We should have zeal for God’s sake and His work’s sake: but some seem to have zeal for zeal’s sake only. Zeal does not make a Christian Nurse if it is zeal for our own credit and glory--tho’ Christ was the most zealous mediciner that ever was. (He says: “The zeal of God’s house hath eaten me up.”) Zeal by itself does not make a good Nurse: it makes a Pharisee. Christ is so strong upon this point of not being conceited, of not nursing to show what “fine fellows” we are as Nurses, that He actually says “it is conceited of us to let one of our hands know what the other does.” What will He say if He sees one of us doing all her work to let not only her other hand but other people know she does it? Yet all our best work which looks so well _may_ be done from this motive. And let me tell you a little secret. One of our Superintendents at a distance says that she finds she must not boast so much about St. Thomas’. Nor must you. People have heard too much about it. I dare say you remember the fine old Greek statesman who was banished because people were tired of hearing him called “The Just.” Don’t let people get tired of hearing you call St. Thomas’ “The Just” when you are away from us. We shall not at all complain of your proving it “The Just” by your training and conduct. I read lately in a well-known medical journal, speaking of the “Nightingale Nurses,” that the day is quite gone by when a novel would give a caricature of a Nurse as a “Mrs. Gamp”--drinking, brutal, ignorant, coarse old woman. The “Nightingale Nurse” in a novel, it said, would be--what do you think?--an active, useful, clever Nurse. These are the parts I approve of. But what else do you think?--a lively, rather pert, and very conceited young woman. Ah, there’s the rub. You see what our name is “up” for in the world. That’s what I should like to be left out. This is what a friendly critic says of us, and we may be very sure that unfriendly critics say much worse. Do we deserve what they say of us? That is the question. Let us not have, each one of us, to say “yes” in our own hearts. Christ made no light matter of conceit. Keep the usefulness, and let the conceit go. * * * * *