence, if we could suppose us all standing here again passing judgment on ourselves, and telling sincerely why one has succeeded and another has failed; why the life of one has been a blessing to those she has charge of, and another has gone from one thing to another, pleasing herself, and bringing nothing to good—what would we give to be able now to see all this before us?

Yet some of those reasons for failure or success we may anticipate now. Because so-and-so was or was not weak or vain; because she could or could not make herself respected; because she had no steadfastness in her, or on the contrary because she had a fixed and steady purpose; because she was selfish or unselfish, disliked or beloved; because she could or could not keep her women together or manage her patients, or was or was not to be trusted in Ward business. And there are many other reasons which I might give you, or which you might give yourselves, for the success or failure of those who have passed through this Training School for the last eleven years.

Can we not see ourselves as others see us?

For the “world is a hard schoolmaster,” and punishes us without giving reasons, and much more severely than any Training School can, and when we can no longer perhaps correct the defect.

Good posts may be found for us; but can we keep them so as to fill them worthily? Or are we but unprofitable servants in fulfilling any charge?

Yet many of us are blinded to the truth by our own self-love even to the end. And we attribute to accident or ill-luck what is really the consequence of some weakness or error in ourselves.

But “can we not see ourselves as God sees us?” is a still more important question. For while we value the judgments of our superiors, and of our fellows, which may correct our own judgments, we must also have a higher standard which may correct theirs. We cannot altogether trust them, and still less can we trust ourselves. And we know, of course, that the worth of a life is not altogether measured by failure or success. We want to see our purposes, and the ways we take to fulfil such charge as may be given us, as they are in the sight of God. “Thou God seest me.”

And thus do we return to the question we asked before—how near can we come to Him whose name we bear, when we call ourselves Christians? How near to His gentleness and goodness—to His “authority” over others.[4]

And the highest “authority” which a woman especially can attain among her fellow women must come from her doing God’s work here in the same spirit, and with the same thoroughness, that Christ did, though we follow him but “afar off.”

IV

Lastly, it is charity to nurse sick bodies well; it is greater charity to nurse well and patiently sick minds, tiresome sufferers. But there is a greater charity even than these: to do good to those who are not good to us, to behave well to those who behave ill to us, to serve with love those who do not even receive our service with good temper, to forgive on the instant any slight which we may have received, or may have fancied we have received, or any worse injury.

If we cannot “do good” to those who “persecute” us—for we are not “persecuted”: if we cannot pray “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”—for none are nailing us to a cross: how much more must we try to serve with patience and love any who use us spitefully, to nurse with all our hearts any thankless peevish patients!

We Nurses may well call ourselves “blessed among women” in this, that we can be always exercising all these three charities, and so fulfil the work our God has given us to do.

Just as I was writing this came a letter from Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. She has so fallen in love with the character of our Agnes Jones (“Una”)