Lady Henry Scott

“ That daily work is in itself one of what have been called the "Seven Works of Mercy:" it brings her continually near, not only to suffering and disease, but to death itself: she lives, as it were, under the shadow of that Hand which alone can cast down or raise up, can smite or make whole. ”

“ You can give your heart, your sympathy, your zeal, your whole selves, in short, to your work; you can make it something much better and higher than the mere mechanical performance of a routine of duty ”

“ Now it has seemed to me, in thinking over your work, that it may be considered under three aspects—as regards the Association, as regards your patients, and as regards yourselves. First, as regards the Association. We, the members of the Working Committee, are very anxious that you should keep in mind the fact that you do belong to an Association. We want you to remember that you are not isolated workers, each looking out for employment only on her own account and in her own way, having no one to care particularly whether you do well or ill what you have undertaken to do. ”

“ Surely you will feel that this view throws upon you a responsibility which you will not be unwilling to accept, but which will rather stimulate and help you to exert your best energies, to maintain a high and careful standard both as to technical details of nursing and as to general character, and to guard watchfully against any indiscretion, slovenliness, or insubordination, which might injure your own influence and jeopardize the good name of the body to which you belong. ”

“ I think not—and I am sure that no one of us who has had personal experience of illness will deny that at times of weary restlessness or languor, or under the irritation of chronic discomforts, the firm and gentle hand and the ready resource of the trained nurse are as gratefully welcomed as in moments of sharpest pain or most imminent peril. ”

“ It is the idea which binds together the soldiers in a regiment, the sailors in a ship, the members of clubs, guilds, societies of all kinds in which men or women act in unison for a common object, and feel that they each ought to support a share of the honour and credit due to their common name. ”

“ You are members of an honourable body; you have the name of that body to guard from contempt or distrust; you have the aims of that body to work for and fulfil. In the French language there is an expression which is not familiar to us in its English form, but which forcibly describes the feeling we wish to arouse in you on this point. ”

“ Does the helpless paralytic, or the victim to confirmed rheumatism, or the incurable cripple, or even the sufferer from the inevitable infirmities of feeble old age, call for less of your skilled and kindly care than if each was laid on his bed by a dangerous fever or a violent injury? ”

“ While you are working for the poor and the sick, at the cost may be of your own wishes and inclinations, giving up for their sake what you would like to do yourselves, you are offering up a sacrifice which He to whom it is offered in this spirit will, you may humbly hope, accept ”

“ It might be said, perhaps, that as we are already bound to do our duty to the utmost of our power by our membership in that great body to which we were admitted at our baptism, no other bond or obligation can be needful ”

“ We know that in the case of many amongst you the opportunities of attending religious services, more particularly the Holy Communion, are few, and this is a loss and privation which we are disposed to say that we hope you feel keenly ”

“ You know that every profession or occupation, if it is innocent, may and should be sanctified: "whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do," we may do all to God's glory: as is so beautifully said by Mr. ”