Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses: A selection from Miss Nightingale's addresses to probationers and nurses of the Nightingale school at St. Thomas's hospitalNightingale, Florence
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Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses: A selection from Miss Nightingale's addresses to probationers and nurses of the Nightingale school at St. Thomas's hospital
Nightingale, Florence
Nursing -- Education -- 19th century; Nursing -- History -- 19th century; Nursing -- Vocational guidance -- 19th century
If we thought of this more, we might hope to attain that quiet mind and
self-control, which is the “liberty” spoken of by St. Paul. We might
learn how truly to use and enjoy both our fellow Probationers, and this
Home and our School, if we were more anxious about following the example
of Christ than about the opinion of our “world.” “We are the ‘world,’
which we often seem to think includes every one but _us_.”
But few comparatively have the power of disengaging themselves, even in
thought, from those about them. They take the view of their own set. If
it is the fashion to conceal, they conceal; if to carry tales, they
carry tales. There are a few who never allow themselves to speak against
others, and exercise such a kind of authority as to prevent others being
spoken against in their hearing. These are the “peacemakers” of whom
Christ speaks. These are they who keep a Home or Institution together,
and seem more than any others in this our little world to bear the image
of Christ until His coming again.
Do we ever do things because they are right, without regard to our own
credit? When we ask ourselves only “What is right?” or (which is the
same question), “What is the will of God?” then we are truly entering
His “kingdom.” We are no longer grovelling among the opinions of men and
women. We can see God in all things, and all things in God, the Eternal
Father shining through the accidents of our lives--which sometimes shake
us more, though less conspicuous, than the accidents we see brought into
our Surgical Wards--the accidents of the characters of those under whom
we are placed, and of our own inner life.
One of the greatest missionaries that ever was, wrote more than 300
years ago to his pupils and fellow-missionaries:
“Self-knowledge”--(the knowledge by which we see ourselves in
God)--“self-knowledge is the nurse of confidence in God. It is from
distrust of ourselves that confidence in God is born. This will be the
way for us to gain that true interior lowliness of mind which, in all
places, and especially here, is far more necessary than you think. I
warn you also not to let the good opinion which men have of you be too
much of a pleasure to you, unless perhaps in order that you may be the
more ashamed of yourselves on that account. It is that which leads
people to neglect themselves, and this negligence, in many cases,
upsets, _as by a kind of trick_, all that lowliness of which I speak,
and puts conceit and arrogance in its place. And thus so many do not see
for a long time how much they have lost, and gradually lose all care for
piety, and all tranquillity of mind, and thus are always troubled and
anxious, finding no comfort either from without or within themselves.”
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” says our Lord,
“and I will give you rest.” But He adds immediately who those are to
whom He will give this “rest” or quietness of mind--namely those, who,
like Himself, are “meek and lowly of heart.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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