'
"A few only of the sensible, quiet, and loving women, whose presence
everywhere is a blessing, have qualified themselves and followed nursing
as a business. Heaven bless that few! What a sense of relief have I
seen pervade a family when such a one has been procured; and what a
treasure seemed found!
"There is very commonly an extreme susceptibility in the sick to the
_moral atmosphere_ about them. They feel the healthful influence
of the presence of a true-hearted attendant and repose in it, though
they may not be able to define the cause; while dissimulation,
falsehood, recklessness, coarseness, jar terribly and injuriously on
their heightened sensibilities. 'Are the Sisters of Charity really
better nurses than most other women?' I asked an intelligent lady who
had seen much of our military hospitals. 'Yes, they are,' was her
reply. 'Why should it be so?' 'I think it is because with them it is
a work of self-abnegation, and of duty to God, and they are so quiet
and self-forgetful in its exercise that they do it better, while many
other women show such self-consciousness and are so fussy!"
Is there any reason why every Protestant woman should not be trained
for this self-denying office as _a duty owed to God?_ We can not better
close this chapter than by one more quotation from the same intelligent
and attractive writer: "The good nurse is an artist.
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