Untitled - Electric Scotland

45** LIFK OK ARCmilSHOr TAIT [CH. XVI.
House of Nurses in Northumberland St., Strand, and St. Peter s
and the Deaconesses House in Burton
House, Brompton Square,
Crescent, -in all three of which institutions arrangements are
made whereby, I believe, anything I objected to as to dress,
mode of life, or any other point, would at once be altered.
There is also the All Saints Home, Margaret Street, with which I
am connected as diocesan. Over this institution I have not the
same direct control, but I cannot but admire the self-denying
spirit in which Miss Byron and her ladies have undertaken their
difficult work in the hospitals and among the destitute. When,
however, I carried out what I understood to be Bishop Blom-
field s intention of becoming Visitor of that institution, I insisted,
in the most explicit terms, un the repudiation of the system of
vows by the inmates, and had a clause inserted in the rules with
this object. I have also taken means to prevent young persons
themselves to such institutions without the full consent
attaching
of their parents or guardians, as I believe no blessing will ever
come on work, however self-denying, which is undertaken to the
neglect of those higher duties which belong to home life, and
which are imposed directly by (iod Himself. I am, my dear sir,
very truly yours.
-A. C. LONDON."
The early days of Sisterhoods in London were for the
most part uneventful days, the Sisters winning
their slow
way into public favour by the unchallenged excellence
of the Christian service they were able to render to the
sick and poor. If friction here and there arose between
the ladies of the Community and their Episcopal Visitor,
it must be remembered that the difficulties attending
such a revival of corporate life were neither few nor small.
The Sisters, as their numbers grew, had step by step to
move along what was, in the Church of England at least,
an almost untried path, and the Bishop had on the one
hand to encourage and support them in their devoted
work, and on the other to prevent them from impairing
their own usefulness by a rash defiance of the popular
religious sentiment, or still more by
what he deemed an